Crossing paths with early veterans

By Diane Euston

  As Veteran’s Day approaches, it’s important to honor those both living and dead who have served our country. 

  Every veteran has a story, and the further we go back in our history, the harder these stories are to piece together. The early wars of our country, including the American Revolution, War of 1812 and the Civil War, included both men in organized service and women supporting them.

  In Kansas City, we have veterans and unsung heroines from these early wars resting in the grounds of local cemeteries, and their stories are worth telling. 

An Early Patriot: Lt. Joseph Boggs

  The story of  Joseph Boggs and how his grave ended up as part of a cornerstone of a building in Westport is certainly a bit of a mystery, but he is one of only about 20 known patriots of the American Revolution buried in the Kansas City area.

  Born near Gum Tree Post Office about 40 miles west of Philadelphia in Chester County, Pa. in about 1750, Joseph Boggs grew up the son of a farmer. In 1773, he married Sarah Ruddle (1755-1810).

  In 1777, he and his siblings enlisted to serve in the Revolutionary War and was commissioned lieutenant of First Company, Fourth Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel John Bartholomew. He suffered a serious wound at the Battle of Valley Forge and a minor wound at Stony Point. 

  After the death of his father in 1790, Boggs opted to move to Madison County, Ky. where some of his siblings were settling. He was given 100 acres of land there for his service in the Revolution. His family had grown to include at least three children: Jane, Rebecca and David.

  After his wife’s death in 1810, Joseph Boggs turned to the west toward his future and moved with other Kentuckians to what would become the state of Missouri. He chose to set up in the westernmost settlement at the time – Howard County. 

  During the War of 1812, those living on the frontier were especially concerned with Native Americans allied with the British raiding their settlements. There was rumor that the British were working to arm the Sac and Fox, Kickapoo and Pottawatomie for that purpose.

  Lt. Boggs didn’t waste any time springing into action. He and his son, David worked at Fort Hempstead, one of three forts built in Howard County to protect settlers from attacks. Fort Hempstead, constructed with the help of Joseph Boggs, was a series of log houses built together around an enclosure. Each family unit occupied a house.

  By 1821 when Missouri was admitted as a slave state, the Boggs family opted to move further west to Clay County. Despite Joseph Boggs’ advanced age of over 75 years old, he and his son procured a ferry license in 1825 to operate a crossing over the Missouri River from Clay County to Jackson County.

  Access to the south side of the Missouri River at the future site of Kansas City had its advantages. Despite not quite being open to legal settlement, Joseph Boggs was able to scout out fertile land. When land grants were issued for the first time in Jackson County in 1827, Joseph Boggs was one of the earliest purchasers. His first 40 acres stretched from current-day 22nd to 25th Streets, Troost Ave. to The Paseo.

An Unfortunate Partial Relocation

  Lt. Joseph Boggs passed away in 1843 at the ripe old age of 93 and was buried in the old Westport Cemetery, established in 1835. But his final resting place wasn’t left in peace.

  By the turn of the 20th century, Westport Cemetery was being encroached upon by new roads and homes. The cemetery had gone into disrepair, a common problem for older cemeteries. Residents with friends and family buried at the cemetery could see its demise, thus many families, including the Wornalls, began to move their families’ remains to other cemeteries. Unfortunately, many bodies and headstones were left behind to erode away.

  In 1915, Badger Lumber Company bought the old cemetery land and began construction of their new administrative building at 559 Westport Rd. They erased away the remaining graves and graded the bones deep into the earth. Some stones quickly disappeared from the land as their three-story building was erected. They have not been located.

  One headstone miraculously survived the destruction of Westport Cemetery. The Kansas City Times reported, “When the ground was being cleared, [Badger Lumber] company officials decided to utilize one of the oldest gravestones in the cemetery as a cornerstone of the building.”

  As morbid as this is, Lt. Boggs’ partial headstone, worn away and only bearing his name and “Died Jan. 22, 1843” was embedded high up in the brick plaster of the building. One year later, a local DAR chapter put an additional marker below Boggs’ headstone to commemorate the Old Westport Cemetery.

  In 1965, the Badger Lumber building was razed, but not before the DAR ensured that Lt. Boggs’ headstone wasn’t lost once again amongst the demolition. They removed his partial headstone and erected a new one at Union Cemetery. 

  What happened to the other bodies and headstones not moved by family members is unknown due to no index of graves. But one of our only Revolutionary War heroes, Lt. Joseph Boggs, is honored at Union Cemetery today – although his remains are somewhere deep in the dirt and fill which still occupies the old Westport neighborhood.

A Revolutionary Heroine: Sarah Ruddell Davis

  Even more scarce in the archives of our early history are descriptions of the contributions of women. But one story of a young girl’s survival and a full-circle moment later in life make this one story worth sharing.

