Biography of A. P. Forsyth

A. P. Forsyth was born on May 24, 1830, in New Richmond, Ohio, of Scotch descent. After moving to Indiana at age five, he received his education in local schools and briefly at Asbury University. He married Louisa S. Hinkle in 1851 and had six children. Forsyth served as a traveling preacher and as a first lieutenant in the Civil War. He became politically active in Illinois and later Kansas, serving in Congress and as regent at the Kansas State Agricultural College until his retirement in 1900.

A. P. FORSYTH—The subject of this sketch was born in New Richmond, Clermont county, Ohio, May 24, 1830. He is of Scotch descent. His parents moved to Indiana when he was five years old and settled twenty miles northeast of Vincennes, where he remained most of the time until he reached manhood.

His education was received in the common schools of that time, supplemented with two terms at Asbury University (now DePauw).

He was married to Miss Louisa S. Hinkle, November 27, 1851. They had born to them six children, four of whom are living, three sons and one daughter.

He was admitted into the Indiana conference of the M. E. church as a travelling preacher in 1853 and sustained that relation for eight years.

He enlisted in the service of his country in July, 1862, and, upon the organization of the regiment, was commissioned by Gen. O. P. Morton, first lieutenant of Company “I,” Ninety-seventh regiment, Indiana Volunteers, and was discharged in August, 1864, by reason of disability incurred in the service.

He then moved to Illinois, in the spring of 1865, and settled on a farm thirteen miles west from Paris, the county seat of Edgar county. He took quite an active part in the Grange movement; was elected and served three terms of two years each as master of the State Grange of Illinois; was elected to the Forty-sixth Congress from the then Fifteenth district, as a Greenbacker or National Republican, the district having 5,000 Democratic majority. During his term in Congress, he acted and voted with the Republican party upon all national questions.

In 1881, he moved to Kansas and settled on a farm in Liberty township, six miles southeast of Independence. He took quite an active part in local politics and in the state campaign of 1888 and 1890, when Lyman U. Humphrey was the candidate for governor, and spoke in a number of counties in different parts of the state; also took an active part in the campaign of 1892 when A. W. Smith was a candidate for governor. Since then he has taken no active part in politics.

He served three terms of three years each as regent of the Kansas State Agricultural College, being appointed thereto by Gov. John A. Martin and Lyman U. Humphrey, successively. He continued farming until 1900, when he rented his farm and moved to Independence, Kansas, where he now resides.