The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-07-07
PRENTIS IS DEAD.
Stroke of Paralysis Has Fatal
Termination.

NOBLE Il. Prent1S d1ed at lne uOH1e VI
his daughter at La Harpe, Illinois, early
Friday morning. He did not rally from
the stroke of paralyis.
Mr.. Prentis first wife died at Atchi-
son and she lies buried in Oak Hill Gem
etery there. One of his daughters lives
at Newton, Kan, and the other at La
Harpe, Ill. In 1886 Mr.. Prentis married
Mrs. Carrie Campbell Anderson Of To-
peka, who survives him.
Mr.. Prentis was 81 vars old
Henry King, editor of the Globe-Dern-
ocrat, wired after Mr.. Prentis death:
1.-The death of Noble L. Prentis is a
profound grief to me. We were personal
friends, comrades in the civil war ana
associates for many years in newspaper
work. AS writer there was none more
felicitous and resourceful, and his con-
victiOnS and sentiments were always on
the side of the good, the true and the
salutary. He had in a remarkable de-
gree the faculty of making and holding
friends, and do not believe he had an
enemy in the world. His loss will have
the force of a personal bereavement to
thousands who knew and admired and
loved him. 1t may be truly said of him
that he never made a brow look dark,
nor caused tear but when he died"
The Kansas City Star says editorially
of Mr.. Prentis:
ITO speak of Noble Prentis as dead is,
for one who was closely associated with
h.
about his companionship a perennial de-
light that suggested no idea of sorrow
or decay He was, to all who knew him
well, such benefaction as travellers in
the desert find in the cooling spring and
the gratful shade. His mind to him a
kingdom was, but it's monarch was
princely in the distribution of it's intel
lectual treasures. To meet him day by
day and to hang upon his rare discourse
was to render the acquisition of knowl-
edge little less than a luxury.
with all of it's superb equipment, the
mind of Mr.. PrentiS was as simple as
that of a child. He possessed the sort
of a confiding and trusting nature
which inspires love and compels affec-
ton. He was wise, but not in the craft
of a selfish world. His heart and mind
were harmoniously attuned to all that
was gentle and sweet in human exist
ence. He loved the grass and the trees
and the flowers and the birds and all of
the precious gifts of God which cannot
be sophisticated by the guile of man.
His devotion to books amounted to
passion. He had a faculty for the as
similation of knowledge that was phe-
nomenaL The best thought of sages and
philosophers, the teaching of historians
the sentiment of bards and poets, the
romance of the masters of fiction were
absorbed by him with the ease, almost,
with which he breathed the air He
learned everything; he forgot nothing
His application of all of this knowledge
to the requirements of his literary la
value to the reading world well nigh
countless.
The firm affection of Mr.. Prentis for
his friends will be to them priceless
memory. There was scarcely a day that
some of them did not come from afar to
renew the bonds of earlier comradeship
and to call up again the recollections of
the past His strong prediction for
books did not diminish in the least his
interest in people His nature was
thoroughly sympa thetic. His rare hui
n ~ III
power to weep with those who weep and
to mourn with the stricken and discon-
ISOLATE.
with Mr. Prentfs the thought of
death was not a thing to put aside or
avoid. He was free to speak of it to
his close companions and friends. It IS
believed that for some time past he re-
garded his departure from this world as
an early possibility. This created no
gloom or terror in his mind. He was by
temperament profoundly religious
man. Much of his time was occupied in
the contemplation of spiritual problems.
He was not welded to the things that
perish. His strongest attachments were
for those things which outlast the fleet
ing breath and which are not material
in their character He trusted implicit
ly in the idea of ultimate and universal
justice and in the benevolence of an
overruling Providence.
cit was with the acquisitions of use
full and honorable life, that was a joy
to his fellows, and with the belief that
in the great future there will be a
compenSe for duty faithfully fulfilled
and an atonement for disappointment
and sorrow in this world that Noble
Prentis, Guide, Philosopher and Friend
to many who will shed tears upon his
grave, entered the tremendous mystery
of the Hereafter
TRIBUTE FOR AN OLD NEIGHBOR-
To the Editor of the State Journal:
The death of Noble L. Prentis will
be sincerely mourned, not only in Kan
sas, the scene of his principal life work,
but throughout the entire west and in
many remote localities towhich his fame
as writer has extended, and wherever
good fellowship is admired among
men, death is seldom kind" observed
Josh Billings in writing a tribute to
Artemus Ward. land now he has
moved where the wittiest of them all
stood" Noble Prentis was born in
Illinois, came to Kansas to live, and re-
turned home to die-the ordinary rec
ord of a human life, and in this in
stance just as he might have wished it
to be-
Although Kansas may rightfully
claim him as one of her most highly
gifted and we'll beloved sons, a share
of his glory is due to the state of Illi-
nois, where the foundation of his jour
nalistic career was really laid. The
writer knew him in Hancock county,
Illinois. after he had graduated from the
army into the printing office, and when
he was a type-setter and pressman as
we'll as an editor. He was known and
recognized as a versatile and accom-
plished writer long before his advent
in Kansas. 1t was through his reputa-
ton as the editor of a weekly paper at
Carthage, the county seat of Hancock
county, known as the Carthage Gazette,
that he was invited by Capt. Henry
King to become associated with the
Daily Record. in Topeka At that time,
as at the present day, Topeka had two
daily newspapers-the Record and Com
monwealth. Capt. King and Noble
Prentis were the principal editors of
the Record, as Ward Burlingame and
]. G. Wood were of the Commonwealth.
Capt. King and Ward Burlingame were
we'll matched as editorial writer's, and
crossed pens frequently. In those days