William E. Utterback

WILLIAM E. UTTERBACK. For ten years and with a fidelity and efficiency that have never been questioned, William E. Utterback has steadily performed his duties as clerk of the District Court of Cheyenne County. He is a splendid official, and behind his public record stands a long residence in Cheyenne County, beginning as a homesteader thirty years ago.

Mr. Utterback first became identified with Kansas in the interesting vocation of a cowboy and stockman. He was born in Clay County, Illinois, January 14, 1859. His paternal ancestors came originally from Scotland and were colonial settlers in North Carolina. His father, Upton Utterback, was born in North Carolina in 1830, but was reared in Kentucky where he married Barbara Brackett, a native of that state. Soon after their marriage they moved to Clay County, Illinois, and reached there in time to avail themselves of a tract of Government land. They spent the rest of their days on their farm in Clay County, where the father died in 1898. He was a republican and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Upton Utterback and wife had the following children: Nancy, who lives in Clay County, Illinois, widow of John Cottrell, who was a soldier in the Union army and a farmer; J. T. Utterback, a retired farmer at Arapahoe, Nebraska; Benjamin, a farmer at Arlington, Nebraska; Raleigh M., of White City, Kansas; Mary, living in Clay County, Illinois, widow of Len Wolf; William E., sixth in the family; CarIon, who has not been heard from for a number of years; and P. M., a plasterer living at St. Francis, Kansas.

William E. Utterback as a boy took upon himself the responsibility of supporting himself and making his own way in the world. At the age of thirteen he left his father's farm and the local schools in which he had been trained and worked for other parties for several years. At the age of seventeen he went from Illinois to Western Nebraska, and was all over that section of country during the late '70s. In 1879 his work as a cowboy and helper on the stock ranges took him to the vicinity of Danbury, Kansas, and his experiences all told made him familiar with the range country of Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado.

In March, 1887, Mr. Utterback filed upon his quarter section homestead in Cheyenne County. He kept his residence there for nineteen years, had a successful participation in the farming and stock raising activities durng[sic] that time and finally sold the ranch in 1916. In 1904 he moved to a farm adjoining St. Francis, cultivated his land for five years, and disposed of that farm in the fall of 1917.

Mr. Utterback was first elected clerk of the district court in 1908, and during the performance of his official duties his home has been at St. Francis. He was re-elected in 1910, 1912, 1914, 1916 and 1918, and no better proof of his qualifications and the esteem which follows him as an official and citizen could be obtained than those repeated elections. He is a sterling republican, a member of the Methodist Church, is Past Grand of Rising Star Lodge of Odd Fellows at St. Francis and a member of St. Francis Lodge of Masons. He put up his modern home in St. Francis in 1918.

In 1884, at Osceola, Nebraska, Mr. Utterback married Ann (Roseberry) Bartholomew, daughter of James Roseberry, who was an Illinois farmer. Mrs. Utterback died at St. Francis July 26, 1916. the mother of five children: Lula, wife of Joseph Stafford, a farmer and stockman living near St. Francis; Grace, wife of Earl Deal, a farmer at St. Francis; Elmer, who during 1918 was in the United States army; Myrtle, wife of Burnett Senti, a rancher in Cheyenne County; and Laurene, who married Neoma Hogate and is a stock dealer at St. Francis.

Pages 2298-2299.