My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE W. TROUT, a wide-awake, enterprising and prosperous farmer of Everett township, Woodson County, was born in Lasalle County, Illinois, January 27, 1850, his parents being John and Abbie Susan (Angel) Trout. The father was a native of Ohio and in the spring of 1876 he came to Kansas, purchasing land south of Neosho Falls, where he has since carried on farming.

Our subject is the eldest of three brothers. He came to Kansas with his father when twenty-six years of age and soon afterward rented the old Major Snow farm, which he operated for five years. He had previously purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad Company on the prairie, but as he did not have the money to improve the farm he had to cultivate rented land until he had acquired capital sufficient to enable him to begin the development of his own property. At the end of five years he took up his abode upon his own place, three miles south and two miles west of Neosho Falls, on the east line of Everett township, and has since developed a fine farm, on which he has erected a nice home, good barns and outbuildings and has planted a nice orchard and a grove, which surrounds his residence and protects it from the hot rays of the summer sun. He carries on general farming and stock raising and all that he has is the outcome of his close application to business, his industry, capable management and honorable dealings.

After he had been in Kansas for a year Mr. Trout returned to Illinois and was there united in marriage to Miss Eliza Skinner, a native of Douglas County, that state, the wedding being celebrated March 26, 1877. Her father, James Skinner, was killed by lightning in Anderson County, Kas., in 1868, but her mother is still living in La Salle County, Illinois. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Trout have been born ten children: Alice, the wife of Walter Dersham, who resides in this locality; Harvey, Clara, Wiley, John, Ray, Glenn, Edith and Urvin. It is rather remarkable, and a fact for congratulation, that in so large a family no deaths have occurred. With the exception of the eldest daughter all the children are still with their parents. In politics Mr. Trout is a Republican and by his ballot supports the men and measures of the party, but has had neither time nor inclination to hold office himself, his attention being fully occupied with his business affairs, which have resulted prosperously so that he is now one of the substantial farmers of his adopted county.