Henry F. Gulick

HENRY F. GULICK. Now a retired resident of Utica, but formerly a farmer of Ness County, Henry F. Gulick was for many years engaged in the work which accomplished the great development and progress of this part of Kansas, and during his career here experienced the hardships of pioneer life as well as the rewards and comforts that came with the days of prosperity. He has lived the life of the agriculturist, without participation in public affairs, but his career is of interest in that it is typical of those of the men who came to Kansas during the formative period of the state's history, and while working out their own success assisted in the development of a mighty commonwealth.

Mr. Gulick was born at Clarkston, about ten miles from Pontiac, Oakland County, Michigan, August 4, 1851, being a son of George and Annie (Peets) Gulick. His grandfather was Henry Gulick, of Warren County, New Jersey, who went as a pioneer to Michigan and settled in the heavy timber of Oakland County, where he assisted in blazing the roads and in other tasks which made possible the work of those who came after. Through the hardest kind of persevering labor he managed to clear his farm and place a part of it under cultivation, and when he died, at the age of about seventy-five years, just before the Civil war, he had become one of the well-to-do men of his locality. He married Patty Petty and they became the parents of the following children: Henry; Axford; John; Jacob; George, the father of Henry F.; Louisa, who married Jerre Miller; Elizabeth, who married John Van Sickle; Effie, who married Harrison Dumond; and a daughter who married Peter Dumond.

George Gulick was born in Warren County, New Jersey, and was still a child when taken by his parents to the forest country of Oakland County, Michigan. He grew up amid pioneer surroundings and the atmosphere of the woods, and his boyhood and youth were filled with the hard labor attendant upon clearing a farm in a new timbered country. Subsequently he moved to Ingham County, and while residing there did his trading at Williamstown, and continued to be engaged in agricultural operations in that community during the remainder of his life, his death occurring in 1899. Mr. Gulick was one of the industrious men of his locality, and a man whose integrity was unquestioned in business circles. He was not a politician or a public man in any way, but wielded a good citizen Is influence among his fellowtownsmen and was a force for progress and right living. He married Miss Annie Peets in Cattarangus County, New York, in which state she was born, and her death occurred near Williamstown, Michigan, in the 90's. To Mr. and Mrs. Gulick there were born three children, namely: Henry F., of this notice; Louisa, who became the wife of William Worfle, of Ingham County, Michigan; and George, who is a farmer of that county.

Henry F. Gulick, although born in Oakland County, near the City of Pontiac, was reared in Ingham County, about sixty miles from the scene of his birth. As a youth he frequently made trips with his father to the trading point at Williamstown, always a journey which was eagerly looked forward to, and his education was secured in the country schools. Prior to attaining his majority he left the parental roof and from that time forward engaged in a number of vocations, first becoming a mason's helper and later a carpenter, and subsequently engaging in numerous other forms of employment. The life of his more mature years, however, has been that of a farmer.

When he left Michigan Mr. Gulick came direct to Kansas, leaving the train at Wakeeney and crossing to Ness City by wagon. On his arrival in Ness County he took up a homestead in Ohio Township, the southeast quarter of section 33, township 16, range 26, and this he patented and improved as well as his neighbors did theirs. His pioneer residence was one which compared favorably with the other homes of the day and locality, being a one-room structure, composed of sod and frame, with half-windows and a single entrance, the room being plastered with a substance made from the native lime found in great quantities here. His livestock at the time of his arrival consisted of a yoke of cattle, which he subsequently traded for a pair of ponies, and a cow, and his land was broken with the oxen and the ponies. During the first years he was supported, as was his family, by the feed stuff that he was able to raise. Potatoes and eventually wheat, combined with outside work which he did for his neighbors, enabled him to secure a foothold in the new country and to start himself upon the road to success. After eleven years upon his original tract Mr. Gulick disposed of this farm and purchased three-quarter sections in the same county, a mile northeast of the Town of Utica, where he spent the remainder of his active career, or until 1911, when he retired from labor and moved to his comfortable home at Utica. Mr. Gulick improved his later farm most substantially, equal to the best of the improvements in the country about him. He was located in section 13, township 16, range 26, where he brought 200 acres under plow, and his best wheat yield was a year in which he gathered thirty bushels to the acre, while he also had his disastrous years, on one occasion having a total failure. His cattle were of the well-graded Durham breed, which brought in the market perhaps one-third of the price which they commanded in 1916, and as a hog raiser he gave his attention to the Poland-China breed, which, on one occasion, he was forced to sell as cheap as $2.85 and $3 a hundred.

Mr. Gulick has never held office of any kind, and his politics have been manifested at elections only as a voter. He was reared to manhood under a democratic family influence, but since coming to Ness County it has been his custom to vote rather for the candidate than for the party which he represents.

On September 26, 1888, Mr. Gulick was united in marriage in Ness County, Kansas, to Miss Josephine Garner, a daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth (Nester) Garner. Mr. Garner came to Ness County, Kansas, in March 1 1888, from Bath County, Kentucky, where he had been born and where he was married. He was a Confederate soldier during the war between the states, and was born December 13, 1831, Mrs. Garner having been born March 10, 1837. They resided in Kansas until about the year 1909, when they moved to Warrensburg, Missouri, and there have continued to make their home. Mr. and Mrs. Garner have been the parents of the following children: John B., a resident of Scott City, Kansas; Aaron L., of McCracken, Kansas; Mrs. Gulick, who was born April 20, 1860; David, who resides at Warrensburg, Missouri; James, who died in Ness County, Kansas, leaving two daughters, Mrs. Iona Butler, of LaCrosse, Kansas, and Mrs. Lizzie Gibson, of Warrensburg, Missouri; Andrew Garner, whose home is at Elgin, Oregon; Lizzie, who is the wife of John Collins, of Salt Lick, Kentucky; George, a resident of Nickerson, Kansas; William, of Goldfield, Colorado; and Eliza, who is now Mrs. J. L. Devault, and resides at Warrensburg, Missouri.

Mr. and Mrs. Gulick are the parents of one son, Dr. Grover C., who was born July 19, 1889. He is a graduate of the Kansas City Veterinary College, and was engaged in the successful practice of his profession at Westphalia, Kansas, until appointed government meat inspector at Chicago. Dr. Gulick was married in Ness County, August 1, 1910, to Miss Goldie Hall, a daughter of Henry Hall, and they are the parents of two children: Yvonne and Grover C., Jr.