| WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS. | 185 cont'd |
JOHN MANBECK.
JOHN MANBECK—Pennsylvania has furnished Allen and other counties of Kansas with many sturdy and industrious citizens whose efforts have added much toward the development of the State and in few instances, in Allen County, has such citizenship been more conspicuously apparent than in that of John Manbeck, of Marmaton township. It is scarce twenty years since he settled his family upon the northeast quarter of section 9, town 25, range 20, then a piece of unbroken prairie, and now his is one of the attractive, homelike and productive farms in the county. Mr. Manbeck was not enjoying a great degree of financial independence when he came to Kansas and he paid the railroad for his land in installments. At a time when he was nearing the plane of independence and was well ahead of his pursuers in the race of life, fire destroyed his barn and contents and struck him a paralizing blow. His horses, mules and his swine have thrived to aid him in retrieving these losses and he has replaced the buildings with larger ones than before.
Mr. Manbeck was born in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, March 13, 1855. His father, Enoch Manbeck, was a thrifty and successful farmer, born in the same county in 1820 and died there in 1896. The latter was a soldier in the Civil war, in a Pennsylvania regiment, while his son, Lucien, saw much hard service in the campaign around Richmond, was at the blowing-up of the Petersburg mine and, being captured, was imprisoned at Salisbury, North Carolina. Enoch Manbeck was the great-grandson of an Irishman who settled in Pennsylvania among the Germans and lost thereby the identity of his nationality.
Enoch Manbeck married Harriet Straus, who still survives. Their children were: Lucien Manbeck, of Pennsylvania; Emma, wife of Franz Seltzer, of Pennsylvania; William Manbeck, of the home county; Charles, deceased; John Manbeck; Barbara, wife of Samuel Miller; James, deceased; Mary, wife of George Horn and Ida, who married George Seidle, of Schuylkill County.
John Manbeck worked with his father till his majority. He was
| 186 | HISTORY OF ALLEN AND |
placed on a monthly salary then for a year at ten and fifteen dollars a month and the second year he rented land and did his own managing. He farmed on "the halves" three years and was then induced to visit the west. He was so impressed with the situation in Allen County, Kansas, that he bought his land and moved his family hither soon thereafter.
Mr. Manbeck was maried[sic] in 1876 to Mary Dreibeldeis, a daughter of Daniel Dreibeldeis. The Dreibeldeis children are: Charles, Frank and Irwin Dreibeldeis, of Marion County, Iowa; Tessie, wife of William Irvin, of Moran, and Aaron Dreibeldeis, of Kansas City, Missouri.
Mr. and Mrs. Manbeck's children are: Gertie, wife of Charles Collins, of Kimball, Kansas; and Neda, Annie, Ida, Clara, Dora, Edward, William, Charles and John Manbeck Jr.
For many years have the Manbecks been identified with the Evangelical church. Our subject is a steward and is treasurer of the Golden Valley congregation. He is a Republican and a pronounced enemy of the doctrines of modern Democracy.
Pages 185-186, 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.
