Alexander Stewart.

Picture publish date 1904.
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ALEXANDER STEWART, attorney, came to Kansas in the spring of 1857; lived one year in Franklin, Douglas County, and moved April 1, 1858, to Iola, Allen County, where he practiced law and taught the first school ever taught in Iola, and was the first man to move on the town site. Following the great drouth of 1860, Mr. Bostwick, of Iola, went East and solicited a large amount of aid, which was shipped in the spring of 1861, as far as Sedalia, Mo., then the terminus of the railroad, and was there held by the rebels. Mr. Stewart, with nine ox teams and drivers, went to Sedalia, procured the goods, and under the pretense of taking them to the rebels at Balls Mills, near the Kansas and Missouri State line, drove it through to Iola.

He engaged in the mercantile business at Iola, for two years, and when Humboldt was burned by the guerrillas and Iola was threatened, he disposed of his goods and moved to Leroy, Coffey County, in the fall of 1863, where he devoted his entire attention to the practice of law. He was married, in Jay County, Ind., February 14, 1846, to Miss Rebecca Patterson, a native of Kentucky, and a daughter of George and Mary Patterson. She died in February, 1864, and in January, 1865, he married S. J. Veleto, daughter of John Veleto. They have three daughters--Cora, seventeen years old; Nellie, twelve; and Eva, nine.

In March, 1878, he moved to Yates Center, where he is now engaged in the practice of his profession. He is now serving his second term as Justice of the Peace. During the war he recruited the Iola Battalion for the Ninth Kansas Regiment Volunteers, and did border service during a three months' enlistment. Was then commissioned Recruiting Officer, and organized an artillery company for the same regiment and was commissioned Captain; served four months, and when Hunter superseded James H. Lane, his company dropped out of the service, having enlisted under the condition that it would serve under no other commander than Gen. Lane.

He was born in Marietta, Ohio, August 4, 1825. He is the son of Alexander and Irena Stewart. His mother died when he was in the cradle, and his father died soon after. He was raised in Seneca County, Ohio, until twelve years of age, then went to Fort Wayne, Allen County, Ind. Although he had never attended a day of school after he was twelve years of age, he began teaching in the village of Monmouth, Ind., when seventeen years old.

He next taught seven terms in succession in one district; studied law during the time, and the next year was admitted at Portland. In the fall of 1855, he moved to Dixon, Lee County, Ill., and taught during the winters of 1855 and 1856, and in the spring of 1857, moved to Kansas. Mr. Stewart has been a Mason for twenty-eight years, and helped to organize the first lodge in the Neosho Valley, at Humboldt. He has ten living children, five married and five single. His youngest son, Wellington, is twenty-two years of age, and is foreman in the Yates Center News office.