James Massa Iliff

REV. JAMES M. ILIFF, Pastor of the M. E. Church, was born February 1, 1833. He received a highschool education, and at the age of eighteen, began business as a mechanic, working at his trade fiveyears. During the next two years he was in the mercantile business in Iowa. He came to Kansas in 1857, and located in Linn County, Kansas here he took up 160 acres of land, improving and cultivating it, which he still owns. He has a fine fruit grain and stock farm.

He enlisted in the army in 1862 as a private, and was discharged in 1865, as First Lieutenant and Acting Quartermaster.

Member of Company K, 12th Kansas Volunteer Infantry

Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant while at Westport, Missouri and reassigned to the Division of the Mississippi.

Source: Linn County, Kansas A History, by William Ansel Mitchell, 1928, La Cygne Journal

On returning after the war, he engaged in different pursuits until 1868, at which time he entered the ministry, and, in 1874, the itineracy. He was for three years stationed at Uniontown, Kan., and for three years more at Mound City, Kansas and is now on the third year as Pastor at Baxter Springs, Kansas. He was home superintendent of missionary work in the Indian Nation. He has built two churches, one in Linn County and one in Bourbon County, and has gathered about 700 members into the church during his nine years pastorate.

The Rev. Mr. Iliff was married to Miss Cassandria Dennis, of Perrysville, Ind., December 1, 1853. They had four children -Daniel A., Ezra M., James N and Benjamin G.

Dr. James Nelson Iliff, father of Cassandra Iliff King, wife of Thomas F. King, Muskogee, Oklahoma

Children: James, Thomas and Joseph (my father)

Joseph E. King and Margaret Nichols King

Children: Thomas (me), David, William, James