  Sarah Ruddell was born in 1768 in Shenandoah County, Va. to parents Archibald and Elizabeth. Her father had served in the French and Indian Wars, and her uncle, Isaac (1729-1812) chose to migrate over 400 miles west to current-day Harrison County, Ky. 

  Possibly in order to protect his family during the Revolutionary War, Archibald sent his family to live on the edge of the frontier where his brother, Issac was. Due to the dangers of Native Americans being armed by the British, the settlers in Kentucky built a fort they called Ruddell’s Fort where they all lived together.

  On June 24, 1780, 12-year-old Sarah, her family and several hundred other settlers were taken from Ruddell’s Fort when the British and Native Americans allied with them attacked. Sarah and others were forcibly marched about 600 miles to Detroit – suffering from hunger and exposure.

  Prisoners were separated amongst Native American tribes, and Sarah was held captive by the Shawnee. She adapted as well as possible, learning the Shawnee language while imprisoned.

  Just over two years later on October 3, 1782, Sarah Ruddell and other family members were released from the Niagara region and arrived in Montreal free at last after prisoner exchange and negotiations were successful.

  Other family members opted to stay within the Shawnee. Sarah’s cousin, Stephen stayed over seven years with the tribe, assimilated to their customs, befriended Tecumseh and married a member of the tribe.

  After reuniting with her family, Sarah married fellow captive, Thomas Davis (1767-1837) in 1791. They moved back to Kentucky in 1802, and by 1828, they followed Westward expansion and moved to Pike County, Mo. In 1830, their daughter, Sarah Tittle Davis (1810-1873) married a young Methodist minister named Thomas Johnson (1802-1865). 

  Before ink could dry on their marriage certificate, Rev. Johnson took his young wife west to Indian Territory where he started the Shawnee Methodist Mission.

  After Sarah Ruddell Davis’ husband passed away, she packed her belongings and moved to Indian Territory – now Johnson County, Kan. – to join her daughter at the Shawnee Indian Mission.

 

  In a true full-circle moment, Sarah reconnected with members of the Shawnee Tribe she had known in captivity during the Revolutionary War, and even as an elderly woman, she was able to communicate with them in their native Shawnee. Oral histories attached to the Shawnee Indian Mission tell of her sitting in rocking chairs on the property with Shawnee elders.

  Sarah Ruddell Davis passed away in 1865 at the ripe age of 96 and is buried in the Shawnee Methodist Mission Cemetery.

War of 1812 Veterans

  One of Kansas City’s most important founders was a War of 1812 veteran who didn’t live long enough to see the city blossom. William Miles Chick was born in Lynchburg, Va. in 1794, and after working for a period of time on his father’s tobacco farm, he secured employment in Alexandria.

  During the War of 1812, Chick was given the rank of colonel when the governor of Virginia asked him to form a regiment to fight the British; however, he never fought in a battle due to the war ending. 

  In 1816, Col. Chick married and by 1822, the young family opted to follow her family to Missouri. The wagon train, including the enslaved, traveled 600 miles by flatboat to Illinois before traveling by wagon to St. Louis for more supplies. They then traveled overland to Saline County, Mo where they worked all winter to clear the land and built shelter. 

  By 1826, flooding destroyed their farm and forced them to Howard County, Mo. for 10 years.

  The expansion westward was of interest to Col. Chick, so in 1836 he moved his family (they eventually had nine children) one final time to Jackson County, Mo. where he purchased a two-story log building from John Calvin McCoy in the newly-formed town of Westport.

  Col. Chick opened a store on the main floor which was quite successful due to Native American trade and the store’s location on the Santa Fe Trail. Just a few years later, he joined a group of 14 investors called the Town Company and purchased the land in what would become Kansas City.

  There on the south bank of the Missouri River was a flat rock landing, then coined “Westport Landing.” Col. Chick saw the possibility of trade on the riverfront, so he was one of the first merchants to build a warehouse there in 1843 that stored furs being shipped down river.

  After building a large home overlooking the riverfront, Col. Chick was selected to be the Town of Kansas’ first postmaster. His success would unfortunately end when Col. William Miles Chick abruptly died of pneumonia in 1847 at the age of 52. 

   His legacy continued through his children. His son, Washington Henry Chick, was one of the area’s first historians. His daughter, Virginia, married Westport and Kansas City founder, John Calvin McCoy, and another daughter, Martha, married Rev. Nathan Scarritt, Methodist minister turned real-estate dealer in the northeast portion of Kansas City.

The Power of Small Acts

  Born in Cumberland County, Ky. in 1801, Elizabeth Sexton was the oldest daughter of George and Sarah Sexton. When the War of 1812 broke out, little Elizabeth Sexton assisted her mother in molding bullets for American soldiers.

