Barton County KS Archives Biographies.....Moses, George Nelson 1844 - 1911
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com July 23, 2005, 1:10 am

Author: Great Bend Tribune

GEORGE  NELSON MOSES

Life Story of One of the Bravest Men Who Ever Tramped Across the Santa Fe Trail;
an Early Barton County Pioneer

GEO. N. MOSES was the tenth of a family of 14 children, seven boys and seven
girls. The oldest member of the family died when but a few years of age. George
was the youngest of the four brothers who went to the defense of their country
when the civil war broke out. The two youngest brothers, Charles of Chicago and
E. R. of this city were too young though Charlie, the oldest of the two ran off
twice to join the army but was returned home each time. George Moses was born in
Olean, New York State April 15, 1844.

   He died in Great Bend, September 10, 1911. When he was eleven years of age
the family moved to Illinois and later moved again to the frontier state of
Missouri, locating in Sedalia. The father was a mason and the older boys
followed this trade in their younger days. George was just attaining manhood
when the civil war broke out and he joined Company I, 15th Illinois Infantry
though his older brothers tried to prevent this because of his youth and later
with his brother, R. H., re-enlisted, both joining Company C. 146th Illinois
Infantry.

   After the war he saw service in the border war in Missouri, against the
bushwhackers. As member of what was known as the Jim Turley gang under command
of Capt. Montgomery, hardly a day passed but what they had exciting adventures.
This company was composed of about thirty men all expert horsemen and dead shots
and their duties consisted principally of chasing down the guerillas of the
rebel army who were raiding all parts of Missouri where northern sympathizers
lived.

   When the war was over he was still a young man, just entering manhood. A man
with a reputation of being able to take care of himself under any circumstances
and a man whose word could be depended upon. He was of a roving disposition at
that time and Missouri was becoming too well settled. He wanted to get out into
the world as his brothers had done before the war. Striking out for himself he
came to Kansas, hunted buffalo all over this section of the state, wandering
over the mountains through Colorado and down into New Mexico. Then he returned
to Colorado and met John Tilton of this city in the Gunnison country, stayed
there awhile and they returned to Kansas and were working near Salina when a man
came cut from Salina to get G. N. to guide them to a fit place in this part of
the country for the location of a townsite, it being known that he had hunted
all over this section and down through the Medicine Lodge and Texas cattle
country. A company of Quincy, Ill., citizens had determined to locate a town on
the Santa Fe railroad which was building through Kansas and wanted to beat the
railroad company to it. G. N. guided them to this section and they located the
town as it stands. Fort Zarah at that time had two or three stores and a general
colony and the railroad company resenting the efforts of outsiders to start a
town instead of their obtaining the townsite attempted to break Great Bend but
Great Bend outlasted them all.

   He was the first sheriff of the county and did much to keep this a lawabiding
community. The "gun men" of the West knew him and that there would be little
chance of their intimidating him. For the average "gun man" is not a man who is
a killer because he is quicker than others on the draw but because he is
trickier and because he intimidates officers of the law. G. N. had been in the
camps of the pioneers all over the West. He had met the bad men of Dodge City,
of Sargent and of the mining camps of Colorado and always he had been on the
side of decency and right. He was never known to be afraid and the bad men were
afraid of him because they knew he was not afraid of them.

   None of the Moses boys have ever been apologetic or timid. They have been
true to their convictions but they have done what they believed to be right
regardless of the opinion of others.

   An instance of G. N.'s boyhood will show considerably the trend of his
character. As a boy of 7 or 8 he was out getting nuts with a couple of his
sisters when a woman who was a terror of the neighborhood when it came to
demanding what she called her rights came upon them and attempted to frighten
the children and did succeed in scaring the little girls pretty badly. G. N.'s
anger blazed forth and he dared the woman to come any nearer to attempt to take
the sack of nuts which she claimed. He drove her back and took the booty home
for booty it was. And throughout his life the dominant trait has been to help
others and to take the side of the oppressed. Hundreds, of stories might be
written about this side of the man't nature.

   He was a born leader and though not seeking leadership was naturally selected
for this in most enterprises in which he engaged. If he believed a cause was
worthy he followed it strong in the assurance of its success sometimes to his
financial disadvantage. Naturally he made opponents as all strong men do but
never did opponent question his integrity or honesty.

