Barton County KS Archives Biographies.....Lewis, John F. 1842 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com October 4, 2005, 12:33 am

Author: Great Bend Tribune

JOHN F. LEWIS

THE history of Barton County, Kansas, would not be entirely complete without a
short biography of John F. Lewis, who came here in 1873, when there was but a
single row of houses, around the square, and the cowboy element dominated the town.

   Mr. Lewis was born in Holmes County, Ohio, August 9, 1842, wherefrom his
family moved to DeWitt County, Illinois, in 1844, where he grew to manhood and
in July, 1862, enlisted in Company G, 107th Infantry, Illinois Volunteers for
service in the civil war. His father, Dr. B. S. Lewis, having recruited said
company and was elected its captain and he, John F. Lewis, was made duty
sergeant, afterwards promoted to first sargeant and again to second lieutenant.
Mr. Lewis served with his regiment in the Kentucky, East Tennessee, under
General Burnsides in its battles and seiges, thence in 1864 with Sherman in his
march upon Atlanta, then in the campaign when Hood marched upon Nashville and
the battles of Columbia, Duck River, Franklin and Nashville was fought, thence
going with his corps to Fort Fisher, thence on up the coast in various
engagements to the close of the war, in the capture of Johnson's army.

   Soon after the close of the war Mr. Lewis was commissioned lieutenant in the
Fourteenth regular infantry and was stationed on Governors Island, New York
harbor, during the following summer, where he passed through the cholera
epidemic and suffered an attack of that dread disease.

   He joined his regiment in the spring of 1867, via the Isthmus of Panama and
San Francisco and across the Yuma desert to Arizona. Very soon after reaching
his command he was ordered on an expedition against the Apache Indians in
command of Troop G, First U. S. cavalry, in the Chiricahua mountains, and
encountered the Indians in force in the Guadaloupe canon near the present town
of Douglas, Arizona, and went into action, capturing their stock, defeating them
and killing a large number.

   He was engaged in battle with the Indians on many other occasions, one of
which was notable, that of being surrounded and beseiged two days and nights in
a mining corral, from which he successfully extricated his command with the
captured stock, though he was constantly engaged until reinforcements arrived.

   Mr. Lewis was promoted to first lieutenant of the Thirty-second infantry,
.and was afterwards, transferred to the Twenty-first, became quartermaster at
Camp Crittenden, at which post he constructed the post buildings the remains of
which can be seen by any person traveling into Mexico over the Guaymas branch of
the Santa Fe railroad. In 1871 Mr. Lewis enjoyed the opportunity offered by the
government of accepting a year's pay upon the reduction of the army from
forty-five to twenty-five regiments, arriving home in July, 1871, thus giving
the government nearly four years of continuous Indian service.

   Mr. Lewis married Miss Frances M. Morton, at Corning, Adams County, Iowa,
September 13, 1873, and immediately came to Kansas, locating a homestead and
tree claim four miles north of Ellinwood, Kan.

   During his stay on said land the movement of large herds of cattle from Texas
northward gave great annoyance to the farmers in the destruction of crops. Mr.
Lewis organized the farmers and made physical resistance to said encroachments
to the end that said damages to crops ceased and resulted in the people of the
county bringing out Mr. Lewis as a candidate for sheriff. However, the political
trickery no less common those days than now, thwarted the wishes of the people
and he was defeated.

   Mr. Lewis has until late years ever interested himself in the public uplift
of our town and county, pushing with enterprise and unselfishness any
improvement that promised benefits to our town.

   He organized the Great Bend Gas and Fuel Company and was instrumental more
than any other citizen in sinking a deep well on section 13-19-13 in an effort
to develop coal, gas or oil, reaching a depth of 1,365 feet, finding only salty
artesian water that is still flowing out of the ground, and which is said to
possess valuable medicinal properties. Soon after this he brought about a vote
of $10,000 bonds in the city for the erection of a salt plant. However, the land
boom, then at its apex, commenced to wane and promised monies from other sources
failed to come and the venture came to nothing.

   Mr. Lewis also organized by his energy the Great Bend Foundry Company, which
constructed its buildings immediately south of the present grain office of the
Walnut Creek Milling Company, which burned to the ground a few years ago.

   Mr. Lewis occupies the office he then occupied twenty-six years ago, being a
quiet and conservative real estate business, where he yet cheerfully caters to
the occasional demand for information and events of the long, long ago in the
early history of Kansas.


Additional Comments:
From "Biographical History Of Barton County" (1912)

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