Shawnee County KS Archives Biographies.....Hibbard, William S. 1828 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com November 20, 2006, 10:38 pm

Author: James L. King (1905)

WILLIAM S. HIBBARD.

    WILLIAM S. HIBBARD, one of the representative men of Williamsport township,
Shawnee County, and the operator of a fine farm of 178 acres, was born at
Lisbon, Grafton County, New Hampshire, November 20, 1828, and is a son of Moses
and Eliza (Sutherland) Hibbard.

    The father of Mr. Hibbard was a physician in active practice in Lisbon
during his whole life, except the last six years spent in Townsend, Vermont,
where he died aged 63 years. He was a surgeon in the State militia. The mother
of Mr. Hibbard died in Vermont in 1881, at the age of 76 years. The paternal
grandfather, Aaron Hibbard, was born in Connecticut and was a Revolutionary
soldier. The Hibbard family is well known in the annals, of New England, its
founder, Robert Hibbard, having come from England with his wife and settled at
Salem, Massachusetts, about 1635. Our subject was born the eldest of a family of
six sons and six daughters, those surviving being: David S., a clergman [sic] of
the Congregational Church at Gorham, Maine; Mrs. Sarah Thomson, a widow,
residing with our subject; Ellen, a resident of Gorham, Maine; Mrs. Luella Neil,
of Galliopolis, Ohio; and Albert, of Reno, Nevada.

    William S. Hibbard was reared at Lisbon and remained there through his
school days. Prior to locating on his present farm in Kansas, he saw a number of
other sections of the country and had numerous experiences. Prior to leaving his
native place when 21 years old, he did some clerking in a store and then
accepted a clerkship and an offer to teach in Lawrence County, Ohio. Later he
took a trip to New Orleans and up the Red River, stopping to teach one term of
school at Shreveport, and then going on as far as San Antonio, Texas.

    Upon returning North he found the river at Shreveport too low for
steam-boating and no vessels ready or able to depart. He was not to be deterred,
however, and with another young man who was equally anxious to get home, hired a
skiff and in this frail boat sailed 500 miles. Finally he reached his home in
New Hampshire. Some time later he embarked in a general mercantile business at
Ironton, Ohio, which he continued for some three years and then engaged in
clerking at the iron furnaces there for several years. In 1877 he came to
Shawnee County and took up a quarter section of land in Auburn township where he
lived many years and made excellent improvements. During the Civil War he was
out with the State militia under Col. George W. Veale and Captain Burke and was
captured near Kansas City, but escaped with 20 companions at Fort Scott.

    Mr. Hibbard then went back to Ohio and resumed clerking at the iron furnaces
for the next three years, after which he returned to farming, an occupation in
which he has continued to be interested ever since. In 1876 he came to the
present farm, which originally consisted of 218 acres. A part of the farm had
been broken but it was practically unimproved. He now has one of the valuable
farms of this section, well improved and carefully cultivated. His main crops
are wheat and corn, and he raises much stock.

    Mr. Hibbard was married in 1859 to Eliza Gault, who was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1831, and is a daughter of Charles and Elizabeth
(Simmerwell) Gault, natives of Ireland. They have had four children, viz: Anna
S., wife of T. B. Nelson, of Williamsport township; Harry L., who died at Kansas
City aged 37 years; D. S., a Presbyterian missionary stationed at Dumagueta,
Philippine Islands; and James S., of Oklahoma. All the sons are graduates of
Emporia College. The death of Harry L. Hibbard, the eldest son of our subject,
was a blow not only to his family, but to the community which took pride in what
seemed a very bright future for this brilliant young man. As an engineer he went
to Nicaragua and then partly completed a medical education in New York, but
again accepted a flattering offer as an engineer and went to South America in
this capacity. Thus he was enabled to put himself through medical college and,
after a year and a half at Bellevue Hospital, New York, he settled in practice
of medicine and surgery at Kansas City. His widow still survives and is employed
by James L. King, State librarian.

    Mr. Hibbard has always been a Republican. He has served a number of terms as
township clerk. He is a member of and an elder in the Presbyterian Church and,
what is remarkable, is a charter member of four church organizations, viz: the
church at Ironton, Ohio, at Hamden, Ohio, at Auburn, Kansas, and at Wakarusa,
Kansas.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF SHAWNEE COUNTY, KANSAS
AND
REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

EDITED AND COMPILED BY
JAMES L. KING
TOPEKA, KANSAS 

"History is Philosophy Teaching by Examples"

PUBLISHED BY
RICHMOND & ARNOLD,
GEORGE RICHMOND; C. R. ARNOLD.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS,
1905.

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