Gross, Samuel S., M. D.

The following data is extracted from A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans.

Samuel S. Gross, M. D. With an experience as a physician and surgeon covering over twenty years, and with increasing eapabilities for exact and thorough service, Doctor Gross had been located for the past ten years at Denton, Kansas, where he controls a large practice and had also identified himself with the business interests of the locality.

His paternal ancestors several generations back came out of Germany and were early settlers in the State of Tennessee. Doctor Gross' grandfather was a native of Tennessee and went as a pioneer to that pietureeque district of Northwest Missouri now known as Excelsior Springs in Clay County. There he prcempted a tract of land, and continued to farm it until his death.

Doctor Gross himself is a native of Excelsior Springs, Missouri, where he was born October 2, 1874. His father, A. W. Gross, who was born at the present site of Excelsior Springs in 1850, had long been prominent in that city both in business affairs and in public life. He had extensive interests as a farmer and- stock raiser, and is also engaged in the banking business at Lawson, Missouri. For one term he represented Clay County in the State Legislature, having been elected as a democrat, and had served as county judge and for eight years was presiding judge of the Clay County Court. He is a deacon in the Christian Church and for thirty ycars was superintendent of its Sunday school. A. W. Gross married Lucy Laffoon, who was born in Clay County, Missouri, in 1851 and died at Exceleior Springs in 1906. Doetor Gross was the oldest of their children. His sister Mattie is still at home with her parents. His brother Jesse was in business with his father and while on a visit to Needles, Arizona, was accidentally killed, being then only thirty years of age.

Doctor Gross attended rural schools in Clay County, Missouri, and in 1891 graduated from the Excelsior Springs High School. He had already definitely formulated his career, and spent two years in the University Medical College of Kansas City and completed his course in the Kentucky School of Medicine at Louisville, where he was graduated M. D. in 1894. Doctor Gross had spared no pains to perfect himself in every possible way for a better and more thorough work, and in 1907 he completed a course and received another degree as Doctor of Medicine from Ensworth Medical College at St. Joseph, and during 1916 spent a number of weeks in Chicago attending clinics and hospital lectures.

After graduating from the Medical School at Louisville Doctor Gross began practice at Tescott, Kansas, where he was located five years, and after that was at Towanda in Butler County until 1907. In that year he located at Denton, and had since had a growing general practice in medicine and surgery. His offices are in the Denton State Bank Building.

Doctor Gross is a director and stockholder of the Denton Mutual Telephone Company and owned the building in which its exchange is located. He is a member of the Doniphan County and the State Medical societies, the American Medical Association, and is affliated with Towanda Lodge of Masons and Denton Camp of the Modern Woodmen of America.

James Miller is a member of a family which had many intimate and interesting connections with pioneer things and modern business activities in and around Denton, Doniphan County. Mr. Miller was a farmer for many years, and is now living retired at Denton, giving his chief time and attention to his duties as president of the Denton Bank.

His birth occurred in Huron County, Ohio, October 14, 1841. His father, William Miller, was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1824. Soon after his marriage he came to America, locating in Huron County, Ohio, and later removing to Marion County in that state. He followed farming and died at Marion County in 1897. After becoming an American citizen he voted as a republican. The maiden name of his wife was Ann Hall. She was born in Lincolnshire and died in Marion County, Ohio, at the age of seventy-one. Their children were: Eliza, who died unmarried in Marion County at the age of thirty-one; Alice died in Indiana, the wife of Charles Bayless, a farmer, also deceased; David died in Marion County, Ohio, where he was a farmer, and the fourth and youngest of the family is Mr. James Miller.

James Miller obtained his early education in the rural schools of Marion Township, Ohio. He lived on his father's home farm until eighteen and after that worked out for other farmers at monthly wages. When he was twenty-three years old, in 1864, he enlisted to serve in the Union army in the 174th Ohio Infantry. He was with that command until the close of hostilities; and his chief service was in the states of North Carolina, Maryland, Tennessee and Kentucky. After his honorable discharge from the army he returned to Marion County and continued working by the month until he removed to Kansas in 1872. Mr. Miller arrived in Doniphan County with meager capital, but with a proved experience. for hard work and a determined purpose to gain a permanent foothold as a farmer. He took up farming at once, and continued steadily until he retired in 1910 to Denton. Mr. Miller still owned his farm of 160 well-improved acres three miles soughwest of Denton and also had a residence on Main Street. Since coming to take up his residence at Denton he had assumed the presidency of the Denton Bank. Mr. Miller is a republican, is affiliated with the Masonie fraternity and is an honored member of Denton Post No. 191 of the Grand Army of the Republie.

In 1879, seven years after he came to Doniphan County, Mr. Miller married Miss Louisa Denton. To their marriage were born five children: Amanda, who died at the age of seven years; Alice, who died at seventeen mouths; John, who died when five months old; George, who died at the age of nineteen months; and Anna Eliza, who is now a member of the freshman class in Baldwin University at Baldwin, Kansas.

Mrs. Miller was born in Morrow County, Ohio, May 25, 1855, and was educated in the public schools both of her native county and of Doniphan County, Kansas. She is an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Mrs. Miller's father, George Denton, and his brothers were pioneers of Doniphan County and they laid out and platted the town which is named in their honor. George Denton was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1829, and thus his family originated in the same part of Great Britain as Mr. Miller's family. George Denton was the son of William Denton, who was born in Lincolnshire in 1804 and died there in 1865, having spent his life as a farmer. He married Mary Welborn, who was born in Lincolnshire in 1810 and died in Doniphan County, Kansas, in 1873. All told they had fourteen children, and three are still living: James, a farmer in Morrow County, Ohio; Solomon, a farmer at Denton, Kansas; and Jacob, who is also a farmer and lives at Denton.

Source: A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans

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