Worrel, Alfred

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

Alfred Worrel. One of the prosperous farmers and stockraisers of Zeandale Township, Riley County, Kansas, is Alfred Worrel, one of the best known residents of this section and a highly esteemed citizen. Mr. Worrel was born in Harrison County, Kentucky, September 24, 1859. His parents were William and Susan (Moore) Worrel, both natives of Kentucky.

William Worrel was born in Harrison County, September 12, 1825, and died at his home in Zeandale Township, Riley County, Kansas, July 2, 1901. He was the third eldest in a family of ten children born to his parents, Richard and Jane (Snodgrass) Worrel, both of whom were born and reared in Harrison County, Kentucky. They were married there and remained until 1840, when they moved to Hendricks County, Indiana, where the wife of Richard Worrel died in 1870. Richard Worrel subsequently came to Kansas and died at the home of his son William, in 1885.

William Worrel was fifteen years of age when he accompanied his parents to Indiana and remained there until he was twenty-one and then returned to Kentucky and resided there for the next thirty years. In March, 1870, on the death of his mother he returned to Indiana, immediately afterward coming to Kansas and taking up his abode in what is now Zeandale Township, Riley County. In due time, through prudence and industry, he became the owner of 1,700 acres of land. He devoted himself entirely to agricultural pursuits after coming to Kansas but back in Kentucky, for several years and including the Civil war period, he was the operator of a grist, flour and saw mill. Instead of abandoning his mill to enlist in the Union army, where his sympathies were, he continued to operate his mill in order to provide food for the families of soldiers taken by the war. He was drafted however, but provided a substitute and continued his milling business, proving himself a man of judgment and of benevolence. In Harrison County William Worrel and Susan Moore were united in marriage. She was born in Bracken County, Kentucky, November 2, 1835, and died at her home in Riley County, Kansas, July 6, 1886. Unto this marriage five children were born: Richard, Alfred, Sallie, Alice and Charles.

Alfred Worrel was in his eleventh year when his parents came to Zeandale Township, Riley County, and here he has made his home ever since, farming and stockraising being his business. He obtained but limited schooling but a man who has been able to cope successfully with agricultural problems, who has known how to safeguard the fertility of his land, to increase the yields of crops and the production of livestock, may be said to have lost little by not having early book knowledge and that lack in Mr. Worrel's case, has long since been overcome by reading and association with other intelligent men. He owns 480 acres of some of the best cultivated and most valuable land in his township. He served as a member of the township school board for twenty-four years and was township trustee for seven years, honesty and efficiency marking the performance of every public duty. He has resided on his present farm since 1885. Politically he is an independent democrat.

Mr. Worrel was married April 22, 1882, to Miss Ella Lee, who was born at Binghamton, New York, September 30, 1862. Her parents were John and Hannah (Pendergast) Lee. John Lee was born in Ireland in 1836 and died in Pottawatomie County, Kansas, in 1907. His parents were James and Catherine Lee. He came to America in 1848 and while living in New York City served an apprenticeship to the bridge-building trade, at which he was employed during the Civil war by the Union army. He came to Kansas in 1869 and settled in Riley County, removing subsequently to Pottawatomie County. In 1854 he was married to hannah, daughter of John and Margaret (Conway) Pendergast, of Irish lineage but Mrs. Pendergast was born in New York. Mr. and Mrs. Lee had ten children: James, Catherine, Margaret, Ella, John, Mary A., Rosanna, Charles, William and Thomas.

Mr. and Mrs. Worrel have six children: Charles, who is a resident of Kansas City, Missouri; Phoeba, who is Mrs. Charles Teel, of Zeandale Township; William J., who is a farmer in this township; Katy, who is the wife of Samuel Moon, of Dayton, Ohio; Lillian, who is the wife of G. E. McCormick, of Riley County; and Albert H., who is a farmer in Zeandale Township.

Source: A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans

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