Bio-Pring, JohnRichard

John Richard Pring
(1855-1943)

John Richard Pring was born on March 8, 1855 in Cedar Creek Twp., Allen County, IN, the son of John and Caroline (Minerd) Pring. He was a pioneer of Missouri and Oklahoma, as well as the holder of patented inventions and an influential local politician, among other talents, whose "long and colorful career" was chronicled in the Shawnee (OK) News Star newspaper in the 1940s.

John married Martha Ellen Perry (1863-1933). They had three children -- Clyde E. Pring, Perry Pring and Nina Seward.

In the photo seen at right, Martha (center) and John stand with his sister Martha (Pring) Hursh of Huntertown, IN.

At some point as a youngster or young man, John migrated from Indiana to Missouri, where he "was reared," said a newspaper. "He first settled in the Osage Nation near where Pawhuska still stands" when Oklahoma was still Indian Territory and not yet a state in the union.

In 1890, the Prings "settled in the Pottawatomie nation at the present site of Dale..., leased land from the Indians and put in cultivation a farm lying north of Dale," said the Shawnee News Star in 1943. John's sister Mary Jane "Jennie" McCollough also resided nearby in the Shawnee area. Said the News Star:

On this land he himself built a log house ... and still stands a quarter of a mile west of the town on the north side of the road. After the opening of the country for settlement, [he] moved to Tecumseh when that town was established and lived there for a number of years. When the railroad was built into Shawnee in 1895 he came here and had lived here since that time.

John was active in local politics. He attended the "first meeting and organization of the democratic party" of Pottawatomie County, and "helped select its present name in order to gain Indian votes for his party although he had at first favored calling it Vest for the late Senator Vest of Missouri." He also was an "ardent prohibitionist and militant in his fight against whiskey, and was constantly vigilant in watching the saloons to see that they complied with the law."

Over the years, John worked as a railroader, truant officer and farmer. Said the News Star, for "Following several years during which he worked in the shops of the C.R.I. and P. railway company, he was employed as truant officer for the Shawnee schools, a capacity in which he served for 25 years, resigning [in 1940] because of his age."

Reflective of his active mind, John received seven patents for his inventions over the years. He did not reap financial rewards of his creations, however, because other inventors had patented similar technologies a little sooner. The News Star said that one of John's inventions "was for the purpose of preventing nuts from becoming loose and working off from the bolt under continuous vibration thus avoiding rail spread and train wrecks. When he offered to sell it to the railroads, he discovered a device accomplishing the same purpose had already been purchased by the company some months previous."

Another of his inventions "was knee-action wheels for buggies permitting the buggies to drive one wheel over a rock or stump or drop into a hole with the body still retaining its equilibrium. He was the that his patent would have been worth a fortune earlier but the making of automobiles had already taken the place of buggy manufacture." Today these patents would be found in the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Martha Ellen died on April 25, 1933, at the age of 70. She is buried in the Resthaven Cemetery near Shawnee.

John outlived Martha Ellen by a decade. At some point he married his second wife, Mary Brown ( ? - ? ). It was not unusual for townspeople to see John riding his bicycle on the streets of Shawnee, even when he was in his 80s.

He passed away in Shawnee at age 88 on July 30, 1943, and was laid to rest with his first wife.

Son Clyde E. Pring (1881-1968) was a specialist in boiler-making and inspection, working in the areas of motive power and machinery. He saw an opportunity in Panama and on June 8, 1906 was appointed to the position of boilermaker in the construction of the Panama Canal. He arrived on June 15, 1906, and his first assignment was "motive power and machinery." Among other things, he was involved with the technical details of the monumental "Culebra Cut," today known as the "Gaillard Cut," a nine-mile long, 300-foot-wide channel that involved removal of many million cubic yards of earth.

In 1906, when President Theodore Roosevelt visited the Canal Zone, and was photographed at the controls of a steam shovel in the Cut, Clyde appears in the image, seen here in a stereoview published by Underwood & Underwood. The photograph later was published in the World Book Life History of the United States and in popular bestselling biographies about Theodore Roosevelt. (Click here to see a larger view of this historic image, our May 2005 "Photo of the Month.") He was a member and treasurer of the Cristobal Lodge 471 of the International Brotherhood of Boiler Makers, Iron Ship Builders and Helpers of America. In 1909, he signed a memorial notice printed in The Brotherhood Journal, lamenting the death of colleague E.J. Millett.

Clyde himself was a photography buff, and in December 1913, while in Les Cascadas, Canal Zone, placed an advertisement in American Photography, seeking to trade his Ica Cupido camera for a "postcard camera, with anastimgmat lens and double extension bellows."

To commemorate his role in the construction of the canal, Clyde was a member of the Society of the Chagres -- founded in 1911 and "made up of American white employees who have worked six years continuously on the canal," says the 1913 book The Panama Canal by Frederic Jennings Haskin. "In 1913 only about 400 out of the many thousands of Americans at one time or another employed in the construction of the Panama Canal were entitled to wear the insignia of the society." Clyde is named in the 1916-1917 directory of the society, with his job listed as boiler inspector, and his address at the time was Cristobal, Canal Zone.

During World War I, when Clyde registered for the military draft, their residence was Superior, Pinal County, AZ, where he worked as a boiler maker for the Silver Ring Mining Company. He was recorded to be of medium height and build, with grey eyes and brown hair, and a gunshot scar on his left forearm.

They resided in San Gabriel Twp., Los Angeles County, CA in 1920. In 1943, Clyde was back in the Panama Canal Zone. At some point, while visiting Fort San Lorenzo in Puerto Rico, he found an old iron cannonball which he apparently donated to the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles.

Left: a giant American steam shovel excavates the Culebra Cut, circa 1906. Right: the USS Arizona steams through the completed canal cut, in the years before she was sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor

Son Perry Pring ( ? - ? ) married Ethel L. (?). In 1920, they lived in Tyler, Smith County, TX, where Perry worked as a super for a compressor company.

As with his brother Clyde, Perry circa 1909 was initiated as a member of the International Brotherhood of Boiler Makers, Iron Ship Builders and Helpers of America, Helper's Division.

Later, by 1930, they had moved to Houston, Harris County, TX, where Perry was a clerk for a cotton company. Their children were Thyra Pring, Elizabeth J. Pring, Phillip Pring and Howard R. Pring.

Daughter Nina Pring ( ? - ? ) married Eric Seward. They resided in Shawnee circa 1943. Nothing further of their lives is known.

Donald L. Kear, a distant nephew of John Pring's, has an extensive collection of information on this family on his "Kear Family Site." He also has published his findings in The John Cears Kear Family (1984).