Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 221 - 222

JACOB D. MOCK. The subject of this personal narration is one of the successful and progressive farmers resident within the borders of Sedgwick County, and may be termed one of the pioneer citizens and representative men of this section. He has made his special field of industry a success, and is highly esteemed and respected by those who know him best. He is engaged in general farming, and its usual concomitant, stock-raising, on his homestead, which lies on section 32, in the township of Gypsum.

            Mr. Mock is a native of the "dark and bloody ground," born in Bourbon County, Ky., Dec. 19, 1826. His parents, John and Mary (David) Mock, were natives of the same State, the father of Scotch ancestry, and the mother of what is familiarly called Pennsylvania Dutch. In an early day the father of our subject removed from his old Kentucky home to the State of Indiana. For about sixteen years he made that place his home, and was engaged in tilling the soil, but at the expiration of that time removed further west, and settled in Monroe County, Iowa, where he resided until taken from this world by death, on the 5th of June, 1875. He was a consistent member of the Christian Church, as was his estimable wife, and a pious and God-fearing Christian, who received the love and esteem of every community in which he lived. His politics in his early years were those of the great Whig party, but later in life, on the dissolution of that organization, he became a Republican.

             The subject of this personal narrative was reared upon his father's farms in Kentucky and Indiana, and received his education in the district schools of those States, which were at that period of their history but rough log cabins with puncheon floors, oiled paper window-panes, open fireplaces and slab seats. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, he, like so many of our eminent men, by diligence as a scholar, laid the foundation for considerable scholarship. At home, upon his father's farm, he received the training which has so well qualified him for his labors in the department of agriculture in the days of his manhood. He emigrated with the family to Iowa, but after a residence there of several years returned to Indiana. Sometime later he returned to the Hawkeye State, but after the space of a few years crossed the line, and settled in Missouri, but soon removed back to his former location. Circumstances and the climate of Iowa not being exactly suited to his mind, he again returned to the State where he was reared, where he made his home until 1870. Having decided that upon the sunflower-covered plains of Kansas there was a greater field for his labors, and a surer reward for his toil, he, in the latter year, made up his mind to move thither, and carrying out his intentions came to Sedgwick County, and made a settlement upon section 8, Rockford Township. He made this his home until 1878, when he removed from here to McPherson County, this State; but in 1887 returned to this county, and settled on the place where he now makes his home.

             During the great Civil War Mr. Mock, filled with patriotism, enlisted in Company D, 22nd Iowa Infantry, which was organized in the spring of that year. He participated with the gallant regiment of which he was a member in the campaign which ended in the siege and capture of the city of Vicksburg, and in one of the assaults upon that place was severely wounded. After his convalescence the regiment was transferred to the Army of the Shenandoah, and our subject took an active part in the battles at Winchester, Strasburg, and at Cedar Creek, where Sheridan staid the tide of rebel invasion, and scattered the forces of Gen. Jubal A. Early, after having made that ever memorable ride from "Winchester twenty miles away." After having seen considerable service, and having gained the reputation of having been a brave and gallant soldier, our subject was mustered out of the service, and received an honorable discharge at Davenport, Iowa, in the fall of 1865. Like a large proportion of the "boys in blue," Mr. Mock is a Republican in politics, and is quite active in supporting and advocating the principles of that party.

             The subject of whom we write was united in marriage, June 21, 1846, with Miss Ann Elizabeth Hitchcock, a native of Kentucky, where she was born in July, 1826, and daughter of Abel and Sarah (David) Hitchcock, natives of Kentucky. Her father and mother were both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church; and died, the former Oct. 11, 1830, and the latter Oct. 28, 1876. Of their family of four boys and three girls Mrs. Mock is the only one that is not numbered with the dead. By the union of our subject and his wife there have been born the following children: William, whose birth took place July 7, 1847, married Miss Fannie Whetstone; James A., who was born March 4, 1849, married Miss Martha J. Hilliard; Mary F., whose birth took place Feb. 22, 1851, and died the same day of the same month two years later; Abel H., who was born Oct. 2, 1853, married Miss Annie Miller; Sarah Jane, whose birth took place Oct. 25, 1855, was married, April 13, 1876, to James Goodacre; Mahala A., whose natal day was June 21, 1857, married B. F. Baker; and Kauzada, who was born April 18, 1861, died Sept. 2, 1864.

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