Clay Co., KS AHGP-Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington, Clay and Riley Counties-Hector McKenzie
Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington, Clay and Riley Counties Chapman Brothers, Chicago, 1890
HECTOR McKENZIE. The main points in the career of this gentleman who is numbered among the well-to-do farmers of Garfield Township, are as follows: He was born in Zora Township, Oxford County, Canada, in 1844 and lived there until a youth of seventeen years. He then began sailing on the lakes Huron and Erie, but two seasons of this kind of life sufficed him and returning to terra finna he entered the employ of the Great Western Railroad Company with whom he remained five years.
We next find him in the Muskoka district where he stayed one year and then seeking the Great West with his father, William McKenzie, (a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this volume) at Atchison, Kan., purchased a team and started overland for Clay County. In Garfield Township our subject homesteaded 160 acres and bought five acres of land where he now lives.
There was not a shrub or a tree upon the place which Mr. McKenzie selected as his future abode, only long prairie grass over which wild animals roamed undisturbed by the presence of the white man. Having used up his small capital in the acquirement of this property. Mr. McKenzie now went into Missouri and worked on a railroad about six months. He then returned to his land but later went on a buffalo hunt to Phillips County and secured a wagon load of meat for winter use. Upon returning he put up a small house, 12x10 feet in dimensions, borrowing the money of his father to pay for the lumber. In this he settled for the winter but the following spring repaired to Junction City and worked in order to obtain money with which to buy a team.
This end accomplished, Mr. McKenzie set about the improvement of his laud, to which he has since given his undivided attention. He has an orchard of 700 apple trees and good buildings, including a substantial frame residence and the usual outbuildings required by the enterprising agriculturist. He has been somewhat prominent in local affairs, serving as Constable two terms and gives his unqualified support to the Union Labor party.