History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas, Part 68

Author: Duncan, L. Wallace (Lew Wallace), b. 1861. cn; Scott, Charles F., b. 1860
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Iola, Kan. : Iola Register
Number of Pages: 1066

USA > Kansas > Woodson County > History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas > Part 68
USA > Kansas > Allen County > History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas > Part 68

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

V. A. Sneeringer remained on the family homestead till he was thirty years of age when he engaged in mercantile pursuits. He was located in

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the track of the Rebel army when it invaded Pennsylvania and was called out in the defense of Gettysburg. He belonged to the State militia and took an active part in the battle that occurred about that city. His property, in goods and wares, was largely stolen and carried away by the enemy and its value has never yet been recovered by the government.

After the war Mr. Sneeringer secured a stock of dry goods and came to Kansas, but before his goods arrived he sold them to the well-remem- bered T. K. Foster and hired to the latter as a clerk at a large salary. Succeeding his employment with Foster he went into the store of Hysinger & Rosenthal in the same capacity and remained several years. His pleas- ant address and obliging disposition made it an easy matter for Mr. Sneer- inger to procure a position with the leading houses of the city.

For some years after his retirement from the counter Mr. Sneeringer was engaged in dealing in and handling real estate and, more recently, in looking after his own interests in this line.

Mr. Sneeringer was married in Kansas in 1871 to Miss Harriet Robin- son. An only child, a daughter, Minnie, resulted from this marriage. The latter passed through the Humboldt schools and graduated in the Concordia College. She is an orator of much ability and possessing rare gifts as an elocutionist. She made a few speeches in Kansas for Grover Cleveland in 1892 and did so well that she was sent to Ohio by the national committee where she tonred the State and did telling work for Democracy. In the campaign of 1896 she repeated her tour of Kansas and Ohio in the interest of Mr. Bryan and in 1900 many letters came to her entreating her to return to Ohio and even to enter Pennsylvania in a speech-making tour for Bryan and Stevenson.

W ILLIAM R. SMITH-Among the substantial and public-spirited farmers of Marmaton township is William R. Smith, of Bronson. He settled near the east line of Allen county, on the southeast quarter of section 33, township 24, range 21, purchasing the right of John Meeks to the land. He moved his bachelor quarters into the little box cabin, 14x16, and lived alone the first year. All these primitive improvements have given way to substantial and modern ones and our subject is today the owner of one of the attractive farms on the Bronson and Moran road.

Mr. Smith came to Kansas from Cass county, Missouri, but is a native of Caledonia, Ohio. He was born December 13, 1855, and is a son of Noah Smith residing near the place of our subject's birth. Noah Smith went from Maryland out to Ohio in an early day. Farming has been his tleme and practice and he has remained a citizen where he first rolled a log or plowed a furrow. He was born in Maryland in 1829, and was married to Jemimah Richey who died in 1894. Their children were: William R .; Emma, wife of E. Gaddis, of Caledonia. Ohio; Miss Mary Smith of the old home and Corwin Smith, of Ft. Scott, Kansas.

William R. Smith left home soon after he came of age. As a youth

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and young man he followed farming, making brick and painting. He ac- cumulated a small amount of money at various honorable pursuits and came west, by the advice of Horace Greeley, as it were. Without the funds to provide him a team he sold off the right-of-way to the Missouri Pacific railway across his land and with the proceeds purchased a team with which to break and begin the cultivation of his farm. In April, 1880, he was married to Eva Garber, whose fatlier. Abram Garber, came to Allen county, in 1878 from Illinois. Her mother died in 1882.

Mr. Smith is a Republican. His ancestors espoused the same faith. He takes no special interest in active politics and when he has cast his ballot he has performed his whole duty to the State.

JAMES TOWNSEND-Among the well known citizens of Allen county

there stands out conspicuously that early settler, that thrifty farmer, that splendid citizen and gentleman, James Townsend. For more than thirty years he has gone about his duties of field and pasture amongst the people of his county winning a prominent position among her substantial men and commanding an enviable station in the respect and confidence of his fellow citizens.

James Townsend was born in Johnson county, Indiana, February 7, 1835. He is a son of a successful farmer and early settler of that county, Major Townsend, who emigrated from Kentucky to Indiana in 1820 and, in 1828 settled in Johnson county. Major Townsend was born in Mary- land in 1796 and died in Indiana in 1846. Joshua and Sarah (Merrel) Townsend were his parents. Their other children were; William, Nancy, wife ot James Reed; Joseph, married Miss Barnett; Charlotte, became the wife of William Hamilton; John, married Mary Wilson; Ann, wife of David Wear; Mildred; Joshua; Sarah, who became Mrs. Harrison Bess; Mary Ann, Mrs. William Bess and Lealı, who married Thomas Pucket.

