Montrose County CO Archives Biographies.....Conklin, W.D. 1851 - ?
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net December 20, 2005, 12:28 am

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     A resident of Colorado for more than a third of a century and more than

two-thirds of his life, W.D. Conklin, living six miles south of Montrose where

he is actively engaged in the cattle business, is well acquainted with the

people of the state and is in close touch and harmony with their ambitions,

deeply interested in their abiding welfare and full of loyalty to every better

aspiration among them.  He was born in Missouri in 1851, the son of Hobbs and

Margaret (Hendricks) Conklin, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of

Kentucky.  The father emigrated to Missouri early in his life and settled in

Schuyler county where he prospered as a farmer and became prominent in the local

government of the county, serving as sheriff for many years.  At the beginning

of the Civil war he enlisted in the Confederate army, starting as a private

under Colonel Green and coming out as quartermaster, having served to the end of

the contest.  After the war he went to Texas and, locating in Denton county near

Pilot Point, followed farming there for a number of years.  He then moved to

Brownwood, Brown county, to spend his remaining days and died there in 1890,

aged sixty-four years.  He was through life an ardent believer in the principles

of the Democratic party and on all occasions gave its candidates a loyal and

hearty support.  For a long time he was an enthusiastic Freemason; and always,

wherever he was, took an active and serviceable interest in the welfare of his

community.  His wife was a native of Kentucky, of Scotch ancestry, daughter of

John and Henrietta Hendricks, and moved in her girlhood to Missouri with her

parents.  They were farmers in that state, and died there.  The father was a

zealous Whig in politics and a man of prominence in his section of the state. 

Mrs. Conklin died in Missouri in 1863 at the age of forty-six.  She was the

mother of five sons and one daughter, W.D. being the third child.  He was reared

to the age of sixteen and received a limited education in the public schools. 

In 1868 he started out in life for himself, coming to Denver, this state, where

he remained until 1872, engaged in freighting to and from various points near

and far in this part of the West.  This was prior to the construction of the

railroad through here, he having come to this section with a freight team from

his Missouri home.  In 1872 he went into the lumber business on the divide

between Denver and Colorado Springs, and followed that business with varying

fortunes until 1881.  The next two years he passed at Colorado Springs, and in

1884 moved to Montrose and homesteaded on eighty acres of his present ranch

which was at the time wild, uncultivated land given up to the unprofitable

gayety of sage brush, and never yet commanded to productiveness for the benefit

of man.  He has cleared it of this and made it valuable through judicious and

skillful cultivation and with costly improvements, one of which is a fine brick

dwelling of good size and convenient in arrangement.  He is engaged principally

in the cattle industry and carries it on with vigor and system, giving every

detail of the business his careful personal attention.  In politics he is a

faithful Populist and as the candidate of that party has served the county as

county commissioner.  In 1881 he was married to Miss Mary Cropper, a native of

Colorado, a daughter of the late Levin Cropper, an old settler of the Colorado

Springs section where he died.  Mr. and Mrs. Conklin have one child living,

Rose, and two dead, Stella and Walter H.  Both are buried in Fairview cemetery,

at Montrose.

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/montrose/bios/conklin71gbs.txt

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