   With his marriage in 1S73 to Miss Ida Mitchell, step-daughter of Squire
Odell, one of the locaters of the town and member of the town company and went
into business in Great Bend in the firm of Burton, Odell & Moses. When the
Gunnison country in Colorado was opened up Burton withdrew from the firm and
went to Gunnison where he opened a store in which G. N. was also interested. A
few years later E. R. Moses, then only a young man came here and went to
clerking in the Great Bend store and in a short time Mr. Odell retired, the firm
becoming G. N. & E. R. Moses, which it remained until about ten years ago when
G. N retired, E. R. buying his interest and naming the firm the E. R. Moses
Mercantile Co., which it remains to this day. The firm saw many a bad year in
the early days when settlers were few and crops were bad but it went ahead and
carried many a man who is rich today but who would have been unable to have
farmed at all but for this firm.

   He served as mayor of the city three different times, in the 80's, and two
terms in the nineties. During the Populists days he was the Republican nominee
at one time for the legislature, but was defeated. He served as sheriff of the
county several terms, principally in the early days and was the first sheriff of
the county.

   During the time the cattle trade was coming from Texas to Great Bend and
before it shifted to Dodge City a Texas gun fighter became abusive and chased
most of the citizens off the street while he ran the town. The marshal and
assitant considered discretion the better part of valor and hid out to find G.
N. while the gun fighter amused himself while sitting on his pony by shooting at
the occasional citizen who showed in sight. G. N. was informed of the
circumstance and telling the marshal to stay where he could come into the fight
in case he was shot walked down the street and up to the Old Rome where the
tough man was viewing the country. The man started swinging his gun hand towards
G. N. when the latter spoke to him pleasantly enough and he stopped to see what
was coming next. G. N. wasn't trying to pull a gun and still kept coming. It
puzzled him. As the sheriff got near enough he reached up his hand as thought to
shake hands and the next minute the gun man was off his pony and G. N.'s grip on
his shoulder made him forget all his belligerency. G. N. turned him over to the
marshal after a lecture on the matter of getting drunk and making a fool of
himself and the gun man when turned loose made a bee line back to Texas where
they didn't have sheriffs who were foolish enough to go around without drawing a
gun on sight.

  The town of Sargent, now Coolidge, was for a few months the toughest place in
the west. It was when the Santa Fe construction camp was located there and the
gamblers, painted women and thugs were robbing the several hundred railroad
laborers. One of the gamblers had some months before borrowed two hundred
dollars from G. N. who pitied his condition and thought him a man of his word.
G. N. while prospecting in the west heard of the town of Sargent and stopped
there finding his man running a saloon. He broached the subject of being paid
and the man who had joined the gang of ruffians running the town repudiated the
debt and said he didn't intend to pay it. It made G. N. mad and he kicked him
out of the place and took charge of the saloon himself. We believe that Jim
Gainsford was with him at the time. The saloon man went out and gathered his
gang and went back to fix G. N. The latter was ready and had Gainsford stationed
behind the door. When the gang filed in G. N. trained two guns on them and
invited them to get out and stay out. Gainsford was also there and they got. He
ran the saloon for two days, took in $68 and then turned it back to the owner
and said that he had callected the interest due at least. While in Sargeant he
heard the story of an old man who had been robbed of his team by the gamblers.
G. N.'s sympathy was aroused for the old man and going with the latter to the
camp corral had the old man point out the team. They hitched it up and the old
man started to drive out of the town. One of the gang saw the man on the front
seat of the wagon and notified others of the gang and they started to take the
team away from the old fellow. As they got up to the rig they found G. N.
sitting on the back end of the wagon load, his needle gun across his knees and
after expostulating a little gave up the claim to ownership of the rig and the
old man drove out of town. G. N. accompanied him a little ways and then came
back. They didn't care to tackle him. D. N. Heizer, then a surveyor for the
Santa Fe related this story. E. R. Moses tells a story of the time he went to
Gunnison to visit his brother George. The town was really two towns divided by a
vacant area and in this section there was a large lumber yard. G. N. lived
across on the other side from the store. The first night of E. R.'s visit he
waited until late at night to accompany G. N. home. The latter was counting up
the money and placing it in a sack in his pocket when E. R. noticed a man
peering -in the window. He spoke to G. N. about the matter but he said he
guessed it didn't amount to much. They started home and as they got to the
lumber yard G. N. started on through his accustomed way instead of going around.
He had given E. R. a gun to carry from the store and as they got in the lumber
yard they noticed the two men standing back in the shadows. G. N. walked
straight towards them with his gun ready for action and E. R. following with
some trepidation. The man backed to one side and they passed on and were not
molested. But that was enough of the wild Gunnison country for E. R. and he
returned home in a day or two.

