Andrew Jackson Hoisington

HOISINGTON

Posted By: Judy Wight Branson (email)
Date: 9/2/2004 at 13:33:32

“History of Madison County Iowa and Its People”
Herman A. Mueller, Supervising Editor
Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1915

The members of the Historical Society who were present at the annual meeting about two years ago have not forgotten the able and interesting paper read at that time by A. J. Hoisington. At the request of the president it becomes my agreeable duty to prepare a short sketch of his useful and active life, which, after more than one year of suffering and decline, ended February 25, 1907, at the home of his sister, Mrs. S. B. Johnson, of Union township.

Mr. Hoisington was born near Quincy, Adams county, Illinois, July 12, 1848. He came with his parents to Madison county, Iowa, in 1859, after residing in Greene county some years previously. His youth and early manhood were spent on and about the old Hoisington farm, where the aged parents still reside. During three months of each winter he attended district school, the last term being at the Farris schoolhouse, Edward Sterman being the teacher. One term of three months he spent at the Winterset Academy, presided over by J. S. McCaughan, and this was all the schooling he had. Having worked on the farm and attended school during his boyhood, in early manhood he combined farming with school teaching—farming during the summer and teaching during the winter. He was unusually successful as a teacher and there were many boys and girls, now grown to maturity, who were his pupils, and from whom the writer has heard many incidents related illustrating his force of character, habits of thought and mental characteristics.

As suggested by his name, he came into the world as an Andrew Jackson democrat, but like many thousand other Andrew Jackson democrats, the elder Mr. Hoisington became a republican during the early history of the republican party, and the young man may be said to have imbibed these principles in his youth. When he came to his manhood he was active and influential in political affairs, and we know of at least one man who has held an important official position in this county who owed his nomination and election to the personal efforts of Andy Hoisington.

When the Granger movement was organized in Madison county, young Hoisington entered heartily into the enterprise and was nominated for county auditor on the Granger ticket. He was defeated by but a few votes, notwithstanding the fact that he made no effort to be elected, and the other fact that his opponent was that prince of good fellows and adroit politician, C. C., Goodale. We have heard it said that notwithstanding the very cordial relations existing between him and his father, the elder Hoisington refused to vote for him, giving as a reason that Andy was on the wrong ticket. This may be true or not, it is immaterial anyhow. About this time he was doing newspaper work, both in Winterset and De's Moines, and in the mail brought to the office where he was working was some advertising matter describing the glories of Kansas and especially that part where the Arkansas river makes a big bend in the west central part of the state. He was so impressed by this that he immediately resolved to go west and went. This move was the beginning of a long period of prosperity and almost phenomenal success. The beginning of his career in Kansas was just where he left off in Iowa; the climax was property worth half a million dollars and political influence second to none in the state; the decline came with bad times in Kansas and the final result was a failure of health and comparative poverty.

On going to Kansas, he first engaged in school teaching near the town of Great Bend, and soon after he established a newspaper, which he called the Register, in honor of the Des Moines Register, a paper for which he always had a feeling akin to reverence. The first issue of the Great Bend Register was on May 9, 1874. He struggled along as the early pioneers of that country alone can realize but prosperity soon came and advancement was rapid and uninterrupted. The Great Bend Register soon became the most influential paper in Western Kansas and it was through this medium that he launched his political and business career. In a few years he became a leading politician of the state; he was idealized and fawned upon by political friends; feared and avoided by his political enemies. The writer well remembers the Kansas delegation as it appeared in Chicago in 1884, when Blaine was nominated for president. The members of This deligation, and through his courtesy many Madison county visitors got tickets of admission into the convention. When Senator Ingalls was at the height of his popularity he depended upon no one more than on his loyal and enthusiastic ally at Great Bend, and during his tours through the state was a guest at Mr. Hoisington's home. He might have had most any appointment which lay within the scope of that influential distributor of administrative patronage, but he asked for none except early in his career, when he was appointed receiver of the land office. He preferred rather to give his whole time and energy to personal, political and business enterprises. He organized and was president of a string of banks extending over the west half of Kansas from Hoisington on the north, to Coolidge on the south. He was interested in a dozen or more newspapers throughout the same territory. He participated in some of the most vigorous and hotly contested county seat fights throughout southwestern Kansas and usually conducted the contests so as to come out on the winning side. A recent article appearing in the Great Bend Register records the fact that none in that section wielded the political and business influence that A. J. Hoisington did at one time. He was uniformly and eminently successful in all the enterprises upon which he embarked. Such was Andrew Hoisington at the zenith of his power and influence, and it was at this time that there was a town built on the newly opened Missouri Pacific Railway and named in his honor, Hoisington.

Financial disaster, bank failures, industrial and financial depression, due to crop failure and collapsed business adventures, together with bad crops and grasshoppers, swept down to ruin thousands of well planned and hopeful appearing enterprises. Mr. Hoisington was one of the victims; he was helpless; he could do nothing but stand by and see his fortune dwindle away by the thousands each day. In the midst of his reverses his faithful wife, whom he had married in this county the same year he had left here, and who had always been an inspiration to him, died. She was a sister of George and Sidney Smith, of Jefferson township. Her remains were brought back to this county and interred in the beautiful rural cemetery near her old home in Jefferson township, whither were borne the remains of the subject of this sketch a few weeks ago.

Mr. Hoisington went from Garden City, Kansas, to Kansas City, Missouri, a few years ago, where he published some authorities on banking, but this business venture does not seem to have been successful. He soon disposed of this and returned to Great Bend, Kansas, where he engaged in newspaper and other literary work until 1905, when he was appointed assistant secretary of the state senate of Kansas. Upon the adjournment of the legislature he returned lo Madison county, Iowa, to visit his relatives and write a history of the county. The present editor of the Great Bend Register, in a recent issue says: "There was something in the character of A. J. Hoisington of great worth and that something is not found as often as it should be; he was loyal. No person could ever accuse him of being a traitor to any cause; in all his political, business and personal associations he never betrayed a man. The writer prized his friendship because it was of the truest kind; any confidence placed in him was safe; he would not betray it."

As before suggested, Mr. Hoisington contemplated the publication of the history of Madison county, and he spent the greater part of the year 1905 in examining records, correspondence, and compilation of facts from these sources of information. He was able to draw largely from the fund of information acquired by personal experience in the county during the most receptive period of his life, it being from the time he was eleven years old till he was twenty-six. He threw his whole soul and energy into the work, the completion of which was the great ambition of his life. It was probably the strenuous application and close confinement of this work which caused a gradual and unremitting failure of both mind and body. He was not afflicted with any great bodily pain, neither did he have any violent mental and physical paroxysms of suffering. He gradually faded out. His heroic efforts to put into perfect form facts relating to the early history of Madison county during the first fifty years of its occupancy are greatly appreciated by the members of this society and in this he was ably and patiently assisted by our president, H. A. Mueller. The voluminous manuscript which was nearly completed at the time he was stricken down is in possession of either Mr. Mueller or his heirs at law; possibly it is their joint ownership, and in either case it is the sincere wish of the writer, who takes it upon himself to speak for the public, to have it published and thereby leave to the coming generations a befitting memorial to A. J. Hoisington and a valuable asset to the Historical Society of Madison county.

Madison Biographies maintained by Linda Griffith Smith.
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