Topics in Kansas History: Politics & GovernmentWyandotte Constitutional ConventionBiographical Sketches
Born at Avon, Livingston County, New York, in 1823, J. M. Winchell
was educated at the State Normal School at Albany and worked as a teacher
and journalist before moving to Kansas Territory in 1854. He came to
Kansas as a correspondent for the New York Times
and settled at Council City (Burlingame), Osage County, being also one
of the directors of the "American Settlement Company," which had established
that town, but he spent considerable time in Lawrence. Winchell was
a delegate to the first Republican National Convention at Philadelphia,
and in 1856, with William Hutchinson, was appointed a commissioner of
the Kansas State Central Committee to solicit aid from the North to
protect free-state settlers. Winchell was a delegate to the Free-State
Convention at Lawrence that met December 23-24, 1857, to discuss participation
in the election of officers under the Lecompton Constitution, January
4, 1858. Winchell, along with Charles Robinson, William A. Phillips,
Samuel Pomeroy, and others favored voting, but by 74 to 62, it was decided
not to participate. Winchell was a delegate to the Leavenworth Convention,
and a few days after his Wyandotte Convention adjourned, on August 3,
1859, Winchell was elected permanent chairman of the Republican Convention
at Lawrence for nominating a delegate to Congress--M. J. Parrott selected.
A delegate to the Republican State Convention, Topeka, October 12, 1859,
Winchell was defeated by William A. Phillips (31 to 29) in a contest
for temporary chairman (Phillips was subsequently elected president
of the Convention). Winchell served in the territorial House of Representatives
in 1860 and 1861. 14 James M. Arthur, Centerville Twp., Linn County, Republican (former Democrat), Farmer. An Indiana-born (ca. 1817), free-state farmer, James Arthur married about 1840 to Elizabeth Day, who had been born in September 1818 in Kentucky. In 1854 the family left its Clay County, Indiana, farm for Kansas Territory, where the Arthurs' youngest son "Benton" was born in 1855. Arthur was a delegate to the Topeka Constitutional Convention and a member of the Topeka (Free-State) legislature, as well as Centerville's first postmaster (established, March 15, 1855) and chair of the township's board of supervisors (elected, July 26, 1858). The Arthur family continued to make its primary living from their Linn County farm during the 1860s, with Elizabeth Arthur and her sons, Charles, James, and Alexander B. (Benton), sharing the labor after the death on November 9, 1870, of their husband and father. At Wyandotte, Arthur served on the legislative department, electors and elections, and the apportionment committees, but he was relatively silent during the convention debates. 16 John T. Barton, Olathe, Johnson County, Democrat (former Whig), Physician. Dr. John T. Barton was born 1831 in Albemarle County, Virginia, and
was, at the time of the convention unmarried and living in an Olathe
boarding house. Barton moved to Kansas from Missouri in 1856 and was
elected to a seat in the territorial legislature from Johnson County
on October 6 of that year. Prior to the opening of that second proslavery
legislative assembly, however, Barton resigned his position. Twice elected
treasurer of Johnson County, on October 5, 1857, and March 22, 1858,
Barton also was involved in the state railroad convention of 1860 .
. . He was, according to Leavenworth's Daily Times,
"the only African from the counties South of the Kansas River. He is
pro-slavery all over." James Blood, Lawrence, Douglas County, Republican (former Democrat), Merchant. Born in Bolton, Vermont, on March 21, 1819, James Blood spent part
of his youth in New York and then moved to Wisconsin where he established
his own business. He married Eliza J. _______, who was thirteen years
his junior (ca. 1853) and moved to Kansas from Wisconsin in 1854. As
"agent for Amos A. Lawrence," Blood was involved with the first party
of New England Emigrant Aid Company settlers who arrived in late July.
Blood was actively engaged from the beginning in the free-state movement
and firmly identified with the Charles Robinson faction: "Mr. Blood
was a good man, but a pronounced enemy of [James H.] Lane and an adherent
of Governor Robinson." He served as treasurer of the Kansas State Central
Committee, 1856-1857, as a member of the Topeka legislature, 1856, as
the first mayor of Lawrence in 1857, as a member of the central territorial
committee at the Republican Party's organizing convention in May 1859,
as county treasurer in the early 1860s, and as a representative from
Lawrence in the 1869 state legislature. He died in Lawrence on February
4, 1891. 18 Newman C. Blood, Baldwin City, Douglas County, Republican (former Democrat), Merchant. The older brother of James Blood, Newman C. Blood also was born (ca. 1818) in Bolton, Vermont. A widower at the time he was chosen as one of Douglas County's seven delegates to the Wyandotte Convention, Blood had removed to Kansas from Wisconsin in 1857 and died in Lawrence on October 21, 1870. He served on the legislative department, ordinance and public debate, and finance and taxation committees at the 1859 convention, but compared to his younger brother, N.C. Blood was virtually silent during the course of the convention's formal proceedings. 19
A physician who won recognition as Kansas' first major-general during
the Civil War, James G. Blunt was born in Trenton, Hancock County, Maine,
on July 21, 1826, and eventually received a degree from the Starling
Medical College of Columbus, Ohio (established in 1849 in association
with St. Francis Hospital, it is said to be the forerunner of Ohio State
University College of Medicine). Dr. Blunt established his practice
in New Madison, Ohio, married Nancy Carson Putnam, and removed to Kansas
Territory in 1856, settling first at Greeley. Dr. Blunt was a member
of the Topeka legislature of 1857, was otherwise deeply involved in
free-state politics, and chaired the committee on militia at the Wyandotte
Convention. He also served on the judicial department and corporation
and banking committees and was quite vocal on the convention floor.
