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THOMAS I. KITZMILLER.
THOMAS I. KITZMILLER, of Bronson, son of the pioneer, Morgan B. Kitzmiller, who settled upon section 20, township 25, range 21, now Marmaton township, was born August 22, 1836, in what is now Grant county, West Virginia. His father was born in "the old state," was a son of John Kitzmiller and a descendant of Pennsylvania German stock. Mary J. Bartlett, whom Morgan B. Kitzmiller married, was born in Cumberland, Maryland, in 1823.
The Kitzmiller family left Grant county, West Virginia, in 1864 and located in McLean county, Illinois. They came on west to Kansas in 1867 and entered their land in Allen county. Here the father died in 1878. The large family of children was reared to habits of industry and have done their part, in an humble way, in the development of our county. In the order of their ages the children are: Frances, wife of William Allenbaugh, on the Sac and Fox agency, Oklahoma; Charles H. Kitzmiller, of Junction City, Kansas; James Kitzmiller, of Chicago, Illinois; Thomas; Ella, wife of William Hildreth, of Pittsburg, Kansas; William Kitzmiller, of English, Indiana; Carrie, of Ciaro, Illinois, widow of A. D. Eaton; Ross and Nettie, twins, the former of Bourbon county, Kansas, and the latter, widow of A. D. Showalter.
Thomas Kitzmiller was a farmer from youth till 1880. September 16, of this year he enlisted in the regular army in Company K, Nineteenth Infantry, stationed in the Indian Territory. He did most of his soldiering in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico and was stationed at different times in Forts Sam Houston, Brown, Duncan, Clark and Gibson, and during the Geronimo trouble he aided in the rounding-up of that Indian chief. He re-enlisted at the expiration of his first five years' term and, May 16, 1890, he was sent to Fort Porter, Buffalo, New York, where he was discharged
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July 3, of that year. For the next nine years Mr. Kitzmiller remained with the old home in Allen county.
In 1899 Mr. Kitzmiller made a trip to Alaska. He sailed on the steamer "Alki" for Skagway and tramped it to Chilcoot Pass. There his heart failed him. All was bleak and cold and desolation. Suffering was all about and nothing visible to urge him on. He returned to the states during the late spring and stopped at Puget Sound. While looking about the Sound he went salmon fishing and encountered a hurricane. The boat was wrecked and he reached another; it went down and he boarded a third and was finally rescued. In this experience he sacrificed all his personal possessions, including $293 in cash. In October of the same year he reached Kansas again, a somewhat wiser, but a poorer man.
The Kitzmillers of this branch have only one word to express their political leanings—Republican. The father was a charter member of the party and his sons have maintained the family tradition.
Pages 568-569, transcribed by Carolyn Ward from History of Allen and Woodson Counties, Kansas: embellished with portraits of well known people of these counties, with biographies of our representative citizens, cuts of public buildings and a map of each county / Edited and Compiled by L. Wallace Duncan and Chas. F. Scott. Iola Registers, Printers and Binders, Iola, Kan.: 1901; 894 p., [36] leaves of plates: ill., ports.; includes index.
