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LEVI RISELING.
Good deeds culminate in a good name and a good name is a better inheritance than money. This thought is suggested
by a consideration of the career of the late Levi Riseling, who was known and honored as one of the prominent citizens
of Jasper county, Missouri. Mr. Riseling was born in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, December 18, 1837, a son of
Henry and Elizabeth (Sibbets) Riseling, and died January 12, 1900. Henry Riseling, born in Germany, November 16,
1800, came to America from Riseling-on-the-Rhine and married Elizabeth Sibbets, who was born in Somerset county,
Pennsylvania, in March, 1812.
Levi Riseling was reared on his father's farm and given a good education, and at the age of nineteen years he went
to De Soto, Jackson county, Illinois, and engaged in cabinet making. He was thus employed until August, 1862, when
he enlisted in Company K, Seventy third Regiment, Illinois Infantry, with which organization he saw three months'
active experience in the Civil war. He was honorably discharged at Louisville, Kentucky, and returning to his old
home he resumed the manufacture of furniture and soon developed a promising wholesale and retail business in that
line. In April, 1868, he located at Baxter Springs, Kansas, where as a member of the firm of Benoist & Riseling,
in which Joseph Benoist was his partner, he engaged in the furnature and house furnishing business. In 1873 the
firm removed its enterprise to Joplin, Missouri, and in 1875 Mr. Riseling purchased Mr. Benoist's interest therein.
Soon Mr. Riseling added a stock of hardware, the first in the town, and with that, his furniture and the undertaking
department of his enterprise, practically with no competition, he did a large and profitable business, which he
continued until 1888. He built four business blocks in the city, whch are now owned by his estate, and a large
number of dwellings. His homestead consists of forty acres of fine land, neatly laid out and ornamented, and a
commodious brick house, in which his widow resides. His estate is the owner also of a large acreage of excellent
mining and farming lands, located in different parts of Missouri and Kansas, principally in Jasper county, Missouri,
and Cherokee county, Kansas. He invested extensively in mining at Galena, Kansas, and organized the Galena Lead
& Zinc Company, whose mine turned out well and is still a good producer. He was a large stockholder also in
the Windsor Mining Company, of Galena, Kansas, which controls much valuable mineral land. He was conservative in
his ideas and methods and devoted himself strictly to business, refusing public office several times because of
the demands upon him of his own private affairs, and he was quiet and unostentatious to a remarkable degree, and
his integrity was of so high a quality that it was often said of him that his word was as good as his bond, a saying
trite, perhaps, but as applied to him literally true.
Some time after Mr. Riseling took up his residence at Baxter Springs, Kansas, he married Miss Mattie Hybarger,
daughter of David H. Hybarger, of Cherokee, county, Kansas. Mrs. Riseling's mother, who died in 189o, at the age
of seventy two years, was Miss Linverba Hinton, daughter of William Hinton, who removed from Kentucky to Indiana.
Levi and Mattie (Hybarger) Riseling had children as follows: Lizzie, who married W. F. Halyard, secretary and treasurer
of the Halyard Hardware Company of Joplin, Missouri; Will H., who was educated at St. Louis and is now a resident
of Joplin, married Miss Nellie Talbott, of Carthage. Missouri, and they have one child, Harold; Edward, who is
represented by a biographical sketch in this work; and Ina, who is a member of her mother's household.
Mr. Riseling was a thirty second degree Mason and a member of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic
Shrine. Mrs. Riseling is a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal church.
From:
The Biographical History of Jasper County, Missouri
By Hon. Malcolm G. McGregor
The Lewis Publishing Co.
Chiago 1901
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