On the question of "Negro exclusion," Blunt favored action "not because
I am in favor of incorporating such a provision in the body of the Constitution,
or because I am in favor of the so-called 'black law,' but simply because
I think a majority of the people of Kansas-comprising both those for,
and against negro exclusion-expect some action of this body relative
to this matter, and I believe that it has been generally understood
that a distinct proposition would be submitted to the people, by a separate
ballot." Blunt opposed excluding "free negroes" as a matter of principle,
but was "willing to submit the question to the people for them to pass
upon by a direct vote." 20 Frederick Brown, Leavenworth, Leavenworth County, Democrat, Manufacturer. Born in Germany (ca. 1826), Frederick Brown (or Braun) immigrated to Massachusetts where he married Eliza _______ about 1850. With their first child Ellen, the couple removed to Indiana (ca. 1853) and then to Kansas in 1857. According to the partisan Leavenworth Times, the Democrat Brown "mis-represent[ed], in the [Wyandotte] Convention, the German element of Leavenworth County." He was assigned to the legislative department and county and township organization committees and introduced a few amendments and resolutions early in the convention, but otherwise took a limited role at Wyandotte. Brown, who ran a sawmill in Leavenworth, according to the federal census, served as a Democratic representative (3rd District) in the 1860 territorial legislature, which convened on January 2 in Lecompton but voted to adjourn to Lawrence two days later. During the war the Browns moved briefly to Colorado and then in 1865 to St. Joseph, Missouri, where by 1870 Fred Brown practiced law and four more Brown children were born. Brown died during the 1870s. 22 Jonathan Coleman Burnett, Mapleton, Bourbon County, Republican, Farmer. Born on March 19, 1825, in Morristown, Lamoille County, Vermont, Jonathan C. Burnett studied law and commenced the practice of his profession in his home county. On December 27, 1852, he married Anna Mary Fiske of Morrisville, Vermont, and they moved to Kansas in the spring of 1857. In Leavenworth, with seven other Vermonters, he organized the "Vermont Colony" and set out for Bourbon County, where in May they founded the town of Mapleton and he identified with the Free State Party. At the Wyandotte Convention, Burnett represented Bourbon, McGee, and Dorn counties, served on the ordinance and public debt and the amendments and miscellaneous committees, and took a relatively active role throughout the proceedings. Burnett was a land office register at Humbolt, a member of the last territorial legislature, and held a seat in the first Kansas state senate. He received appointment as register (or receiver) of the Fort Scott (also located at Humboldt and Mapleton) land office in April 1861, a position he held until March 1865. The Burnetts subsequently lived in Lawrence, where Jonathan Burnett worked as a director and land commissioner for the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad. He then engaged in farming and livestock and lived for a time in Russell County. He died in Wichita, Kansas, on July 2, 1899, and was buried at Lawrence. 23 John Taylor Burris, Olathe, Johnson County, Republican (former Whig), Lawyer. Born in Butler County, Ohio, on December 22, 1828, and educated in the public schools of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, John T. Burris taught school in Kentucky and enlisted in the Mounted Rifles for service in the Mexican War. Burris married Martha A. _____, who was five years his junior, in 1850 (she was Indiana born) and was admitted to the Iowa bar in 1853. In 1858 they moved to Olathe, Kansas Territory, where he practiced law. After representing Johnson County at the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention, where he was actively engaged in the deliberations, Burris served as a sergeant in Jim Lane's Frontier Guard and then received an appointment as U.S. district attorney in 1861; but Burris soon resigned that position and mustered into the service as a lieutenant colonel in the Tenth Kansas Volunteer Infantry on July 24, 1861. He mustered out with the regiment in August 1865, having been brevetted a colonel in March of that year. Colonel Burris was speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives in 1866, president of the Republican State Convention in March 1868, and judge of the Tenth District court, March 1869 to January 1870 and January 1890 to September 1901. He lived and worked in Olathe for many years, but died in Los Angeles, California, on December 4, 1915, while visiting at the home of one of his daughters. 24 Allen Crocker, Burlington, Coffey County, Republican (former Democrat), Farmer. Born in Bloomington, Indiana, on February 27, 1825, Allen Crocker married Sarah _______ about 1850. They moved to Texas, where their first child was born ca. 1851, and then to Kansas ca. 1855, and in 1856 Crocker served in the territorial militia. With Samuel Hoffman, Crocker was elected to represent the district that encompassed both Coffey and Woodson counties at the Wyandotte assembly; and during the convention an editorial correspondent for the Leavenworth Daily Times described him as "a fine specimen of our Western yeomanry-large limbed and large hearted, with clear head to comprehend, and ready hand to defend their rights." After the 1859 convention . . . he served as clerk of Coffee County and died near Burlington, Kansas, on February 13, 1874. 25 William Parker Dutton, Stanton, Lykins County, Republican (former Democrat), Farmer. Born in Charlestown, New Hampshire, on October 1, 1817, William P. Dutton was the son and grandson of "William Dutton," both prosperous New England farmers. The younger Dutton married Lucinda J. Blood on July 14, 1835, and started farming for himself. They removed to Illinois in 1844, settling first in Kane and then De Kalb counties, before moving on to Kansas the first of March 1857, settling in Stanton Township, Lykins (later Miami) County. According to the Kansas volume of the U.S. Biographical Dictionary, Dutton traveled to Kansas early in 1856 intending to make an anti-free-state report to his Democratic Party friends back in Illinois. "But the outrages which he witnessed against the free-state men made him their fast friend, and he returned denouncing the conduct of the 'border-ruffians' as infamous, and proclaiming himself a free-state man." In March 1858 he was elected county treasurer and in July 1859 with B. F. Simpson represented the county at the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention. The Duttons engaged in farming until 1861, when they moved to Paola and pursued various business opportunities until 1873; he was elected sheriff of Miami County twice in the early 1860s. Dutton then returned to Illinois and farming for a short time before moving back to Paola in 1876 as general agent for the Thornwire Hedge Company of Chicago. 26 John W. Forman, Doniphan, Doniphan County, Democrat (former Whig), Merchant. Born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, on October 18, 1818, John W. Forman removed to Missouri with his parents in 1836. He took up the surveying profession, and was elected county surveyor of Lewis County, Missouri, in 1839. Forman married in September 1841 to Mary I. Pemberton and accepted appointment as government farmer for the Sac and Fox Indians (the Great Nemaha sub-agency) in March 1844 and moved to "Kansas." In 1847 Forman resigned as farmer in order to become a licensed Indian trader, buying out the stock of Joseph Robidous. Forman's involvement with the Sac and Foxes continued until 1854 when he took a claim at Doniphan and was appointed the town's first postmaster in 1855. That spring, he won election to the first territorial Council, and thus was a member of the famous "bogus legislature," which convened in July 1855, and represented Doniphan County in the lower house of the state legislature during the 1863 and 1864 sessions. Subsequently, Forman moved to Atchison where he engaged in the lumber business and remained active in local affairs. In the 1870s he moved to Texas and eventually to Canton, Missouri, where he died on September 18, 1898. 27 Robert Cole Foster, Jr., Delaware, Leavenworth County, Democrat, Lawyer. Born in Logan County, Kentucky, on September 10, 1834, Robert C. Foster, Jr., moved to Kansas in 1856 with his parents and siblings, and Robert, Sr., established what became a "prosperous" farm near Leavenworth-he also served for several years on the county commission. Robert, Jr., received a public school education in Kentucky and briefly attended the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, before beginning the study of law back in Kentucky; he subsequently graduated in the spring of 1856 with a degree in law from Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee, just prior to his move to Kansas Territory. He was admitted to the Leavenworth County bar and practiced law there prior to his election as delegate to the 1859 convention. In 1862 and again in 1864, Robert, Jr., was elected to the state House of Representatives, and in 1866 he won a term in the state Senate. Foster was the Democratic Party's unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Congress in 1870. He married Amanda M. Harrelson of Leavenworth on October 18, 1871, and during the 1870s continued the practice of law in Leavenworth, and was, according to an 1879 biographer, "recognized as among the popular and influential members of the Democratic party of the State." Robert C. Foster, Jr., died at Dennison, Texas, on January 6, 1910. 28 Robert Graham, Atchison, Atchison County, Republican (former Whig), Merchant. A wealthy Atchison merchant and the oldest convention delegate, Robert Graham was born in Ireland about (ca.1804). He married Eleanor D. ________ in Pennsylvania (ca. 1830), and they moved their family to Kansas Territory from her native state in 1857. According to his July 7, 1859, remarks during the apportionment debate, Graham served in the 1859 territorial legislature that authorized the Wyandotte Convention. He rose in fact "for the purpose of vindicating the character" of that body in the face of "gross charges of corruption and fraud." Graham, who would be relatively active during the convention, continued: "Having been a member of that body, it seems to me proper that I should state how these alleged frauds were committed." In fact, according to Graham, this had been an exceptionally "fair, honest and upright in purpose and act." He went on to briefly explain the legislative action and categorically rejected charges of fraud as "utterly preposterous. It comes with a very bad grace from these gentlemen-raising a hue and cry about fraud, when they themselves are members of the party that has inaugurated all the political frauds in the Territory." Graham chaired the corporations and banking committee, and as a result introduced the article on banks and currency, which, explained historian G. Raymond Gaeddert, "was based on the Leavenworth and Topeka constitutions, except section 3 which followed the Iowa constitution." Graham died in Atchison County in 1868. 29 John P. Greer, Topeka, Shawnee County, Republican (former Whig), Lawyer. Born in Montgomery County, Ohio, on October 21, 1812, J. P. Greer
practiced law, married Elizabeth Patty on June 20, 1837, and moved to
Kansas from Ohio in September 1856. He soon settled with his family
in Topeka, where he lived the next thirty plus years. At the polls on
June 7, 1859, Greer, "an ardent Free State man," led the field of eight
candidates for three Shawnee County seats at the Wyandotte Constitutional
Convention-he received 543 votes, John Ritchie polled 335, and H. D.
