One of the most successful men of Lyon township is F.S. Bishop. He is self made and began his career by working on a farm; his first employer was Clarence Ballou. Mr. Bishop is also self educated. When a boy he met with an accident which crippled him physically and prevented him from attending school until he was twelve years of age. Four years later he came to Kansas, where he was a pupil in the district school for one term, and a student of the Concordia high school for one year.

He rented a farm of Charles King for one year, the proceeds of which, enabled him to take a year's course in the Manhattan Agricultural College. In Concordia Mr. Bishop worked his way through school by driving a milk wagon for J.S. Herrick. This was in the winter of 1880, one of the worst winters Kansas has ever known; the river was frozen solid until March. Prior to this he worked in a broom factory, assorting corn and sewing brooms. While in Manhattan he defrayed part of his expenses by working. Times were hard but he was determined to have an education. He was a hard student and while at the latter institution almost finished a two years course in one year. After returning from Manhattan he worked for Charles King on the farm one year, and bought the place he now owns from his father. Since then he has added other lands until now he owns six hundred acres.

In 1900 he built a commodious frame house of eight rooms, two stories in height and modern. They have considerable fruit, apples, peaches, pears and cherries. He began with a small herd of cattle which has increased from year to year, until he now owns a herd of one hundred and fifty head of fine graded Herefords. His land is principally pasture. The chief products of the ground under cultivation is corn, kaffir corn and alfalfa. Mr. Bishop does not deny that his wife did her full share toward helping him up the ladder. She is one of those excellent Cool women, who make typical farmer's wives.

Mr. Bishop was born near Mannassa, Wisconsin in 1859. He is a son of F.S. Bishop, who was born in Vermont in 1833. He was raised on a farm and followed carpentering the greater portion of his life. In 1853, he emigrated to Wisconsin where he farmed and worked at his trade for about three years, and returned to Massachusetts, taking his family. After remaining two years, he returned again to Wisconsin. In 1868, he removed to Tennessee and settled in Sparta, White county, where he worked at his trade and was also associated in a grist mill. F.S. Bishop's mother died there. In 1872 the family returned to Adams, western Massachusetts, and four years later emigrated to Cloud county, Kansas, locating on the farm where F.S. Bishop now lives. It was a timber claim.

F.S. Bishop's paternal grandfather was a native of the Green mountains, Bennington county, Vermont. The Bishops originally came from England. Three brothers came to America and settled in the New England states, in the early days of that country. Mr. Bishop's mother was Cornelia Phelps, who was also of Vermont, and a daughter of Frank Phelps, an old Vermont farmer, whose estate has since been abandoned and allowed to grow up in timber. Most of the farmers in that vicinity deserted their farms; their owners and tenants working in the forests. His paternal grandmother was a neice of Dr. Hosea Ballou, the founder of the Universalist faith. She was also a cousin of president Garfield's mother.

F.S. Bishop and a sister are the only children by his father's first marriage. The sister is Inez M., wife of S.C. Gardner, a farmer of Lyon township. E.S. Bishop was married the second time to Eva Young, and they are the parents of three children: S.E., a clerk for the firm of Henry Bowen & Company, of Fairview, Oklahoma. Ralph, who farms with his father, and Nellie, a Cloud county teacher, now employed at the Lyon Center school house, district No. twenty-two.

F.S. Bishop was married April 18, 1886 to Miss Hattie M. Cool, a daughter of the Honorable Joseph Cool, an old settler of Cloud county. (see sketch of Mrs. Bates.) She taught two years in the schools of Cloud county, prior to her marriage. To Mr. and Mrs. Bishop three children have been born, viz.: Bessie, Alma and Elson, aged thirteen, eight and two years respectively.

Mr. Bishop is a Democrat and takes an interest in all legislative affairs, but is not a politician; strictly speaking he is a thorough farmer and stockman. He has been one of the school board of his district for a term of nine years. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen, of Glasco.