A Pioneering Woman in Westport: Catherine Purdom

By Diane Euston

There are few stories of our past that feature enterprising women. Often overshadowed by their husbands, women in the nineteenth century were known for their contributions inside the household in lieu of outside business interests.

When stories, however small, emerge of the exceptions to this rule, I can’t resist digging into the records to see what information can be found. While researching the history of Westport, an addition to the town on the western edge caught my attention.

Simply labeled as “Catherine Purdom’s Addition to the Town of Westport,” platted in January 1855, this multiple acre tract of land now sits in the middle of the city.

Who was Catherine Purdom? The surname doesn’t raise any eyebrows or familiarity to our city’s past. But, as the records often reveal, she was more than just a name. Her story involves an interesting migration to Westport, and her offspring left a mark on the area.

A Pious Life and Marriage

Catherine “Caty” Brazier Baugh was born in 1786 in Stokes County, N.C. to Rev. Josiah Baugh and his wife, Milly. Her father served valiantly in the Revolutionary War, even getting shot in the hip in battle. While being treated, Rev. Baugh refused to let them remove the bullet so he could have a reminder of the war.

 Catherine was the eighth born of 16 known children, and she spent her childhood on a large farm in North Carolina. Although her family was in better circumstances than most, Catherine grew up in a pious family where hard work and devotion to God was paramount.

In 1802 at just 16 years old, Catherine married 25-year-old Rev. Elijah Purdom in Surry County, N.C.  The second oldest of 11 children, Elijah was raised in a home without enslaved people, yet by 1810, he held eight people in bondage.

By 1818, Elijah, his wife, Catherine, and their five young children settled in Casey County, Ky. where Elijah joined up with the Methodist church. By the late 1820s, the family landed in eastern Missouri before moving to Van Buren County, Iowa in 1836 where their twelfth and final child was born. 

Rev. Purdom and his family settled into a double log cabin on the banks of the Des Moines River in current-day Keosauqua, Iowa. A local resident wrote later that Elijah “loved his family, his home and his church” and that he “had some very excellent daughters.” 

Even though he was Methodist, Rev. Purdom, known as “Uncle Lige” to friends, opened his home to all denominations who wished to preach at his home. Their double-log cabin became “a kind of headquarters and boarding-house for all who came along.” 

Purdom’s Excellent Daughters

Having “excellent daughters” certainly garnered the attention of the young men who settled in the area. One minister, Rev. Learner Blackman Stateler, found a perfect match in 19-year-old Miss Malinda Purdom. 

Despite being a Methodist minister, Rev. and Mrs. Purdom didn’t approve of the match. The couple eloped to Pike County, Mo. and were married.

Rev. Stateler later recalled, “Her father objected to the marriage. I was a favorite with him, but he objected to his daughter marrying a preacher and ‘going wandering over the earth,’ as he expressed it, ‘with no home.’ But she was of age, and had her own way in the matter.”

Polly Purdom, the second oldest daughter, opted to marry Missouri farmer Joseph Leonard. 

In 1841, another Purdom daughter found love in early Keosauqua merchant Alexander Waskey. Nancy, just 16 years old, followed her heart all the way to the altar. 

Rev. Purdom would marry off only two more of his children before passing in October 1846 at age 69. He, along with nine other Purdom descendants (including infant children) are buried at the Purdom Cemetery just east of Keosauqua. The old family burial ground is now one of the largest cemeteries in the area.

Reaching out West to Westport and Beyond

When Elijah passed away, his 60-year-old widow was left to pick up the pieces. Her children carried on with their lives, marrying and having their own children. Youngest son Hezekiah (1833-1913) moved to Hannibal, Mo. where he learned the printing trade at the Hannibal Courier. He worked side-by-side with then-apprentice, Samuel Clements, better known as Mark Twain.

Daughter Polly, husband Joseph and four children set their sights along with so many others to the west. Oregon was their destination in 1853. Approximately 1,000 people in 250 wagons left Missouri for a new life in the west.

Commissioned by Willamette Valley backers to take a new, untested route that was to shorten the trip by 130 miles, Elijah Elliot led Polly Purdom Leonard and her family west. Before they left, Polly’s mother, Catherine Purdom made her a special quilt for the journey. Known as “Delectable Mountains,” this quilt- and her family- miraculously survived the journey.

It was a close call; the party traveled too far south and began to suffer hardships. Food was running low and people became angry at the party’s leader. Some members of the party wanted to hang Elliott.

