David L. Payne was born near Fairmont, Indiana, Dec 30, 1836. He was reared on a farm and received only such schooling as was given by the rural schools of his time. At the age of twenty-one, he settled in Doniphan County, Kansas, where he took a homestead. He entered the Union Army at the beginning of the Civil War, serving a three year term of enlistment. He was then elected to the lower house of the Kansas Legislature and, immediately after the adjournment of the session, he re-enlisted in the army, serving until the end of the War. In 1867, and again in 1868, he was in the field in the war against the Indians of the Plains, each time as the captain of a troop of cavalry. In 1870, he settled on a homestead in Sedgwick County, Kansas, when he was again sent to the State Legislature. He was of a restless, roving disposition and not much is known of his life between 1872 and 1879. In the last mentioned year he became identified with the movement to settle the Oklahoma country, of which he soon became a recognized leader, a position which he retained until his death, which occurred at Wellinton, Kansas, November 27, 1884.
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Ann Maloney, Bartlesville, OK.
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