Mrs. Emily Payne Ogden is one of the notable pioneer women of Butler county. It would be a difficult matter to do justice to the story of the life and career of this noble pioneer woman in the space allotted in a work of this character. She came to Kansas at a time when the great plains stretched out before her, just as they had been left by the hand of the Creator.

Mrs. Ogden was born in Sullivan county, Indiana, January 4, 1850, and is a daughter of John and Nancy (Zink) Payne. The mother was a native of Indiana and the father was a North Carolinian of Scotch and French extraction, and the mother was of German descent. She died in Indiana in 1858, survived by her husband and eight children. In the spring of 1868, John Payne loaded his goods into a wagon, and with his family, drove to Kansas. They reached Chase county in June, 1868, where the father filed on a homestead, which he improved and spent the greater part of his life there. He died in Indian Territory in 1900. He was a man of strong character and a typical representative of the pioneers who laid the foundation for the great West. When the Civil war broke out he was intensely loyal to the Union. Although he was too old for military, service, he gave his country every possible support, and four of his sons enlisted in the Union army, although one was rejected on account of physical disability. The other three served for nearly four years and were with Sherman on his history-making march to the sea. The Payne family, with the exception of one son, Isaac, came to Kansas.

In 1870 Emeline Payne, the subject of this sketch, was united in marriage with George Ogden, a native of Hancock county, Illinois. He was a son of Joseph and Martha Ogden, natives of Illinois. He came to Chase county, Kansas, in 1869, where he met and married Emeline Payne, as above stated. Shortly after their marriage they came to Butler county and filed on the northeast quarter of section 12, Milton township, and in the spring of 1871 came here to make their home, permanently. To Mr. and Mrs. Ogden has been born one child, Minnie,

born in Butler county, May 4, 1871. She was married in 1909 to L. C. Peacock, and died in February, 1910. She was her mother's constant companion, through many lonely days on the plains. They endured many hardships together, labored together and were finally rewarded by prosperity. They homesteaded a claim together in New Mexico and remained there until they proved up on it, and her death was a severe blow to her mother. In 1906, Mrs. Ogden and her daughter took a claim in Quay county, New Mexico, and Mrs. Ogden spent six years there. She bought two additional quarter sections, and now owns the 480 arces[sic] in New Mexico, besides her fine farm of 160 acres in Butler county. They were among the very first settlers in that section of New Mexico and Mrs. Ogden's land there now is considered very valuable. She has a fine fruit orchard there, which is proving to be a profitable investment.

Mrs. Ogden endured the many hardships incident to the life on the plains, in the early days when the settlers were beset by many dangers, as well as inconveniences. On one occasion while the men of the neighborhood were away on a buffalo hunt, prairie fires swept the plains, and only by the greatest effort did Mrs. Ogden succeed in saving her home. She carried water a considerable distance and saturated the prairie grass around her home, and then started back fires and in that way saved her home. She succeeded in getting the horses out of the stable which was a straw roofed affair, by putting blankets over their heads and backing them out. It would take a volume to enumerate the heroic deeds of this brave woman of the plains. When she was a girl, her father taught her to shoot and ride horseback, and even today there are few men who can handle firearms with the dexterity of Mrs. Ogden. She belongs to that type of pioneers who should long be remembered by the present and future generations.

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