Shawbell: 1855 ~ Martz: 1855 ~ Bumgardner: 1880 ~ Beery: 1890
Shawbell: 1855 ~ Martz: 1855 ~ Bumgardner: 1880 ~ Beery: 1890
In 1806 , Zebulon Montgomery Pike and his exploration party crossed Coffey
County, Kansas, traveling across Turkey Creek, South Big Creek, and North
Big Creek. They spent a night camping on Eagle Creek southwest of Hartford
in Lyon County, Kansas. The Sac and Fox Agency established headquarters in
west central Franklin County, about four miles from the present Osage County
line in 1848. Their tribes numbered 2,660 in 1851
In the spring of 1854 the entire country had gone mad about Kansas. Newspapers
reported that the Ohio steamboats were packed with emigrates from Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and Kentucky. Eli Thayer's eloquence and weathy merchant, Amos A.
Lawrence's money founded the Emigrant Aid Society. The Kansas-Nebraska bill
attracted Thayer's attention, opposed to slavery his Emigrant Aid Society
aided many, especially those with antislavery traditions to go West to Kansas.
In May 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act was signed, and two weeks later the town
of Ft. Leavenworth was founded next to the old plains fort.
In September of 1856 John W. Geary arrived as the newly appointed Governor of Kansas Territory by President Pierce to kwell the violence in Kansas Territory, and administer the proslavery Kansas-Nebraska Act. As Gov. Geary stepped off the riverboat in Ft. Leavenworth he found it completely controlled by 'proslavery outlaws.' Bands of pro-slaver's robbed and pillaged new emigrants at will and stored their pillage in warehouses in Ft. Leavenworth. The road Gov. Geary had to travel to the capital at Lecompton was festering with armed thieves who thought nothing of killing a man for his horse and belongings, and an army of twenty-seven hundred Missouri men commanded by political supporters of the proslavery government were awaiting to sack Lawrence, Kansas.
A native of Indiana, Dr. Hamilton Smith, settled near the mouth of Eagle Creek, west of what was to become the town of Strawn in 1855. A short time later he moved to the location of the future town of Ottumwa. Dr. Smith was a merchant, doctor, preacher, mail contractor, farmer, speculator, and operated the first sawmill, ran by horsepower, in the county. Dr. 'Ham' Smith traveled up to Ft. Leavenworth, and other towns encouraging 'free state' people to settle where he envisioned a town. He was instrumental in recuriting my Great Great Grandfather, John G. Shawbell to come and live in Coffey County, Kansas Territory in 1856. John was ready to get out of Ft. Leavenworth as his life had been threatened because he was a 'free state man' from Pennslyvannia.
Ottumwa, Coffey Co. Kansas 1859 Census
Ottumwa School District #2 1894-95
Ottumwa School District #2 1900-01
Ottumwa, Coffey County, Kansas: Founded in 1857
JOHN G. SHAWBELL, farmer, P. O. Ottumwa, was born in Lancaster County, Penn., in 1820, and lived in his native State until 1856, and came to Kansas and located in Leavenworth, and remained there four months, and moved to Coffey County, and located in Ottumwa Township, and has been engaged in farming and hotel keeping, and was formerly engaged in blacksmithing. Mr. Shawbell was married in Pennsylvania, in 1841, to Miss Maria Evans, who was born in Pennsylvania. They have five children: Sarah M., Louise E., Francis M., Anna W. and Clementine S.
Mr. Shawbell enlisted in 1861, in Lane's Brigade and in 1862 was transferred to the Ninth Kansas Cavalry, and served with that Regiment during the war and was discharged in December, 1865. He is a member of the Masonic order, and the G. A. R., and has been Constable and Deputy Sheriff.
***Some mistakes in the Bio: Married in 1842. Louise E. should be Lewis E.
My father and mother came to Kansas in 1856 from Pennsylvania. We landed at Ft. Leavenworth from a river steamboat in the spring when Missouri was trying to make Kansas a slave state by scaring free state men away. We had not been there very long when a slip of paper was put under the door, telling my father, John Shawbell, to leave in 24 hours or be hung. He had rented an old hotel building and mother had a few men boarders, and four children, of which I was the oldest, 8 years old. I saw pro-slavery men with guns in their hands riding unmolested thru the streets with a man's head stuck on a big pole. The jail was just back of our house, across a deep ditch, I saw a mob of men pry the jail door open and take a prisoner out, tie a rope around his neck and drag him to 'Hangman's Tree'. So, father went away to Coffey County and after awhile came back with Dr. Hamilton Smith and an ox team and we started for and landed in Ottumwa. We first lived in an old log cabin down near the Pieratt Ford
CIIISIII Note: The winter of 1854-55 was a bitter one, and the Kansas Blizzard of 1855 was the worst on record to that date. Many Kansas bound 'free men' and their families had to 'hole up' along the way and wait for spring thaw as steamboats were frozen solid in the rivers.
