William Young was married February 5, 1880, to Miss Angie Cooley, and to this union were born the following children: Maude, wife of Earl Stapler, Atchison; Duff D. Young, born April 8, 1901. The mother of these children was born November 9, 1861, a daughter of James and Cassendania (Waddle) Cooley, both of whom were born and reared in Kentucky. James Cooley, her father, migrated to Kansas in 1854 and settled on a homestead south of Potter, in Leavenworth county. His wife, Cassendania, came to Kansas to reside with her sister, Mrs. Masterson, who lived in Mt. Pleasant township, and she was married in 1860 to James Cooley. Eight children were born to them, of whom Mrs. Young was the fifth in order of birth. James Cooley took an active and prominent part in political affairs in Kansas in the early days, and served as the representative to the State legislature from Leavenworth county for two terms, from 1868 to 1872, inclusive. He died in 1876.
William Young was a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, the Odd Fellows, and the Fraternal Aid Union. He was a man who lived his life according to Christian precepts, and was a regular attendant at church and Sunday school of the Christian denomination. His start in life was at the foot of the ladder, and he was successful in his undertakings, building for himself and his family, and leaving behind him on this earth the memory of a life well spent, and to his family a heritage of industry, honesty, straightforwardness and right living which will long be remembered by those who knew him best.
JAMES E. BEHEN.
In the compilation of the biographical department of this history of Atchison county, Kansas, the fact is frequently brought to the mind of the reviewer that the really successful men of this county are essentially self-made, and began at the foot of the ladder of success, working their way upward by various means, all of which were honest and based upon hard and painstaking labor at the outset of their careers. Very few were well educated, or had been blessed with opportunities in their youth such as are the heritage of the youth of the present day. James Edward Behen, successful farmer, of Center township, Atchison county, is one of those citizens who are deserving of credit for what they have accomplished. Starting out as a boy of twelve, he has made his own way in the world, and after he attained manhood, with the assistance of a good and faithful helpmeet, he has accomplished results which are really creditable. Starting with a tract of eighty acres of land in 1900, which he found necessary to improve, he soon added another eighty, then another eighty, and now has a fine farm of 240 acres, which is one of the most fertile tracts of land in the county, practically all of which is in cultivation. Mr. Behen has the right idea of farming, inasmuch as he sells the product of his farm “on the hoof,” and has become an extensive feeder of cattle and hogs. This plan insures the fertility of the soil, and his farm is steadily improving as the result of a wise method of cultivation.
Mr. Behen is a native son of Kansas, who was born and brought up on Kansas soil, and will not admit that there is any better place under the sun for a man to acquire a fortune than right here in Atchison county, and, judging by what he has done in Kansas, the writer is prone to agree with him. James E. Behen was born March 28, 1864, at Leavenworth, and is a son of Michael and Mary Behen, who had six children. The father was of Irish descent. He followed bridge building. James, the subject of this sketch, started out to make his own way at the age of twelve years, and went to work on the farm of Edward Whalen, in Doniphan county, Kansas, and stayed there eight years. Meanwhile, he attended the district school, receiving a rudimentary education. He then worked as a farm hand until he was twenty-two years old. For several years following he rented land in Atchison and Doniphan counties. In 1900 he bought eighty acres in Center township, and five years later bought the eighty acres adjoining his farm on the west. Now he owns 240 acres, which he has improved considerably. He built a modern barn, 32×35 feet in size, and also built a fine cattle barn, forty feet square. He does a large feeding business, handling a carload of cattle each year. He keeps graded stock of all kinds on his farm.
In 1888 he was married to Lizzie Pauly, who was born March 30, 1862, in Doniphan county, Kansas. She is the daughter of John and Anna (Hartzinger) Pauly, natives of Germany. The parents were early settlers in Illinois, and moved to Doniphan county, Kansas, in 1857. Mr. and Mrs. Behen have eight children: Mrs. Agnes McCibben, Atchison, Kan.; Alice, deceased; Mary, graduate of Atchison High School, living at home; Thomas, living at home; Joseph, at home; John, whereabouts unknown; Roy and Fred, living at home. Mr. Behen is a Democrat. He is a member of the Roman Catholic church.
FRED HARTMAN.
It is meet that considerable space be devoted to the valiant old pioneers of Kansas who assisted in the settlement of the country, and had much to do with its development. Not all of them figured prominently, and it was given to a very few to be honored above their fellows. In the latter class the reviewer must of necessity and choice place the late Fred Hartman, pioneer, successful farmer, Union veteran and well known public official, who for more than two decades was a well known and highly esteemed citizen of Atchison county.