  By 1817, the family followed others to Missouri where they settled in Boone County eight miles west of Columbia. There, her father was the sole mail contractor for mail being delivered west of St. Louis. 

  A short time after arriving in Missouri, Elizabeth Sexton married Benjamin Ferguson (1798-1852) and started a family near Boonville. She had 11 children. After the death of her father and her husband in 1852, Elizabeth traveled to Kansas City where a brother had settled.

  She purchased a home at 3rd and Main Street where she lived with her daughter, Elizabeth (b. 1823). Her daughter was one of the first school teachers in Kansas City. 

  Elizabeth Sexton Ferguson used her small hands as a child to mold bullets and had worked to raise 11 children on the frontier. When she died in Kansas City in 1890, she had survived all but three of her children – a true sign of the testament of a woman’s tenacity in the toughest of times.

Sworn into Service During the Civil War

  On the surface, nothing of William Sidney Shepherd’s service in the war stands out over other veterans. But his role in keeping veteran services and comradery alive is impressive.

  Born in 1848 in Johnson County, Mo., William ran away from home at 15 to join the Union Home Guards in Warrensburg. Most of his family were sympathizers of the South.

  Home Guards were assembled in order to protect local towns, and the one William joined were dressed in homemade clothing made by citizens. But that didn’t stop them from joining the cause.

  On October 17, 1864, the Home Guard was ordered to evacuate Warrensburg and move in the direction of Kansas City where they believed Gen. Sterling Price was headed. After camping overnight near Holden, 16-year-old William and his group met up with Gen. James G. Blunt who was advancing toward the Confederates.

  By October 19, his little group of Home Guards arrived near Lexington after marching all night. They hadn’t eaten for two days. When they arrived near the square in Independence the next day, a quick meal was served to temper their appetites. 

  At about 7am on October 21, 1864, a chance 16-year-old William couldn’t pass up arose. “A dapper little captain of cavalry came to the church and asked if any of us would like to enlist in the regular volunteers,” William Shepherd told the Kansas City Journal in 1932. “I did. So did three others from Warrensburg and three others from Knob Noster. Without another word we followed the captain out, got our horses, fell in with his company and were sworn into regular service while mounted.”

  Two and a half hours later, Pvt. Shepherd, now part of Company E, 15th Kansas Volunteers, was knee-deep in fighting on the Little Blue River. Minie balls buzzed around his head, and a man to his left was hit in the face. He took his place- better protected by an unfinished stone wall- and fired his rifle.

  He lost his horse but followed his company on foot where he was quickly outfitted with a Sharps rifle, Remington revolver, saber, belt and ammunition. “I was only a 16-year-old country boy, with the impressionable mind of youth,” he later recalled. “But always I shall believe that the first days’ fighting on the Little Blue made possible the general results of the three days’ fighting on the Big Blue and the Battle of Westport.”

  Pvt. Shepherd fought all three days of the Battle of Westport, and after the war ended, he settled in Kansas City where he joined the McPherson Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, formed in 1880. 

  At the height of its roster, the post had 922 veterans registered. In 1933, Shepherd was one of 14 still living.

  On Memorial Day 1936, Shepherd was chosen to recite the Gettysburg Address at a program at Elmwood Cemetery. Even at his advanced age, he knew the words by heart. Nine veterans attended the ceremony – the youngest being 88-year-old Shepherd.

  When a marker for the Battle of Westport in 1937 was planned, Shepherd helped select the spot for it. He chose 63rd and Meyer Blvd. where some of the heaviest fighting happened. On the 73rd anniversary of the Battle, Shepherd was there to see the dedication.

  That was his last anniversary; he died at his home at 3809 Woodland in April 1938 at 89 years old. He was the area’s last surviving veteran of the Battle of Westport.

Memories of the Civil War Through the Eyes of a Child

  During the Battle of Westport, the largest of battles west of the Mississippi River that ravaged the Kansas City area from October 21-23, 1864, a 10-year-old boy named Frank Wornall (1855-1954) was left no choice but to follow the orders of his mother – and of the soldiers who overtook their two-story brick farmhouse at current-day 61st and Wornall.

  There, young Frank watched as his mother, Eliza Johnson Wornall (1836-1865) took orders from Confederate soldiers to make breakfast for them. Eliza came from a strong stock of women; her maternal grandmother, Sarah Ruddell Davis, had been captured during the Revolutionary War and lived among the Shawnee. And, growing up, Eliza herself lived among Native American tribes at the Shawnee Indian Mission. 

  On October 23, 1864 at about 9am, the Wornall home was seized by Gen. Sterling Price’s Army so it could be used as a field hospital. Frank Wornall later told the Kansas City Journal, “I remember how impressed I was with the ease and dispatch which attended the conversion of our home into place for the care of the wounded. Beds were taken down, furniture stowed away and cots and [pallets] to their places. By 1 o’clock the house was filled with wounded soldiers.”