Joshua Townsend migrated to Kentucky near the beginning of the 19th century and, later, brought his family into Indiana and died in Clark county, that State, about 1821. He was a slave owner in Kentucky and was one of the strong exponents and earnest advocates of the Demo- cratic faith.

Major Townsend, as a citizen, was much the man his father was. He permitted no man to challenge his Democracy but in the exciting days of Nullification and of the fiery congressional debates he saw troubles ahead for his party. He prophesied that the Calhoun wing of Democracy would cause a split in the party and that families would be divided, brothers against each other and father against son. How true the prediction was history will reveal. Major Townsend married Phebe Biggs, a grand- daughter of an Irishman and patriot soldier of the American Revolution.

The Biggs family is one of the original families of the United States. Its history starts with that of our country and begins with Robert Biggs, the

Formes Townsend nov 1900

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Patriot. He was born in Erin's Isle and married Jane Miller, a Scotch lady. Their children were: John, who married Mary Jane Collins; Robert, Andrew, married Miss Criss and Nancy, Nicholas Criss; Joseph; Hannah, wife of Robert Carnes; Samuel; Mary, Thompson; Abner, married Miss Miller, and Elizabeth and Jane married Henry and William Criss, respectively.

John Biggs was our subject's grandfather. He was in the United States service at Jeffersonville, Indiana, in 1812, at the time of the historic Indian massacre of the Pigeon Roost. In this massacre many of our subject's ancestors were victims, both on the Biggs and Collins side, and a brief notice with reference to it will not be uninteresting. The place then known as the Pigeon Roost was in Clark county, Indiana, and the settlers were widely separated and within easy reach of the Red Man. In 1812 the latter fell upon this settlement and murdered William E. Collins' wife and many of his children. Mr. Collins was an Indian fighter and in this attack he killed three before his gun was disabled and then made his escape to the stockade. John Collins, Sichie Richie, Lydia Collins and Jane Biggs, by hiding, escaped death in the massacre; Jane Biggs traveled barefoot through the wood, all night, with her four children: Miller, Phebe, William and Robert and reached the fort the next morning, seven miles away. Her husband was in the regular army and she was compelled to find shelter and protection for their family.

The counties of Clark, Harrison, Jefferson and Knox, in southern Indiana, lived in a state of alarm during the years preceding the close of the war of 1812 and Zebulon Collins, a pioneer of Scott county, describing those days of peril said: "The manner in which I used to work in those days was as follows: On all occasions I carried my rifle, tomahawk and butcher-knife, with a loaded pistol in my belt. When I went to plow I laid my gun on the plowed ground and stuck a stick by it for a mark so that I could get it quickly in case it was wanted. I had two good dogs. I took one into the house, leaving the other out. The one outside was expected to give the alarm which would cause the one inside to bark and awaken me. I kept my horses in a stable close to the house, having a porthole so that I could shoot to the stable door. During two years I never went from home with any certainty of returning, but in the midst of all these dangers God, who never sleeps nor slumbers, has kept me."

The Pigeon Roost massacre was the most noted one in Indiana, and was one that, for many years, was recalled with fear and horror. It oc- curred in the present limits of Clark county in a place called "the Pigeon Roost Settlement," the gathering place for myriads of passenger pigeons. This settlement, which was founded by a few families in 1809, was confined to about a square mile of land, and it was separated from all other settlements by a distance of five or six miles.

In the afternoon of the 3rd of September 1812, Jeremiah Payne and a Mr. Coffman, hunting for bee trees two miles north of the Pigeon settle- ment, were surprised and killed by a party of Indians. This party, which consisted of ten or twelve warriors, nearly all of whom were

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Shawnees, attacked the settlement about sunset of the same day and, in an hour, killed one man, five women and sixteen children, some of their bodies being consumed in the fires which laid low their cabins.

The persons massacred in this settlement were Henry Collins and wife, the wife of Jeremiah Payne and eight of her children, Mrs. Richard Collins and seven of her children, Mrs. John Morris and child and the mother of John Morris. Mrs. Jane Biggs escaped with her children as before stated and reached the home of hier brother, Zebulon Collins, in safety.

