Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 1102 - 1103

 ZACHARY H. STEVENS, a farmer and stock-raiser of Ohio Township, residing upon section 30, is also connected with the firm of Hammers Brothers, leading hardware merchants, of Clearwater, Kan. His birth took place Dec. 10, 1848, in Suffolk County, N. Y., at the home of his parents, Halsey and Elizabeth H. Stevens. He is descended from the purest Puritan stock, his maternal ancestor, Peter Hallack, a member of that glorious band of heroic men from England, who settled on the storm-swept and rock-bound coast of New England, being the first English settler in the State of New York. His grandfather upon his mother's side was an honored soldier in the Continental army during the Revolutionary War, and bravely fought for the independence of his country. The Stevens family were the original patentees of that tract of land now known as Southampton Township, Suffolk Co., N. Y., and were called in the language of the day, patroons or proprietors.

             The subject of our sketch received his education, which was but limited, in the district schools of his native county, in his youth, and was reared to manhood in that portion of the Empire State. Having arrived at an age when young men are apt to seek a mate to share their burdens and divide their joys, he was united in marriage, Oct. 10, 1872, with Mary A. Hammers, a native of Woodford County, Ill., who was born Jan. 15, 1853. The bride was a daughter of Samuel and Melissa Hammers, natives of Pennsylvania and Ohio respectively, who came to Kansas in 1884, and are now residing in Ohio Township, this county. With his wife and family Mr. Stevens came to Kansas in the spring of 1882, from Woodford County, Ill„ where he had been living. In 1886 he came to Sedgwick County, and located on the farm on section 30, in Ohio Township, where he at present lives, and where he owns a noble farm of 160 acres of most excellent land. His place is finely improved, the buildings being of a very neat and substantial character, and everything about it manifests thrift and prosperity. He is also the possessor of large landed interests in Greenwood and Cornelia Counties, this State. 

            Mr. Stevens, politically, affiliates with the Republican party, finding in that organization the nearest approach to his own ideas upon the principles that should govern in our popular form of government. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, while his wife draws spiritual consolation from the worship as conducted by the Baptist denomination. For some fourteen winters Mr. Stevens has been engaged in keeping school, but during the balance of his time gives his attention to his agricultural pursuits. Stock-raising is the main part of his business, he wisely preferring business to the raising of grain, as being less laborious and of greater pecuniary benefit. He is enterprising and public-spirited, and but few men have more friends and less enemies, and his standing in society and in the community where he lives is deservedly high, and he ranks with the wealthy and prosperous farmers of Sedgwick County.

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