H. S. Gregory

H. S. GREGORY. The name of H. S. Gregory is well known among Kansas newspaper men, but he left that profession a number of years ago and engaged in business at Pratt, where he now lives retired. With the facilities of comparative leisure he is giving a diligent administration in the office of mayor.

Mr. Gregory was born at Crawfordsville, Indiana, May 20, 1868. His paternal ancestors were Scotch people, later had their home in the north of Ireland, and in American colonial days two brothers came to this country, one locating in New York and another in the South. Mr. Gregory is descended from the New York branch of the family. His grandfather, Samuel Gregory, spent his life in Ohio as a farmer. Samuel Gregory, Jr., father of H. S. Gregory was born in Ohio in 1813 and in 1815 his parents moved to Indiana, which was still a territory. He spent the greater part of his life in Montgomery County of that state, and was an early disciple of Alexander Campbell and as a circuit rider carried the Gospel to many isolated communities. He died in Montgomery County in 1870. He was active and influential in public affairs, and in Civil war times represented his county in the State Legislature. He was a republican, and equally radical in his support of the prohibition cause when that was by no menus popular. He was also a member of the Masonic fraternity. Samuel Gregory married Abigail McGillard. She was born in Montgomery County, Indiana, in 1832 and died at Garden City, Kansas, in 1892. The four sons of this couple, H. S. Gregory being the youngest, all made creditable records. J. W., the oldest, came to Garden City, Kansas, in pioneer days, served as probate judge of Finney County, was editor of the Garden City Daily Sentinel, and was prominently identified with the early movement to introduce irrigation works in that section. He is now a banker at Des Moines, Iowa, one of the executive officials of the Cottage Grove State Bank. F. W. Gregory, the second brother, was a newspaper man and died at Pratt, Kansas, and is buried at his old home in Crawfordsville, Indiana. George P. was a prominent missionary and educator. He served as superintendent of Indian schools in Indian Territory at Chilocco and Anadarko, later went to South America as a Methodist missionary and was superintendent of the Correctional School at Havana, Cuba, when he died.

H. S. Gregory attended public school at Thorntown, Indiana, and was a student in the noted Wabash College of Crawfordsville. In 1887 at the age of nineteen, he came to Kansas and homesteaded a claim near Garden City. He was among those who helped found Garden City, and was at one time editor of the Garden City Daily Sentinel. He then edited the Ingalls Union in Gray County, two years, was a newspaper man at Lakin two years, was editor of a paper in Kearney County two years, and finally retired from the newspaper business to locate at Pratt in 1901. At Pratt Mr. Gregory engaged in the bakery business, and he continued it actively until October, 1918. He is owner of considerable local property, including a business building on Main Street, and also a modern home which he erected in 1906. Mr. Gregory has served as a member of the Pratt School Board and was elected mayor in April, 1918, for a term of three years. He is a republican, a member of Kilwinning Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, is past grand of Pratt Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a member of Pratt Lodge, Knights of Pythias, and has represented his local camp of Modern Woodmen of America in the head camp at Milwaukee and Indianapolis.

In 1894, at Garden City, Mr. Gregory married Miss Jennie V. Lees, daughter of Jonathan and Victoria Lees, the latter now deceased. Her father is now eighty-six years of age and lives on a farm in Kiowa County, Kansas. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Gregory were born four children: Abbie, a graduate of the Pratt High School and of the State Normal at Emporia, and is now principal of the Wellsford schools in Kansas. Delphine died December 18, 1917, at the age of twenty. H. S. Gregory, Jr., born May 31, 1898, graduated from the Pratt High School and was a student in the University of Kansas at Lawrence in the Student Army Training Corps and was selected to attend an officers training camp at Camp McArthur in Waco, Texas, but had not yet finished his training when granted an honorable discharge. Faye, the youngest of the family, was born January 24, 1903, and is in the second year of the Pratt High School.

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