William Collins at seventy years of age, defended his house for three- quarters of an hour against the Indians. In this defense he was assisted by Captain John Morris. As soon as darkness came on the two escaped with the two children in the house, John and Lydia Collins, eluded their pursuers and reached the home of Zebulon Collins. The Indians engaged in the massacre escaped the militia of the county and the victims of the inassacre were buried in one grave.

The Collins' were of German origin. William E. Collins, our subject's great grandfather, was a son of foreign parents. They seem to have settled in Pennsylvania and there he married Phebe Hoagland. Their children were: Richard, married, second, Nancy Collins; Carns, married Katy Cooper; Zebulon, married Mary Gearnsy; Henry, married Miss Houghman; John, married Jane Brodie; Elizabeth, wife of Abe Richie; Sichie, married Jolını Richie; Lydia, wife of Harper Cochran, and Mary Jane, wife of the soldier, John Biggs.

The family of John and Jane Biggs are: Miller, who married Sallie McConnell; Phebe, wife of Major Townsend; William, who married Nancy McConnell; Robert, whose wife was Frances Dewey; Harrison, married Mary Patterson; Henry, our subject's father-in-law, married Sarah Bess; John, wife of John Hay, and Elizabeth, whose husband was Thomas McDonald.

Major Townsend's children are: Sarah J., in Johnson county, Indiana ; Harvey; Lavina, deceased, married Lawrence Low; James, the subject of this notice; Harvey, who died in Indiana, leaving a family in Johnson county; Merrill and Alonzo Townsend, both deceased.

James Townsend was sparingly educated in the log cabin of his time. This necessitated a long and lonely tramp through the dense wood and getting an education was a trying ordeal then. He married at nineteen years of age and moved into a new neighborhood, clearing up a new farm to begin the battle of life. He possessed a horse and a suit of clothes and, with this as his capital in sight, he became the head of a household. He worked the first year of his married life at $14.00 a month. Next he became a renter and, as he accumulated he stored away for the farm he finally bought. In 1854-5 his taxes were $10.00 and in 1866 his taxes were $166.60. With his growing family he began to feel crowded in Indiana and he determined to seek a broader field of operations in Kansas. He came to this State first in 1865 and made a prospecting tour of the southeast

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part of the State, finally deciding to locate in Allen connty. He purchased what is still his home place and, in 1868, brought his family hither.

In the years that Mr. Townsend has been a Kansan he has met fortune and misfortune, and fortune again. Security signing cost him all but his spirit and energy. He was given an opportunity to recover his losses and he made the most of it. He has paid interest enough in Kansas to buy a ranch and he is yet far ahead of liis creditors. He owns nearly a section of the best land Allen county possesses and, in 1899, left the homestead to rest in retirement in Iola.

Mr. Townsend was first married to Sarah Branigan, in Indiana. Their children were; John M., who died in 1887 and left a son, Edward; Thomas J., Lawrence; Ira; Lavina, wife of Martin Cahalen, of Johnson county, Ind .; Abe L .; Mary, wife of Frank Cox, of Indiana, and George W. Town- send. For his second wife Mr. Townsend married Sarah A., a danghter of the late Henry Biggs. Their children are: Emma, wife of Fred Cramer, and Ella, deceased, married William Heese. She left one child, Henry Roscoe Heese, living in Allen county.

James Townsend has no man to blame for his politics but himself. His ancestors were Democrats and his first wife's people were rank Copper- heads. He lived in a community that was almost solidly Democratic about the time he reached his majority yet, he rebelled against the practice and started in right the first vote he cast. He is entitled to be called a Republican because he was at the bedside when the party was born. He yields to no man the honor of being more American than he. He upheld the cause of the Union as against Secession and has been right on every important proposition of governmental policy since the war.

C HARLES F. SCOTT, son of John W. and Maria Protsman Scott, whose lives are sketched on another page of this book, was born on his father's farm in Carlyle township September 7, 1860. The first four- teen years of his life were spent in the usual way, working upon the farm in the summer and attending the district school in the winter. In 1874 the family removed to Iola, where the subject of this sketch continued his studies, clerking in stores or doing any other work he could find to do in the summers. In the fall of 1877 he entered the University of Kansas from which he was graduated in 1881.

Upon leaving the University his father gave him ten dollars. That was the cash capital with which he began life for himself, and he has never had a dollar since that he did not earn.

Borrowing enough additional from a friend to pay his fare, lie went to Silverton, Colorado, where he spent the summer of 1881 working in a hard- ware store and doing some newspaper work.

In the fall of 1881, in company with two friends, he drove down into New Mexico, stopping at Socorro, where he secured employment as a

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copyist in the office of the county clerk, at the same time serving as cook for a gang of workmen for his board.

