Landergin

LANDERGIN BROTHERS . Patrick H. and John Landergin, cattlemen, were the sons of Irish immigrants who immigrated to the United States as a result of the potato famine in the 1840s. They established a dairy farm near Oxford, New York, where Patrick was born on March 3, 1854, and John on March 26, 1856. The boys attended school and worked on their father's farm. Later, Pat taught school while John completed his education. In 1870 the brothers went west to Indian Territory, where they invested their savings in a herd of longhorn cattle that they grazed along the Red River. The next year the Landergins drove 1,040 cattle over the Chisholm Trail and settled near Coffeyville, Kansas. In 1879 they purchased three small ranches totaling 2,600 acres near Eureka, in Greenwood County, where they made a fortune by fattening cattle and shipping them to markets in England. In 1886 Pat Landergin returned briefly to Oxford, where he married Mary Louisa Corbin on November 28. The newlyweds then joined John in Eureka, where their two daughters were later born. As a result of their financial success, the Landergin brothers became directors in the Eureka Bank and were involved in the Kansas National Livestock Association, of which Pat served as a director. In addition, Pat was on the board of regents of Fairmount College (now Wichita State University), and was a regent of Eureka College. In 1903 he was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives on the Democratic ticket.