Preston got 325; the remaining candidates tallied between 50 and 171
votes each. In the years following the convention, Greer edited the
Topeka Tribune for a year, beginning on
February 9, 1861, served briefly during this same period as judge advocate
general in the Kansas adjutant general's department, "enlisted in the
state militia [Second KSM] and was severely wounded in the Price raid,"
was elected probate judge of Shawnee County, and was appointed as consul
to Matamoras, Mexico, 1869-1870. Judge Greer, who, according to his
Daily Capital obituary, "was an able lawyer,
... a good citizen and a true friend," died in Topeka on November 28,
1889. 30
The man who would become the state's first superintendent of public instruction (February 1861-February 1862), William Riley Griffith, was a minister's son born near Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana, on May 8, 1820. Griffith graduated from Asbury University in 1847, removed to Bourbon County, Kansas Territory, from Pennsylvania in the spring of 1855, and wasted little time getting involved in the politics of the day. Initially a free-state Democrat, Griffith was a delegate to the Topeka Constitutional Convention in October 1855 and a recognized leader of the free-state movement in the southeast. Griffith won election to the superintendent's office on December 6, 1859, and took office after Kansas was admitted to the Union in 1861. He died in Topeka on February 12, 1862, after only one year on the job. During the Wyandotte Convention the Daily Times writer described Griffith as "one of the most valuable members of this body. . . . a good, clear thinker, concise and terse speaker, and a man true always to the best instincts of humanity. 32 James Hanway, Shermanville (Lane), Franklin County, Republican, Farmer. A friend and neighbor of the abolitionist John Brown, James Hanway
was born in London, England, on September 4, 1809, but eventually moved
to Ohio where he married and started a family. He was politically active
in the Buckeye State as "a prominent member of the Old Liberty Party,"
according to Leavenworth's Daily Times,
and was "a delegate to the Pittsburgh Free-Soil Convention in '52."
The Hanways, James and Rebecca and their three sons, moved in March
1856 from Ohio to Kansas, where he was actively engaged in the free-state
movement, serving in John Brown, Jr's militia company, among other things.
Nevertheless, soon after five of his proslavery neighbors were murdered
on Pottawatomie Creek in May 1856, Hanway wrote: "All men of real good
sense, condemned these midnight assassinations." Elected as a representative
from Franklin County in November 1860 to what would be the last territorial
legislature, Hanway served in the 1865 and 1870 state legislatures and
was the first president of the Osawatomie State Hospital board of trustees,
1866-1873. He remained active in local affairs, while writing and speaking
often on "early day" Kansas, until his death at Lane, Kansas, on May
9, 1882. 33
Samuel Hipple, Leavenworth, Leavenworth County, Democrat, Land Agent/Farmer. Born in Perry County, Pennsylvania (ca. 1821), Samuel Hipple, who
worked as railroad contractor, married (ca. 1845) Emiline (Emma) _________,
also a native of Pennsylvania; they had at least four children there
before removing to Kansas in 1857. The Hipples located on a farm near
Monrovia, Atchison County, and he "entered the freighting business,
extending his work into New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah and the far West and
Southwest. He built the first sawmill in his neighborhood, to which
was attached a corn-grinder." Hipple was commissioned a captain and
served as assistant quartermaster during the Civil War and was elected
in 1866 to a term in the state senate from Monrovia, Atchison County.
During the postwar decade, Hipple acquired relatively large real estate
holdings and also dealt in livestock, buying and shipping. He died at
Atchison, Kansas, on January 21, 1875. 35
Samuel E. Hoffman, Neosho Falls, Woodson County, Republican (former Whig), Lawyer. Born in Pennsylvania (ca. 1834), Samuel Hoffman graduated from Albany Law School and decided to establish a practice in the West. He moved to Kansas from Iowa in 1858, settling in Neosho Falls, and a year later the young, unmarried attorney joined Allen Crocker as one of two delegates representing Coffey and Woodson counties at the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention in July 1859. The citizens of his county decide they should elect a lawyer to represent them at the convention, reported the Kansas City Journal years later; "Hoffman was the only lawyer in the community, and that fact and his natural talents and popularity quickly caused the settlers to decide that he was the logical man for the place." Nevertheless, although appointed to the apportionment, ordinance and public debt, and finance and taxation committees Hoffman seems not to have played a major role at the convention, speaking only rarely from the floor; but he was engaged and did help craft the final wording for a few provisions, such as Section 17 of the Bill of Rights pertaining to "property rights of citizens and aliens." In December 1859 Hoffman won election to a seat in the first state senate (two-year term), which convened in April 1861. During the 1862 session Senator Hoffman served on a joint committee (two representatives and one senator), which was "to examine the general laws of the State, and ascertain what laws are in force at this time, and what laws have become obsolete or repealed by implication." The final result was the Compiled Laws of 1862. This was a tough and important task that the committee reportedly did quite well, but apparently Hoffman chose not to seek reelection in 1862. Subsequently, he moved to Leavenworth where he "engaged in the overland freighting business, out of which he made a great deal of money." Hoffman then moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and entered into banking with the Merchants' Laclede National Bank. After B. F. Simpson died on August 10, 1916, Hoffman became the sole surviving member of the 1859 convention. 37 Samuel Dexter Houston, Manhattan, Riley County, Republican, Farmer. Born in Columbus, Ohio, on June 11, 1818, Samuel D. Houston moved
with his parent to Illinois in 1830 where he finished his common school
education. With his first wife, Mary Jane Rankin, who died in 1850 after
seven years of marriage, Houston moved to Iowa where he worked a farm
for more than a decade. He married Tabetha Kimball in 1852, and the
following December removed to the as yet unorganized Kansas Territory
in anticipation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, settling in the Manhattan
area. In March 1855 Houston was elected to the first territorial legislature
as a free-soil candidate but resigned his position amidst the expulsion
of all free-state legislators. He was elected to the state senate under
the Topeka Constitution in 1857, as a delegate to the Wyandotte Convention
in June 1859, and as a member of the first state senate under the Wyandotte
Constitution in December. Houston was appointed receiver of the Junction
City (or Concordia) land office in 1861 and late in that decade moved
to Salina, where he was active in local affairs and an avid prohibitionist.
