Coffeyville Neighbors

    Not so long ago, if someone suggested researching the friends and neighbors of my ancestors, I would’ve thought that was a new level of crazy. Really crossing over into obsession. After I did so, I read a genealogy blog post suggesting just that -- that we take a look at the people who lived around our ancestors. By learning about the neighbors, we gain insights into the community in which our kin settled. 

     I took a dive into the farming communities of Fawn Creek Township and Parker Township, Montgomery County, Kansas. My third great-grandparents, Enos and Avarilla Patchett homesteaded in Fawn Creek 1870. An uncle of my great-grandfather, Lucius Taylor Barbour, settled there in the late 1880s. My great-great grandfather, Myron Cassius Barbour, settled in Parker Township.

     This was a time when literally everyone in this part of Kansas was from somewhere else. The lands were taken from the Osage Tribe and opened to settlers in 1870. 

     Unsurprisingly, people settled around people who were a lot like them. There were also a lot of commonalities they experienced that were typical of the times. These included:

 

     Either they or their parents were born in New England or New York and moved west, typically to Ohio, Indiana and Illinois before emigrating to Kansas. Or, their parents made the move and they were born in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

     They lost young adult children to infectious diseases such as consumption and erysipelas, or to something like appendicitis. (Didn’t everyone then?!)

     Many suffered the loss of the wife and mother of the family with small children still in the home. (Enos Patchett lost his wife Avarilla; Adam Hadsell – Sarah; John Augustine – Phebe; Ben Ernest -  Annetta; John Geddes – Nan. John Seldomridge’s wife died in 1885 at age 50. Her children were already grown. Similarly, John B. Carnes lost his wife in his forties. Like Enos, Seldomridge and Carnes lived into their 80s, never remarrying.)

     Several were Presbyterian (Edsalls, Barbours, Fords and Coons).

     At least four served as township trustee. (Peter Edsall and Lucius Barbour, Hollis Ford, Adam Hadsell) John Augustine was nominated for the position. Ben Ernest was nominated in Parker Township. John Seldomridge’s son Edwin served as a Parker Township trustee.

     Most were Lincoln Republicans.

     They were Civil War veterans who served mostly in the Union Army: Peter and William Edsall, Lucius Barbour, Azro Blakeslee, John Geddes, Thomas Brownlee and John B. Carnes. Asberry Harkins was an exception who served in the Confederate Army. He was also an outlier in being from the South. 

 

     Below are the names of people who came up most frequently in the Patchett-Barbour lives.

 

The Edsalls

 

      The Edsall family was a prominent pioneer family of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Lucius and Myron C. Barbour were from a pioneer Fort Wayne family. Coincidence? No way. Here’s where I had to revise a theory arising from this question: Why did Myron C. and Lucius settle in Fawn Creek and Parker Townships in Montgomery County Kansas?

      It wasn’t random. I don’t have answers to why they decided to go into farming mid-life. But they picked this particular part of the world because of their old friends. The Barbours and the Edsalls knew each other from early childhood.

 

      As the Edsall family story has it, in 1824 after Catherine Simonson Edsall was widowed, she moved from Ohio to a small cabin on the St. Mary’s River in Fort Wayne with her nine children. Two sons and a daughter became community leaders who helped shape the town. The town had a unique geological feature, which caused one river to flow in a northeasterly direction ending at Lake Erie, and one in a southwesterly direction to the Wabash. The federal government was anxious to expand the success of the Erie Canal into the Northwest Territory, opening up these hinterlands. Samuel and William Edsall were involved in the Wabash and Erie Canal in various ways, and in other transportation innovations.

 

      Fort Wayne in 1826 was an extremely small village, truly a place where everyone knew everyone. Jane Suttenfield, a tavern keeper’s daughter in Fort Wayne, grew up knowing the Edsall family well. She was eight that year, and the population of the town was only around 200.

