Marshall County KS Archives Biographies.....Stevenson, Lewis Milton 1846 - 
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Author: Emma E. Forter (1917)

LEWIS MILTON STEVENSON.

    Lewis Milton Stevenson, one of Murray township's most substantial and
progressive farmers and the proprietor of a fine farm of one hundred and sixty
acres one and one-half miles west of Axtell, has been a resident of Kansas since
1882, in which year he came down here from Nebraska, after having resided in
that state a couple of years after a long residence in the state of Iowa. Mr.
Stevenson is a native of the state of Illinois. He was born on a farm in Knox
county, that state, November 7, 1846, son of Edward and Mary (Keys) Stevenson,
the former of whom was born at Baltimore, Maryland, and the latter at Dover.
Delaware, both representatives of old American families, whose last days were
spent in Illinois.

    Edward Stevenson was born in 1807, the son of Zachariah Stevenson, who was a
soldier in the War of 1812. He married in the East and in the early forties
emigrated to Illinois, settling on a quarter of a section of land in Knox
county, one of the pioneers of that part of the state, and there he and his wife
spent the remainder of their lives. She died in 1865 and he survived her for
nearly twenty years, his death occurring in 1884. They were the parents of six
children, of whom but two survive, the subject of this sketch having a brother,
James Stevenson, who is living in Missouri.

    Lewis M. Stevenson was reared on the paternal farm in Knox county, Illinois,
growing up familiar with pioneer conditions, and received his education in a
little old district school house built of slabs and from boyhood made a "hand"
on the farm. He was nineteen years of age when his mother died and after that he
began shifting for himself, presently, in 1866, going to Iowa, where he began
working as a farm hand at eighteen dollars a month, working with a hoe from
sunup to sundown. Four years later he married in Iowa and began farming on his
own account on a rented farm. Three years later he bought a farm in Shelby
county, that state, a tract of railroad land it was, borrowing the money from
the county treasurer with which to pay the same, and from the very beginning was
successful in his farming operations, soon coming to have one of the
best-improved farms in Shelby county. There he lived until 1880, when he sold
his farm to advantage and moved to Beatrice, Nebraska. After traveling around a
bit, Mr. Stevenson decided to again engage in farming and in 1882 came to
Marshall county and bought a quarter of a section of land in Richland township,
seven miles northwest of Beattie. He developed that place into a splendid farm
and in October, 1907, sold the same. The next month he bought a quarter section
in Murray township, just west of Axtell, built a fine house on the same and in
March, 1908, established his home there and has ever since made that his place
of residence, he and his family being very pleasantly and very comfortably
situated. Mr. Stevenson has made other valuable improvements on his place and
has one of the best-equipped farm plants in that part of the county. He gives
considerable attention to the raising of pure-bred Duroc-Jersey hogs, in
addition to his general farming, and has done very well, long having been
regarded as one of Marshall county's most substantial farmers.

    In 1870, in Iowa, Lewis M. Stevenson was united in marriage to Mary Minerva
Easterly, who was born on a pioneer farm in Jones county, Iowa, in 1853,
daughter of Jonathan and Sarah Jane (McConkey) Easterly, natives of the state of
Ohio, who moved to Iowa in 1851 and there established their home. Jonathan
Easterly and wife were the parents of ten children, eight of whom are still
living. Of these surviving children Mrs. Stevenson is the eldest, the others
being as follow: Margaret Ellen, who married Danville Tarbox, of Jones county,
Iowa; John L., a resident of Charles City, Iowa; Mrs. Flora Clementine Simmons,
of Jones county, Iowa; Mrs. Jennie Moe, of Animosa, Iowa; Elmer Ellsworth, of
Seattle, Washington; U. S. Grant, of Olin, Iowa, and Mrs. Ada Belle Harper, of
Saskatchewan, Canada.

    To Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson twelve children have been born, namely: Lemuel
Lester, who taught school for one year and then turned his attention to
photography and is now conducting a photograph studio at Emporia, this state;
Jonathan Lewis, who was graduated from the Kansas State Normal School at
Emporia, taught school several years and is now the owner of a farm in the
neighborhood of Plymouth, this state; Elnora Jane, who completed her schooling
at the State Normal School at Emporia and at Campbell College, Holton, and is
now a member of the excellent corps of Marshall county's public school teachers:
May, a graduate of Kansas State Normal, taught for nine years in the schools at
Hoxie and for two years in Arizona and is now the wife of J. M. Hall, of Hoxie;
Mary Ethzelda, also a former public-school teacher, who is now conducting a
dressmaking establishment at Denver; Arthur G., also a teacher, who is farming
in the neighborhood of Holton; Bertha, also formerly a teacher, who married
Arthur Jones, a farmer, living north of Beattie; Mrs. Clementine Wanklyn, also a
former teacher, who is now living six miles south of Beattie; Nellie Pearl, who
is now teaching school in Colorado; Chalmers, who also formerly taught school,
but is now employed as a machinist at Hoxie; Olin, a machinist at Manhattan, and
Clayton, who is at home assisting in the management of the home farm. Perhaps no
other family in Marshall county has contributed so many persons to the
public-school teaching force as has the Stevenson family and the members of the
same have ever been actively concerned in the social and cultural development of
the county and of the Axtell neighborhood in particular, helpful in promoting
all movements having to do with the advancement of the common welfare thereabout.


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)


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