The subject of this sketch is John Eberhardt, a farmer and stockman of Lyon township and a native of Germany, born near Frankfort-on-the-Rhine in 1834. He had not yet attained his majority when he touched the soil of the Western Hemisphere in 1848, and settled in Washington county, Wisconsin. His father was Valentine Eberhardt, a thrifty German farmer. He emigrated from Wisconsin to Kansas in 1874, and bought a farm adjacent to the city of Salina, where he died in 1890. Mr. Eberhardt's mother was Anna Maria Steele; she died when our subject - their only child was a small lad. His father then married Catherine Artz, a half-sister of his first wife. To them were born six children, five sons and one daughter, four of whom are living.

Mr. Eberhardt removed from Wisconsin to Illinois, and at the call for volunteers he enlisted in Company H, Eighth Illinois Cavalry, under Captain Hooker and General Stone. They were most actively engaged in Virginia. He served three years and during that period was under fire fifty-four times. Mr. Eberhardt was in the hospital for one year, suffering from an accident occasioned by his horse falling while crossing a creek near Alexandria, Virginia, and disabling him; in fact, he has never fully recovered from the effects; has been a physical wreck since the war and at times suffers intensely. Receives a pension of but eight dollars per month. He is entirely deaf on the right side from a blank cartridge fired against his ear by an Irishman.

Mr. Eberhardt emigrated to Iowa in 1868, and from there to Kansas in 1873, where he took up a homestead and later traded for the place he now lives on. Mr. Eberhardt is a horticulturist and has one of the finest peach orchards in the county, and a fine bearing apple orchard of two hundred trees. His farm consists of one hundred and sixty acres and is under a high state of improvement. The beautiful wooded little stream, Chris creek, runs through his place.

Mr. Eberhardt was married in 1857 to Eveline McHorn, and in 1867 to Miss Mary Ann Surgeon. By this second marriage there are five boys and two girls: Frank C., a farmer of Bourbon county, Kansas; Albert, a farmer of Lyon township; Valentine, Grant and John H. are interested in the farm and stock at home; Lizzie, the widow of Clint Cossell, and Leola May, aged fourteen.

Mr. Eberhardt is a man esteemed for his worth and strict integrity, being possessed of many worthy traits of character, he has a large circle of ardent friends.