      Seventeen-year old William Edsall was employed as an attaché of the surveying corps of Colonel Shriver, who was sent by the government to lay lines for the Wabash and Erie Canal. Shriver and most of the surveying party died of malaria, but the work continued.

      In 1831, William’s older brother Samuel was one of 44 subscribers who pledged funds for a Presbyterian minister’s salary and to create First Presbyterian Church. Jane’s father William Suttenfield also subscribed. Samuel had become a town leader and was contracted to build the first Allen County Courthouse. He would also later serve as an Indiana State senator.

      In 1835, Samuel Edsall was appointed to “employ a suitable number of teachers and pay them out of the fund set apart for school purposes.” Samuel and a partner reported that they were not able to employ any teachers on terms “advantageous to the corporation.”

      But that year, a young man had come to town seeking – probably – adventure and opportunity. Myron Fitch Barbour advertised his services as a teacher and “got up a school.” He was a “free agent,” as most teachers in the country were then: he operated a subscription school in which parents contracted with him for what they wanted their children taught, and paid him directly.

      Teaching was something for young men to do for a year or two before studying law or moving on to other endeavors. In March 1836, Myron married the tavern keeper’s daughter, Jane, and began working for the Wabash and Erie Canal Land Company as a clerk. Construction of the canal was funded in part by sale of land on both sides of the canal path that were granted by the federal government for that purpose. Handling these sales was Myron’s job. He also happened to be an ardent Presbyterian.

      When the canal opened, Samuel Edsall served as parade marshal. He established sawmills using waterpower from the canal, and a thriving store with his brother. He also went into business with Jane’s powerful uncle, Samuel Hanna. William was appointed head of the U.S. Land Office in 1843.

      The Edsall brothers and Samuel Hanna continued to work to solve transportation problems to expand commerce. They were instrumental in having the Fort Wayne and Bluffton plank road built in 1850, and were contractors for 47 miles of grading of the Wabash Railroad. Samuel became a state congressman, and he is buried in the same section of Lindenwood Cemetery as Jane and Myron.

      Then there was Samuel and William’s brother Simon. He was a farmer who married around the time Jane and Myron did. He was just two years older than Myron F., also born in New York, and also an enthusiastic Republican. He and his wife, the former Mary Alderson, had two sons, Peter, born in 1841, and William, born in 1844. Myron and Jane’s sons were Lucius, born 1841, and Myron Cassius, born 1845.

      Their boys were schoolmates.

      Peter and William both became the “Boys of ‘61” when they were among the first to volunteer for the Union Army, enlisting in the 30th Indiana Infantry, organized in Fort Wayne for a three-year period. Lucius was away at Antioch College in Ohio and was eager to join the war. He tried unsuccessfully to persuade his parents. He was able to do so in 1862 when Antioch closed its doors due to a drastic enrollment decline as so many young men enlisted. Lucius joined the 12th Indiana Infantry organized in Indianapolis, along with his cousin James O. Bird. Peter and William were 20 and 17 when they enlisted. Lucius was 20 when he joined, and Myron C. was 17 – but since Jane and Myron F. were so opposed to Lucius joining the Army, it’s understandable that they would not want their younger son to do so.  

      Lucius and Peter each married within a year of their return to Fort Wayne. Then their paths diverged as Peter and William stayed in Fort Wayne and Lucius and Myron C. left for small towns nearby.

      On the 1880 census, for Fawn Creek Township, here’s what the enumerator found:

 

  Dwelling #152 -  Mathew Patchett

  Dwelling #153 -  Enos Patchett

  Dwelling #155 -  William Edsall

  Dwelling #156 - Peter Edsall

 

      A few years after the census, Myron Fitch Barbour bought a farm for his son Lucius in Fawn Creek Township. I am sure his old friend Simon Edsall told him about it. Lucius’ old schoolboy friends, Peter and William, talked to him about it.

