WILLIAM R. DONNELLAN.
William R. Donnellan, hardware merchant and postmaster of Lancaster, Atchison county, Kansas, was born June 25, 1868, at Lancaster. He is one of six children of John and Mary J. (Davidson) Donnellan, as follows: Anna A. (Ostertag), of Atchison; Thomas E., Parsons, Kan.; William R., the subject of this sketch, Lancaster, Atchison county, Kansas; Emma B., Atchison, Kan.; Margaret (A. Manglesdorf), Atchison, Kan.; Junia (J. Cleary), Shannon township farmer. John Donnellan, the father, was born in Ireland in 1827. When twenty years of age he left the Emerald Isle to trust his fortunes in America. Landing at Ellis Island, N. Y., he set out for the interior of New York State and found employment on a dairy farm. After a few years of hard labor there he went to Crawfordsville, Ind., and worked in a hardware store. In 1856 he left Crawfordsville and came to Kansas, where he preëmpted 160 acres of land in Lancaster township, Atchison county, and built a small, four room house and lived in the most primitive way. When he first broke the soil on his farm he used oxen, but later, as he prospered, he used improved methods of farming. He died on his farm in 1893. The mother of the subject of this sketch was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and died in 1892, a year preceding the death of her husband.
William R. Donnellan was born and reared on his father’s farm in Lancaster township. He attended the public schools of Lancaster, and at the age of twenty-one went to Kansas City, Mo., and secured employment as a motorman and conductor in the service of the Street Railway Company there. Three years later he became shipping clerk for the A. J. Harwi Hardware Company of Atchison, Kan., and a year later returned to his home and engaged in farming on the home place. He remained on the farm until 1903 when he moved to Lancaster and purchased the hardware stock of H. O. Whittaker. This is a large store, carrying $8,000 worth of stock. In politics Mr. Donnellan is a Republican. He was elected mayor of Lancaster in 1907 and served until 1911. In 1903 he was appointed postmaster.
Mr. Donnellan was married in 1893 to Lillian M. Sanders, who was born February 12, 1870, at Lewisburg, Pa. She is a daughter of George L. and Elizabeth (Harrison) Sanders, both natives of Pennsylvania. They have one child, Eva M. (Carson), living in Lancaster. She is a graduate of the high school and business college. Mr. Donnellan is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Modern Woodmen of America, and the Knights and Ladies of Security lodges.
LAFAYETTE T. HAWK.
The biographical annals and the history of Atchison county, Kansas, record three distinct periods of settlement in Kansas and Atchison county. The first was the real pioneer era, when an influx of settlers came, who were the first to break the prairie and lay the foundation for future development. The second was directly after the Civil war, when many people came from all parts of the East and European countries. The later period was in the eighties, when there came from Ohio and Pennsylvania many excellent American families who have prospered and taken leading places in the civic and agricultural development of the county. The Hawk family, of old Pennsylvania German stock, came to this county in the latter era. Lafayette T. Hawk, substantial and well respected, and prominent farmer of Benton township, was among this number, who can be reckoned among the latter-day old settlers of the county, and who has resided here for over thirty-four years, and has worked his way upward from the station of comparatively a poor man to a position of affluence in the county.
L. T. Hawk was born August 22, 1849, in Coshocton county, Ohio, a son of Jonathan and Margaret (Neede) Hawk, both of whom were born and reared in the Buckeye State. Jonathan Hawk was born in Coshocton county, Ohio, in 1822, and was a son of Leonard Hawk, born in Pennsylvania, of German parents. Leonard Hawk was an early immigrant in Coshocton county, Ohio, and settled in that county when the whole region was a wilderness and carved a farm from the dense woods which covered that part of the Buckeye State in the early part of the nineteenth century. He first came to Ohio in 1814. Jonathan Hawk came into possession of the old home place of his parents’ in Coshocton county, but sold out in 1883, and came to Kansas, to join his son, Lafayette T., who had preceded him to Atchison county by one year. During the first year of his residence here, he made his home on his son’s farm, and then purchased the Shell property in Effingham, where he made his home until his demise in December, 1889. He was the owner of eighty acres of land which he farmed. Jonathan Hawk was the father of eight children, namely: Sarah died in Ohio; Lafayette T., of whom this review is written; Mary Jane Roll, widow of Samuel Roll, and residing in Effingham; Samuel, living in Oklahoma; Mrs. Margaret Denbow, of Great Bend, Kan.; George Leonard, of Oklahoma; Edith Elzina died at the age of four years; John, deceased. The mother died in January, 1891, at the age of sixty-six.
