My Genealogy Hound

BYRON ROBERTS.
Byron Roberts, one of Topeka’s most prominent business men, president of the Aetna Building & Loan Association, was born August 22, 1832, at New Comerstown, Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and is a son of Lewis and Katherine (Neighbor) Roberts. The father of Mr. Roberts was born in Pennsylvania and subsequently became a resident of Ohio where his active life was spent. The mother was born in New Jersey and came from an old family established in America in 1700. Of their three sons our subject is the only survivor. The father died when his son was but four years old, but the mother survived to the unusual age of 102 years, dying in 1896.

Mr. Roberts was educated in the public schools of his native place and later attended Madison College at Antrim, Ohio. For some years following he was interested in a mercantile line, first as a clerk and later as proprietor. His settlement in Kansas was the result of a visit he made in 1870, he was so favorably impressed that he settled at Topeka in 1871, becoming cashier of the old Topeka Bank, with which institution he remained associated until the fall of 1886. He was then elected county treasurer and served two terms, until 1890, in which year he was appointed receiver for the Hudson & Southern Railroad Company, serving in this capacity for two and a half years.

The Aetna Building & Loan Association, of which Mr. Roberts has been president since its founding, was organized in October, 1891, and began to transact business on January 1, 1892. The present officers of the company are: Byron Roberts, president; F. M. Kimball, secretary. The board of directors include these capitalists: Byron Roberts, A. B. Quinton, H. M. Steele, J. F. Carter and F. M. Kimball.

In 1858 Mr. Roberts was married at New Comerstown, Ohio, to Gertrude Dent, who was born in Guernsey County, Ohio, and they had five children, namely: Lewis Dent, who married a Miss Norton; George S., deceased; Carrie, who married J. R. Heinkle, one of the proprietors of the Broadway Hotel at Los Angeles, California; Mary, who married Clifford Heisted, an attorney at Kansas City; and Gertrude, who is the wife of George Rust, of Salt Lake City. Mr. Roberts includes seven grandchildren in his family circle, which is a particularly united one.

In political sentiment, Mr. Roberts has always been a Republican and cast his first presidential vote for Gen. John C. Fremont. He has always been something of a leader in party affairs, although he has seldom consented to accept political honors. He has watched the city almost from its infancy and has been prominently identified with many of its leading enterprises and public-spirited movements. He can recall when the site of his present handsome residence at No. 315 West 10th avenue was almost prairie land. In all that goes to make up good citizenship, Mr. Roberts is prominent and ranks also with the leading capitalists of the city.