Uriah C. Herr

URIAH C. HERR has for many years been one of the prominent men of affairs in Barber County, having wielded his chief influence as editor and one of the owners of the Barber County Index, a paper with which he learned the business and with which he has been connected for over twenty-five years. He is also the present postmaster of Medicine Lodge.

Mr. Herr was born at Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, November 11, 1873, but has lived in Kansas since early boyhood. His paternal line goes back to Switzerland. His first American ancestor was Rev. Hans Herr, who settled in Pennsylvania in colonial times. The grandfather, Abraham Herr, was born near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1822 and spent his active life as a farmer near Elizabethtown in that state, where he died in 1914. He married Nancy Rider, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1821 and died at Elizabethtown in 1912.

Abraham H. Herr, father of Uriah C., was born near Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania in 1848. He spent his active career as a farmer in Pennsylvania, and in March, 1886, came to Kansas for the purpose of acquiring a new home and new interests in this state. He located at Kiowa, where he died on June 12, 1886. He was a republican in politics. The maiden name of his wife was Elizabeth Shenk, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1847. She is now living at Winfield, Kansas. By her marriage with Abraham R. Herr she was the mother of five children: Allen E., a farmer at Medicine Lodge; Abraham L., an attorney at Chickasha, Oklahoma; Uriah C.; John N., who is superintendent of the State Reformatory at Hutchinson, Kansas; and Ada M., unmarried and living with her mother, and an instructor in Southwestern College at Winfield.

Mrs. Abraham B. Herr married for her second husband Henry W. Sommer, a native of Ohio and a Kansas farmer who died at Kiowa in September, 1892. By this marriage there were two children: Mabel, the wife of Theodore Hood, living at Leavenworth, Kansas, where Mr. Hood is agent for the International Correspondence School; and Lyman H. Sommer, who lives at Medicine Lodge and is editor and linotype operator for the Index, but during the great war was in uniform as a sergeant in Company D of the Three Hundred and Fifty-Third Infantry in the Eighty-Ninth Division in France.

Uriah C. Herr was thirteen years old when brought to Kansas, and he finished his education in the public schools of Kiowa, graduating from high school in 1891. In that year he identified himself with Medicine Lodge, and went to work in the office of the Index. He performed every duty required of the familiar devil, learned the printer's trade, and eventually was selected by the stock company owning the paper to act as its manager. In 1897 he and Charles C. Painter bought the paper, and Painter & Herr have been its publishers since. The Index was established in 1880 and is a democratic paper and the official organ of Barber County, though its circulation is not confined to the county in which it is published. Mr. Herr owns the building on Main Street where the plant and offices are located. He has succeeded not only in publishing a good paper but has made a real success of the business. At one time he served as county printer when that was an elective office. He owns a farm of 160 acres near Medicine Lodge and in 1917 he built himself a modern home in the town. He is a democrat in politics and for the past fifteen years has been a member of the local school board. He was appointed postmaster July 1, 1914, and is now in his fifth year of service. He is affiliated with Delta Lodge No. 77, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Medicine Lodge Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, Medicine Lodge Camp of the Modern Woodmen of America and is a former member of the Knights of Pythins.

In January, 1897, at Medicine Lodge, Mr. Herr married Miss Lillian Painter. Her father, David F. Painter, was born in Ohio in 1843, saw active service as a Union soldier during the Civil war, and is one of the honored veterans still living at Medicine Lodge. Mr. Painter came to Kansas in 1884, first living at Newton, but has been a resident of Medicine Lodge since 1886. He married Cynthia Morton, who was born in Kentucky in 1846 and died at Medicine Lodge January 29, 1917. Mr. and Mrs. Herr have three children: Opal A., born November 8, 1897, is a junior in Kansas University; Rolland B., who died at the age of one year and five months; and Jewel K., who was born December 21, 1904.

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