Wyandotte County Biographies
"Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas--Historical and Biographical"
Goodspeed Publishing Co., Chicago, 1890
Joseph S. Paradis, meat-market, Armourdale, Kas. Among the
necessities of trade a reliable meat-market forms an important institution in all places. In this line we have a representative establishment,
which combines all the essentials of a first-class house in this line, and
is conducted by Mr. Joseph S. Paradis. This business was established
by him in October, 1886, and during the four years he has steadily
maintained the high reputation of his market, and has annually increased the volume of his trade. Mr. Paradis was born in Montreal,
Canada, on June 12, 1868, and his parents, Samuel and Margaret
(Bedore) Paradis, were also born in Canada, and were of French descent. They came to the United States in 1870, located in Iowa and
moved from there to Kansas in 1888. They are now residents of
Armourdale, Kas. The father is a carpenter by trade, and has followed this the principal part of his life. Joseph S. Paradis, the second in birth of ten living children, was bnt two years of age on leaving
Canada and was reared to the butcher's business. He was fairly
educated in the common schools, and after coming to Wyandotte
County, Kas., was in business for eighteen months. He then came to
Armourdale, and has since carried on the butcher's business at this
place. He has a large trade and is doing well. On April 30, 1890,
his nuptials with Miss Carrie Mack, a native of Wyandotte County,
Kas., and the daughter of George Mack, were celebrated. Mr.
Paradis is a wide-awake, stirring young man, and is identified with a
great many public enterprises. He is a member of the A. O. U. W.,
and Select Knights.
Corvine Patterson (colored) is a man who enjoys the distinction of
knowing nearly every person in Wyandotte County, Kas., and has
done many acts of kindness to nearly every second person therein. He is
popular with all classes, and throughout a public career of many
years no taint of suspicion nor well-founded breath of scandal has attached itself to his name, which is his especial pride to keep pure in
the sight of God and man. Honorable and upright in all his dealings, frank and unhesitating in expressing his views, possessing a
profound contempt for hypocrisy and deceit, whatever his faults may
be, his bitterest enemies, if such he has, must attribute them to errors
of the head and not of the heart. In social life he is courteous and
affable, magnanimous to his foes, and of a kind and forgiving disposition, he attracts the regard of all who approach him, and has innumerable friends among both political parties. In any worthy history of
the county his name should be given a prominent place, for he has
had many difficulties to surmount, chief among which was race prejudice, but his life points its own moral, and has few parallels in the
history of "men of mark " among the colored race. He was born at
Roanoke, Howard County, Mo., October 31, 1848, and is now in his
forty second year. Like so many of the prosperous business men of
the present day, he was reared on a farm, but at the early age of fifteen years he showed that he possessed a mind and will of his own,
and with the independence which has ever characterized bis efforts, he
determined to seek a fresh field for his labors, and accordingly went
to Glasgow, where he enlisted in Company G, Sixty-fifth United
States Colored Infantry, and was mustered in at St. Louis. He immediately went South with his regiment and afterward distinguished
himself at the battles of Port Hudson, Milliken's Bend, Baton Rouge,
New Orleans and others, and at the close of the war was mustered
out of the service at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis. He then returned
to his former home in Missouri, but as the state of affairs there was
not congenial to his liberty-loving spirit, he determined to emigrate
to "Free Kansas." This decision was not acted upon, however, until
he had taken an academic course in Lincoln Institute, which is one of
the leading institutions for colored people in the country, and thus
fitted he started out to fight the battle of life for himself. He soon
made his way to Wyandotte, Kas. (now Kansas City), which place he
reached in June, 1868, and almost immediately secured employment
with the Union Pacific Railway Company, with which he remained for
five years. He next opened a grocery establishment, but being appointed one of a committee to care for the colored emigrants who were
flocking to the country from the South in great numbers, he disposed
of his stock of goods, and as a tribute to the faithfulness which he
manifested toward his race, he was elected to the position of constable,
which office, coupled with that of deputy sheriff, he held for several
years, and in addition has filled the positions of deputy city marshal
for six years, sanitary sargeant, two years, and is the commander of
Sumner Post No. 10, G. A. R., being also secretary of the S. of P.
and one of the leading members of the society. He is one of the men
who took the initiative steps which resulted in the erection of its two-story brick hall at the corner of Sixth and Kansas Avenue, which is
valued at $6,000. In 1872 he was elected a member of the Board of
Education, and discharged his duties very creditably for two terms,
and has ever since taken a conspicuous part in the educational affairs
of the county. He has been successful in the accumulation of worldly
goods, and his property is now valued at $25,000, all of which he has
accumulated within the space of a few years. In politics he is a dyed
in the-wool stalwart Republican, never scratches his tickets or bolts a
nominee. But very few of the colored men of Kansas have taken so
conspicuous a part in the local or State politics as he. He has been a
delegate to all of the county conventions, many of the State Conventions, and is always present at all the political contests of the county,
and more than once the party has owed its success to his intelligence
and sagacious management. He has been secretary of the Republican
Central Committee, and in 1889 was appointed to the responsible position of street commissioner of Kansas City, which was a fitting recognition of his ability, integrity and business capacity, not to mention the
great service he has long rendered his party in this county. He has
proved the right man in the right place, and it is safe to say that his
administration of affairs has redounded to his credit. On July 3,
1873, he was united in marriage to Miss Henrietta Scott, of Kansas
City, and to their union two bright and intelligent children have been
born: Robert Elliott and Ida May, the former being an attendant of
the high school of Kansas City, and making rapid progress in his
studies, and the latter nearing the point of graduation in the Lincoln
School. Mr. Patterson is devoted to his family, friends, party, city,
county and State, and may well be said to be one of those rare gentlemen and "prince of men," who are seldom duplicated in any community.
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