nent in the organization of the Iowa Stock Breeders' Association, of which he was first president, and was personally successful in rearing improved live stock. In 1879 he was elected professor of agriculture, and afterward president of the State Industrial College at Ames, and for six years was a valued citizen of Story County. In 1885 he removed to Lake Charles, La., and became one of the local managers of the North American Land and Timber Company, a syndicate owning large tracts of land along the Gulf coast. In 1.888 he became president of the Southern Real Estate Loan and Guarantee Company, and manager of the American interests of the Louisiana and Southern States Real Estate and Mortgage Company, an association which includes some of the leading capitalists of England. In the family are two daughters and three sons: Minnie (wife of A. M. Mayo, of Lake Charles, La.), Helen (aged thirteen), Prof. Herman Knapp (treasurer of the Iowa Agricultural College), Bradford (now a student in Vanderbilt University, Tenn.), and Seaman Arthur (a student of the Iowa Agricultural College). It is readily seen that Dr. Knapp is a man of affairs, of fine executive and administrative ability, and an exceptional type of the self-cultured and growthy American. By his energy and genius he has broadly laid the foundations for a personal fortune, while never omitting to do his full duty to each locality that from time to time has claimed him as a citizen.
William Vance Kyle. The Emerald Isle has bequeathed to America some of her best citizens, and it is to her that Story County is indebted for one of its representative agriculturists, William Kyle. He was born in the county of Londonderry, North Ireland, on January 11, 1824, of Scotch parentage, his father's occupation being that of a fine linen draper and a husbandman. He was the second in a family of nine children—six sons and three daughters—whose names are: Mary, William, James, John, Andrew, Nancy, Joseph, Margaret Jane and Thomas J. Mary is now Mrs. William Galloway, and her home is in White Water,Wis. ; (her husband was born in Ireland, but is now a retired farmer of the above mentioned place) ; James is married and carries on agricultural pursuits at Lima Center, Rock County, Wis. ; John is also married and farms in Jefferson County, Wis.; Andrew was an employe of the Chicago & North-Western Railroad for a period of over twenty-five years, but departed this life in 1887, leaving a widow who still survives; Nancy is the widow of James Boyd, who was a farmer by occupation, and her home is in Denver, Colo.; Joseph, a farmer by occupation, wedded Miss Ella Graham, and they make their home in Rock County, Wis.; Margaret Jane married Duncan McArthur, a Scotchman, and their home is in Rock County, Wis., where the husband is successfully engaged in tilling the soil; and Thomas J. married Miss Mary Boyd, and is now engaged in merchandising in Walworth County, Wis. William Vance Kyle obtained his early education at the schools in the North of Ireland, and tells how, he carried his coppers to pay his tuition, and brought the peat for his share of fuel. He was reared as a farmer's boy, but in early life wove fine linen. In 1845 he sailed from Belfast, Ireland, and after a stormy and tempestuous voyage of five weeks, landed at New York City. He then took the New York & Erie Canal to Buffalo, N. Y., and there took passage in the "Constitution," for Milwaukee, Wis., and after his arrival in that State, embarked in agricultural pursuits. In January, 1850, he started for California, going as far as New Orleans. Upon arriving in that city he learned that a ticket through to San Francisco,