      The Patchetts and the Edsalls didn’t know each other until they happened to be neighbors, and their children happened to go to school together. But because the Edsalls were there, the Barbours came there, and because the Edsalls were next-door neighbors to the Patchetts, they got acquainted.

     We don’t tend to think about it, but we are who we are because of thousands of  decisions made by our ancestors. Our very existence is due to those decisions. Because of the Edsalls, Clyde Barbour met a girl named Melissa Patchett – and married her. His sister Maud met Bruce Patchett, and married him. Clyde and Melissa are my great-grandparents.

      As I looked into the names that kept getting mentioned in the “Country Correspondent” columns, I was surprised to learn how interconnected people were. I’ll be sharing that below. But first, a bit more about the Edsalls.

      Both Peter and Lucius served as township trustees for Fawn Creek Township. Both were chosen to attend Republican county conventions. Both were active in the G.A.R. – the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veteran’s group.

      In 1886, Simon Edsall moved to Fawn Creek too. He built a house of native stone on William’s land. There were so many Hoosiers who had settled in the county that in 1886 a Hoosier picnic was organized, with William as chair for the township. In 1888, William moved to Coffeyville where he began working as a grain dealer. 

     In 1891, William Edsall was elected to a leadership position with the G.A.R. Shortly after that, he returned to Fort Wayne, as did Simon. In 1894 he came to Coffeyville for a visit.

      William suffered with consumption for the last two years of his life and died in 1900. Curiously, his obituary said he lived his entire life in Fort Wayne.

     

The Fords

 

      Hollis Ford (1837-1891) was born in Vermont, but typical of national trends, his New England parents moved west to Lake County, Illinois when he was a boy. They were Presbyterians, also like so many coming out of New England. He married Achsah Fatima Sheldon, who was always called Fatima, in 1860. They had five children, the first three born in Illinois.

      Fatima’s obituary says they came to Kansas in 1870, driving overland with three little children in a prairie schooner. They staked a claim and proved it up. For whatever reason, he sold his homestead and bought another farm of 80 acres in Fawn Creek Township.

      Like so many in this era of infectious disease, they lost a seven- or eight-year old son, Sidney, soon after they came to Kansas.

      In 1882 Hollis ran successfully for Fawn Creek Township trustee.

      Hollis apparently enjoyed dances. He was at a New Year’s dance with my great-great grandmother Avarilla Patchett. He built a 14 x 40 foot dance platform at his farm to host “bowery” dances.[1] His sons Seth and Sherman hosted dances after his health failed and he and his wife Fatima moved into town.

      The two operated the Gate City House, a hotel and restaurant, for two years once they moved to Coffeyville.

      According to his obituary, the “Grim Monster obtained the victory” in 1891, and Hollis was buried in Elmwood Cemetery. Seth continued to live on the family farm. The “Death Angel” came for Fatima in 1920. Seth lived till 1924.

      Sherman married an Edsall daughter, Mary Adell “Della,” in 1889. They “went to housekeeping” on the Chance farm. (Emanuel Chance married Mathew Patchett’s step-daughter Maggie Keence. Mathew was Enos’ older brother.) They had a son, Floyd, but almost immediately serious health problems set in for Della and the rest of her brief life was spent seeking a cure. She died in 1894 at the age of 23 of consumption. Della was described in her obituary in the words most valued for women at that time: “Quiet. Modest, retiring,” and Christian -- always in church when her health permitted.

     Sherman remarried to Bertha Lobdell in 1898. Their first child died in infancy. In 1903, Bertha tried to divorce Sherman but the judge denied her petition. (It’s hard to imagine petitioning for a divorce and being denied. This also happened to Emanuel Chance’s second wife, who tried to end their marriage and was refused by the judge after she detailed his struggles with alcohol.) Bertha died in 1910 and Sherman married a third time in 1912. He worked for the Mo-Pac Railroad with Tom Patchett, and lived till 1954.

