My Genealogy Hound

JOHN S. DEAN.
John S. Dean, United States district attorney, is considered one of the leading members of his profession in Kansas, and is a member of the well-known law firm of Kellar & Dean, of Topeka. Mr. Dean was born in Seneca County, Ohio, in November, 1861, and is a son of William O. and Hattie J.
(Curtis) Dean.

The ancestral line of Mr. Dean reaches far back to the early settlement of New England, even to the days of the Plymouth colony, a member of which was William Spooner, who was an ancestor of Polly Spooner, our subject’s grandmother. On the paternal side, his great-grandfather, Aaron Dean, was a soldier in both the Revolutionary War and that of 1812. His father, William O. Dean, served in the Civil War and now resides on his farm in Ohio, where the beloved mother died in 1898. The six children of the family all survive.

John S. Dean completed his high school course at Oberlin, Ohio, in 1879 and then spent two years in Oberlin College, and then took up the study of the law in the office of the late Judge James Pillar, and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court at Columbus, Ohio, in 1883. He then came to Peabody, Kansas, and engaged in the practice of the law, subsequently being elected county attorney of Marion County. Later he formed a law partnership with L. F. Kellar, who is a brother-in-law of Governor Edward W. Hoch, and in 1901 was appointed United States district attorney.

In 1883 Mr. Dean was married to Jennie Laird, who was born in Ohio, and is a daughter of D. B. Laird, formerly of Pennsylvania. They have a family of three sons and three daughters.

Politically, Mr. Dean has always been active in the Republican party and his efficiency has been frequently recognized. He had the pleasure of being a delegate to the St. Louis convention in 1896, which nominated the late President McKinley. He is a member of the Bar Association of the State of Kansas, and there are few phases of the science of the law with which he is not thoroughly acquainted and competent to pass upon. His home continues to be at Marion, although the duties of his present office require his presence at Topeka. He is a member of various fraternal organizations at Marion and of the Elks at Topeka.