He died at Salina on February 28, 1910, and was buried on March 2 at
the city's Gypsum Hill Cemetery. 38
Elijah M. Hubbard, Highland, Doniphan County, Democrat (former Whig), Merchant. Born in Green County, Kentucky, on May 15, 1828, E. M. Hubbard was raised on a farm and educated in his native county. He taught school until 1852, when he became a merchant at Campbellsville, Kentucky, and on January 20 of that year married Anna E. Shields, also a native of the Bluegrass State-Warren County. They moved their young family (two daughters, ages three and one) to Kansas in 1856, where Hubbard served as superintendent and teacher at the Kickapoo Mission school. Hubbard was elected to the 1857 territorial legislature and settled in Highland in 1858 where he ran a hotel, served as postmaster, and became a county commissioner. At the Wyandotte Convention, according to fellow delegate B.F. Simpson, Hubbard accused William Hutchinson of offering him "a good lot [in the town of Lawrence] if he would vote for Lawrence as the temporary capital of the State." The affair ended with an inconclusive investigation, after both delegates accused the other of being a "liar." Hubbard served on the executive department and militia committees, but otherwise was, in his own words, "one of the silent members of this body." After completing his convention service, Hubbard moved his family to Claytonville, Brown County, where he worked as a merchant. Hubbard spent a couple years (1860-1862) mining in Colorado, and then moved back to Highland and the merchandising business, became a traveling salesman for a few years, and then returned to Highland and merchandising (Campbell & Hubbard) in about 1880. 40
Born in Randolph, Orange County, Vermont, on January 24, 1823, and
raised on a farm, William Hutchinson received a common school education,
plus, and taught several terms in the rural schools. He married Helen
M. Fish (born, ca. 1828), also of Randolph, on March 3, 1847, and couple
established a farm near Braintree, Orange County, Vermont. Three years
prior to their spring 1855 move to Kansas Territory, Hutchinson became
editor and publisher of the Green Mountain Herald,
Randolph, Vermont. William and Helen Hutchinson actively supported the
free-state movement; he wrote letters on the situation in Kansas for
the Vermont Watchman, the Boston
Journal, and the New York Times,
among other newspapers, and of course served as a Lawrence delegate
to the Wyandotte Convention in 1859. He actively engaged in many territorial
Kansas events, martial and political, and joined James H. Lane's Frontier
Guard in the nation's capital in 1861. Hutchinson maintained his residence
in Lawrence but continued working in Washington, D.C.; he was in the
employ of the Interior Department at the time of his death in Washington
on May 18, 1904. 41
John James Ingalls, Sumner, Atchison County, Republican, Lawyer. Born in Middletown, Essex County, Massachusetts, on December 29, 1833,
to Eliza Chase and Elias T. Ingalls, John J. Ingalls became a prominent
lawyer, orator, author, and politician. He graduated from Williams College
at Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1855 and was admitted to the bar
in 1857. Searching for a healthier clime and economic opportunity, the
young attorney moved to the Kansas frontier in October 1858 and quickly
became active in the political affairs of the territory, serving as
a delegate to the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention. As chair of the
convention's Phraseology Committee, Ingalls influenced the final document,
which became the Constitution of the State of Kansas, and was the "recognized
scholar of the convention." He carried on a voluminous correspondence
throughout the territorial years and penned several extant letters to
his father during the pivotal summer of 1859; two weeks after the convention
adjourned, Ingalls reported "The Constitution is before the people,
and meets with very general approbation. The democrats are taking strong
ground against it, because it does not include Southern Nebraska & Pikes
Peak, because it does not exclude free negroes & on account of an apportionment
which cannot fail to secure a large Republican majority in the state
organization. . . . The democracy [Democrats] are furious about it of
course and some temporizing Republicans. . . . [but] I adopt a different
ground, and in a speech which I made at Atchison at a mass ratification
meeting last Evening, I told them distinctly that I assisted in making
the apportionment and voted for it, because I thought it was one that
would win: that I was not aware of any Extreme favors or Kindness Extended
to the people of Kansas in the last four years by the democratic party
which warranted any very delicate consideration from the party in power
today." On September 4, 1859, Ingalls wrote: "The Constitution will
undoubtedly be adopted though I am by no means sanguine about admission
under it into the Union. The democrats oppose it as a party measure,
but I Estimate the Republican majority in the territory at five thousand,
which gives us a sure thing." 43
Born in Worthington, Massachusetts, on June 26, 1818, S. A. Kingman
was educated in the local public schools and then moved to Kentucky,
where he taught school and studied and practiced law for some eighteen
years. He also held local office (county clerk and county attorney)
and served two terms in the Kentucky legislature, 1849-1851. Kingman
married on October 29, 1844, to Matilda Willetts Hartman, who had been
born in Pennsylvania in May 1822. After a short stay in Iowa, the family
moved to Kansas in 1857, settling first on a farm and then in Hiawatha,
Brown County. Kingman represented that county at the Wyandotte Convention
and was elected, under the constitution he helped draft, to the state
supreme court in December 1859; subsequently, he served as associate
justice (1861-1865) and chief justice (January 1867-December 30, 1876)
of the Kansas Supreme Court and was the first president of the Kansas
State Historical Society. Judge Kingman died on September 9, 1904, at
home (corner of Seventh and Monroe Streets) in Topeka, where he had
resided since 1872. 45 Josiah Lamb, Mound City, Linn County, Republican (former Democrat), Mechanic/Farmer. A Linn County farmer and "millwright" who had been born near Richmond,
Wayne County, Indiana, on March 31, 1817, to John and Lydia (Mendenhall)
Lamb, Josiah Lamb moved his large family, which included wife Ruth and
eight children (ages one to twenty-one) to Kansas Territory from Iowa
(where they lived for only about five years) in 1857. He had married
his first cousin, Ruth Lamb, on October 12, 1836, and the first seven
of their ten children were born in Indiana. Soon after settling in Linn
County, Lamb involved himself in local affairs and was elected justice
of the peace for Potosi Township and easily won, along with J.M. Arthur,
the contest to represent his county at the Wyandotte Convention. While
there Lamb was certainly not outspoken; indeed, he was mostly silent
during floor debate, but there were exceptions. On one occasion about
midway through the convention, this self-described "common citizen of
Kansas" said, "Mr. President, I have kept my seat on all occasions,
perfectly willing to listen to older and wiser heads, but now I feel
disposed to offer some thoughts." The issue under consideration was
the educational opportunities to be given to black children; Lamb expressed
the firm belief that if they were to be allowed to "come into Kansas