      Another of Hollis and Fatima’s sons, Louis Sheldon Ford, moved to Wyoming. They also had a daughter, Lillian, “Lily,” who lived in Coffeyville her whole married life.

   

The Hadsells

 

      Adam Underwood Hadsell (1845-1930) was raised in Yates County, New York, the son of New Englanders. He married Sarah Root Tyler. In 1878 they, along with Sarah’s brother W.W. Tyler, moved to Parker Township where he bought 80 acres of uncultivated land at $6 an acre. The two families shared a “small tenant house” until Adam was able to build a home of his own. Eventually, he expanded his farm to 430 acres, a “substantial” home with two large separate barns, one for horses and the other for cattle.

      A Republican, he was twice elected township trustee, and served on the school board for 15 years. 

     Enos’ son John Patchett and Tyler Hadsell were arrested in 1891 in what was probably a teenage prank, breaking into a neighbor’s house and eating his food.

     Sarah died in 1895 leaving five children (a sixth died in infancy) - Tyler, Anna, Charles, June, and Howard Harvey Hadsell. A year later, Adam married Sarah’s younger sister, Selinda Adella Tyler. They had two children together, Hazel and Willie.

      His daughter Anna died in 1909 at age 33 of consumption. His son Tyler, who tried life in Washington State, died in Tacoma of appendicitis. His body was returned to Montgomery County for burial. His son Howard married Molly Patchett’s daughter, Bessie Belva Harkins (they later divorced). Molly was the daughter of Mathew Patchett. 

     Adam sold his farm in 1910 and moved into town. When he died in 1930, his first wife was the one whose impressive gravestone he shared. Adella got a small gravestone the size of the children’s.

   

The Carnes

 

      John Baker Carnes (1835-1929) was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Schuyler County, Illinois. He married Martha Ann Boice in 1857 and they had six children there. He served in the Illinois 119th Infantry in the Civil War. Martha died in 1881. He remarried to Eliza “Lida” Miller in 1884 and moved to Fawn Creek Township, where their daughter Minta was born.

      In 1897 Eliza sued a neighbor, Abraham Cline, asking for over $10,000 in damages – the equivalent of over $300,000 in 2022. Abram Cline owned a farm that was over 800 acres. His son was a Montgomery County commissioner. But one day when Eliza went to the Cline home to sew, something happened and she said Abram Cline violently pushed her out of the house. She claimed she would need over $10,000 to recover from her injuries and emotional suffering. Eliza enlisted Enos Patchett to testify in the trial as a character witness.

      This may have been challenging for Enos. He and Abram, as he was also called, had known each other for years. Enos arrived in the county in 1869 and Abram in 1872. Abram was another Midwesterner (Ohio). Like Enos, he lost his wife when he was in his forties and never remarried.

      The jury was dismissed when it deadlocked in the case.

      Maybe that’s why the Carnes sold their farm in 1898 and moved to Deering. Eliza’s elderly parents, the Millers, moved in with them from Illinois.

      In 1900, John and Eliza sued the man who’d purchased their farm. He had given them a $750 deposit and was to assume the mortgage. But in 1900, he simply stopped paying and moved out. John and Eliza resumed ownership of the farm.

      Two of John’s sons, Charlie and John (J.R.), married sisters, Florence and Iowa Geddes.

 Trivia fact: Two of John’s daughters-in-law were named after what are now states. One was named Iowa, as noted above, and another was named Arizona.

 

The Coons

 

      John Coons Sr. and wife Elizabeth (1815-1897), both from southern Indiana, married in 1835 and moved to Clark County, Illinois in 1844. They were Presbyterians who had 11 children, eight of whom survived. They lived in Clark County till 1877.

      This is interesting to me because it is the same county Mathew and Enos Patchett settled in when they arrived in America, and the same county Enos and Avarilla Patchett married and started their family in. The Patchetts and the Coons were living in Clark County at the same time.

