Learnard, Oscar E., lawyer, journalist and soldier, was born at Fairfax, Vt., Nov. 14, 1832, in the same house where his father was born. He was of the ninth generation from William Learnard, who came from England in 1630 and settled at Charlestown, Mass. His mother was a descendant of a French Huguenot family that was among the first settlers of Saybrook, Conn. The name was originally spelled Larned. Mr. Learnard was educated at Bakersfield Academy, the Norwich University, and graduated at the Albany Law School as a member of the class of 1854. In 1855 he came to Kansas and located at Lawrence, and the next year he commanded a "mounted regiment" of the free-state forces in the border war. In the spring of 1857 he helped to locate and lay out the town of Burlington, where he built the first mill, the first business house, and a building used for school and church purposes. He was a member of the council in the first free-state legislature (1857); was president of the convention which met at Osawatomie on May 18, 1859, and organized the Republican party in Kansas; and after the state government was established he was made judge of the Fifth judicial circuit. This position he resigned to enter the army as lieutenant-colonel of the First Kansas infantry, and served on the staffs of Gens. Hunter and Denver until in 1863, when he resigned his commission. When Price undertook to enter Kansas in the fall of 1864, Col. Learnard again joined the forces for the defense of the state, and took part in the battle of the Blue and the engagement at Westport, Mo. He served two terms in the state senate; was superintendent of the Haskell Institute for one year; was for a quarter of a century special attorney and tax commissioner for the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad company, and in 1884 bought the Lawrence Daily Journal, which he published until succeeded by the present Journal company. Mr. Learnard died at Lawrence on Nov. 6, 1911.