at all, let us give them an education." He believed "a direct vote of
the people" should decide the former question-i.e., "whether the black
man shall have the privilege of coming into Kansas." 47
George H. Lillie, Madison County, Emporia (P.O.), Republican (former Whig), Lawyer. Born in Geauga County, Ohio, on February 12, 1822, George Lillie was educated in Trumbull County, read law and passed the bar in 1843, and started a legal practice in Warren, Trumbull County. He married Melinda Wilder on May 9, 1844, at Onego, Illinois, moved to Freeport, and then to Shullsburg, La Fayette County, Wisconsin; there the couple lived and raised their large family-seven children by the time they moved to Kansas in the fall of 1858; at least two more were born in Kansas. At the Wyandotte Convention, Lillie served on the preamble and bill of rights, judicial department, and phraseology and arrangement committees and was described as "an active working member" who brought "a clear head and good legal knowledge to his work." Lillie was elected to the territorial legislature in 1860 and served as district attorney for the Fifth District of Kansas from 1861-1863. He moved his family to Greenwood County in 1868 to farm and then to Eureka where he resumed the practice of law, was twice elected mayor, and served as a probate court judge. He suffered a debilitating stroke in 1882 and died on November 14, 1883. "Judge Lillie commenced his life-work as an earnest advocate of free state principles, at a time when it required a good degree of moral courage as well as conscientiousness to do so," eulogized the Greenwood County Republican. "He was a professor of religion, a church member and a firm believer in the bible, of which few men had a more general knowledge, or a more clear understanding." 49 Clark B. McClellan, Oskaloosa, Jefferson County, Democrat (former Whig), Merchant. Born in Wayne County, Ohio, on May 7, 1823, C. B. McClellan attended the public schools and the academy at Xenia, Ohio, and in 1847 entered is brother's mercantile business. McClellan married Mary Moore on October 1, 1850, and the first of the couple's five children was born in Ohio in February 1852; their last two were born in Kansas, 1859 and 1863. They removed first to Iowa, where they resided for a couple years before settling in Oskaloosa, Kansas Territory, in 1857. There the McClellan's established a prosperous dry goods business-still working in that capacity in 1880-and became involved in local politics, being elected county treasurer in 1858. He was elected June 1859 as Jefferson County's lone representative to the Wyandotte Convention, where he served on the legislative department, and education and public institutions committees. Subsequently, McClellan served in the Kansa Militia during the Price raid of October 1864. The McClellan family moved back to Ohio for three years after the war but returned to Oskaloosa where he lived out his long life (living in Oskaloosa at age 87 in 1910). 50 William McCulloch, Council Grove, Morris County, Republican, Farmer. A Republican delegate to the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention from Council Grove, McCulloch was born in Scotland (ca. 1815) and came to Kansas Territory from Iowa in 1856. He was a farmer and a forty-four-year-old widower, who had also served as a delegate to the Leavenworth Convention of 1858, when he represented Breckinridge County, along with Preston B. Plumb and John R. Swallow. He was "a 'canny' son of the 'land of cakes,' but he has lived in the States for a number of years," reported the Daily Times in July 1859. "He brings all a Scotchman's shrewdness and clearness of perception as well as the true Humanitarian tendencies which distinguish them as a people." If this assessment is correct, McCulloch apparently chose keep his own council or perhaps to share his innate wisdom in private, as there is virtually no reference to him in the Wyandote convention proceedings, and he essentially disappears from the historical record after adjournment. 51 Adam D. McCune, Leavenworth, Leavenworth County, Democrat, Farmer. Born in Jefferson County, Ohio, on November 26, 1827, and raised on a farm, Adam D. McCune married Margaret A. Medill on October 2, 1851, and they moved their young family, which consisted of two sons and a daughter, to Kansas in 1857. He immediately purchased 540 acres of land in Leavenworth County, turned "his attention to general farm pursuits," and was active in local affairs. McCune easily won election on June 7, 1859, as delegate to the Wyandotte Convention, and thus became a part of his county's ten-member Democratic delegation. Although he seems not to have played a significant role in the convention, McCune served on the five-member committee appointed to investigate the perjury charge leveled against delegate William Hutchinson near the end of the proceedings. When McCune died on August 18, 1866, just nine years after moving to Kansas, Margaret McCune was left the head of a household of eight children, ages sixteen to two years. "The outlook might have been discouraging to some, but not so to her," reported the Portrait and Biographical Record in 1899. "With indomitable spirit, and assisted by her children, she conducted the farm, superintended the planting and harvesting of the crops, and finally succeeded in clearing the debt. Since then she has been uniformly prosperous." 52 William C. McDowell, Leavenworth, Leavenworth County, Democrat, Lawyer. The son of a prominent lawyer and politician, William McDowell was
born at Hillsborough, Ohio, in ca. 1828 and was himself admitted to
the Ohio bar. About 1854 McDowell married Betty _______, and the young
couple started a family in her native state of Kentucky before removing
to Kansas. He was recognized as "one of the best" stump speakers in
Kansas Territory soon after his 1858 arrival; according to B.F. Simpson,
"McDowell had an indescribable way of 'putting things' to a crowd that
was irresistible." The Leavenworth attorney served as a delegate to
the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention in July 1859 and was described
as "perhaps, the most rabid Democrat in the delegation, stout, bald
and bearded, about middle age, and yet quite youthful in manner, full
of humor and good nature, a gentleman and a good fellow." According
to the Times, however, McDowell was "purely
Democratic on this all-absorbing question [slavery]." Despite his opposition
to the original instrument, McDowell was nominated for and won election
as first district judge under the new constitution at the December 6
election. W.C. McDowell died in St. Louis on July 16, 1867. 53
Caleb May, Pardee, Atchison County, Republican (former Democrat), Farmer. The man who would be a delegate to three Kansas constitutional conventions,
Caleb May, was born in Madison County, Kentucky, on January 19, 1816,
and married Margaret Parnell, an Indiana native, in Decatur County,
Indiana, on January 4, 1838. He had assumed responsibility for the family
farm when his father died in 1830 and removed with the family, mother
and four younger siblings, to Indiana about two years later. In about
1842 the family moved to Arkansas for three years and then Buchanan
County, Missouri; the Mays spent almost a decade in Missouri, where
Caleb and Margaret started their large family, before moving to Kansas
Territory in 1854. They opened a farm in Atchison County, and May quickly
involved himself in free-state affairs and was active in the Topeka