      Did they know each other before they moved to Kansas? If they did, they were not from the same generation. John and Elizabeth were old enough to be Enos or Avarilla’s parents. Was it just coincidence that this older couple settled in the very same township as the Patchetts?

      John bought his farm in Fawn Creek Township before they moved, so they settled in right away. They arrived in 1874 with their eight adult children, traveling by covered wagon. He died unexpectedly the next year. Elizabeth lived on the farm until her death in 1897. Her obituary defined women’s place in her generation in a few sentences. “She did her duty in her appointed place.  As a daughter, sister, wife, mother and neighbor, she was loved and respected.” (emphasis mine)

      Their son, John Walton Coons Jr. (1850-1900) was born in Clark County, Illinois. He married Nellie Augustine in 1890 and had 5 kids before his death.

       He had siblings in Delaware, Ok. His sister Lucinda married Luther Riggs – Orville Riggs’ father. Luther’s brother Sam married Lucinda’s niece Maggie Coons. (Orville Riggs was best friends with McKinley Patchett, Andrew Patchett’s son. They were also cousins.)

      Other examples of connectedness are: John Coons Jr. married neighbor Nellie Augustine; their daughter Florence Beatrice Coons married Thomas Oliver Harkins, grandson of Tilman Harkins. Tilman’s brother was Asbury Harkins, Mollie Patchett’s father-in-law and Nannie Robertson Patchett’s father.

 

The Augustines – Parker Township, Sandy Ridge

 

  John Henry Augustine (1838-1940) was born in St. Joseph’s County (South Bend), Indiana. He married Phebe Ann Smith in 1860, and they had six children. By 1872 they were in Montgomery County. Here are some of the biggest events in his life:

  1883 - Phebe died at age 45, leaving six kids.

  1887 -  Nominated for township justice of the peace on the Republican ticket.

  1888 – Daughter Addie dies at 22 of typhoid fever.

  1889  - Remarried to Julia Schiaffman of Parker Township and had two more children.

  1890 - Daughter Nellie marries John W. Coons.

  1893 – Returned to Indiana for the first time in 20 years.

  1895 – Son Oliver P. Morton Augustine (named for an Indiana governor) dies of inflammation of

the bowels.

  1907 - Daughter Bessie had the highest grade in the common schools of Montgomery County and

got a full scholarship to the college of her choice.

 

 The Chances

 

      Lewis Chance was born in Ohio in 1813 but moved to Indiana, where he married Margaret Lyon. They were enumerated on the 1870 census in Indiana, and on the Kansas state census in Parker Township in 1875. Their son Joseph’s obituary said they moved to Kansas in 1870.

      On the 1880 census, son Emanuel, known as “Mal,” lived right next door. Mal’s obituary says that he was born in Harmony, Indiana. Two doors down was Lewis’ son Joseph, Joseph’s wife Emeline, and kids Wilson, Cora, Manny and Elmer.

      Lewis died in 1880 without a will and Hollis Ford was appointed administrator of his estate. Joseph moved to another county after his father’s death. Daughter Victoria lived in Dickenson County.

      Here are some connections to the Chance family: Son Emanuel “Mal” Chance married Maggie Keence (Matt Patchett’s stepdaughter. She would die in 1886 at age 27, leaving a daughter, Stella). Son Newt married a Brownlee girl: Eva D. Brownlee in 1898. (John W. Patchett, Enos Patchett's son, also married a Brownlee girl – Grayce.)

 

The Barragars

 

      George and Amanda Barragar were unusual in that they immigrated from Canada in 1881. They came to Kansas with two little children soon after. Their third child was born in Fawn Creek Township in 1882.

      George must have been a searcher: searching for opportunity, searching for that better place. After Fawn Creek, they tried life in Lone Pine, Nebraska; Greely, Colorado and Indian Territory, having children in each place, before returning to Fawn Creek by 1896. He left again, went to Texas where his youngest child was born, then returned to Deering once again. The Barragars had a total of 11 children over 26 years, the oldest of whom was Harry. For a time, they ran a hotel in Deering.