Lafayette T. was reared on the ancestral farm in Coshocton county, Ohio, and received his education in the district schools of his neighborhood. He learned in his youth to do the hardest kind of farm work and was taught by his parents the best methods of tilling the soil. When a young man he became imbued with the desire to locate in the West where opportunities seemed to be greater than in his home State, and he saved his earnings toward this purpose. Not long after his marriage he came to Kansas, in 1882, and located in Benton township, Atchison county. His cash capital being limited to the sum of $300, he deemed it advisable to rent land for the first year, then bought his first farm of 160 acres at the purchase price of $25 per acre. This farm was necessarily bought on time, but with good management and industry, Mr. Hawk was enabled to pay out and add considerably to the improvements of his place, which is one of the most attractive in the county and one of the most fertile and productive. Mr. Hawk also added ninety acres to his land holdings in later years, and invested his surplus in western land which he traded for the Effingham Hotel property which he now owns. He is a stockholder and director of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Effingham, he is also a stockholder in the Midnight Oil Company, a producing concern with headquarters at Morris, Okla.
Mr. Hawk was married March 21, 1874, to Miss Harriet Pitt, of Coshocton county, Ohio, and who was born in Kentucky. To this union have been born the following children: Charles, who served in the Twenty-second regiment, United States infantry, during the Spanish-American war, and is at present chief of police at Shawnee, Okla.; John D., a prosperous and progressive farmer in Benton township; Margaret, wife of Clem Higley, a farmer living in Center township, near Pardee; Homer, who was killed in a railway accident in October, 1913; Fred, died in April, 1913, and who had held the position of cashier of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Effingham prior to his death; Wilbur D. Hawk, business manager of the Atchison Daily Champion, and former deputy warden of the Federal penitentiary, Atlanta, Ga.; Mrs. Mary Foster, of Trenton, Mo.; Robert, a farmer in Benton township; Clifford, a farmer and auctioneer in Benton township, and Vera, at home with her parents. The mother of these children was born, November 8, 1851, in Kentucky, a daughter of William and Frances (Phillips) Pitt, the former a native of New Jersey and the latter of Vermont. In 1853 Mrs. Pitt and their children removed to Coshocton county, Ohio, Mr. Pitt having died when Mrs. Hawk was an infant. Two of the three children were reared: Mrs. Hawk and Mrs. Lenore (Miller), who died in September, 1915, at Carlton, Ohio. Mrs. Pitt’s second marriage was with Dr. Ephraim P. Stewart, of Coshocton county, Ohio, where he practiced after moving from Carroll county, Ohio, his birthplace.
With the exception of a few years spent in Atlanta, Ga., with his son, Wilbur D., when on duty as deputy warden of the Federal Penitentiary, Mr. Hawk has lived continuously in Atchison county, since 1882, and has taken an active and influential part in the affairs of the county. He is a stanch Republican in his political affiliations, but has never sought political preferment. He and the members of his family are affiliated religiously with the Lutheran denomination, which was the faith of his father. He is prominent in lodge circles and is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Knights and Ladies of Security. He is one of the original Central Protective Association members and is a charter member of Sunny Hill Lodge, No. 158, of Effingham, and is prominently connected in Central Protective Association circles throughout the State of Kansas, having organized seven lodges in this State.