Ottumwa Township was settled and laid off in the latter 50's; the pioneers being W.A.Bowen, Hamilton Smith, Gilbert Smith, John G. Shawbell, and James Harris. the latter two built hotels and the first three took claims respectively on the west, south and east sides of the townsite. Mr. Harris and Mr. Shawbell were for some time leading citizens and highly respected. Mr. Shawbell's house was known for its good cheer the whole lenght of the Neosho valley. Dr. Hamilton Smith committed suicide in 1857. Gibert Smith sold out here and moved to Sumner county in 1870. Mr. Bowen died during the Civil War, he gave the name to the town after Ottumwa, Iowa. Mr. Harris died on his farm one and one-half miles east of town in 1897. Mr. Shawbell died in 1903 at his home here, being over eighty years old.
The Shawbell's used to run a hotel years ago but of late years there has been none (1918). One time in the early days old Sam Wood, who was an old Kansan, stopped overnight at the Shawbell home and after supper he commenced to tell stories about the public men. Kansas war stories, ect. and all in the house became interested in him, and when Mr. Shawbell went in an adjoining room to see what time it was he was surprised to see that it was three o'clock in the morning and while Shawbell and Wood never agreed politically he always like to hear Wood talk. From that time on they were always great friends. Mr. and Mrs. John G. Shawbell were people who had the admiration of the people who were aquainted with them and they will be remembered in this place.
In the spring of 1861 when the Civil War broke out most all the men in Ottumwa obeyed the call to go to the Civil War, John Shawbell, my father went. My husband, Will Minehouse and many others enlisted in the 9th Kansas Cavalry. Harrison Kelly and others in the 5th Kansas, all but some boys, John Darnel and Mr. Harris, store keepers and Grandpa or Samuel Knotts who was our postmaster. Those were hard times. The men came back in September 1864.CIIISIII Note: The Shawbell home served as a meeting place for the area Civil War Veterans, as there was a special room on the second floor that was only for G.A.R. meetings, and contained all the flags, rifles and memorablilia. John was a past officer of the local G.A.R. organization, and a Freemason.
G.A.R. Home Page(Grand Army of the Republic)
The people of Ottumwa laid out a beautiful town with a central square around a business district, and even had a college. Western Christian University, built in 1863, closed in 1868, and burned in 1872 and was not rebuilt. Today there is little evidence that Ottumwa ever existed, expect for a few families living in mobil homes around. There are no buildings of the orginal downtown today. The Shawbell home was one of the oldest remaining homes in Ottumwa when it burned on Thanksgiving Day in 1941.Made of black walnut, it burned so slowly that all the occupants belongings were saved. The orginal town of Strawn was completely moved prior to the filling of John Redmond Reservoir in 1963, and became New Strawn. The reservoir shores lap at the southerly edge of Ottumwa.
Credits: To all who wrote their stories over the years, and those who preserved them.
H.H. Klock, ,Sketch of Ottumwa. ~ A.H. Fry 'Steam Mill Blow Up' ~ Sarah Shawbell-Minehouse-Stout 'Pioneer Days At Ottumwa. These articles included in Reminiscences of Coffey County.
Also, a copied hand written history presented in October 1955 during the reunion of the Christian Church of Ottumwa. The orginal in possession of Carl Williamson of New Strawn, KS.
The information herein concerning the Township of Ottumwa is taken from written documents belonging to the Coffey County Genealogical Society in Burlington, Kansas. Mrs. Della Meyer gathered and xerox copied most of the material that concerned my Shawbell Family. A Special Thank you to Della!!
Pouring over documents for months,I have become familar with the names of other families for whom Ottumwa was their lifelong home in those early days. As time goes on I wish to add historical information for those whose ancestral roots are also in Ottumwa.
There is a public campground at nearby John Redman Lake. I'm going
there someday to say hello to those people gone, but not forgotten, who lived
history in the early American West.
Coming: BUMGARDNER and BEERY Families in Kansas.
Updated: .02.20.2008