Cloud County Cemetery Book, Vol. 4, page 179
John Henry Brierley
John Henry Brierley was born in Lockport, N.Y. USA June 7th, 1849. He died in Kansas City.
In his early youth he moved with his parents to Dayton, Ohio, where he grew up. At the age of twenty he decided to secure a college education, and to take up some branch of professional life. He entered Dennison University, Granville, Ohio, in the fall of 1869, and was graduated from the liberal arts department of that school in June of 1875. Three years later he received the degree of M.D. from Starling Medical College, of Columbus, Ohio.
In the intervals of his course in the medical college, he read medicine in the office of Dr. J.C.Reeve, of Dayton, Ohio, a man of national reputation and a physician in the highest and best sense of the word. Under the influence of this scholarly gentleman, Dr. Brierley acquired those high ideals of medical ethics which for over thirty years he exemplified by his work in this community.
He came to Glasco in December of 1879 and entered upon the practice of his profession, and from that day until the time when disease laid its heavy hand upon him, he was the untiring friend, counselor and helper of all within his reach who were in trouble or distress. No night too dark, no way too long for Dr. Brierley to answer to the call of duty.
His epitaph has been expressed these many years in the spontaneous gratitude of the people for whom he gave the last full measure of his services. His life among us could not be better summed up than in this brier sentence: He spared not himself.
Dr. Brierley was the pioneer physician of Glasco, and his services among our citizens and of the Solomon Valley who have been in need of medical assistance have been of incalculable value. Being possessed of much more than average ability, he obtained a reputation placing him in the front rank in the medical fraternity. He was a profound student. He studied his cases. No serious case ever came under his car without leaving him a better trained and informed physician. He was profoundly popular, both professionally and socially, and was one of those individuals found in every community who wield an extended influence among their fellow men, politically and otherwise. During the many years Doctor Brierley dispensed medicine to the sick and afflicted of this valley, there was no abridgement or contraction in the exercise of his profession. When prospecting for a field where an energetic young man might gain and hold a footing, he selected Glasco as the point of vantage.
But his path was not always strewn with roses, not by any means. Kansas was wild, Kansans were poor, and perhaps one of the hardest things for him to overcome was the desire of his mother that he return to the east. But he resisted the opportunities, finally wrote his people that it was just as near heaven here in Kansas as it was in Ohio, and he remained with us.
The esteem, love and respect of his countless friends, gained by the tireless prosecution of his chosen profession of his chosen profession, was not the only honor which came to Dr. Brierley. He was appointed to and served six years on the pension board, and was elected from this county to the State Legislature for four years' service. At one time he was vice president of the Young Men's Republican Club, was made president of the Could County Medical Society, and in 1902 was elected president of the State Medical Society.
Funeral services were held at the residence at three o'clock Saturday afternoon, and although not until that morning did it become known just what would be done, a tardiness occasioned by waiting to hear from distant relatives, a concourse of people fathered under the shade trees to take part in the last ceremonies. The day was beautiful, a slight breeze with shifting clouds, and there, in the hush of profound silence, Rev. F. R. Harding touched briefly but deeply upon the life of the deceased. The casket was opened that those who wished might see his face once more, then they bore him away to the Silent City. Were proof needed that Doctor Brierley had anchored fast in the hearts of the community, it was furnished in the slow melting away of the gathering, the hesitating step, the last lingering look, which bespoke only too well the fact that each individual felt he had bidden the final early farewell to a personal friend.
Thanks to Find A Grave contributor Cheryl White for this information.