Shawnee County KS Archives Biographies.....Shull, Elias 1839 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com November 20, 2006, 12:39 am

Author: James L. King (1905)

ELIAS SHULL

    ELIAS SHULL, one of the prominent citizens of Topeka, who has been
identified with the growth and development of the city since June, 1869, and one
of the leading pension attorneys of this part of the State, was born April 4,
1839, at Massillon, Stark County, Ohio, and is a son of Jacob and Sarah (Diehl)
Shull.

    Jacob Shull was born March 24, 1803, at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He was a
cabinet-maker by trade. In early manhood he migrated to Ohio. In the spring of
1840 he removed to Huntington County, Indiana, where he died September 26, 1845.
On December 1, 1835, he married Sarah Diehl, who was born September 18, 1810,
near Greencastle, Pennsylvania. She survived her husband for almost 50 years,
her death resulting from an injury received by a fall on the ice in January, 1893.

    Elias Shull enjoyed liberal educational advantages. He passed from
Chambersburg Academy to Wittenberg College, at Springfield, Ohio, and belonged
to the graduating class of 1862, but on Commencement Day he was wearing the blue
uniform of the United States Army on the Virginia hills. After his term of
service expired and he had been honorably discharged, he taught one term in the
Davenport (Iowa) High School. At a later period he reentered military service as
a clerk and quartermaster's agent at Vicksburg and in the region round about,
and remained in attendance upon the duties of these positions, frequently in
great peril, until the close of hostilities. His next work was the
superintendence of the collecting of the Union dead from their scattered burial
places on both shores of the Mississippi near Vicksburg and from inland
battle-fields adjacent, and the transference of these precious remains to the
National Cemetery near the city of Vicksburg.

    After this patriotic and pious work was accomplished, Mr. Shull went to
Washington, D. C, July 15, 1867, where, thenceforth, until April, 1869, he was a
clerk in the United States service. Early in June, 1869, he came to Topeka,
where his interests have centered ever since. Here he became clerk in the office
of the assistant general solicitor of the Kansas Pacific Railroad Company; was
eight years clerk in the Topeka pension agency; was connected with mortgage
loaning companies for seven years and for some years was president of the Kansas
Investment Company. In February, 1887, Mr. Shull was admitted to the bar of
Shawnee County and he has been in active practice ever since, confining his
energies mainly to the prosecution of pension claims, etc.

    In recalling his public offices, including his military connections, the
biographer finds that Mr. Shull was a corporal in Company B, 86th Reg., Ohio
Vol. Inf., from which he was honorably discharged; quartermaster's agent in full
control of a woodyard on Island No. 98 in the Mississippi River, established
under the provisions of General Order No. 124 of the War Department (series of
1864), to work timber into cordwood wherewith to supply steamboats in the
military service on that river; and quartermaster's clerk at Vicksburg,
Mississippi. The only elective office of a public nature ever held by him was
that of a member of the Board of Education of Topeka, in which he continued
about five years. Until his service in said office, the High School of Topeka
was not free to anybody; on his motion it was then made entirely free to every
scholar residing in Topeka having the prescribed proficiency. In 1887 he united
with the Grand Army of the Republic and continues to be the first post historian
of Lincoln Post, No. 1, at Topeka, and is also quartermaster of that post, now
in the eighth year of consecutive service, which is a period exceeding in
duration that of any predecessor. In 1879 Mr. Shull joined the Ancient Order of
United Workmen and for several years was the financier of his lodge and still is
actively interested in its work. In religious connection, he adheres to the
church of the English Lutherans of the General Synod in the United States and
was treasurer of the council of the church at Topeka for more than 23
consecutive years.

    Mr. Shull was married February 28, 1871, at Topeka, Kansas, to Mary C.
Alsip, who was born in Washington County, Maryland, and who was about eight
years younger than he. Their children were: Homer A., born February 17, 1872;
Lucy May, born May 25, 1873; Harvey, born August 25, 1874, deceased January 30,
1902; Jacob, born June 18, 1876; Oscar born June 16, 1878, deceased in November,
1881; Sarah, born January 8, 1880; Cora, born in September, 1884; and John D.,
born April 4, 1886. Harvey Shull's temperament, and achievements to the time of
his early death, inspired high hopes of things yet to be accomplished, but his
work was ended ere he seemed to have reached the prime of his strength.

    In politics Mr. Shull has been an ardent Republican, but not too ardent to
sometimes, on local elections, vote for a nominee of the opposing party, when he
inclined to the opinion that it was promotive of the highest welfare so to do.
He voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860, and never afterwards for a presidential
nominee other than Republican in party connection.


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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