RUDOLPH NIEHENKE. Besides the honor of being one of the oldest settlers of Riley County, the subject of this notice is one of s best educated citizens and a man of marked influence, especially among his countrymen. He was designed for the priesthood in his younger years, and was given the training and education necessary thereto. Upon coming to America, however, he changed his plans, and has now for many years been engaged in agricultural pursuits, in which he has been uniformly prosperous.

Mr. Niehenke was born in the Kingdom of Hanover, March 8, 1825, and there spent his childhood and youth, emigrating to America in 1847, when twenty-two years old. Being of an adventurous disposition, he soon enlisted in the United States regular army and served until 1849, in the meantime participating in the Mexican War. Upon being mustered out he located in the city of St. Louis, where he sojourned about three years and until 1852. We next find him in Vandalia, Ill., where he engaged as clerk in a dry-goods store and remained until 1855.

We now find our subject back again in St. Louis, whence, in 1857, he came to Kansas Territory, and preempted land in Center Township, Riley County. He occupied this until 1859, then purchased 225 acres on section 34, Center Township, where he has since made his home. Here he has effected all the improvements naturally suggested to the ambitions and enterprising man. He is an independent voter, and has held several of the minor offices. The offshoot of a nationality believing in compulsory education, he is naturally interested in the establishment and maintenance of schools, and believes that the young should be given every advantage which will make of them worthy and intelligent members of society.

While a resident of St. Louis. Mr. Niehenke was married, in I860, to Miss Charlotte Boettcher. After thirteen years of wedded life Mrs. Niehenke departed hence, in 1873. Of her union with our subject there were born eleven children, seven of whom are living—Louis, Ralph, John. Kate, Emma, Annie and Minnie. In 1873 Mr. Niehenke contracted a second marriage with Miss Barbara Welter. Of this union there has been no issue. Louis and Katherine (Averbeck) Niehenke, the parents of our subject, were natives of Germany and spent their entire lives there. Their family consisted of seven children, of whom Rudolph was the fifth in order of birth, and is the only member of the family who emigrated to America. Although approaching the sixty-fifth year of his age, Mr. Niehenke is remarkably bright and active, and can accomplish more than many n younger man. He comes of a substantial race, and of a nationality which has contributed largely to the growth and development of the Great West.