Movement, being elected as a delegate to the constitutional convention
that convened at Topeka on October 23, 1855. (He was then said to be
a Democrat, a farmer, and a resident of Osena.) In 1858 he was elected
a delegate to the Leavenworth Constitutional Convention and was one
of Atchison County's three delegates to the Wyandotte Convention in
1859. In subsequent years he continued farming, moving to Montgomery
County in 1869, where he lived with his wife, one son (Thomas S., age
15) and a grandson (Samuel G., age 6) in 1880. May died at Eustis, Florida,
on August 27, 1888. 55
John A. Middleton, Nottingham, Marshall County, Republican, Lawyer. Born in Pennsylvania (ca. 1835), J. A. Middleton was an unmarried attorney when he moved to Kansas from Iowa in 1857 and represented Marshall and Washington counties at the constitutional convention in July 1859. He served on the schedule, corporation and banking, education and public institutions, and accounts committees, but apparently took little or no role in the floor debates. On October 1, 1861, Middleton enlisted as a private in Company B, Seventh Regiment, Kansas Volunteer Cavalry (widely known as Jennison's Jayhawkers, after its infamous colonel, Charles R. Jennison), and was promoted to sergeant on November 1, 1862. He briefly returned to Marshall County at war's end and then removed to Montana, where he was reportedly still living in 1882. 57 Ephraim Moore, Holton, Jackson County, Democrat (former Whig), Manufacturer. Jackson County's lone delegate at the Wyandotte Convention, the thirty-eight-year-old Ephraim Moore was born in Ohio and moved to Kansas Territory from Iowa in 1857. At the convention Moore served on the apportionment, county and township organization, and a special investigation committees, but otherwise appears not to have been active. In 1880 Moore, now working as a carpenter, was living in Circleville, Jackson County, with his second wife, Dorcas (age forty, native Iowan), and his Kansas-born stepson, eleven-year-old Daniel Nelson. 58 Luther R. Palmer, Louisville, Pottawatomie County, Independent (former Democrat), Physician. One of the three physician delegates at the 1859 convention, Dr. Luther R. Palmer was born in Chatham, Columbia County, New York, on January 9, 1819, and was educated at a Quaker boarding school there. He then graduated from the Berkshire Medical College in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and practiced medicine for four years in New York before moving to Berrien County, Michigan. Dr. Palmer married to Helen L.______, also a native of New York, about 1845. (Palmer remarried to Amelia E. _______, an Indiana native, during the 1860s.) The Palmers moved from Michigan in 1850 to what would become Kansas Territory, where the doctor worked as physician for the Potawatomi Agency; in 1867 he was appointed U.S. Indian agent to the Potawatomis in the Central Superintendency. Palmer was active in local political affairs, serving as St. Mary's first postmaster (beginning in March 1855 and again beginning in October 1882) and representing Pottawatomie County as a delegate to the Wyandotte Convention; subsequently, he served as a member of the territorial council and as a Republican in the state senate in 1873-1874. He accumulated a considerable amount of property in the vicinity of St. Marys, Kansas, where he died on March 29, 1883. 59 Pascal Shelburn Parks, Kickapoo, Leavenworth County, Democrat, Lawyer. Born at Martinsville, Indiana, in1833, Pascal Parks was the eldest son of P.M. Parks, a "wealthy citizen." The younger Parks received a good education and graduated with a bachelors degree in law from Indiana University at Bloomington in 1854. "He located in Kansas [in 1857] during the dark and bloody days, and at once took a front rank as a lawyer and politician," reported the Martinsville Republican at the time of his death. Parks practiced law, involved himself in Democratic Party politics, and represented Leavenworth County at the July 1859 Wyandotte Convention. Parks subsequently represented that county in the 1860 territorial legislature, but after some years he returned to his old hometown in Indiana. Tragically, according to his Martinsville obituary, "the baleful habit of intemperance fastened upon him, and bound him in chains which he could not break, keeping him its slave until the last." Nevertheless, he contributed a regular column titled "Shell Barks" to the local newspaper Parks died at Martinsville, Indiana, on May 21, 1879, "a lonely, homeless outcast" for the last twelve years of his short life. 60 William Perry, Leavenworth, Leavenworth County, Democrat, Lawyer. Born on July 8, 1832, in Montreal, Canada, William Perry was educated there and graduated from a Jesuit school in 1850. He spent two years in Paris, France, and then moved to Columbus, Georgia, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1854. Perry was married that same year and had moved his family to Kansas by 1857, establishing himself in Leavenworth. He was commissioned notary public for the county on June 3, 1857, and as clerk of the board of county commissioners on December 29 of that year. In July 1858 he was named captain of Shield's Guard, a company of the Kansas militia. Perry served as a delegate to the Wyandotte Convention but "was obliged to leave very early in the session on account of ill health," according to the Leavenworth Times. In November 1860 he was elected to represent Leavenworth County in what was to be the last territorial legislature. The Perrys moved to Denver, Colorado, in 1861, where he started a legal practice. Later that same year, however, William Perry died suddenly, leaving a wife and two children. 61 Robert J. Porter, Troy, Doniphan County, Republican (former Independent), Merchant. An unmarried, Troy merchant when elected as a delegate to the Wyandotte Convention, Robert Porter was born in Pennsylvania (ca. 1831) and moved to Kansas from Ohio in 1857. On October 5 of that year he was elected county treasurer of Doniphan County. Although he seems to have remained relatively silent on the convention floor, Porter served on executive department, electors and elections, and the phraseology and arrangement committees and was engaged throughout; he was one of only four signers of the proposed constitution (i.e. Republicans) to have voted for the annexation of the south Platte country. All the Democratic delegates voted in favor of this proposition, but according the James Hanway, Republicans generally rejected the idea for a number of reason; but "one thing is evident, it is an Administration movement, and we do not feel will to be trapped in a project of doubtful utility." 62 Hiram Dustin Preston, Burlingame, Shawnee (now Osage) County, Republican (former Whig), Farmer. A twenty-eight-year-old, unmarried farmer from Burlingame, Hiram Preston had been born in Auburn, New Hampshire, on November 13, 1829, and moved to Kansas from Illinois in 1856. Preston was elected one of Shawnee County's three convention delegates and served there as chair of the apportionment committee. He also took a lead role in the effort to deal constitutionally with the liquor questions, offering a section that would have specifically authorized the legislature "to regulate or prohibit the sale of alcoholic liquors, except for mechanical and medicinal purposes," because he thought the indiscriminate sale of intoxicating liquors was "against humanity" and "the worst thing that can happen." According to Leavenworth's Daily Times correspondent, Preston "steadily placed himself on record against the inhuman proposition of the Africans, and supported all Humanitarian movements. He speaks seldom, but always to the point." Preston went back to New Hampshire in 1861 and on April 3 married Emily Frances Greeley at Nashua. They lived at Burlingame until 1868 when they moved in Council Grove. Perry's poor health took the family, which now included two children, to Colorado in July 1873, but he died at Pueblo on August 28 of that year. 63
