Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 423 - 424 

JAMES WESLEY RICE, proprietor of a good farm pleasantly located on section 11, Delano Township, ranks among the self-made men of that section, who from a modest beginning, worked his way up until his property is now scheduled at about $20,000.  He has had very little time to spend in idleness, and when not busy with his hands has added to his store of knowledge and thus kept himself well posted upon current events.  As a man of sound judgment and intelligence, he is well worthy of representation in a work of this kind.

      The early home of our subject was in Jackson County, Ohio, where his birth took place at the modest homestead of his parents near the town of Jackson, on the 24th of July, 1849.  His father, Levi Rice, a native of the same county, was born Dec. 9, 1823.  His paternal grandfather, James Rice, a native of Ireland, emigrated with his parents in early life to the United States, and was three times married.  By his first wife he had no children.  By his second there were born eight children, and by the third, three children.  Levi, the father of our subject, was the fourth child of the second marriage.  The family located in Jackson County, Ohio, during its early settlement, where Grandfather Rice carried on farming assisted by his sons.  Levi spent his boyhood and youth at the old homestead, and was married in September, 1848, to Miss Lucy Ann Shephard.  He continued in Jackson County for a period of eighteen years thereafter, then farmed three years in Pickaway County, from there removed to Ross County, where he continued seven years and thence to Fayette County, where he now lives.

      The parental household of our subject included seven children, of whom James Wesley is the eldest.  The next child, Annie, is the wife of Samuel Plymire, a lumber dealer of Sabine, Ohio; Minerva and Joseph are residents of Fayette County; Effie is the wife of Philip Plymire, a brother of Samuel before mentioned; Jennie married John Spencer, who is now deceased; Alpha is farming near the old homestead in Fayette County. 

     Mr. Rice, of our sketch, continued a member of his father's household until his marriage, which occurred in Fayette County on the 31st of August, 1876.  The maiden of his choice, Miss Emma Borum, was born in Highland County, Ohio, Sept. 22, 1852, and is the third child in the family of John and Mary (Terrell) Borum, whose family included two sons and six daughters, namely: Samuel, Alice, Emma, Etta, Annie, Eva, Ella and Clinton.  Of these seven are living and residents mostly of Ohio and Kansas.  

     After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Rice took up their residence on a farm in Clinton County, which our subject had rented, and equipped with the $600 which his father had given him as his share of what he had earned since reaching his majority, carried on agriculture in his native State until his removal west of the Mississippi.  In the meantime he had become the owner of forty acres of land which he had purchased of his father in Ohio, but upon which he had never lived.  This he disposed of at the time of coming West in 1884.  He located first in Cherry Vale, this State, upon property which he still owns.  In July of that year he also purchased his present farm, to which he removed in August following, and where he has since lived.  In addition to general agriculture, he takes considerable pride in his live stock, the proceeds of which yield him a handsome income annually.  The four children of the little household were born as follow: Orus, Oct. 2, 1877; Clinton, April 7, 1882; Austin, Oct. 17, 1884, and Cora, Feb. 28, 1887. 

     Mr. Rice, politically, votes the straight Republican ticket, and with his estimable wife is a member in good standing of the Methodist Episcopal Church, at Wichita.  The Rice family have been devoted Methodists for two or three generations.  They were deeply imbued with patriotic sentiments, and Grandfather Rice served in the War of 1812.  An uncle of our subject, James Finley Rice, was a bugler in the Union army during the late Rebellion.

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