David Franklin Herst
1845 - 1929

David Franklin Herst was the eldest son of Samuel and Maria Long Horst. He was born near Landisville in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, On May 11, 1845.

He worked on his parents' farm a a boy and joined the Union Army on November 14, 1862, at Lancaster City, Pennsylvania, as a private. He was 17 years of age at the time of his enlistment.

David Herst served with the 157th Pennsylvania Infantry, serving in Virginia throughout most of the Civil War. He was engaged in combat with the Confederate forces much of the time, and was honorably discharged as a sergeant on July 3, 1865.

David returned to Pennsylvania for nine months before leaving for Illinois. It was after his discharge that David changed the spelling of his surname from Horst to Herst.

Following his service in the Civil War, David F. Herst, not yet 21 years old, left his boyhood home in Pennsylvania for Snagamon County, Illinois. There he was married to Lucinda Jane McClelland at Williamsville on February 23, 1871.

The Hersts lived in the vicinity of Williamsville until 1878 when they moved with their young children by covered wagon to a farm south of Argonia in Sumner County, Kansas. Their first dwelling there was a dugout. A few years later they moved to a homestead at the southeast corner of Freeport, in Harper County, Kansas. They acquired a large acreage in the vicinity of Freeport, which David named the Wheatland Farm.

David Herst was a prominent in politics as a Republican and as a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was also a county commissioner of Harper County in the early 1900's.

David Herst died at Wichita, Kansas, on May 6, 1929, and is buried in the Argonia Cemetery in Sumner County.