John Anderson Laws

JOHN ANDERSON LAWS. - It is a beautiful thing to visit John Anderson Laws on his farm in Piper and to see him and his wife, like Darby and Joan, so contented with each other and with their lives that have been so full of joys and sorrows. They have lived many years in the county and have seen many changes. They have seen cities spring up like mushrooms in the night. There is no man in Wyandotte county who is better known or more respected than Mr. Laws.

He was born in Tennessee December 9, 1827 a son of Elisha Laws and his wife, Eleanor Frey. Elisha Laws was born in North Carolina in 1804, but when he was a young man he moved to Tennessee, where he farmed and also carried on the trade of wheel wright. He witnessed all the horrors of the Revolutionary war, and also of the Civil war. He died in 1874 and his wife died ten years later, in 1884

John Anderson Laws, the only one now living out of a family of ten children, was brought up on his father's farm in Tennessee, He attended the district school. After he had left school he worked on his father's farm. During the Civil war he enlisted in the Confederate army and served in Company B, of the Tennessee Light Artillery, under General Burnside. He fought in all the engagements in which his company participated. After the close of the war he found that it was very difficult to make a living on the farms arms of the south. In 1871 he came to Kansas and located in Wyandotte county, where he farmed. He now owns eighty acres of land at Piper, Kansas, and he grows wheat and corn.

In 1855 he married Adeline Bettis, who was also one of a family of ten and, like her husband, she is the only one living. Mr. and Mrs. Laws have had three children, but they are all dead.

When Mr. Laws first came to Kansas it was not at all an uncommon thing to see the Indians walking about in the cities, then not much more than villages. During those forty years he has lost father, mother, brothers and sisters. Children have been born to him and they too have left him. Now he and his wife are alone, contented in spite of their many bereavements. They have the knowledge that they have done the best they could and that is a record that no one can better.

He is a Republican in politics, and both he and his dear old wife are members of the Baptist church at Piper, Kansas.