Andrew Jackson Baughman

ANDREW JACKSON BAUGHMAN has been a resident of Pawnee County more than forty years. He was just forty years of age when he came to this section of Western Kansas. The best achievements of his life have been there. In early manhood he had acquitted himself creditably as a soldier of the Union, had married and had a family of children when he came out to Kansas, but had few material possessions. After long battling with the inclement forces of soil and climate he made a permanent home in Pawnee County, amassed prosperity sufficient for all his needs, and now for a number of years has enjoyed the comforts and conveniences of life in a nice city home at Larned.

A long life like this is an inspiration to younger men. Mr. Baughman was born in Licking County, Ohio, August 25, 1833, and he grew to manhood in that section of the Buckeye state. He is of German descent, though his ancestors have been Americans since prior to the Revolutionary war. His grandfather, Henry Baughman, was brought to America by his parents when twelve years of age. The family located in Maryland, and Henry Baughman may have served as a soldier in the Revolution, since he was living in Maryland during that struggle.

Frank Baughman, father of Andrew Jackson, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence. He himself served as a soldier during the War of 1812. He became a blacksmith by vocation and in early life moved to Ohio, locating at the three corners of Licking, Coshocton and Knox counties. He died there in 1850. He was concerned with politics only as a voter and was a democrat. He was twice married. His first wife's children were: Christian, who died in Iowa; George, who also spent his last years in Iowa; John, whose active career was spent in Green County, Wisconsin; and William, who remained in Ohio and died in Muskingum County. Frank Baughman for his second wife married Harriet Smith. She survived him many years and finally came out to Pawnee County and died at the home of her son, Andrew J. She was the mother of two children. The daughter, Nancy, married Mr. Graves and died near Fort Scott, Kansas.

Andrew J. Baughman spent his early life in a home and environment removed from absolute poverty and also from luxury. He had therefore every encouragement to make the best of his own opportunities and talents. He grew up on a farm and worked for part of his common school education. When he was almost grown he made an agreement with a farmer to work with him four years for $100 in cash and a year's schooling. He secured the most of the schooling and at the conclusion of his contract accepted $50 instead of the $100 and called the account square.

He then began farming on his own account, at first as a renter. When he was twenty-three years of age, on October 23, 1856, at Newark, Ohio, he married Miss Nancy E. Arnold. Mr. and Mrs. Baughman have been married more than sixty years. They are one of the oldest married couples in the State of Kansas. Mrs. Baughman was born June 6, 1837, a daughter of John T. and Sarah Ellen (Athey) Arnold. Her father was a native of Cumberland County, Maryland, and was a stone mason and contractor on bridge work, and spent nearly all his active career in Ohio. He was married in Muskingum County and died at Lockville, Ohio. His widow afterward came out to Kansas and died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Baughman, at Larned in 1884, at the age of seventy-five. The Arnold children who grew up and had children of their own were: William E.; Elizabeth E., who married James Palmer and died at Browntown, Wisconsin; Mrs. Baughman and Sanford A., of Larned.

Mr. and Mrs. Baughman began housekeeping with an exceedingly small equipment and they bought that on credit. They had no cook stove, and their meals were cooked in a fireplace. They burned the tallow candles and what was known as a "betsy" for light. Their chairs had hard wooden bottoms and they slept on an old cord bedstead. He had a team of horses for working his land, and by hard work finally bought a farm in Champaign County, Illinois, to which locality he moved in 1860. In 1859 Mr. and Mrs. Baughman enrolled as members of the Methodist Church and are among the oldest members of that church in Larned.

Not long after he went to Illinois Mr. Baughman realized his duties to his country, and leaving wife and children and the management of his farm to other hands he enlisted August 10, 1862, in Champaign County. He went into Company F of the One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Illinois Infantry, under Capt. F. B. Sale and Col. O. F. Harmon.This regiment was organized at Danville, Illinois, and remained there drilling until September 3d. It was then ordered to Covington, Kentucky, and in a few weeks went by boat to Louisville and became part of General Buell's Corps. On the 8th of October, 1862, it took part in the battle of Perryville. The regiment afterward went to Nashville and was detailed on patrol duty during the following winter. Toward the close of the summer of 1863 the regiment made a circuitous march through Northern Alabama and back into Tennessee in time to take part in the battle of Chickamauga. Mr. Baughman also fought at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, and then joined in the Atlanta campaign. He was in the battle of Resaca and was on the expedition to Rome, Georgia, where his brigade skirmished with the Confederates and where he received his only serious wound, being shot in the calf of his left leg. The wound caused him to be placed in a temporary hospital, where he lay until it healed and was finally sent to the field hospital at Chattanooga. He was unable to rejoin his regiment again while hostilities were on, and was at Nashville when Lee surrendered. He joined his command near Alexandria, Virginia, and was discharged at Washington, D. C., June 10, 1865. The muster out occurred at Chicago on the 29th of the same month. Mr. Baughman fought in the ranks as a private and during his service of two years and ten months had visited his family only twice. He has long been actively identified with the Grand Army of the Republic, and he went back to Danville, Illinois, to participate in the reunion at the fiftieth anniversary, of the regiment's leaving for the front. At that reunion he found some eighty members of the old regiment present.

