Samuel T. Wiggins

SAMUEL T. WIGGINS, of Selden, has had many experiences out of the ordinary. He arrived on the Western Kansas frontier when a boy about sixteen, and, as a mechanic, helped in the construction of the Rock Island Railroad through Colorado. Besides the railroad service he followed the trade of carpenter, studied pharmacy and became a druggist and was in that business for several years and has filled public offices, but is now giving his chief time to his duties as cashier of the Citizens State Bank at Selden.

Mr. Wiggins was born in Page County, Iowa, December 2, 1869. He is of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and the Wigginses of his line located in Pennsylvania in colonial days. His grandfather, Samuel Wiggins, was born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, in 1812, spent his life there as a farmer and died in 1894. He married a Miss Armstrong, also a native of Pennsylvania, where she spent her life.

James W. Wiggins, father of Samuel T., was also a Kansas pioneer. He was born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, in 1842. He grew up and married in his native county and in 1867 moved to Page County, Iowa. He was a devout United Presbyterian, which church has ever been strong in Page County, Iowa. In April, 1885, he came out to Western Kansas and homesteaded a quarter section, and also took a timber claim near Lenora in Graham, County. He did not live to see the completion of his plans for a Kansas home, since he died in 1886, after a residence in the state of little more than a year. He was a republican. During the Civil war he enlisted in the One Hundred and Thirty-Fifth Pennsylvania Infantry, but was stricken with typhoid fever and was subsequently incapacitated for service and honorably discharged. He married Catherine A. McCollum in Indiana County, where she was born in 1836. Mrs. Wiggins died at Sterling, Kansas, in 1914, having survived her husband nearly thirty years. The oldest of their three children is David L., a druggist at Hoxie, Kansas. The second is Samuel T., and the third is Cassie F., wife of E. K. Porter, a photographer at Sterling, Kansas.

Samuel T. Wiggins received all his education in the public schools of Page County, Iowa. He was sixteen years of age when he came to Kansas, and he gave his time to the hard work of the homestead for about two years after his father's death. In the spring of 1888 he went to work for the Rock Island Railway Company, being employed as a carpenter in the building of depots along the line from Jennings, Kansas, to Colorado Springs, where he soon located permanently and followed the carpenter trade there three years. In 1892 he was attracted to Chicago by the offer of generous wages to carpenters in the construction of the World's Fair buildings, and he worked there for about a year. In 1893, returning to Kansas, he engaged in the drug business at Hoxie, Kansas. He learned drugs by practical experience and in 1896 passed a successful examination and was registered as a pharmacist. He continued in the drug business at Hoxie until 1899, when he was attacked by a bone disease which resulted in the loss of his left leg. In 1899 he was elected Register of Deeds of Sheridan County and by re-election in 1901 filled that office two terms.

Mr. Wiggins has been a banker since 1905, in which year he organized the Citizens State Bank of Selden. He has been its cashier from the time the bank opened its doors. This is one of the solid banks in Northwestern Kansas, has a capital of $25,000 and a surplus of $12,500. The other officers are: T. M. Walker, of Kansas City, Missouri, president; W. J. Boyles, vice president; and D. L. Wiggins, a brother of Samuel T., also vice president. Mr. Wiggins is more than a banker, and owns 800 acres of good farming land in Sheridan County. He is a member of the Kansas and American Bankers associations, has served on the City Council and is now acting mayor of Selden. He is a republican voter and is affiliated with Hoxie Camp No. 790, Modern Woodmen of America. He built his modern home in Selden in 1915.

Mr. Wiggins married at Kansas City, Missouri, December 18, 1907, Miss Lillian E. Lahman, daughter of A. S. and Sarah (Riddlesberger) Lahman, the former now deceased and the latter spending her time among her children. Mr. Lahman was a farmer near Quinter in Gove County, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Wiggins have two children: Lola Katherine, born November 24, 1908, and Theodora A., born February 23, 1911.

Pages 2126-2127.