James M. Arthur
Constitutional Delegate. Born: 1817, Indiana. Married: Elizabeth Day, 1840. Died: November 9, 1870, Kansas.
An Indiana-born (circa 1817), free-state farmer, James Arthur married about 1840 to Elizabeth Day, who had been born in September 1818 in Kentucky. In 1854 the family left its Clay County, Indiana, farm for Kansas Territory, where the Arthur's youngest son "Benton" was born in 1855. Arthur was a delegate to the Topeka Constitutional Convention and a member of the Topeka (Free-State) legislature, as well as Centerville's first postmaster (established, March 15, 1855) and chair of the township's board of supervisors (elected, July 26, 1858). The Arthur family continued to make its primary living from their Linn County farm during the 1860s, with Elizabeth Arthur and her sons, Charles, James, and Alexander B. (Benton), sharing the labor after the death on November 9, 1870, of their husband and father. At Wyandotte, Arthur served on the legislative department, electors and elections, and the apportionment committees, but he was relatively silent during the convention debates.
Entry: Arthur, James M.
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: June 2011
Date Modified: January 2013
The author of this article is solely responsible for its content.