      Their son Harry was often mentioned in events socializing with the Barbours and Patchetts. He married Florence Ballard. As newlyweds, Harry and Florence lived right next-door to Lucius Barbour. Florence’s brother Herman Ballard lived with them. Herman would marry Bertha Patchett, daughter of Enos.

 

The Seldomridges

 

      John M. Seldomridge was born in Virginia in 1828, but when he was a small boy his parents moved to Ohio. In 1850 he married Alice Bunnelle and they had four children. Their daughter Alma died sometime in the 1860s. In 1868 they moved to Terre Haute, Indiana. They came to Kansas in 1882, settling on Sandy Ridge. John and Alice’s adult daughter and her husband Andy Curry moved with them, also settling on Sandy Ridge. Andy taught school in the neighborhood. Alice died in 1885 at age 50.

      John was known for an orchard he planted. In 1893 he was still single and advertised for a housekeeper. He never remarried and his widowed son Edwin lived with him for the rest of John’s life. His daughter Ella married Andy Curry, a school teacher who taught the Patchetts and who later became Coffeyville mayor. John died in 1910 and Rev. H.V. Spear performed his funeral.

     In another connection, Ed Seldomridge (Edwin) was named court-appointed guardian of Eliza Patchett, Mathew’s widow, in her old age. (He was also named guardian of his son Bert, who was judged to be “not of sound mind” and was committed to the state mental institution.)

 

The Geddes

 

      John Samuel Geddes (1824-1906) moved to Montgomery County in 1882 from Iowa. He was from Ohio and served in the Ohio Infantry during the Civil War. He was married to Margaret Nancy “Nan” Miller, and they had three children. After she died in 1867, he remarried to Matilda Fisher and they had seven children, including Iowa, a school friend of the Patchetts.

      Two of his daughters married brothers. Florence Geddes married Charles W. Carnes. Iowa married John Carnes.

     Iowa, John and Dan Geddes were classmates of Clyde Barbour and the younger Mathew Patchett children: Bruce, Fanelia, Andy and Charlie. They were also in school with the Fords, Hadsells, Akers and Edsalls at School No. 62.

 

The Akers

 

     George W. Akers, Sr. (1851-1935) was born in Morgan County Illinois. In 1872 he and his brother Luther moved to Montgomery County. George returned to Illinois to marry Ida Ann Phillips in 1876 and brought her to Kansas. (Luther left the state permanently. For a while George’s brother, E.S. Akers, was a homeopathic doctor in Coffeyville.) A year later George and Ida’s first child was born in Coffeyville, Annie May. They also had three sons, including Charlie and George Jr.

  George was elected Parker Township justice of the peace in 1889 on the Republican ticket. In 1906 he was elected secretary of the Anti Horse Thief Association chapter in his area. Ida was very active in the Ladies Aid Society.

 

The Blakslees

 

      The Blakslees lived two doors down from Lucius Barbour. Azro Blakslee (1834-1905) was from Yates County, New York – the same county Adam Hadsell was from. He enlisted in the 4th Michigan Cavalry and participated in the capture of Jefferson Davis.

     He married Sophronia Anna McVey in 1871 and moved to Nashville. They had a daughter in Nashville, moved to Michigan for a year, then settled in Butler County, Kansas before arriving in Montgomery County. Their sons Milton and Orlando, known as “Ora,” were about the ages of Edna Barbour and were frequently in the country correspondent columns.

     Azro died in 1905 and Sophronia in 1912.

 

The Brownlees

  

     Thomas Wilson Brownlee (1845-1920) married Helen Jane Barnes in 1869 in Kansas. He was from Pennsylvania and a Civil War vet. They had 12 kids who all survived. He moved to Independence in 1913.

 

Harry Brownlee married Etta Augustine.

Clara “Clerie” Brownlee married Albert A. Augustine.