The short cut path across the Cascades was found after resorting to eating their own livestock. They were weeks behind other wagon trains that saw them, so the other wagons sent out parties to inquire on this “lost wagon train.” Provisions were sent for and Polly Purdom Leonard’s family was saved.

They settled in Linn County, Oregon, where their fifth child was born. They were later joined by her brother, Elijah Purdom and his family.

Catherine Purdom had lived her adult life migrating from one state to another- first settling in her home state of North Carolina, landing for a time in Kentucky, pushing through Missouri and then losing her husband in Iowa. Travel, it seems, was never an issue.

Likely inspired by her married daughter, Nancy Waskey and her merchant-husband, Alexander, Catherine uprooted herself once more and headed west to Westport, Mo. in 1854.

The choice of Westport was an interesting one. Although once slaveholders, family history states that the family had a “strong dislike of slavery.” On the edge of the frontier, Westport was a strong proslavery town that had only recently morphed from an Indian trading town to an outfitter of the Three Trails.

Daughter Malinda, who had married the traveling Methodist minister, at the time was living in Indian Territory in current-day Shawnee County, thus making a move to Westport by Catherine Purdom a bit more appetizing.

Son-in-law Alexander Waskey wanted to be close to the action of the wagon trains heading west, and a spot in Westport was a perfect place to conduct business. 

Thus, by 1854, the decision was made: the Purdom’s would relocate to a town completely unfamiliar to them, willing – yet again – to start over.

Platting Catherine Purdom’s Addition

At the age of 70, Catherine Purdom arrived at the town of Westport with her single daughters, Jane, Sarah and Lucinda in tow. 

The Waskey family built their own one-story home at current-day 40th and Summit in 1854 where each room “contained huge fireplaces.” In 1870, the Waskey’s renovated the home and added a second story to it. Due to the different heights of the roofs, it became known as “a veritable house of seven gables.” To the south of the home on a hill, there was a large apple orchard; it is said that “Waskey’s hard cider was famous.”

Catherine and her single daughters lived with the Waskey’s until she decided to enter into the real estate business.

In January 1856, she purchased just shy of 10 acres from Moses R. Scott for $2,000.

There was a small home on the land near the Big Spring, a source of water for the town. Nellie McCoy Harris later recalled, “I remember that the bricks were of unusually small size. There were just two rooms in front with a detached kitchen at the back, as was usual in southern homes.”

Mrs. Purdom wasted no time in subdividing this parcel of land. In March 1856, she hired a surveyor to plat out a large section of her land into lots. She aptly named it “Catherine Purdom’s Addition to the Town of Westport.”

The addition included land north of Westport Rd. from current-day 40th to 42nd Streets on the westernmost edge of the town. Today, a bulk of Catharine Purdom’s Addition is where Sunfresh stands. 

One of the first lots sold was to her son-in-law, Alexander Waskey. In addition to operating a general merchandise store west of current-day Kelly’s Westport Inn on Westport Road, Alexander utilized skills he developed in his home state of Virginia. His father operated Waskey Mills.

He started a small mill on aptly-named Mill Street (on the northeast corner of Mill St. and Westport Rd.) on Lot 22 in Purdom’s Addition.

The population of Westport in 1855 was about 1,500, so the newly-platted subdivision filled up without issue and generated an income for Catherine.

Recollections of the Past

Catherine Purdom’s time in Kansas City was cut short; on August 4, 1859, she passed away from dropsy. She was 73 years old.

Her children who came to the area stayed, some living generations in the Westport neighborhood. Alexander Waskey continued operating his general merchandise store in Westport until 1861. With his financial backing, his son and son-in-law opened a store in Emporia, Kan. 

He passed away on the front porch of his Westport home in 1879 of a heart attack.

Catherine’s daughter, Nancy Waskey, stayed in the house her husband built until her death in 1903. A granddaughter, Amanda, later was an instrumental member of the Old Settlers of Westport, an organization that pioneered historic preservation in the area.

Catherine Purdom’s story contains unique elements of a pioneer family that were willing to risk so much for better opportunities. Her time was limited in Westport, but her enterprising spirit lives on in an addition to the town during a time when women didn’t usually look past their own homes for business opportunities.

 This story of Catherine and her family is an example of the industrious disposition of the people who, despite numerous challenges, prodded forward in order to ensure the best future for a large family in the west.