My Genealogy Hound

RICHARD H. LAWTON, real estate, loan and insurance agent, was born in Marietta, Ohio, February 24, 1849. He received a scientific education, graduating from Wabash University, Illinois, in 1865, and the following year came to Crawford County, Kan. He was employed on a government survey for one year, and was then engaged in stock-raising for a short time. In 1868, he went to Texas, from whence he made an overland trip to Mexico and returned to Girard, Kan., in 1870, when he assisted in laying out and organizing a town. He then engaged in trading in the Indian Nation one year, when he came back to Girard, and went to Southwestern Missouri, where he took a contract on the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad, and built six and half miles of the Missouri & Western Railroad, west from Columbus. In 1874, he was appointed emigrant agent of the Santa Fe Railroad, at Kansas City, Mo., leaving that position in the fall of the same year. He then collected a lot of specimens of native grain, fruits, etc., and carried them to St. Louis and other points East, for exhibition, and was awarded a $100 gold medal at each place. He was then appointed by the railroad to examine and appraise the land of Cherokee and Crawford Counties in 1874-75, and was afterward in the service of the land department of the Fort Scott Railroad for four years at Girard. In 1878, he was stationed at Columbus for the purpose of disposing of the railroad land, and in the same year added to his business, real estate, loan and insurance. In 1882, he assisted in organizing the Southeastern Kansas Real Estate and Loan Company of which he was made Manager. He was married to Miss Nellie Taylor, of Ohio, in 1879. They have two children— Arthur and Dessie.