Early in 1882 he went to Arizona where he got a job as book keeper and clerk for a railroad contractor. He continued to do this work until his employer sold out, in the fall of 1882, when he returned to Iola, having learned that an interest in the Iola Register was for sale.

When he reached home he had $250 to show for his eighteen months work. He paid $200 of this down for a fourth interest in the Iola Regis- ter, then a small weekly paper, his partners in the enterprise being his brother, A. C. Scott, and E. E. Rohrer. At the end of two years he bought his brother's interest, and a year later the interest of Mr. Rohrer, since which time he has been the sole proprietor of the paper, to which he has given practically his entire time and attention.

In 1891 Mr. Scott was appointed a regent of the University of Kansas, and was re-appointed to the same position by Gov. Morrill and Gov. Stan- ley, the appointment in each instance being made without his solicitation. He resigned this office upon his election to Congress in 1900.

In 1892 he was nominated without opposition and by acclamation as the Republican candidate for State Senator, and was one of the fifteen Re- publican Senators who escaped the Populist landslide of that year. He served in the Senate in the sessions of 1893-5, being an active participant in the bitter debates precipitated by the "Lewelling War," and serving as a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

In 1900 he was nominated as the Republican candidate for Congress- man-at-large from the State of Kansas, and was elected by a plurality of 18890 votes over J. Botkin, the Fusion candidate.

Mr. Scott spent the summer of 1891 in Europe. He wrote weekly letters to his paper and these were afterwards published in book form under the title "Letters."

In 1893 Mr. Scott was president of the Kansas State Editorial Associa- tion and had charge of the special train by which the members went to the World's Fair at Chicago. He was president of the Republican State League in 1895, and of the Kansas Day Club in 1900, and has been offici- ally connected with various other editorial and political associations. He has taken part as a speaker in all the campaigns of his party since 1884, and has made numerous addresses of an educational and patriotic nature in various parts of the State.

Mr. Scott was married June 15, 1893, to May Brevard Ewing, daughter of H. A. Ewing a sketch of whose family history has been given elsewhere in this book. The children of this union ars Ewing Carruth, born Angust 28, 1894; Ruth Merriman, born December 30, 1897, and Angelo C., born November 17, 1899.

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TACOB C. STRICKLER, of Allen county, came into Carlyle township in

the year 1872 and located upou section 19, township 23, range 19. He succeeded Randolph Wilmuth upon the farm he owns, then a new and practically virgin piece of prairie. Here he has since lived and labored aud enjoyed a reasonable degree of prosperity. His acres have broadened from their original area until he pays taxes upon nearly one-half of the section.

Prior to his removal to Kansas Mr. Strickler resided six years in Monroe county, Iowa. He was born in Park county, Indiana, August 17, 1845. His ancestors were Virginians, his father having been born in the Old Dominion, and planted a branch of the family in Park county, Indiana, at an early date. Mr. Strickler is a son of Henry and a grandson of Jacob Strickler, both of whom died in Park county, Indiana. Jacob Strickler Sr. was born in 1778 and died in 1874 while Henry, his son, was born in 1810 and died in 1855. The grandfather was a blacksmith and gunsmith and was married to a Miss Ehrhart. Henry Strickler, their first child, married Catharine Ehrhart. Their children were: Virginia, deceased, who married Monroe Long; Jacob C .; Mary C., of Moberly, Missouri, wife of Samuel Dickerson; Martha J., of Idaho county, Idaho, is the wife of Dick Henley; Ellen, of Park county, Indiana, is married to Polk Whitsell, and Joseph, of Park county, Indiana.

Jacob Strickler remained with the old home till reaching his majority. In November, 1865, he was married to Samantha D. Reitzel, a daughter of Henry Reitzel, who went into Park connty, Indiana, from Kentucky and married Catherine Duncan. Mr. and Mrs. Strickler's children are: Nelson T., who married Nora Herrick and resides in Anderson county, Kansas; Frances B .; Elmer, Claud and Millie.

In affairs political the early Stricklers were allied with the Democratic party. Our subject became a Republican upon choosing his political home and remained with that organization till 1897 when he joined forces with the People's party.

WOODSON COUNTY COURT HOUSE.

