Resse Cadwalader

REESE CADWALADER, deceased, was one of the early settlers of Cherokee County. His birth took place in Ohio on September 16, 1816, and he was a son of John and Ruth (Bogue) Cadwalader.

John Cadwalader was a native of Pennsylvania. In early manhood he moved to Ohio, settling among the other pioneers. In 1826 he removed to Illinois, where the remainder of his life was passed. He and his wife belonged to the Society of Friends.

The late Reese Cadwalader was reared on his father's farm and continued to live in Illinois until 1851, when he moved to Iowa, and in 1867 to Cherokee County, Kansas. In Illinois he had owned and operated a flouring mill, but he devoted himself to farming both in Iowa and in Kansas. In Cherokee County he bought the southwest quarter of section 27 township 31, range 25, in Pleasant View township, which he improved and converted into one of the best farms in the eastern part of the county. In a material sense. Mr. Cadwalader was a very successful man,—one whose energy and industry were rewarded with ample returns. He was, also, a man of integrity and of public spirit, and in all the neighborhoods in which he lived he was chosen to fill responsible offices. He served as a justice of the peace in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Kansas, a position for which he was eminently qualified on account of his sterling traits of character. At Vermont, Illinois, he joined the Masonic order, and always lived up to the principles taught by that fraternity. Few men of his day were more pronounced in their advocacy of temperance, and by example and precept he exerted a wide influence. He died September 20, 1880.

On December 29, 1841, occurred our subject's marriage with Rhoda K. Easley, a daughter of John and Nancy (Kinsey) Easley. The children of this union were as follows: Henry, of Mexico: Stephen, of Clear Creek County, Colorado: John, of Williamson County, Texas; Ruth, deceased, who was the wife of Wesley Ankrum; Kinsey, of Opolis, Kansas; Basco, who is living on the homestead; Abigail, wife of Frank Walker; and Angeline, wife of Andrew Vermillion, of Pittsburg, Kansas. This family has been reared in the Society of Friends.

John Easley, the father of Mrs. Cadwalader, was born in Virignia, September 9, 1798. When he was 10 years of age, his parents moved to Harrison County, Ohio, where he grew to manhood. In 1830 he moved to Fulton County, Illinois, where he lived the remainder of his life, and at death was laid to rest on his own land, the claim he took up when he first settled in the State. He married a daughter of Richard Kinsey, and their children who grew to maturity were as follows: Mrs. Cadwalader; Jane and Rachel, now deceased; Sarah Ann, wife of Chalkley Robinson, of Illinois; Daniel, of Illinois; Phoebe, wife of John Fitzhenry, of the same State; Elizabeth, of Bellevue, Nebraska; John; and Louisa, wife of James Graham, of Bellevue, Nebraska.

Mrs. Cadwalader still resides on the farm to which she came, with her late husband, in 1867. She recalls many of the incidents of that early period, when the present smiling farms and sites of cities, in Cherokee County, were but miles of wilderness, with no promise of the wealth and comfort which brawny arms and active minds have brought forth. As the wife of a pioneer, she passed through the hardships incident to all early settlements. She is well known throughout the township, and is held in very high esteem.

History of Cherokee County Kansas and its representative citizens, ed. & comp. by Nathaniel Thompson Allison, 1904, transcribed by Kayla Clanton, student from USD 508, Baxter Springs Middle School, Baxter Springs, Kansas, January 20, 1997.