Fred C. Mosher

FRED C. MOSHER. A number of localities in Western and Northwestern Kansas have responded to the enterprise of Fred C. Moeher in the last twenty years. He is especially well known in the grain business, has owned elevators along many of the railway lines in this section of the state, but is new chiefly interested in the grain elevator business at Kanorado and at Rexford.

Mr. Mosher is a native Kansas, born in Republic County March 24, 1879. One of the first families to establish homes in Republic County were the Moshers. His grandfather, Christopher Knight Mosher, was born in the State of Maine in 1815. In 1871 he filed a timber claim on a quarter section in Republic County, Kansas, and lived on that through the developing period in that part of Northern Kansas. About a year before his death he retired and died at Belleville, Kansas, in 1894.

James A. Mosher, father of Fred C., is still living in Republic County, Kansas. He was born in the State of Maine in 1849, and at the age of fifteen was accepted for service in the army as a member of the Fourth Regiment of Maine Volunteer Infantry. He had the distinction of being the youngest volunteer soldier from Maine in the war. He served throughout the last year of hostilities, then returned to Maine, married there, and his first wife died eighteen months later. In 1868 he came to Kansas, seeking a home in a state that had hardly begun its development. His homestead quarter section in Republic County is adjoining the railway station of Rydal. That village was laid out on three acres of his land. In 1872 he entered the nursery business, but suffered a great loss attendant upon the grasshopper scourge in 1874. Still living on his old homestead in Republic County, he has the distinction of having put in fifty years there and it is doubtful if any other pioneer Kansan has been longer identified with one quarter section. He is a loyal republican, and during the '90s was register of deeds of Republic County. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Grand Army of the Republic. James A. Mosher married for his second wife Helen V. Wilcox in Republic County. She was born in Ohio in 1857. Their children are: Frank, a former banker but now in the real estate and insurance business at Sentinel, Oklahoma; Daniel, in the grain business at Arriba, Colorado; Alta, wife of Frank Goodwin, a farmer in Republic County; Fred C., fourth in age; James G., a ranchman in New Mexico; Grace, wife of Alfred Kallman, a farmer in Republic County; Loretta I., wife of Edgar Whips, a farmer of Republic County; Alfa, wife of Arthur Brown, a farmer in Republic County; Allahee, wife of Richard Kelley, a Republic County farmer; Olive and Birdie, both unmarried and living at home, the latter a teacher in Republic County.

Fred C. Mosher lived on his father's farm to the age of seventeen and secured an education in the neighboring district schools in Republic County. He worked as a farm hand two years and in 1899 he moved to Western Kansas, Thomas County, and spent three years as an independent farmer. His next venture, begun in 1902, was as cashier of the Port State Bank at Port, Oklahoma, where he remained a year and followed that with six months as a general merchant at Wood, Oklahoma. He exchanged his stock of goods for a farm in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma, but soon disposed of that property and returning to Kansas located in Jewell County in 1904, where, at Montrose, he bought a grain elevator. That was his introduction to the grain business, and he has continued in it almost steadily since. After nine months he sold his stock and grain business at Montrose and established a lumber yard at Esbon in Jewell County, selling out ten months later to the Chicago Lumber Company at St. Louis. In 1906 he engaged in the real estate business at Rexford in Thomas County, and six months later he and his brother Daniel bought the local elevator from the Home Grain Company, conducting it under the name Mosher Brothers. Fred C. Mosher and his son Christopher now own this elevator, and it is conducted under the title of Mosher & Son. In recent years Mr. Mosher has discontinued all operations as a real estate man. On August 1, 1918, he and his son bought the elevator at Kanorado. In former years he owned a number of other elevators in Kansas, and is well known among the elevator men of the state. He is a member of the Kansas Grain Dealers' Association and of the Topeka Board of Trade. Mr. Mosher is also owner of 320 acres of farm land in Thomas County, owns an office building at Rexford and a good home there.

He served as clerk of Smith Township in Thomas County two terms, four years, and during the last year or so has taken an active part in war work. He is a republican, was formerly affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is a member of Belleville Lodge No. 129 of Masons.

In 1896, at Belleville, Mr. Mosher married Miss Jennie Sanford, daughter of Gilbert and Mary (Nichols) Sanford. Her mother is still living at Belleville, and her father was one of the early farmers and stock raisers of Republic County. Mr. and Mrs. Mosher are the parents of four children: Christopher F., the oldest, is a graduate of the Kansas Wesleyan Business College at Salina and is an active partner with his father. The three daughters of the family are Emma, a graduate of the Thomas County High School and a teacher in that county; Mary, a senior in the Thomas County High School; and June, in the eighth grade of the public schools.

Pages 2338-2339.