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HISTORY OF ALLEN AND WOODSON COUNTIES

PART II

WOODSON COUNTY

In "Andreas History of Kansas," (popularly known as the "Herd Book,") Woodson County is said to have been named for Governor Silas Woodson, of Missouri, while Webb Wilder, in his "Annals of Kansas," new edition, says the county was named in honor of Daniel Woodson, who was the first Secretary of the territory of Kansas and who also acted at various intervals as Governor of the territory by virtue of his office as Secretary. As a further evidence of the correctness of Mr. Wilder, and as proof positive that the county was named in honor of Daniel Woodson a letter from ex-Senator John Martin replying to a query of the Hon. Leander Stillwell on this same point says: "You are entirely right about the name of Woodson. The county was named in honor of Daniel Woodson, who was Secretary of the territory in 1855-6 and a part of 1857, I think. and who frequently acted as Governor during those years. He was from Lynchburg, Virginia, and a most excellent man. Governor Silas Woodson was not even thought of in connection with the naming of the county."

As ex-Senator Martin held the position of assistant clerk of the House. of Representatives of the territorial legislature which created and named Woodson County he is more familiar with the acts of that body than any one not a member of it and is, therefore, competent to give accurate and reliable information as to the act creating Woodson County.

When the honor of a name was conferred upon the unsettled and almost unknown tract in the third tier of connties from the east line of the

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state the space designated by the first legislature which created it con- tained little, if any. of the territory which now bears the name of Woodson County. To understand this matter the proceedings of the "Bogus Legis- lature" (in consequence of gross irregularities connected with their election ) of 1855 must be gone into. One act of that body, among others. laid out a whole block of rectangular counties. This act was passed before surveys were made, and boundary lines of counties were given in miles from the points named. The initial point for counties south of the Kansas river was the month of that river. The southeast corner of Johnson County was twenty-six miles south of that point, the southeast corner of Lykens ( Miami) County was twenty-four miles farther south : the southern boundary of Linn was twenty-four miles farther south, Bourbon County extended thirty miles farther south and McGee County ran to the Territory line. Four tiers of Counties were blocked out in exact conformity to these. and in the third tier lay Woodson County, the second from the south line and occupying almost the identical land now known as Wilson County.

In 1857 the counties of the third tier were crowded northward, and Wilson. taking in what was Woodson, pushed the latter to nearly its present boundaries-

In 1861. through a blunder on the part of the Representative from this county. a new survey and location of boundaries took from the south line a strip three miles in width and gave it to Wilson County, which has ever since held it.

By the act of 1857 the boundaries of Woodson County were defined as follows: Beginning at the southwest corner of Anderson County ; thence south along the west boundary of Allen County to the northwest corner of Dorn County; thence west with the section lines to the four corners of sections 14 and 15, 22 and 23 of township 28 south, range 13 east : thence north with the section lines dividing the second and third t'er of sections, to the southwest corner of Coffey County; thence east along the south boundary of said Coffey County to the place of beginning.

By the general statutes of 1868 Woodson County is bounded as follows: Commencing at the southwest corner of Anderson County; thence sonth with section lines and the west line of Allen County to the south line of township 26, south: thence west with said township line and the north line of Wilson County. to the east line of Greenwood County : thence north with said east line of Greenwood County to the four corners of sections 14 and 15, 22 and 23 of township 23 south of range 13 east; thence east on section lines and the sonth line of Coffey. County to the place of beginning.

Ninety per cent of Woodson County is upland, the remainder river and creek bottom. About six per cent of the original surface of the county was covered with forest and the remainder was prairie. The Neosho River, which enters near the northeast corner of the county and

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runs southeasterly to the county line, is the principal stream. The Verdigris River cuts across the southwest corner of the county. and Owl Creek, rising in three "head streams" (North and South Owl Creek and Cherry Creek) near the center of the county flows southeast to the county line. Buffalo, East and West, rises toward the south line of the county and runs across the line into Wilson County. Big and Little Sandy are creeks of importance in Belmont township, the one rising in the west and the other in the east part of the township and furnishing an abunda nceof spring water. The belts of timber which once lined the banks of the streams, and extended out into the bottoms from a few rods to a mile in width, have been largely cleared away, but the "jack oak hills" have been fenced, and the once scrub brush has grown into young forests in places, and its importance as a source of wood supply has come to be considered of some consequence.

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History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas, Part 68

Author: Duncan, L. Wallace (Lew Wallace), b. 1861. cn; Scott, Charles F., b. 1860 Publication date: 1901 Publisher: Iola, Kan. : Iola Register Number of Pages: 1066

Author: Duncan, L. Wallace (Lew Wallace), b. 1861. cn; Scott, Charles F., b. 1860
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Iola, Kan. : Iola Register
Number of Pages: 1066