Eva Brownlee married Everett “Newt” Chance.

Grayce Brownlee married John Patchett. My grandmother Grace Barbour was named after Grayce Brownlee. Grandma said her name was originally spelled like Grayce’s. 

 

The Ernests

     Benjamin Ernest was born in Sullivan County, Indiana in 1848, the son of Jacob and Susan. He came to Kansas in 1870 and settled on a farm on Sandy Ridge. (A brother, Commodore Perry Ernest, lived in Independence. Both, at different points, ran restaurants and hotels. C.P. ran for sheriff on the Democratic ticket. He successfully sued a schoolteacher for excessive punishment of his son Lewis.)

     In 1872 Ben married Annetta Cooper, and they had Milo, Roy, Warren, Homer and Ruth. Annetta died in 1884. In 1885 he remarried to Mrs. Lovicey Strickland. In 1895 he was nominated on Democratic ticket for Parker Township trustee.

     Ben gave up farming and moved to Coffeyville in 1901 where he engaged in the hotel (Denver Hotel) and restaurant business. He died there in 1915. He also worked as city jailer under the Andy Curry administration.

 

Relationships With Community Leaders: The Newspaper Editor

 

     David Stewart Elliott, seemed to like my great-great grandfather a lot. He described him approvingly as a “rustling” farmer, hardworking and out early. He described him as a friend and mentioned times when Myron stopped in the newspaper office to give him produce from his farm, such as a watermelon, which were famously grown on Sandy Ridge. He also mentioned visiting at Myron’s home.

      Stewart was was born in Everett, Pennsylvania in 1843, which made him just three years older than Myron. At 15 he entered the newspaper office to learn that profession. At 18 he was one of the “Boys of ‘61,” joining the Union Army and serving for three years. He married Clara Barndollar, also from Everett, Pennsylvania.In 1868 he became editor of a newspaper in Pennsylvania. He also studied for the bar and practiced law there. 

     Clara’s brother J.J. Barndollar settled in Coffeyville at its inception, opening a successful mercantile business. In May 1885 Stewart and Clara relocated to Coffeyville where Stewart became a member of the bar. The legal profession didn’t seem to be his calling, though. In June he took over as editor of the Coffeyville Weekly Journal. He remained in that capacity until 1897, establishing the Coffeyville Daily Journal in 1892 and editing both. 

     He took office as city clerk of Coffeyville but resigned in 1898 when the Kansas Twentieth Regiment was formed in  the Spanish-American War. Stewart was chosen as captain. He was killed in the Philippines in February 1899 and his body returned to Coffeyville. 

The Ministers

     Rev. H.V. Spears - Harvey Veech Spears  – was a Methodist Protestant minister who came to Coffeyville in the 1880s. He served in the Methodist Protestant Church for 25 years, but had no retirement pension, something that was common. Afterwards, the diminutive minister supported himself selling soap on the street in downtown Coffeyville, and from what meager fees he collected from performing marriages and funerals. He was the minister to call on when one didn’t have money to pay a minister for a marriage or burial. He was committed to ensuring a proper Christian rite regardless of ability to pay. He preached at the funeral when Charlie Patchett’s only son Frankie died of diphtheria in 1908. 

     He continued to preach frequently at G.A.R. and Ladies Auxiliary encampments, and as a substitute minister in various churches. The Coffeyville Minsterial Association began an annual Rev. Spears Day in which people gave testimonies to the ways Rev. Spears had helped them, and gave “love offerings.”

      A native of Alton, Illinois, Spears was born in 1845. In 1874 at age 29 he married 16-year old Kate A. Conroy. They had an only child, a daughter Mary Lurene in 1891 - likely adopted. In the 1890s they lived on a farm two miles outside of town, but they moved to Eighth Street in Coffeyville where they lived for many years. He died in 1925. 

