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one of three pages Death of David R. P. Roddy From the Tiller and Toiler, Larned, Kansas The
County's Oldest Citizen, and D. R. P. Roddy, 90 years old, the oldest resident of Pawnee county, and a pioneer of the county, died Sunday afternoon at 4 o'clock at the Larned hospital. Several weeks ago Mr. Roddy suffered an attack of pneumonia and was taken to the hospital for treatment. Mr. Roddy was able to survive the attack of pneumonia, but it left him in such a weakened condition at his advanced age that recovery was impossible. Mr. Roddy was active until a few months ago even transacting business affairs during last summer. Mr. Roddy had a long and versatile career in Kansas, as a farmer, railroad contractor and builder and land agent. He associated in the construction of some of the railway lines by which the middle west is linked with the Rocky mountain and Pacific coast country. As a Kansas homesteader he arrived in Pawnee county in March 1878. He had come with his wife and six children from Shade Gap, Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania. Some advertising matter which he had read on Western Kansas was one factor in making this move, and another influence was the intention of other Pennsylvanians to come west. Mr. Roddy made his first home on the west half of the northwest quarter of section 7, township 22, range 18, Pleasant Ridge township. This was raw land, containing as its chief improvement a frame house of two rooms and a sod barn. For it he paid $8 an acre. The first year he planted a few acres of to sod corn and harvested a fair crop. He continued farming the same ground and after three years rented additional land. Mr. Roddy had a ready resource at his hand when hard times came to the settlers of Western Kansas. |