Joseph F. Mendenhall

JOSEPH F. MENDENHALL is one of the early settlers of Gove County, has lived there over thirty-two years, and his career is distinguished by extensive operations as a farmer and cattleman. Mr. Mendenhall is credited with the ownership of about 8,000 acres of land in that part of Kansas.

He was born in Ross County, Ohio, May 28, 1856. His father, Craft Mendenhall, was a native of Pennsylvania, born April 25, 1830, and in young manhood moved to Ross County, Ohio, where he married and where he followed his trade as a cooper and also did some farming. In 1866 he moved his family to Peoria County, Illinois, was a cooper there and farmer, and died in that county June 4, 1902. As a republican he filled several township offices and he had responded to the call for soldiers to put down the rebellion while living in Ohio, serving with an Ohio regiment.

Craft Mendenhall married Almeda Selders. She was born in Ohio February 15, 1833, and is now living at the venerable age of eighty-five in Peoria County, Illinois. A brief record of her children is as follows: Mrs. Almira Groos, of Moline, Illinois; John, who died in Illinois in childhood; Joseph F., the third in age; J. Y., a real estate man at Princeville, Illinois; Lester, a farmer at Dunlap, Illinois; Martha, unmarried, and a resident of Dunlap; Eva, who also lives at Dunlap, unmarried; and Gilbert, a resident of Brimfield, Illinois, and owner and operator of a threshing and other agricultural machinery outfit.

Joseph F. Mendenhall received his early education in Peoria County, and spent the first twenty-one years of his life on his father's farm. As there was little cheap land to be had in Illinois, and as the movement of young men of enterprise was to the west, Mr. Mendenhall responded to the same influences and in 1886 came as a pioneer to Gove County, Kansas. Here he preempted 160 acres, became owner, and also homesteaded a quarter section. That was the beginning of his extensive business as a land holder and farmer, resulting in the accumulation of 8,000 acres, which he uses chiefly for cattle raising.

At the same time Mr. Mendenhall has been an active factor in local affairs. For five years he served as county treasurer, and has held various township offices. He is a republican, a member of Gove Lodge of Masons, and his public spirited cooperation can always be depended upon in matters of local moment.

In 1877, in Peoria County, Illinois, Mr. Mendenhall married Miss Catherine L. Harlan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Harlan, both now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Mendenhall have had the following children: A. C., a farmer in Gove County; Edith A., wife of George Tustin, a Gove County farmer; Florence, wife of P. J. Heinz, who is connected with the Standard Oil Company of Grainfield, Kansas; J. L., a farmer in Texas; E. L., also a Texas farmer, both of Saint Paul, Texas; Katie G., who married W. D. Owens, a farmer of Gove County, died after 2 1/2 years of married life; Blanche M., wife of R. H. Thompson, an attorney of Gove City; Iva and Pearl, twin girls, died in infancy; Esther M., wife of I. G. Rhine, a farmer in Gove County; R. H., who is on his father's ranch; and G. L., the youngest, now in officers training school at Camp Grant, Illinois.

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