Sumner "Sorghum" Smith

extracted from The History of the Early Settlement of Norton County, Kansas by F. M Lockard, page 174 - 176

Mr. and Mrs. Sumner Smith came to Kansas in the spring of 1875; they were both born in York state.  Mr. Smith was born in 1828 and Mrs. Smith in 1832; married in 1851 they had six children born in Wisconsin, the eldest, Mrs. Ina Stotts is living in Denver; she was born in 1852, the next, Charley, was born in 1854, he died when one year old; the next were twins Herbert and Herman, born in 1857, Cassius born in 1860, Edgar in 1864 and Ray born in Iowa in 1871.  Herbert is a blacksmith and lives in Coon Rapids, Iowa.  Prof. H. W. Smith lives in Norton county.  Cassius is married and lives near Blackfoot, Idaho.  Ed and Ray are also living at Blackfoot.  Mr. Smith took the land on which the town of Densmore now stands.

The following is from a letter received from Mrs. Smith.  "Our claim joined Bill Worthington and Bill Landis on the south.  When we first went there the settlers were very anxious for Mr. Smith to build a dam in the Solomon river and put in a saw mill, so the first year he rented fifteen acres of ground and put in corn.  Just as the corn commenced to get big enough to eat the grasshopper lit.  In two days we had no corn, then Mr. Smith and the boys commenced to cut timber to build a dam in the river.  then the settlers concluded they did not need a saw mill for Bill and Lish Worthington and Hendricks came and forbid him cutting timber, and when the Cummings came there to live in Bill Landis' house our troubles commenced.  When Bill Landis' wife left him she came to my house to stay a few days till her father, Mr. Fry, came after, and when Landis shot Mr. Fry he (Fry) came to my house and I bound up his head.

I suppose Bill Landis thought we took up against him for while Cummings was living in his house our horses got away or were run off.  Mr. Smith while hunting them went to Landis' house and Bill Landis jumped on him and beat him badly.  It seemed the settlers, or the Molly McGuires, as Tom Beaumont called them, had found out that we were republicans and they wanted us out of there for they threatened us and wrote warning letters for us to leave the second year we lived there.  After Mr. Smith and the boys had got the mill race dug Lish Worthington persuaded the dutchman, Cregher, to sue Mr. Smith for cutting timber.  Mr. Smith beat him so the cost was figured on the dutchman, then Lish Worthington and Bill Worthington's wife went out on the prairie and drove my cattle in their corral and I went and got them, she then swore out a warrant and had me arrested, took me before Tom Beaumont, he was justice of the peace.  I took my suit to Norton and employed J. R. Hamilton and beat her; then they arrested her for the costs.  We got no rest from that on.  In the spring of 1877 I noticed that Mr. Smith seemed very much worried and did not seem just right in his mind; he seemed to think that the whole settlement was working against him.  I tried to get him to let me send for some of the neighbors, but he said it was no use, they would not come.  On Saturday, April 14, I sent for Dr. Wilkison on Bow Creek, who told me that his brain was affected a little and if I would get him to come over to his house he could cure him in a short time, or if the neighbors would go and talk to him it would help him.  We got him to promise the doctor that he would go to his house and take my daughter, Mrs. Stotts, who was sick and was stopping with me at that time.  We were going on Monday, I had sent for John Landis and he came on Sunday the 15th.  Mr. Smith talked with him and apparently seemed as well as ever.  After we ate dinner he got up and walked out; that was the last we saw of him until three weeks from that day one of the boys found him in the mill race which he had dug two years before.  We were unable to decide whether he committed suicide or not.  When he went out I told Mr. Landis how he had acted.  Mr. Landis thought he acted all right and we would find him soon."

*************** The following appeared in the Bee, published at that time by Nat. L. Baker:

A SAD AFFAIR
SUMNER SMITH COMMITS SUICIDE

On Sunday afternoon, April 15, Sumner Smith, a resident of  Solomon township, this county, committed suicide by drowning himself.  The circumstances, as near as we can get at them, connected with the case, are substantially as follows:

For the past year a very bitter neighborhood quarrel has been raging on the Solomon, and Mr. Smith and his family were included in the rumpus.

About four weeks ago a note was pinned on the door of his residence, and signed "15 citizens," informing him that he must leave the county at once or he would be mobbed.  This so worked on the mind of the poor man that he went completely deranged, and neighbors had to be called in to watch him.  On Sunday the 15th of April, just at dusk, he stepped outside the door on some pretext or the other and that was the last seen of him.  Letters were sent to all parts of the country by his family and friends, but it amounted to nothing, and after a short time the search was abandoned.

On Sunday afternoon, the 6th inst, one of the boys went down into the tunnel which had been dug on his farm, and on which Mr. Smith contemplated building a mill, and there he caught a glimpse of his father's body floating.  The neighborhood was at once appraised of the fact, and they soon succeeded in removing the body from the tunnel, and then carried it to the house, where a coroner and jury were summoned who returned a verdict of suicide.  The poor man was buried the next day in the cemetery near the home he loved so well.  [West Union Cemetery]

***************

"Sumner Smith, notwithstanding all his faults, was a hardworking man.  He had a home, like the rest of us, and humble though it was, he loved and labored hard for it.  His wife and babies, too, he loved with his great strong heart, and like the rest of us, he too loved to provide for them.  Then why could he not be permitted to pursue his way in peace?  He harmed no one.  If he had family troubles, they belonged alone to him and his God.  No man but Sumner Smith will be called to account for Sumner Smith's sin; and then why not let him pursue his own way?  But no, Scandlers, the lowest and vilest people on the face of God's green earth; scabs upon the body of humanity; the filth and scum of the darkest recesses of the earth, have made his business their business, instead of attending to their own.  And the result is what?  A father is sent to his grave, and helpless little ones are left to the cold world with no kind hand to guide them.

Sumner Smith is dead.  Gone to account for the sins made in the body.  Peace to his ashes.  He is at rest now, and while the sad winds sing a requiem over his distorted corpse, do not forget to place in characters on his tombstone, "MURDERED BY SLANDERERS!"

I lived on the claim for about a month after that when Dr. Wilkison told my daughter to take me home with her on the Prairie Dog, as my health was poor and the boys had to go away to work.  I did not like to give up the claim, but was told that if I left my household goods there and would go and do some work every month I could hold it for the boys.  But those Worthingtons were determined to have some one jump it.  Mr. Dannevik wrote that two men had jumped my claim and were contending for it.  I went over there and told them the circumstances, one gentleman left, but the other, Mr. Densmore, seemed to think he had a right to take property belonging to a widow and her children away for nothing, so he took it, and I hope he is struggling for a living yet.  [He is dead. Lockard]

In 1879 I was married to Mr. DeJean by John Wallace at Leota; about a year afterwards we moved to Denver, going in wagons; my two sons, Ed and Ray, and Ed Hepler, youngest brother of Will Hepler, went with us; lived in Denver about four years with my husband when I found that he was not doing just right, a woman led him astray, after the manner of Col. Breckinridge; I secured a divorce and sold my in Denver and came to Blackfoot to live.  Three of my sons are here and I like the country and climate very much, and here I think I shall remain the rest of my days.  I do not know where DeJean went to, I left him in Denver.  I heard he went to the Blackhills.  The first trip I ever took in the cars was from Denver to here.

Yours respectfully, Mrs. Sumner Smith."
 

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