   Early day sheriffs had their own conceptions of the forms of law and one of
the returns made by G. N. as first sheriff of the county is held as a treasure
by a prominent state official into whose possession it passed some years ago. A
horse theif came to Barton county and committed some depredations which resulted
in a warrant being sworn out for his arrest. G. N. took the warrant and started
north after the thief. Seventy-two hours later he returned to Great Bend late at
night, without any rest from the time he had started, making the whole trip in
the saddle. Getting in late at night, tired and worn out from the trip and
nearly dead for want of sleep he went into the justice of the peace office and
left the warrant, writing across the same, "Received this warrant blank date and
served same by shooting the _____" The facts of the story were that G. N. went
to Hays City where he induced a comrade of the man wanted to confess that the
man was in that part of the country and then taking his deputy rode out to cow
camp where he found the man. As they rode over the hill and down towards the
wagons the man they were after jumped up and grabbing a gun commenced shooting
at them. A minute later he died suddenly and the trip home was begun. The
cowboys heard the firing and started to investigate and threatened to kill the
sheriff and his deputy. Thoroughly aroused now the sheriff sent the deputy back
a little way, rode up to the cowboys and invited them to start the proceedings
at once if they felt it necessary. They decided that monkeying with the law
would be unpopular and the sheriff and deputy rode home.

  From the trend of these stories it might appear that G. N. was of a tough
order but his history is different. Men were men in those days and had hard work
to perform but the testimony of his old comrades has always been that G. N.
stood for the moral things and was himself a moral man.

   The first time Ed Tyler, W. W. Hartshorn, Louis and Jerry Frey ever met G. N.
Moses was on October 16th, 1871. They drove from Quincy, Ill, to this point. G.
N. Moses, Hy and Jim Bickerdyke and John Tilton were camped on the ground where
the Fair Building now stands. They had hauled a load of lumber from Russell on
the U. P. railroad and built a shack by putting up some posts and built the
shack like a tight board fence there being a room about the size square of the
length of the board and had been added to until there were several rooms about,
four. The Moses party were glad to meet them and allowed them the use of half
the shack until they could do better. At that time there was no railroad and
little money. There were plenty of buffalo and other game for meat, but there
was little else to eat. The Hubbard store on the Walnut was the only one for
miles, the next nearest being on the U. P. north, 45 miles, and nothing south or
west. When the Quincy crowd arrived here G. N. Moses wore an army hat, shirt and
coat and buckskin pants and the others were clad something like G. N.

   Up to that time there had been no buffalos killed about here for the hides
only, as it would not pay to haul them to the U. P. for the price offered and
there were very few horses to do the hauling. Later a good many cattle were
used. However, buffalo hides were used for partitions in the shack and many
other places for which they had no lumber. One day in the fall of 1871 G. N.
Moses and Ed Tyler were sitting in a window of the old Southern hotel, situated
where the Brinkman Bank is now situated. The hotel had not been finished at that
time and even the frames in. They were looking down the trail toward Fort Zarah
and they noticed something coming west. It was decided that it was not a man, a
buffalo or a horse, but finally it developed that it was a man carrying an
umbrella and when he arrived they found that it was Judge Tom Morton of
Illinois. He was dressed in broadcloth, white shirt, collar and cuffs, blackened
boots, in fact was in regular town style. He had come to Fort Zarah with a bunch
of soldiers from the east. He stopped here with the camp and in a few days he
had bought Ed Tyler's team, also another team for one of the Quincy party and
suggested to G. N. Moses that they go out on a regular buffalo hunt. They left
this point in December, 1871 and went to the southwest where the buffalo were
plentiful and they got as far as the Medicine Lodge country before returning.
From that time they made buffalo hunting a regular business and hundreds of
hides were ready to ship from here when the Santa Fe railroad arrived. The first
hunting party was composed of G. N. Moses, John Tilton, Hy Bickerdyke and Judge
Morton. Messrs. Moses and Tilton continued it for a few days. Bickerdyke went
west after a year or two and Judge Morton was a resident of Great Bend until the
late seventies.

  Moses and Tilton in those days had traveled over many miles of the west and
before coming here they had first met in Colorado and traveled a foot over most
of the country that has developed so well. From Colorado they came to about
where Salina is and from there here. From the time they met in Colorado they
have been bosom friends at all times. Prior to the time of the meeting of Moses
and Tilton in Colorado Mr. Moses had gone from Sedalia, Mo., where he had been a
peace officer after the war part of the time and was also a deputy United States
marshal to Arizona and New Mexico where he spent some years looking over that
country.




Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Biographical history of Barton County, Kansas
Great Bend, Kan.: Great Bend Tribune (1912)

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ks/barton/bios/moses62bs.txt

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