Biographical Sketches
Alfred Gregory
Of the firm of Beardsley, Gregory & Flannelly, attorneys at law, Kansas City, is a native of the Peninsular state, born in the classic city of Ann Arbor, August 17, 1858. He is a son of John M. Gregory, who was born in Sand Lake, New York. John M. Gregory went to Michigan in the early settlement of that state, and was for a number of years the state superintendent of public instruction. Later he moved to Illinois and became president of the University of Illinois, which important position he efficiently filled for a number of years. During President Arthur's administration he was a civil service commissioner. At the present time he resides in Washington, District of Columbia, and is president of the civic federation of that city. To him and his estimable wife seven children were born, five of who are now living.
Alfred Gregory, the subject of this brief review, was educated in the University of Illinois at Champaign, and was graduated in 1878. He then secured an appointment as private secretary to the commissioners sent by the State of Illinois to the world's fair in Paris, and spent five months in France, assisting in the preparation of the commissioner's report upon the industries of that country.
He returned to Illinois and went into a wholesale house as salesman, where he remained over a year. The life of a merchant was distasteful to him, and he began the study of the law; this, however, was interrupted by a trip to New Mexico and Arizona, which, as chance would have it, lengthened out into a two-years stay. His collegiate course had been full of mathematics, and one or two vacations had been spent on the lake survey and with railroad surveyors, so that he was invited to go out to New Mexico first as assistant to the bridge engineer of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, an old college friend, and soon afterward �inherited� from this friend his position as engineer. For two happy and vigorous years, under canvas by night and in the saddle by day, the young man enjoyed the exciting life of the frontier.
His law studies were resumed in 1881, when he took a course in Columbia Law School in New York City. Immediately after this he went to Atlanta, Georgia, where he was admitted to the bar. He became associated there with Benj. H. Hill, Jr., and remained in Atlanta till January, 1887, when he removed again to his native west, and made his home in Kansas City. Upon his arrival here he entered into a partnership with Henry M. Beardsley, with whom his friendship dated back to boyhood and college days. In his profession he has already won a commendable degree of success, and is one of the busy men and safe counselors of the Kansas City bar. He finds time to do his share of public work when called upon, and is a director of the Art Association and of the Street Boys' Club, and a member of the First Congregational church.
He was married to Josephine Karnes in 1892, and they have one child, a boy named Joseph Van Clief.
This page was last updated August 2, 2006.