  As the wounded were taken into the house, Eliza Wornall worked in the kitchen to prepare bandages. “My mother worked untiringly as a nurse, with me as assistant,” Frank later recalled.

  The battle was essentially sandwiched between the Wornall house. The greatest amount of casualties, according to Frank, occurred between Brush Creek and 55th Street. 

  Surprisingly enough, during this fierce battle, the Wornall house was not hit once by a cannon ball. But, his mother, Eliza almost fell victim to one in the yard.

  “My mother went out into the backyard to get some water,” Frank recalled in 1925. “As she stood by the well looking out towards the west, a cannon ball came so close to her head that it blew her hair down and shot her waterfall, a curious device used by women in those days to which they pinned their hair off her head.”

  History tells us that the Battle of Westport ended with a swift Union victory; they chased the Confederates south. Casualties are estimated to be about 3,000.

  “When the Federals reached our house, the floors were covered with the dangerously wounded,” Frank recalled. 

  Those forces were made up of men who were seeing their first battle, and they were very excited and interested in continuing the killing. Some attempted to kill the Confederates waiting for treatment on the ground.  

  “Before they left, the Federals posted a guard of their own soldiers to protect the wounded Confederate soldiers. One of these guards was the late John F. Richards,” Frank said.

  That John F. Richards (1834-1922) spent his 30th birthday fighting in the Battle of Westport, and his grandson, John Francisco Richards II (1896-1918) was the first lieutenant in the 1st Aero Squadron shot down in World War I. Richards-Gebaur was partially named in his honor.

Tending the Wounded in Kansas City

  After the Battle of Westport, soldiers at field hospitals were moved to the Southern Methodist Church on the southeast corner of 5th and Wyandotte, built in 1852. Another hospital was erected at Lockridge Hall at the southeast corner of 5th and Main.

  Women living in Kansas City quickly turned into nurses. One of them, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Ferguson Millett (1832-1922) had been married to England-born Henry Millett in 1861. Her husband was associated with the printing business with Robert Van Horn. 

  Lizzie had patriotism in her bloodline; her mother, Elizabeth Sexton Ferguson, had molded bullets for American soldiers during the War of 1812. 

  Raised in Boonville, Mo., Elizabeth arrived in Kansas City in 1852 and became one of the first school teachers.

  “When I heard the roaring of the cannon that Sunday morning, I put on my bonnet and went up to [Robert Van Horn’s] house which stood on the east side of Walnut Street between 11th and 12th Streets,” Lizzie told the Kansas City Times in 1912.

  At McGee’s Hotel, she witnessed a line of Home Guards. There, Milt McGee was giving soldiers something to drink. She thought it was water, but Mrs. Van Horn corrected her. “No, my dear, that is whiskey.” 

  Later that night, wagons of the injured started coming in. “Doctor Thorne, a Union Army surgeon, came into our house and asked me to go across to the church and help nurse them,” Lizzie recalled. “He said it would be an all-night job, and that some of them were wounded badly and I must prepare to stand it. I went and my husband went out to get other women to help.”

  The church piled up with wounded men; they put pews together to form couches. Others laid on the floor. Many died.

  One man from Arkansas had not long to live. Trying to comfort him, Lizzie asked what he would like to eat. He said he’d like pork and turnips.

  “I went home and cooked him some pork and turnips and carried it over to him.” He couldn’t eat it, but he was thankful. He died soon after.

  Another man gave her a lock of golden hair wrapped in brown paper. He begged, “If you hear of anyone asking for George Lucas it’ll be my wife. You can give her that.”

   Death overcame the young man. Lizzie lamented, “I never heard of anyone inquiring for George Lucas, and I have that lock of golden hair yet.”

  For a week, that church and dance hall functioned as a full hospital until the injured were moved away.

  The area would never be the same after the three days of the Battle of Westport, and countless men, women and children were left with visible and invisible scars for the remainder of their lives.

  Many of the unidentified Confederate troops were buried in a mass grave and were later relocated under a permanent monument at Forest Hill Cemetery.

Veterans’ Impact Today

  These traditional and untraditional veterans of three early wars merely highlight small snapshots in time – in these few stories that we are lucky to be able to retrace due to the fragments of records which do exist.

  Their true memory can be seen through today’s veterans who served valiantly under the stars and stripes. More than 41 million people have served since the Revolutionary War, and their sacrifices cannot be understated. 

  Serving this country is more than a man or woman in uniform; their sacrifice also greatly impacts the people who loved and cherished them, and by telling these important stories from these early wars, we can see the larger impact of their sacrifice and their later contributions to our collective history.