BARTHOLOMEW A. LONGSTRETH.

BARTHOLOMEW A. LONGSTRETH, one of the substantial and representative farmers and early settlers of Deer Creek township, came into Allen County, Kansas, October 2, 1869, and became a permanent settler. He purchased the northeast quarter of section 21, township 23, range 19, one of the "settled" places, with log cabin (fit only for firewood) in which he was glad to make his home. Looking about for the settlers who were here then, Adam Maier, David Funkhouser, Al Weatherman, Thos. Day and William Wise are all gone. Liztown, then a trading point near thr[sic] county line, has long since passed out of existence and the new towns of Colony and Lone Elm have profited by its demise.

Settling the frontier was no new business to Mr. Longstreth for he had passed some years in the wilds of Kansas before the Civil war and was familiar with the hardships and trials incident thereto. Upon coming of age he journeyed into Wisconsin and from that State across into Leavenworth County, Kansas, on an exploring "voyage." It was 1857 when he went to Leavenworth and an opportunity to join a party of surveyors presented itself and he accepted it. Kansas was then being sectionized by the government and the party to whom he belonged did the work of running off the lines and setting the corners up the Smoky Hill River almost to its head, and to the Nebraska State line. D. L. Lakin, of Alabama, had charge of this party and our subject acted as chainman. The latter was out among the buffaloes and coyotes from July to December, in the per-

formerance[sic] of his duties, and communing with nature in her homely garb. In 1858-9 and 1860 Mr. Longstreth was engaged as a farm hand or in getting out logs and lumber around Leavenworth. Following this he returned to Ohio and was married and engaged in farming. Upon his return to Kansas with his family he came by train to Ottawa where he provided himself with implements, furniture and other effects necessary to supply a cabin and to cultivate a small farm and paid $20 to have it all freighted down to David Funkhouser's near Carlyle. He took possession of his farm and began his third of a century of successful cultivation of Allen County soil.

B. A. Longstreth was born in Muskingum County, Ohio, August 10, 1834. He is a son of Philip Longstreth, born in Pennsylvania, settled in Ohio as a boy and died in Muskingum County in 1886 at the age of eighty-three years. His father, Philip Longstreth, went into Ohio in the first years of the 19th century and opened a farm in the Muskingum valley.

Our subject's mother was Anna Giger, still living at eighty-seven years of age. Her children are: Bartholomew A.; Catharine, wife of Philip Vance, of Morgan County, Ohio; Daniel Longstreth, of Muskingum, County; Mary Ann, who resides in Zanesville, Ohio; Julia, wife of Mr. Shreir, and Priscilla, wife of Mr. Clager, both of Muskingum County, and James Longstreth.

Mr. Longstreth acquired little education. He was the oldest child and he was looked to to help clear the farm. He applied himself faithfully in the aid of his parents till his twenty-first year when he started on the western trip which brought him his frontier experience. In August, 1863, he was married to Lorena Stoneburner, a daughter of Israel Stoneburner and Miss Busch, the latter of whom crossed the Atlantic from Germany. Mrs. Longstreth was born in Ohio and is the mother of the following children: Anna, wife of C. H. Wilson, County Surveyor of Noble County, Ohio; Laura, wife of C. E. Walters, of Colony, Kansas; Frank; Fred, of Anderson County, Kansas, who married Clara Delp, and Della and Floy Longstreth, in the family home.

The interested searcher for the political history of the Longstreths will find the early ones Democrats. B. A. Longstreth espoused that faith until his advent to Kansas. His observation of matters political, then, caused him to change front on the two great parties and he has since voted and worked with the Republicans. Mr. Longstreth's applied industry for nearly a third of a century in Allen County has brought its reward. The raising of grain and stock and the investment of his surplus in real estate has expanded his acres and makes him the owner of one of the most desirable stock farms and feeding-grounds on the creek. His record as a citizen has kept pace with that as a farmer. He enjoys the confidence of a wide circle of friends by whom he is regarded as an honorable, public-spirited and successful citizen.

Previous | Home | Next