Reno County Biographies
"The History of Reno County, Vol. 2," Sheridan Ploughe, 1917
WILLIAM M. CONNELLY.
William M. Connelly, one of the best-known lumber men in this section
of the state, and a resident of Hutchinson, this county, since the spring of
1905, is a native of the Keystone state, having been born near the town
of Marietta, in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, on May 29, 1864, son of
John D. and Sarah E. (Miller) Connelly, both natives of that same county,
the former of whom, born in 1844, died in 1907, and the latter, born in
1844, died on March 14, 1915.
John D. Connelly was the eldest son of Francis David and Barbara
(Diffenbach) Connelly, the former a native of Massachusetts and the latter,
of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, who were the parents of three children,
George, who died at the age of six; Sarah, who died at the age of eighteen,
and John D. Francis D. Connelly became a contractor of public works.
He built the waterworks plant at Boston and constructed a part of the
Maryland Central railroad. While engaged in railroad construction in
Pennsylvania he met and married Barbara Diffenbach. Later he and a partner
secured the contract for the construction of a railroad in Indiana, but by
reason of some legislative quibble the bonds that had been voted to
provide for the construction of the road were declared invalid and in
consequence Mr. Connelly was rendered practically bankrupt. He then was made
superintendent at the Pennsylvania canal, which position he held until the
beginning of the Lincoln administration, when the President appointed him
to a good post in the United States treasury department, which he held until
Cleveland's second administration.
For some time after his marriage to Sarah E. Miller, John D.
Connelly was employed in a bank at Strasburg, in Lancaster county, nearby the
home farm of the Millers, on which he made his home and on which the
subject of this biographical sketch was born. In 1867 he was made the
cashier of the Bair & Schenck bank at Lancaster and moved to that town
and was there engaged in banking many years, his first banking connection
having been followed by appointment to the position of cashier in the
Farmers' National Bank at Lancaster, which position he held until his retirement
from business in 1900, his death occurring in that city seven years later.
He and his wife were members of the Presbyterian church and for years
were active in good works. They were the parents of four children, namely:
William M., the subject of this sketch; Frank D., superintendent of
maintenance of the Conastoga Traction Company, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania;
George W., who is living retired in the same city, and Mrs. Martha A.
Graybill, a widow, also of Lancaster.
William M. Connelly was reared at Marietta, Pennsylvania, receiving
his elementary education partly in the public schools of that city, but mostly
in a "pay school," supplementing the same by a course in the Episcopal
Institute at that place, later taking a comprehensive course in a business
college. As a young man he engaged in the lumber business with his uncle,
Joseph Miller, at Marietta, Pennsylvania, a business which his grandfather
had established there in 1843, and was there three years, making his home
with his Grandmother Miller. Previous to going to Marietta, William M.
Connelly had left school, in 1883, and taken a trip to Kansas, going to
Wichita with a man who had been reared in the family, but in the fall of
that year he returned to Pennsylvania and entered the employ of his uncle,
as noted above. In 1886 he returned to Kansas and entered the employ of
the Rock Island Lumber and Coal Company, with which extensive concern
he has been connected ever since. At the beginning of this employment he
was given the position of office manager for a local branch and from time
to time was transferred to the management of various offices of the company
in this state until, in April, 1909, he was given charge of the company's
office at Hutchinson and has been located there ever since, serving as
general manager of the company's extensive interests in this section. In
1907, under his direction, the company erected a new covered lumber yard
and office at 215-21 South Main street and has a very well-equipped
establishment.
On July 3. 1888, William M. Connelly was united in marriage to
Adeline M. Buntz, who was born at Des Moines, Iowa, daughter of J. E. and
Adeline Buntz, the former of whom, now deceased, was a millwright, and
to this union three children have been born, William D., born in 1889, now
in the jewelry business at Liberal, Kansas, who married Bernice Donner
and has one child, a daughter, Adeline; John E., 1892, living in Hutchinson,
who married Vina Taylor and has one child, a son, Ted, and George F., who
is at home, a student in the high school. The Connellys have a very pleasant
home at 539 A avenue, East, which has recently been remodeled in a very
attractive manner.
Mr. Connelly is a thirty-second-degree Mason, a member of the
consistory at Wichita and is also a member of Midian Temple, Ancient Arabic
Order, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and takes a warm interest in Masonic
affairs.
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