Mr. Baughman resumed farming in Illinois after the war, and while he enjoyed a fair share of prosperity he felt that the growing family about him required better opportunities, such as could only be found in a new country. That led him to make a prospecting tour of Kansas, and on the 26th of February, 1874, he came to Pawnee County. He was then seeking a home or a place to build one, and he filed on a claim in Pawnee Township, eleven miles west of Larned. He remained here during the greater part of the season, and joined with three other families in purchasing a yoke of oxen which pulled the plow through the heavy virgin soil of his homestead and sufficient land was broken for each family to make a planting of sod corn. Mr. Baughman is now the only survivor of these four families in the county. His first crop of corn was harvested by the grasshoppers. This pest consumed the entire crop in twenty-four hours. The grasshoppers were so numerous that under their weight the cornstalks would lean over, and they left nothing but the bare stalks.

In September, 1874, Mr. Baughman returned to Illinois and in the spring of 1875 brought out his family. He then built a story and a half house, doing all the work on it himself, and the family occupied it the next fall. This shelter served as a home while he lived on that claim. He planted his first wheat crop in 1875 and in 1876 harvested fifteen bushels to the acre. In 1877 his forty acres of wheat yielded twenty bushels per acre, while the next year he had sixty acres averaging twenty-five bushels and a fraction to the acre. He increased the acreage in 1879-80, but his planting bore no fruit.

From 1884 to 1890 Mr. Baughman lived on a preemption on the Fort Larned military reservation. His experience as a grain grower was fair during that time. In this period of lean years he sold his homestead for $600. The tract could not be bought today for less than $10,000. On his pre-emption he started his agricultural experience over again, built a larger frame house with ample and better shelter for his stock, and that was his home until 1903. He engaged in stock raising, and that proved a ready help in time of need when the hard and dry years came. It frequently happened that a steer or a cow had to be sacrificed in order to secure means to keep the family alive. While he had all the pioneer experiences Mr. Baughman on the whole was greatly prospered in Western Kansas, and in time enlarged his farm to 374 acres. He had it all fenced and half of it in cultivation and it proved one of the fine grain farms. In 1903 he sold this property and moved to Larned, where he built the comfortable home he now occupies.

While in the country Mr. Baughman took part in the organization of school district No. 12. The schoolhouse was built on his old homestead. He was a member of the school board and afterwards a member of the board in district No. 40. He also served as a township officer, filling the offices of trustee, treasurer and clerk at different times. Politically he is a republican and has been loyal to that party from war times.

Mr. and Mrs. Baughman have reared six children, and these with the numerous grandchildren constitute a large family circle. Florence, the oldest child, is the wife of David Pearson, of Pueblo, Colorado, and their children are named Bert, Bertha, Lena, Frank, Dottie and Boyd. The son Perry A., who lives at Larned, married Minnie Van Keuran and has three children, Blanche, Ella and Lucy V., the last named being in France as a Red Cross nurse. The daughter Alice is the wife of A. H. McVeigh, of Chicago. Emma married L. P. Melone of Chicago. Mary is the wife of Oscar May of Coldwater, Kansas, and her three children are Roy, Perry and Alice. Ede, the youngest of the children, has been twice married. Her first husband, Jay J. Myler, was killed in a cyclone in Hodgeman County and left her children named William B., who is in the United States Army, Emberson A., Vivian, Jack J., Florence, Lyman, Jasper, Lewis and Myrtle. Mrs. Ede Myler is now the wife of Frank Wyatt, still lives in Hodgeman County, and by her second marriage has a son, Herbert Wyatt.