SAMUEL G. CECIL.

SAMUEL G. CECIL, one of the prominent builders and contractors of Iola, and a citizen whose interest in the public affairs of his city are positive and constant, was born in Belmont County, Ohio, March 12, 1853. His father, B. Cecil, was a teacher and was engaged in educational work in Belmont County many years and was, himself, born there in 1824, dying in 1854. He was descended from French parents, his father having emigrated to the United States from the Kingdom of France at an early period. Our subject's paternal grandfather was a farmer and is buried in the county of Belmont where he seems to have settled.

B. Cecil married May Jordan, a daughter of Abel Jordan, a Quaker, whose abiding place was once Mayfield, Pennsylvania, and whose calling was that of a cabinet maker. Mrs. Cecil died in 1881 leaving two children: John E. Cecil, who died in 1880, leaving one child at Berea, Ohio, and Samuel G. Cecil, our subject.

S. G. Cecil spent his youth on a farm till his sixteenth year. At that age he undertook the task of learning the carpenter trade, around Urichsville, Ohio, and finishing or completing it, in Cleveland, Ohio. He remained with his native State till 1884 when he came west and located in Larned, Kansas. In that western town he took up contracting prominently and remained in that section until 1897 when he became a resident of Iola. In his last location he has been as prominently identified with the

building interests as any of his competitors, as many of the buildings he constructed will serve to show what class of work, in a measure, he has been identified with.

Mr. Cecil married first in Urichsville, Ohio, in 1878, Anna Harris, who died in 1890. Her children are: Harry H. and Ralph E. Mr. Cecil was again married in 1895, to Sarah E. Tabor.

The Cecils are Republicans, early and late, and our subject has evinced an active interest in local public matters wherever he has resided. In Larned he was the city's public servant for a time and soon after locating in Iola he was called to the city council. While he is a gentleman with positive convictions he is not an extremist to such an extent as to prejudice and bias his usefulness as a public officer. During his membership of the council while the "gas question" was uppermost his position was rather that of a mediator and pacificator, or harmonizer, of the two strongly antagonistic factions. In 1899 he was elected a member of the board of education for the first ward of his city. He is a Mason and an Odd Fellow.

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