Bourbon County Biographies
"The Why of Fort Scott"
JOHN WARNEKE.
John Warneke's father belonged to the company
that came here in 1842 from Fort Wayne. He was
a stone mason and worked on the foundations of
the government houses.
He brought his wife to the fort and as no women
were allowed to live in the barracks, he was permitted to put up a tent and his son John was born
in the tent, 1849. Mr. Warneke lives now in
Pleasanton.
E. WIGGIN.
Mr. Wiggin passed away February 2, 1918, at the
age of 97. A year before his death he was as
straight as an arrow, and did not look his years.
His experience in the U. S. Army accounted for his
erect carriage, and fine physique. He was with the
Government surveying party sent out to survey and
establish the boundaries of Kansas. Stopping here
after he was mustered out, 1854, he thought Fort
Scott a good place to locate, so stayed. When he
was married, there was not a house to be had except a log "cabin" (as he expressed it,) the windows
of which were still in the making; but they moved
in and made the best of it. They carried all their
water from a spring about where Tenth street now
is, or from the spring on the slope of the Plaza.
He left five children, one of whom, Charles, lives
on a farm just north of town.
J. WILLIAMS.
In 1857, Judge Williams was appointed Associate
Justice of the Territorial Court, and sent to Fort
Scott. His family consisted of wife and four sons.
He was transferred to Memphis, Tenn., but during
his last days returned to Fort Scott, where he died
at the home of his son, K. Williams. Judge Wilhams was something of a musician. With a fife he
led the first Frontier Guards as far as Military Ford,
on their way to Wyandotte, a bass drum adding a
second to his efforts at martial music. He also
played the fife for the first companies raised here,
when they gathered for 4th of July parade, and
drill in 1861.
S. A. WILLIAMS.
The subject of this sketch came to Fort Scott in
May, 1855. His conveyance for family and household goods was a wagon, drawn by an ox-team. He
had visited the town a month or two before, and had
bought one of the officer's quarters on the Plaza.
The year of his coming, he was elected to the Territorial Legislature from Bourbon County and was
also elected by the Legislature, the first Probate
Judge. In 1857, he was appointed Clerk of the U.
S. District Court and served in that capacity as long
as Kansas was a territory. He was incorporator in
the first Town Company. About 1861, he moved
to Leavenworth, and entered military service from
there, but later came back to Fort Scott.
His was one of the claims bought by the Town
Company for the site of Fort Scott, and Williams
(Main) street was named for him. He helped to
form the Odd Fellow's Lodge, in 1866, and was the
first presiding officer. He was president of the
Osage Mission Town Company. Before coming to
this town, he had joined the Doniphan Expedition,
and with this company, made that famous march.
Four of his children are now living: Mrs. A. R. Allison, and Charles, of
Beloit, Kansas; John, of Colorado; and Mrs. George Dulany, Hannibal, Mo.
H. T. WILSON.
Col. Hiero T. Wilson came to Fort Scott, Sept. 13,
1843, from Fort Gibson, Cherokee Nation, where he
had been in business as post sutler since 1834. He
bought an interest in the sutler's store here for
$5,000.00, from J. Bugg, sole owner. Fort Gibson
was then the only large fort south of Fort Leaven-
worth; a full regiment of U. S. Infantry was stationed there and it was the western terminus of
the Military Road. This road branched at Fort Scott, running west to Fort Gibson, and east to Fort Coffee,
Arkansas. In an account, written for his children
of his coming to Fort Scott, he says : "I found the
officers and men quartered in one-story log houses,
the chinks stopped with mud, the roofs of 3-foot
clapboards, puncheon floors. They were all busy
preparing to build permanent quarters." These
temporary houses were back of the Plaza near
where the Plaza school now stands. The Post was
commanded by Maj. W. H. Graham.
Col. Wilson had his bachelor quarters in a log
house just across the ravine from the sutler's store.
This establishment was presided over by his negro
man who saw that he did not suffer for and of the
luxuries that this frontier post could supply. Col.
Wilson says: "The post was a pleasant place, and
the officers' families, though few, were sociable
and neighborly."
Mrs. Wilson came to the Post, as a bride, in September, 1847. Col. Wilson had made her acquaintance at one of his stopping places in Missouri, on
his way to Philadelphia to buy supplies for his store.
After the soldiers left the fort, it was some time before there was a dentist nearer than Fort Leavenworth, or St. Louis. Mrs. Wilson, at one time, was
suffering with what the doctor called "tic doloreaux," (neuralgia) and was advised by the doctor
to have her teeth extracted. Thinking to get the
best dentist in St. Louis Mr. Wilson set out on his
journey � rode horseback to Booneville, took a boat
there to St. Louis, got a dentist and returned the
same way. After reaching here, the dentist asked
to have plenty of ice on hand before he began his
work. There was none to be had at the fort, (the
foregoing winter was mild and no ice had been
packed) so he sent to Leavenworth for it. Think of
it, a four day's journey for ice. At one time there
was no doctor within 25 miles, one of their slave
boys met with an accident. Mrs. Wilson gave him
emergency treatment until a doctor could come.
When the doctor arrived he said: "Well Mr. Wilson, you have done all there is to be done."
People in the faraway frontier countries learned "first-aid treatment" from the necessity of the moment.
When the government sold the Post houses, Col.
Wilson bought the one where the "Goodlander
Home" now is, for $300.00, sold the western half for
$150.00 and moved into the east half where he lived
until his death. His oldest daughter, Virginia, was
the first white child born in Fort Scott. She married J. Ray, and, after his death, Wm. R. Robinson.
They both died some years ago. Mr. Wilson's other
daughters, both born here, Mrs. C. W. Goodlander
and Mrs. T. F. Robley, are still residents of this city.
R. R. WOOD.
Mr. Wood came to Fort Scott in the fall of 1859.
They brought their belongings in two ox-team
wagons, the wife and daughter, Mrs. W. W. Padgett,
making the journey in a one horse chaise. The
first winter he lived on a farm adjoining Redfield.
He spent the winter cutting trees and hauling them
to the saw mill to be made into lumber for his two-room house that he built on the land he homesteaded, 10 miles from Fort Scott, on the Humboldt
road. He gave two acres for a burial ground,
"Woodson's Cemetery," and his wife was the first
to be buried there in 1861.
He was County Commissioner in 1872-4. Mrs.
Padgett remembers going with an ox-team to
make a visit � rapid traveling. No danger of being
hurled into the gutter with the vehicle on top.
When they "came to town," Fort Scott, they forded
the Marmaton a little east of the present bridge, and,
oh ! the steep muddy bank on either side. The three
children are Mrs. W. W. Padgett, of this city, J. G.
Wood, of Visalia, Calif.; and Miss Adda Ross, who
lives on a farm near Redfield, homesteaded by her
mother in 1858.
Most of these men were young when they came
to Fort Scott. They came to make homes for themselves; they stayed through the dark and depressing
period of the border troubles; they faced the tribulations of the drouth; they answered the call to arms
in '61, and they kept their faith in the town, through
all the trials and setbacks incident to pioneer life;
and most of them lived to see the little hamlet grow
into a solid and prosperous town. They put Fort
Scott on the map, and she seems likely to stay there
if the push, the energy, and the go-after-and-get-it
qualities of our young men of the present � 1921 �
continue into the future generations.
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This website created August 22, 2011 by Sheryl McClure.
� 2011 Kansas History and Heritage Project
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