One of the Wyandotte convention's leading radicals, John Ritchie (or Ritchey) was born in Uniontown, Ohio, on July 17, 1817. He married Mary Jane Shelleday, a Kentucky native, at Franklin, Indiana, on January 16, 1838, and they started a family there before moving to Kansas Territory in 1854. In addition to farming and real estate development in and near Topeka, Ritchie became a political leader in his community and was selected to represent his locale in both the Leavenworth and Wyandotte constitutional conventions. Notably, at the latter, Ritchie sought to omit the word "white" from the final document and advocated for women's rights-on the second day of the convention, Ritchie moved "that Mrs. [Clarina] Nichols be heard in behalf of the ladies." Recognized as "the Radical of Radicals, the Extremist on all points par excellence," Ritchie was described by the Daily Times as "an ultra Abolitionist, woman's rights man, teetotaler and general advocate for reform," who looked "eagerly and earnestly for the ultimate redemption of mankind from all oppressions, abuses and vices, of whatever nature and kind." He was actively engaged in the cause of the Union throughout the Civil War, holding commands in both the Fifth Kansas Cavalry and the Indian Home Guards, and became one of the capital city's leading benefactors in the postwar decades, until his death in Topeka on August 31, 1887. 64 Edmund G. Ross, Glenross, Wabaunsee County, Republican, Printer/Farmer. Born in Ashland, Ohio, on December 7, 1826, E. G. Ross apprenticed as a printer in Sandusky. He married Fannie M. Lathrop in 1848, and then moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1849, where he was connected with the Milwaukee Sentinel. Moving to Kansas from Wisconsin as leader of a free-state colony in 1856, Ross involved himself in territorial politics and the newspaper business (editor, State Record) in Topeka. At the convention Ross served on the apportionment, amendments and miscellaneous, and phraseology and arrangement committees. The partisan Leavenworth newspaper praised Ross "as one of the former Editors of that sterling sheet-The Kansas Tribune. He worthily represents the craft, though from subduing the Border Ruffians by aid of type and pen, (and sometimes with a shooting stick,) he has taken to subduing the soil and making that responsive to the Freeman's industry." Ross helped raise and then served in the Eleventh Kansas during the Civil War. After James H. Lane's death by suicide in 1866, Ross was appointed and subsequently elected to the Lane seat in the U.S. Senate. While serving as senator from Kansas in 1868, Ross won fame as the senator who cast the deciding vote for acquittal in the impeachment trial of President Johnson. This ruined Ross politically in Kansas, and he failed in his bid for a full term in 1871. Ross returned to his former journalistic pursuits, and in 1885 he was appointed governor of New Mexico Territory. He died in Albuquerque on May 8, 1907. 65 James Hunt Signor, Humbolt, Allen County, Republican, Surveyor. An unmarried clerk/surveyor who settled in Humbolt, in April 1857, J. H. Signor was born at Dannemora, New York, on May 3, 1833. Upon arrival in the territory, Signor quickly became engaged on the free-state movement and represented Allen County at the constitutional convention. He was appointed to the finance and taxation and the amendments and miscellaneous committees, and was described as "an industrious member and good Republican" who was "universally honored and esteemed," but Signor's involvement in regular sessions of the convention was negligible. With Napoleon B. Blanton and others, Signor founded the town of St. John in Allen County in 1860 and joined Blanton's Fourth Kansas Regiment at the outset of the Civil War. Subsequently, Signor served as a first lieutenant under Captain Blanton in Co. H., Tenth Kansas Volunteer Infantry. Signor mustered out of the service in August 1864 and returned to New York, where he engaged in the manufacture of iron and, among other things, married Sarah E. ______ in 1867. In later years he served as a clerk at the Clinton County prison located in his hometown of Dannemora and died in September 1914. 66 Benjamin Franklin Simpson, Paola, Lykins County, Republican, Lawyer. The convention's youngest delegate at age twenty-three, B. F. Simpson had been born in Belmont County, Ohio, on October 24, 1836, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar just prior to his move to Kansas Territory in 1857. Simpson was unmarried at the time of the convention, living in Paola with an Ohio-born millwright named E. McClure. Almost immediately he became involved in local politics and public service-elected Miami County attorney in 1858. He continued practicing law in that village, married in Paola on March 15, 1862, a widow, Augusta L. Redfield-Buford, who had one son, and by 1870 the couple had three children of their own: Frank, Carrie, and Martha. The family grew and prospered, and within another decade added two sons, two daughters, and two black domestic servants. In the years following his service at the convention, Simpson represented Miami County in the territorial legislature, was elected Kansas's first attorney general under the Wyandotte Constitution on December 6, 1859 (served, February to July 1861; resigned this position to enlist in the army), and served as captain of Co. C, Fifteenth Kansas Cavalry, throughout the Civil War (promoted to major, June 7, 1865). Subsequently, Simpson was active in the Republican Party and elected to several terms in the state legislature (both the house and the senate), serving as speaker of the house for the 1871 session. He was appointed United States marshal for the District of Kansas in 1878 (until 1886) and served as a supreme court commissioner from March 5, 1887, to March 1, 1893. He died in Paola on August 10, 1916. 67 John P. Slough, Leavenworth, Leavenworth County, Democrat, Lawyer. "Among the leading men of the convention," according to B. F. Simpson,
was John P. Slough, who had been born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1829.
He married Arbella ________ about 1853 in Ohio, where they resided and
started a family before moving to Kansas in 1857. The Sloughs settled
in Leavenworth. He opened a legal practice and in July 1857 received
a commission as notary public for the county. Slough was elected one
of Leavenworth County's ten delegates to the Wyandotte Convention in
July 1859 and took an active role in its debates and deliberations-from
the outset, Slough and fellow Leavenworth Democratic delegate S. A.
Stinson, vigorously represented the minority. In the fall of 1861, Colonel
Slough took command of the newly organized First Regiment, Colorado
Volunteers, with Samuel F. Tappan as his lieutenant colonel and Rev.
John M. Chivington the regiment's major. Slough led a part of the regiment
south into New Mexico in March 1862, where, according to Simpson, he
"fought gallantly," but nevertheless resigned his command in April.