 

     Rev. Stanley Day Jewell was a Presbyterian minister from New York, who was ordained in 1878. He married Belle Porter in 1886 in Wellington, Kansas. They had two children, James, who became a minister, and Grace. They moved to Coffeyville in 1890 where he served for the next seven years, marrying Bruce Patchett and Maud Stoler.

      They moved to Fredericktown, Missouri where he began to have health struggles in 1911. He died in 1916 at age 62.

Rev. Edgar George Coons officiated at the wedding of Lucius Barbour’s stepdaughter, Clara Hoover, at the family home in 1900. Rev. Coons was a highly regarded Methodist minister who served in Caney and Jefferson in Montgomery County. He was born in 1859 in Illinois; his wife was Mary. They had four children, Myrtle, Jesse, Francis and Glen. He was serving in Grenola, Kansas in 1916 when he died suddenly and unexpectedly. His body was returned to Montgomery County for burial. 

 

The Teachers

     Andy Curry taught for eight years at School No. 62 and had Bruce, Fanelia, Andrew and Charlie Patchett as students. Born in Sullivan County, Indiana in 1855, he attended Indiana State Normal School and taught in Indiana for six years. He married Ella Seldomridge in Vigo County, Indiana. They moved to Montgomery County in 1882 with Ella’s parents. In Andy, the Patchett children had an unusually well-educated, experienced teacher. Like the Barbours, he was a Presbyterian.

     Andy also owned a farm on Sandy Ridge in Parker Township. He served two terms as a trustee, running as a Democrat, and they had an only daughter.

     In 1890 he gave up teaching and farming and moved to Coffeyville. There he clerked in a clothing store for seven years and in the wholesale cigar business for two years before starting his own insurance business, working as a realtor, and keeping a boarding house. He served on the Coffeyville school board and city council before being elected mayor in 1913.

     He obviously retained a relationship with the Patchett family and was highly regarded by them, as he served as a pallbearer at Enos Patchett’s funeral.

 

      Homer Overhiser was also born in Indiana, though in 1865, and came to Kansas as a young man. He taught John and Melissa Patchett (my great-grandmother) at the Pierson School in Fawn Creek Township in 1888. He was a leader in Sunday School.

      In 1892, he and a fellow former schoolteacher, J.M. Anderson, were working as traveling salesmen for the Chicago Supply Company when they were charged with robbing the safe of a general store in Wellington, Kansas. The case was circumstantial and the two were known for being moral, upright young men from good families. They were acquitted.

     Homer went to Independence where he went into business with Anderson. They formed the Overhiser-Anderson Mercantile Company and operated the Overhiser Anderson Store, but in 1908, dissolved the partnership. Homer opened the Overhiser Shoe Store instead. Just a year later, he closed the store citing his poor health. He moved to Iowa where he married at last at age 46 and had a son. He died in 1947.

 

      R.Y. (Richard Yates ) Kennedy was another experienced, educated school teacher of the Patchett children. His parents were Pennsylvanians who migrated west to Whiteside County, Illinois where Rich was born in 1862, the ninth of 11 children. He attended the State Normal School in Bloomington, Illinois and college in Dixon, Illinois, from which he graduated. He returned home to begin teaching and in 1886 married Axaphia Wink, known as Axa. 

     In 1887 they moved to Montgomery County. He bought a 40-acre farm on Sandy Ridge. Like Andy Curry, he farmed and taught. The Kennedys lost their first child in infancy but they had seven living children. In 1894 he moved on to the high school where he taught and became principal; he was addressed as Professor Kennedy, as was the custom of the day. They were very active in the Presbyterian Church. In 1933 Rich was elected mayor of Coffeyville. 

Sources:

     Connelly, William E. A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, Topeka. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1918.

     Ellis, Jim. “Major. Samuel S. Edsall, b. 1805 d. Feb. 29, 1865,” The Hoosier Packet - Canawlers At Rest, November 2002, ndcanal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Edsall-Samuel.pdf