Marshall County KS Archives Biographies.....Kirlin, Linden 1848 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ks/ksfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com May 3, 2007, 1:45 am Author: Emma E. Forter LINDEN KIRLIN. Linden Kirlin, the well-known inventor of farm machinery and one of the most substantial farmers of Guittard township, this county, is a native of Illinois, but has been a resident of Kansas since 1879 and of Marshall county since 1883, with the exception of the period of years spent in promoting the manufacture of his disk cultivators in Kansas City, where he operated as the head of the Kirlin Cultivator Company. He was born on a farm in Mercer county, Illinois, September 21, 1848, son of Jacob and Nancy Jane (Mills) Kirlin, natives of Ohio and of Indiana, respectively, both representatives of old American families. Reared on the home farm in Illinois, Mr. Kirlin was made familiar with farm work and with farm machinery from the days of his boyhood, and it was by studying the needs of the practical farmer along these lines that he came to conceive the devices which have made his name one of the best-known among the farming people of this country, the Kirlin farm implements having a wide sale throughout the United States. One spring while plowing corn back on the old home farm in Illinois, Mr. Kirlin was seized-with an attack of rheumatism which made it torture for him to follow the old-fashioned cultivator he was guiding along the corn rows behind a big pair of mules. Right then and there he conceived the idea of a riding-plow and he had a local blacksmith rig up a plow surmounted by a seat and swinging between wheels. It was a great success. That was in the early seventies and he presently improved on his idea and in 1878 invented a riding combined lister and drill, which was made for him by the Rock Island Plow Company under his direction. This lister was constructed by attaching one right-hand bar-share plow bottom and one left-hand bar-share plow bottom together, that having been the first lister ever made in the Rock Island factory. The next year, in the spring of 1879, Mr. Kirlin came to Kansas with his family, he having married in 1871, and settled in Brown. county, where he made his home until 1883, when he came to Marshall county and bought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres in the southeastern part of the county, where he lived for thirteen years, or until 1896, when he moved to Beattie to give his personal attention to the affairs of the L. Kirlin Cultivator Company, manufacturing his farm implements at that place. In the meantime, in 1880, Mr. Kirlin had patented a combined lister and drill, which was made and sold by the P. & O. Plow Company for a good many years on a royalty basis. After the lister came the two-row knife cultivator for listed corn, patented in the year 1882, which also was manufactured by the above company. Mr. Kirlin's next invention was the two-row disk lister cultivator, which revolutionized the cultivation of listed corn. Thousands of these cultivators were sold by Mr. Kirlin and they are still in great demand in many parts of the listed-corn territory. After this runner-cultivator came the Kirlin two-row wheel and runner disk cultivator, the wheels making the draft lighter. This cultivator was patented in 1902. The following year Mr. Kirlin brought out the Avheel-and-tongue cultivator. It was in 1893-94 that Mr. Kirlin began the wholesale cultivator business at Beattie, but on account of his rapidly increasing business he moved to Kansas City in 1900, where he remained until his retirement in 1913 and returned to his old home place of three hundred and twenty acres northwest of Beattie, where he is now living. Mr. Kirlin's friends declare for him that his inventions, being the means of enabling the farmers to raise corn more cheaply than before, have been the means of paying off more mortgages on farm lands in the West than any one other agency. In the year 1915 Mr. Kirlin, who, despite the growing weight of his years, is still alert and his inventive genius as vigorous as ever, brought out a shock absorber for Ford automobiles, known as the "Kirlin road smoothers," and during the summer of 1916 made an attachment for the old runner cultivator for the second time over the corn, which is thought to be destined to bring this machine back into the market. Mr. Kirlin is now traveling in his car taking orders for the trade. In 1871, in Mercer county, Illinois, Linden Kirlin was united in marriage to Blanche Estelle Mitchell, who was born in that county in 1853, daughter of Isaac and Susan D. (Clancy) Mitchell, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of Indiana, and to this union five children have been born, three sons and two daughters, namely: Mrs. Eva Maud Thomas, of Chicago; Ward Graham Kirlin, a traveling salesman, of Kansas City; Ernest Clair Kirlin, who is on the home farm in Guittard township; Jacob Orr Kirlin, a traveling salesman, of Kansas City, and Grace Belle Kirlin, a music teacher, with a studio at Kansas City, who is an instructor in music in the college at Lexington, Missouri. The Kirlins attend the Methodist Episcopal church and take a warm interest in the general social affairs of their home community. Mr. Kirlin is a Republican and gives close attention to local civic affairs, but has not been a seeker after public office. Additional Comments: Extracted from: History of Marshall County, Kansas: its people, industries, and institutions by Emma E. Forter Indianapolis, Ind.: B.F. Bowen & Co. (1917) File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ks/marshall/bios/kirlin388gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ksfiles/ File size: 5.9 Kb