Clay Co., KS AHGP-Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington, Clay and Riley Counties-Andrew Sleeper
Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington, Clay and Riley Counties Chapman Brothers, Chicago, 1890
ANDREW J. SLEEPER, Station Agent of
the Union Pacific Railroad, at Clay Center,
has been located at that point in his
present capacity since August, 1878.
He was born in Philadelphia, Pa., Aug. 10, 1844,
but a year later was taken by his parents to Cincinnati,
where they lived till he was a boy of seven.
They then returned to the City of Brotherly Love,
where Andrew J. completed a common-school education
and attained to manhood.
Andrew J. after assisting his father for some
years in the umbrella business, became Assistant
Librarian in the Mercantile Library at Philadelphia.
Later he was a clerk and operator for the
Philadelphia & Southern Steamship Company. He
removed to the city of St. Louis, Mo., in the fall
of 1869 and became an employee of the old Kansas
Pacific Railway, being in the Auditor's office two
years. The general offices were then removed to
Kansas City and Mr. Sleeper removed with them
in 1871. Andrew J. remained there until 1878,
then came to Clay County, this State, and was at
once given charge of the position which he still
holds. He is the Vice President and also a Director
of the Phoenix Loan and Building Association
and possesses a knowledge of general business methods
which have made him a desirable acquisition
to the community. He meddles very little with
politics otherwise than to cast his vote with the
Republican party.
Mr. Sleeper was married Jan. 10, 1876, to Miss
Jennie S. Smith, of Kansas City. Mrs. Sleeper was
born in Charleston, S. C, January, 1852, and when
a child of two years was taken by her parents to
Kansas City, where she lived until attaining to womanhood.
Her father, F. B. Smith, was one of the
pioneer settlers of that place, removing in 1876 to
Galveston, Tex., where he died a few years later.
Mr. and Mrs. Sleeper are the parents of three children
living�Charles Luther, Henry Clay and
Adelaide Judith. Mr. Sleeper belongs to Coronado
Commandery, K. T., Bethany Chapter and Clay
Lodge, A. F. & A. M. His estimable wife is a
member in good standing of the Baptist Church.
Israel Sleeper, the father of our subject, was
born and reared in Philadelphia, Pa., and was there
married to Miss Judith Ashton, who bore him three
children. With the exception of a few years spent
in Cincinnati, Ohio, as a member of the firm of
Sleeper Bros,, wholesale umbrella dealers, he spent
his entire life in his native city. The paternal
grandfather of our subject instituted the first umbrella
factory in the United States. Israel Sleeper
departed this life in 1876, at the age of sixty-five
years. The mother survived her husband until
1885, dying at the age of seventy-three.