Fred Hartman was born in Franklin county, Indiana, December 7, 1844, a son of Jonathan and Christina (Wolking) Hartman. His paternal grandfather was Henry Hartman, a native of Pennsylvania, of German extraction, and his wife, Alice Case, whom he married in Pennsylvania, migrated to Indiana in the early days of the settlement of the Hoosier State. Jonathan Hartman, father of the subject, was born in Franklin county, Indiana, January 22, 1822, and was reared to young manhood among the rugged hills of his native county, learning the carpenter’s trade, and then moving to Platte county, Missouri, with his family in 1846. Nine years after settling in Platte county, he removed to Port William, at that time a thriving settlement on the banks of the Missouri river in Atchison county. Here he erected one of the first sawmills in Atchison county and the State of Kansas, and furnished all the sawed lumber for the settlers for many miles around. The year 1856 saw the beginning of the struggle between the Free State and pro-slavery men for possession of Kansas, and the summer of that year witnessed some lively times. History records the fact that a man named Bob Gibson, leader of the Kickapoo Rangers, came from the headquarters of the gang with a squad of men for the purpose of mobbing Jonathan Hartman on account of his opposition to slavery. Mr. Hartman was a man of high courage and assumed a defiant attitude toward the Rangers who finally left without doing the damage which they had boasted was their intent. About this time the noted Pardee Butler was set afloat on a raft down the Missouri river by the pro-slavery men of Atchison, and Butler appealed to Hartman for aid after landing, near Port William. Mr. Hartman gave Butler every assistance possible, in getting him to his home. In 1857 Jonathan Hartman sold his sawmill and settled on a farm in Mt. Pleasant township, near the old military road which ran from Ft. Leavenworth to Denver, and the Far Western points. Great trains of thirty or more heavily laden wagons drawn by six and twelve yoke of oxen were constantly passing the home of the Hartmans. Mrs. Hartman recalls the great drought of 1860 and the great snows of the following winter. During the year of the great drought the settlers did not raise any crops and were forced to journey to Atchison for provisions, on the return trip stopping at the Andrew Parnell farm for assistance in their dire need. Two of the drivers on a wagon train that terrible winter had their feet frozen, one of the men afterwards losing both feet as a result of the hardships undergone. The Parnell home was a welcome and hospitable place of refuge for the starving and suffering settlers, during that winter. Mrs. Hartman also recalls the beautiful and inspiring sights made by the troops of United States cavalry which were frequently seen from her home in those days.
Fred Hartman hearkened to the call of the Union in the second year of the great civil conflict and enlisted in Company F, of the famous Thirteenth Kansas volunteer regiment, under Captain Hayes, Major Woodworth and Colonels Bowen and Speck. He was engaged chiefly in scout duty, and was stationed at Ft. Smith and other points in the Southwest during his term of service, which lasted for three years, and was finally mustered out at Ft. Leavenworth in 1865. He then came home and resumed the farm work on his father’s farm. He was married January 21, 1866, to Cynthia Parnell. To this union were born the following children: Henrietta, wife of R. H. Ripple, died in 1896; Hannah Ann, wife of James Iddings, both of whom are deceased, and who left one child, Geneva Iddings, of Topeka, Kan.; Dora, wife of Joseph Speck, died in 1896, leaving one daughter, Dora, who lives with her grandmother; Jonathan, a salesman of Kansas City; Josephine, wife of John Putman, of Atchison; May Florence, wife of Roy Trimble, sheriff of Atchison county, has four children; Birdie, wife of Henry Barr, died in 1906; Frederick, died in 1911, was married to Blanche Baker, daughter of Captain Baker. The mother of these children was born January 14, 1849, in Buchanan county, Missouri, a daughter of Andrew and Mirah (Wilson) Parnell natives of Kentucky and Indiana, respectively. Andrew and Mirah Parnell began their wedded life in Franklin county, Indiana, where they were reared and then migrated to Arkansas, and from there to Missouri in the early forties. In 1859 the family left Buchanan county and settled in Mt. Pleasant township, Atchison county, where they figured prominently in the early history of the county. The little Parnell was named after Andrew Parnell and the old town of the same name took its appellation from the family which settled in the neighborhood. Mr. Parnell spent his last days in Jefferson county, Kansas, where he died in 1872. He became very well-to-do and prospered. He was one of the original Free State men and suffered considerable loss at the hands of the Jayhawkers and border ruffians. Andrew Parnell was the father of eleven children, six sons and five daughters, and sent three of his sons to serve their country in the Thirteenth Kansas regiment, one son being killed. Mrs. Hartman is the youngest child of this large family.