Slough remained in New Mexico where he became "supreme justice" and
subsequently was "killed in an affray with an army officer" in Santa
Fe, New Mexico, on December 16, 1867. 68
John Stiarwalt, Palermo, Doniphan County, Democrat, Farmer. A co-founder of Palermo and Troy in Doniphan County, John Stiarwalt was born in Ohio (ca. 1815,) and married Elizabeth ________, also a native of Ohio. The Stiarwalts moved to Kansas Territory in 1855 from Weston, Missouri, where they had apparently settled in the late 1840s and where he worked as a carpenter. Stiarwalt was one of five delegates representing Doniphan County at the 1859 constitutional convention where he served on the apportionment and the phraseology and arrangement committees. Actively engaged in the proceedings throughout, Stiarwalt spoke up on several issues including on the question of annexing "southern" Nebraska. He insisted that this was not a partisan issue and in fact the "Republican Legislature last winter" had memorialized Congress for this same territory. In arguing this point further, Stiarwalt insisted "our Democratic members have ever been Free State men. They have worked just as hard, and have voted just as strenuously against the pro-slavery party as have the Republicans. A majority of all that stand upon this floor have been against the pro-slavery party." He insisted that no "trickery" involved in this effort and that his party only wanted annexation because this was "a good, rich strip of country." Subsequently, Stiarwalt continued farming in Washington Township, Doniphan County, and participated in the state railroad convention at Topeka in October 1860. [He died before 1882.] 70 Samuel Adams Stinson, Leavenworth, Leavenworth County, Democrat, Lawyer. Born in Wiscasset, Maine, on November 24, 1831, and graduated from
Bowdoin College, Stinson gained a reputation as an outstanding orator
and successful lawyer. He was married and moved to Kansas from Wisconsin
in 1857; and although the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for associate
justice of the supreme court under the Wyandotte Constitution, during
the Civil War Stinson was elected state attorney general (special election
to fill vacancy, November 5, 1861), serving in that office from December
20, 1861, to January 1863. He was, according to B.F. Simpson, "the most
genial, magnetic, versatile and accomplished" of Leavenworth's "galaxy
of bright minds." Stinson was "tall, well formed, with a bright, fresh
face . . . . He devoured books, rather than read them, his tenacious
memory enabling him to call up their contents at will. His voice was
clear and flute-like, with the most persuasive accents, and his wit
sparkling and contagious." Stinson was elected to the board of directors
of the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division on April 6, 1864, but
soon after the war ended he returned to his native state and old hometown,
Wiscasset, where he died on February 20, 1866. 71
Edwin Stokes, Clinton, Douglas County, Republican (former Whig), Manufacturer/Mechanic. One of Douglas County's seven delegates to the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention, Edwin Stokes was born in Pennsylvania (ca. 1824) and married for a second time to Madeline (Malvina) ________ about 1852. They removed to Kansas from Indiana in 1856 and settled at Clinton. Although Stokes appears to have played a relatively minor role in the 1859 convention, he did offer one interesting motion on July 19: "Sec. 3. The right of suffrage shall be extended to females upon the following conditions: The Legislature may, at any regular session, provide for submitting the question of female suffrage," and if a majority of the electorate voted "'For female suffrage,' then at all future elections there shall be no distinction in the qualifications of electors on account of sex." The section was tabled. During the Civil War, Stokes served as quartermaster for the Second Kansas Colored Infantry, resigning that position at Little Rock, Arkansas, on April 22, 1865. The family moved to Pulaski County, Arkansas, after the war, where he worked as a carpenter and lived into the 1880s. 73 Solon Otis Thacher, Lawrence, Douglas County, Republican (former Whig), Lawyer. Born in Hornellsville, Steuben County, New York, on August 31, 1830, S. O. Thacher was the son of a county judge (Otis Thatcher) and a graduate of Union College at Schenectady, as well as the Albany Law School. Thacher was in 1856 admitted to the bar in New York, where he practiced law and served in the 1857 legislature, before moving with his wife Sarah M. Gilmore and infant daughter to Kansas in July 1858. Thacher settled at Lawrence, where he acquired a half interest in the Republican (co-owner, T. D. Thacher?). In 1859 he proved to be one of the most active and influential delegates at Wyandotte and delivered "the great speech of that convention" against "Negro" exclusion. Previously, Thacher had defended the raids of James Montgomery and other such extreme activity and was a radical voice at the convention. On May 19, 1860, Thacher left the Lawrence Republican, but he remained politically active, winning a judgeship in 1861 (Fourth Judicial District), running for governor in 1864 (anti-Lane candidate), and serving in the state senate in the 1880s. In 1882 he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor, losing to John P. St. John. He also maintained a successful and lucrative law practice in Lawrence and served as a regent of the state university. S. O. Thacher was appointed to a diplomatic mission that toured South America in 1883 and was president of the Kansas State Historical Society at the time of his death, August 11, 1895. "He is dead," reported the Lawrence Daily Journal, "and in his death we have lost a noble, honest, true, man." 74 P. H. Townsend, Big Springs, Douglas County, Republican (former Whig), Lawyer. Born in Salisbury, New Hampshire (ca. 1826), P.H. Townsend was an unmarried lawyer when he moved to Kansas from Illinois in 1856. He quickly engaged himself in the affairs of his community and the territory, serving, among other things, as secretary of a meeting of Big Springs residents who registered their support for Governor John W. Geary on February 12, 1857, before winning election as a Douglas County delegate to the Wyandotte Convention. Townsend served on the phraseology and arrangements committee and as chair of the electors and elections committee. He submittedthe latter committee's report on July 18, but otherwise he seems to have played a marginal role throughout proceedings. 75 Ralph Lindsay Williams, Franklin, Douglas County, Republican (former Whig), Merchant. The son of Elizabeth Bowen and Bayliss Williams, R. L. Williams was born in Pulaski County, Kentucky, on August 21, 1815, but moved with his family to Shelby County, Illinois, in 1830. Williams married Mary Hume in 1839 and in 1849 joined the Gold Rush to California, but after a year in the gold fields Williams returned to his family and studied medicine in Chicago. He practiced briefly in Williamsburg, Illinois, before moving his family to Kansas in 1857 and immediately becoming involved in the Kansas conflict. According to his daughter Elizabeth, Williams "built a stone store building" during the summer of 1857 "and stocked it with general merchandise," but "he was primarily a physician." After serving as a Douglas County delegate to the Wyandotte Convention, Williams served in the 1862 legislature and continued to be otherwise active in politics, as well as a practicing physician; in the late 1870s he moved to Lawrence, where he died at his home on "Quincy street, just west of the Quincy school," on December 17, 1897. "For the last twelve years," read Williams's obituary, "he has been partially blind, and has been compelled to withdraw from the active practice of his profession, living quietly at his Quincy street home." 76 John Wright, Leavenworth, Leavenworth County, Democrat, Farmer. Born in Greencastle, Indiana, on June 4, 1827, John Wright moved to Kansas Territory in 1854 from Buchannan County, Missouri, where he had settled with his family in 1839. Wright was married first to Sarah __________ in Missouri (ca. 1848) and again, presumably after Sarah Wright's death, to Mary _________ in the mid-1860s. Almost immediately after his arrival, Wright took to politics in the troubled territory and served as a delegate to the Big Springs Convention in early September 1855 and as a captain in the Stranger Creek militia company during the summer of 1856. Wright represented Leavenworth County as a member of the council of the 1858 legislature and as a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1859-he had "no power or influence" at Wyandotte, according to the partisan Leavenworth Times. During the Civil War, Wright saw militia duty again during the Price raid of 1864, this time as a colonel, and engaged in the Battle of Westport. While seeking medical treatment at Fort Scott in December 1870, Wright died and was buried in the Fall Creek cemetery in Leavenworth County. 77 Thomas S. Wright, Granada, Nemaha County, Republican (former Democrat), Lawyer. Nemaha County's lone delegate to the 1859 convention, Thomas S. Wright was born in Pennsylvania (ca. 1809) and married Mary _________ in the early 1830s. The family left Pennsylvania for Franklin County, Indiana, about 1840 and then removed to Kansas in 1857. In April 1858 Wright was appointed by the governor of the territory to fill the position of county attorney for Nemaha County, and in November of that year he was elected chairman of the board of county supervisors. Wright easily won the delegate election on June 7, 1859, and participated in the July convention at Wyandotte, serving on the militia, county and township organization, and federal relations committees. But otherwise he was not active and apparently missed some of the final sessions due to illness. 78 Benjamin Wrigley, Troy, Doniphan County, Democrat, Lawyer. Born in Ohio about 1830, Wrigley moved to Kansas from Indiana in 1856 and was one of eight delegates described by Simpson as "among the leading men of the Convention," who "greatly aided in giving expression to the most wise and beneficent provisions of the Constitution." He was indeed a relatively active member, speaking out on a number of occasions on such issues as the judiciary, individual rights, homestead exemption, and the location of a capital. By 1882, however, the Kansas City Journal could report only that Wrigley had "died in Texas," but "little [was] known of his career" subsequent to the 1859 convention. 79 __________________ *Virgil W. Dean Find other Politics & Government topics.
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