Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 422 - 423 

GEORGE W. SUMPTION, cement mason, contractor and builder of fine cement sidewalks, basement floors, curbstones, steps, foundations, bridge piers, abutments, cement cisterns, etc., is well known in Wichita where he resides. He is conducting a successful and well established business, which occupies an important place among the various industries of this thriving city.  He is a man of high standing in financial circles, as he conducts his business upon strictly honest principles, and is looked upon as a useful and an honorable citizen.

      Mr. Sumption comes of a fine old English family whose descendants have intermarried with good Pennsylvanian German stock.  Charles Sumption, his grandfather, was born in Chester County, Pa., in 1753, and went from the home of his birth in an early day to become a pioneer settler of Kentucky.  He acquired a good deal of property there and was the owner of slaves. His son George S., father of our subject, was born in Lexington, Ky., in 1791, and was reared to the life of a farmer.  Mr. Sumption was a man of marked ability and force of character, and in mental development was far ahead of his time, being endowed with more than ordinary intellectual gifts, and a keen sense of justice and of the rights due to his fellowmen; he was a life-long Universalist and a great reader of the Bible, which he read through several times, and was more familiar with its pages than many professed teachers of the Word.  When a young man Mr. Sumption moved from his native State to Ohio, as he was a natural Free-Soiler, abhorring the institution of slavery with all the force of his great mind, and would not sanction it by living in a slave State.  He bought a farm in Darke County, and continued to live there several years, and was in the fort at Greenville, Ohio, at the time of St. Clair's defeat.  He married Miss Elizabeth Rush, and to them were born ten children, namely: Abijah, Rebecca, Charles, America, Martha, Susannah, George W., Elisha, Adelia and George W. (2nd); of these but two remain: Abijah, the eldest and George W., the youngest.

      Mr. Sumption remained in Darke County, Ohio, until 1830, when he became a pioneer farmer of Indiana, settling in Green Township, St. Joe County, which was then a part of the Territory of Michigan, and known as the Ten-Mile Strip.  He made his home on a beautiful, fertile prairie, well surrounded with timber and oak openings, which was supplied with water from a large and beautiful pond.  He bought about 700 acres of land from the Government, and the prairie received its name from him.  He first built a log house to shelter his family, and in that humble abode his last child was born.  That log house stood for nearly twenty years, and the soldiers of the Black Hawk War camped near by it for rest.  Mr. Sumption was very much prospered in his undertakings, and was enabled to replace the log structure of the early years of their settlement with a fine, commodious brick house, which was the first brick manufactured in the county by Mr. Furron.  Mr. Sumption's death at the age of fifty-five was a sad blow to the interests of the county in which he had settled; his independent character, and strictly pure and blameless life commanded the respect of his fellow-citizens.

      George W. Sumption, of this sketch, was born Feb. 20, 1832, in the old log house on his father's pioneer farm; there the wolves would come for warmth in the cold winter nights and lie close around the old stick chimney, and the dogs had many a fierce encounter with them.  He early received from his honored parents instruction in those principles of truth, honesty and wisdom which were the leading characteristics of their own lives, and from his father he learned the practical business of a farmer, remaining in the old home until he was twenty-two. He married June 25, 1853, Miss Sarah J. Throckmorton, of Indiana.  To them were born three children-Albert, Martha and Bion, all of whom are living.  His faithful wife and devoted mother of their children died Dec 26, 1863.

      Mr. Sumption married for his second wife, Jan. 24, 1865, Miss Lizzie Peck, daughter of Miranda and Jane (Dillow) Peck.  Mr. Peck was born on the shores of Lake Champlain, in the year 1810, and remembered playing with cannon balls which has been discharged in the famous naval battle fought on the waters of the lake.  The Dillow family were Pennsylvania people, and when Mrs. Sumption's great-grandfather was a lad his entire family were killed by the Indians, except himself and a little sister.  He remained with them some time, but finally made his escape at the first opportunity.  His sister was captured when so young that she grew up with the habits of the Indians, and learned to regard her captors with affection, and though her brother endeavored to induce her to leave them he could never do so.  Mrs. Sumption's grandfather Peck was a soldier in the War of 1812.  Her great-grandfather on the paternal side was Capt. Averill, a hero of the Revolution.

      After his marriage in 1853, Mr. Sumption went to South Bend, Ind.; where he embarked in a mercantile business, which he conducted in that city until 1865.  Subsequently he traveled in the interests of a dry-goods house in New York for two years.  He then settled down in South Bend, and continued his residence there until 1885, and for seven years was connected with the Studebaker Bros., the great carriage manufacturers.  He first engaged in the cement business in South Bend.  In 1885 he came to Wichita and established himself in that business, and has conducted it with great and rapidly increasing success ever since.  He has acquired a high reputation for the superiority and durability of his work, and his celebrated cement sidewalks are of as fine and substantial character, and as enduring as the hardest stone, making a walk of fine appearance which is adapted to all places and conditions.  By his energetic and capable management of his business, and also by shrewd investments, Mr. Sumption has become quite wealthy, and is the owner of some valuable property here, among which is a fine residence, whose interior is replete in every appointment of luxury and comfort. 

     Mr. and Mrs. Sumption are people of good social standing, and the hospitalities of their beautiful home are often extended to numerous friends, who have been attracted to them by their geniality and kindness.  Of their union six children have been born, of whom they have had the sad misfortune to lose all but two-Orange D. and Charles Henry.  The names of those deceased are Mira, George, Bertie and Mamie.

      Mr. Sumption is identified with the Republican party in politics, and is a firm supporter of the measures of that party; socially he is an Odd Fellow.

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