| 488 cont'd | HISTORY OF ALLEN AND |
LEANDER STILLWELL.
LEANDER STILLWELL is not a citizen of Allen county, having resided in Erie, Neosho county, for many years, but as the Judge for eighteen years past of the District of which this county is a part he has become so familiar a figure here and has done so much toward shaping the history of the county, that this volume would not be complete without at least a brief sketch of his honorable and distinguished career.
Judge Stillwell was born in Otter Creek precinct, Jersey county, Illinois, on September 16th, 1843. His father, Jeremiah O. Stillwell, and his mother (whose maiden name was Ann Eliza White,) were natives of the state of North Carolina, but emigrated to Illinois in 1834. Judge Stillwell received a limited and meager common school education. His early life was spent on a farm in the backwoods of western Illinois until a few months after the beginning of the War of the Rebellion. On January 7, 1862, he enlisted as a private in Company D, Sixty-first Illinois Infantry, re-enlisted in said company and regiment as a veteran volunteer in February, 1864, and was mastered out with his regiment as first lieutenant of his company some months after the close of the war, having served continuously nearly four years. During his term of service he participated in the battle of Shiloh, the siege of Vicksburg and numerous other battles and skirmishes. After his discharge from the army, he studied law at the Albany, New York, Law School, and was admitted to the bar in December, 1867. He emigrated to Kansas in May, 1868, locating at Erie, in Neosho county, where he engaged in the practice of law. He has resided in Neosho county continuously ever since he came to Kansas.
He was married in May, 1872, to Miss Anna L. Stauber. Five children have been born to them, four of whom are yet living. He was elected
| WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS. | 489 |
to the lower house of the Kansas legislature in 1876, was elected judge of the Seventh Judicial District in 1883, and re-elected to said office in the years 1887, 1891, 1895 and 1899. He enjoys the distinction of having been a district judge in Kansas for the longest period of time that the office has been held by any judge in any of the different districts in the State, since Kansas was admitted into the Union,—a distinction which is, in itself, a most eloquent eulogy, showing as it does that his conduct on the bench has been such as to win and hold the respect and confidence of the people.
In politics he is a Republican, and has been from his boyhood.
Pages 488-489, 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.
