Pages 501-502, transcribed by Carolyn Ward from History of Allen and Woodson Counties, Kansas: embellished with portraits of well known people of these counties, with biographies of our representative citizens, cuts of public buildings and a map of each county / Edited and Compiled by L. Wallace Duncan and Chas. F. Scott. Iola Registers, Printers and Binders, Iola, Kan.: 1901; 894 p., [36] leaves of plates: ill., ports.; includes index.



 

  WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS. 501 cont'd

GEORGE W. FISHER.

GEORGE W. FISHER—In selecting candidates for public office political parties rarely fail to follow other courses than the one dictated by their trusted leaders and in no instance is this fact more strikingly true than in the minority party whose candidates must go before the voters, in a local contest, upon their individual merits, as citizens and men, rather than upon their unpopular political platform. The political situation in Allen county leaves the People's party and the Democratic party, combined, in the minority and in the selection of their candidates for the various offices to be filled by the election of 1900, no more honorable or conscientious nominee appeared on the Fusion ticket than that for Representative to the Legislature, George W. Fisher. All the years since his majority have been passed in Allen county, near Iola, and in enumerating our worthy citizens it is with pride that a reference is made to the subject of this sketch.

George Fisher was born in Park county, Indiana, May 13, 1862. He is a son of the late John Fisher, a farmer and a native of Brown county, Ohio, who died in Iola township in 1886 at sixty-two years of age. The latter went into Park county, Indiana, in 1828 and was married there to Elizabeth, a daughter of Isaac and Mary (Cox) Gooding. He was an Ohio emigrant and was a son of John Fisher, a soldier of the War of 1812 and a Whig in politics who went into Ohio from Washington county, Penn-

502 HISTORY OF ALLEN AND  

sylvania, and took up land there in an early day. He took his family of six sons to Park county, Indiana, in 1828 and died there leaving six sons and two daughters, who reared families. The children of his son, John Fisher, were: J. Wesley Fisher, of Allen county; Nathan Fisher, of Marshall, Illinois; Malinda, deceased; George W.; Thoms F., of Hansford, California, and Allen G. Fisher of Allen county.

George W. Fisher was a youth of nineteen years when he came to Allen county. He was liberally educated in the common schools and had had instruction, specially, in book-keeping and writing. He reached his twenty-first year as a farmer and his continuation of it evidences the fact that his success is of the certain and enduring kind. Since the death of his mother February 14, 1899, he has resided alone upon the old family home in section 13, town 24, range 17, where he owns a farm of one hundred and sixty acres.

The platforms of modern Democracy and of the People's party find responsive chords in the organism of the Fishers and their faith is pinned to the ultimate triumph of all the elements opposed to the doctrines of the Philadelphia convention of 1900. George Fisher is not a Populist for office, for Populists seldom get offices in Allen county. He is not an office-seeker and in the campaign of 1900 it is doubtful if he even hinted in the presence of a voter that he desired his support at the polls. His election would have meant that Allen county would have had a Representative who would not fail to protect her by at least his vote against any effort to deprive her of her dearest resource by a foreign corporation.


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