Johnson County KS Archives Biographies.....Rankin, J. F. 1855 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 21, 2008, 2:14 am

Author: Ed Blair (1915)

  J. F. Rankin, a prosperous farmer of Gardner township, is a native of
Missouri, born in 1855. He is a son of D. V. and Nancy F. (Caldwell) Rankin,
both descendants of colonial ancestors. D. V. Rankin was born in Tennessee, in
1828, and was a son of J. M. Rankin, who was also a native of Tennessee, born in
1792. He was a son of William Rankin, a native of Pennsylvania and one of the
pioneers of Tennessee, who settled there long before Tennessee was admitted to
the Union. J. M. Rankin, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, obtained a
good education under disadvantageous circumstances and became a surveyor. He was
a man of great natural ability. He served in the War of 1812, and in 1839
removed from Tennessee, with his family, and located in Dade county, Missouri,
where he died in 1844. D. V. Rankin, his son, the father of J. F., grew to
manhood in Missouri where he married Nancy F. Caldwell. The Caldwells came from
Kentucky and Tennessee and were of Welch descent. About the time D. V. Rankin
reached his majority the slavery question was the paramount issue in national
politics. He was a decided anti-slavery man, and his views on that question
incurred the enmity of the majority of his Missouri neighbors, which made
existence in Missouri so distasteful to him that he came to Kansas in 1862, and
located in Johnson county where he and a brother bought 160 acres of land which
he sold a few months later and removed to Leavenworth county where they lived on
rented land until 1866 when they returned to Missouri. They remained there,
however, but a short time when they returned to Spring Hill, Johnson county,
Kan., and kept store for three years, then moved on a farm west of Gardner and
later to Gardner, where D. V. Rankin and his wife spent the remainder of their
lives. He was a man of strong convictions and possessed great courage and strong
will power. He went to California, driving across the plains, during the gold
excitement in 1849, DLrt returned in a short time, and even in his old age when
gold was discovered in Alaska, it was with much difficulty that his family
persuaded him not to go there. He was a natural pioneer and loved adventure, and
to such men the great West owes its development. J. F. Rankin was one of a
family of four children. He was reared in Missouri and Kansas and has made
farming and stockraising his principal business. He bought his first quarter
section of land in 1880 and has added to his first purchase, from time to time,
and now owns 540 acres of fine land in Johnson county. He also owns 160 acres in
Oklahoma, 212 acres in California and 640 acres in Texas, and in addition to
owning these vast acres, he is interested in various other commercial
enterprises. He is a director and stockholder in the Gardner State Bank and a
stockholder in the Farmer's State Bank of Gardner and is a director and
stockholder in the Edgerton State Bank. Mr. Rankin was united in marriage March
1, 1881, to Miss Belle Radcliffe, a native of Missouri, and four children were
born to this union, as follows: Gertrude, married F. O. Brownson; Blanche,
married H. O. Craig; Zada, married I. J. Putman. and Mabel, married L. M.
Miller, of Ottawa. The wife and mother of these children died in June, 1911. On
April 20, 1914, Mr. Rankin married Eva McKibben. Mr. Rankin has been a member of
the Grange for a number of years, and he and Mrs. Rankin are members of the
Presbyterian church.

Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

HISTORY OF Johnson County Kansas
BY
ED BLAIR

AUTHOR OF
Kansas Zephyrs, Sunflower Sittings and Other Poems and Sketches

IN ONE VOLUME

ILLUSTRATED
STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
1915


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