Biographical Sketch of Colonel John Doniphan, St. Joseph, Buchanan 
County, MO

>From "History of Buchanan County, Missouri, Published 1881, St. Joseph
Steam Printing Company, Printers, Binders, Etc., St. Joseph, Missouri.
**********************************************************************

Colonel John Doniphan is descended from a Scotch family who emigrated
to Virginia soon after the battle of Cullodon.  His grandfather,
Joseph Doniphan, at the age of eighteen was with Boone, at Boones-
borough, and taught the first school in Kentucky at that fort, in the
summer of 1778, and was a volunteer at the siege of Yorktown, in 1781.
In 1783, he married Ann Smith, a descendent of Captain John Smith, who
settled Jamestown.  In 1790, he moved to Kentucky, and resided until 
his death, in Mason County.  He left three sons, Dr. Thomas S. Doni-
phan, surgeon of the Third Kentucky Volunteers, commanded by Colonel
Payne, during the war of 1812, and the father of John; George Doniphan
and General A. W. Doniphan, of the Mexican War and a distinguished
lawyer of Missouri.  In 1818, Dr. Thomas S. Doniphan married Rebecca
Frazee, the daughter of Samuel Frazee, who was a companion of Simon
Kenton in Northern kentucky, at Washington, in Mason County, in the
year 1775.  He removed to Brown County, Ohio, where John was born in
1826, and educated at the Franklin Academy, in Kentucky.  After the
death of his father, in 1843, he entered a printing office at Mays-
ville, Kentucky.  In 1844, through the kindness of Colonel Marshall,
of Kentucky, he got a position in the clerk's office in Mason County.
He came to Clay County, Missouri, in 1846.  In 1848, he took a degree
at the University of Louisville, and returned to Missouri.  In Feb-
ruary, 1848, he commenced to practice law in Platte County, where he
continued to practice law until 1872, when he removed to St. Joseph.
He had, however, practiced law in Buchanan County since 1849, and was
engaged in some of the most sensational trials in this county, among
others the State vs. Doy, for stealing slaves; the State vs. Hardin,
and the State vs. Jenkins, each for murder.  In 1854, he was elected
to the Legislature from Platte County, as a Whig, against a Democratic
majority of over 600, where he was instrumental in passing a bill to
remove the Branch of the State Bank from Fayette to Weston, which
Governor Price refused to sign; and in chartering, with one and a half
million of state aid, the Weston & Randolph County Railroad, vetoed
by Governor Price.  This was the revising session, and likewise mem-
orable for the triangular contest for Senator between Benton, Atchison
and Doniphan.  In 1862, Colonel Doniphan was elected to the Senate 
from the Platte District, and served as an active Conservative Demo-
crat during the next four years.  He was a bold opponent of the Drake
constitution and the registration laws, which disfranceised so large
a portion of the best citizens.  In 1866, he canvassed the Tenth dis-
trict, denouncing these iniquities at great personal hazard, and wrote
the Democratic address for the state committee in 1866, setting forth
the enormities of such legislation, and which did much to aid the 
revolution of popular feeling in 1870.  While in the Senate, he was a
member of the Judiciary and Internal Improvement Committees, and aided
largely in shaping the revision of 1866, and examined and passed upon,
by section, the statutes of that year.  His is the only solitary vote
against the act authorizing the Governor to sell the Iron Mountain &
Southwest Branch of the Pacific Railroad.  He declared the act was a
fraud on the state, to whom the properties were indebted several
millions, and that they were worth every dollar of it, but the bill
would jeopardize it.  His words were prophetic, as the state got prac-
tically nothing for the road, while the properties are now worth more 
than five times that sum, and the state is paying the debt by taxation.
In 1861, being a Union man, he was offered the command of a regiment
by General Lyon, which was declined, as well as several other positions
in the army, but in 1862, from the necessities of the times, he was
compelled to join the militia to prevent Platte County from being
destroyed between the bushwhackers and Redlegs, who were alternately
swarming around her, ready to swoop down upon the non-combatants. 
After serving two months as private, Governor Gamble appointed him
Lieutenant Colonel of the Thirty-ninth Missouri Militia, and afterwards
Governor Hall appointed him to a like position in the Eighty-first
Missouri, where he served, when on duty, until after the Price invasion
in 1864, when he resigned.  It was through his personal intercession
with Genereal Rosecrans, who was a friend, that Jennison's Regiment
was taken from Liberty Landing, to Fort Leavenworth, by steamboat,
and thus saved Clay County from being pillaged and burned.  In 1867,
he was again elected to the Legislature, without opposition, and after-
wards was elected Judge of the Weston Court of Common Pleas, during
his absence, and without being a candidate.  These facts show the
estimation in which he was held by those who knew him well.  He has
always been prompt to serve the public without pay or reward, and has
devoted much time to advance the cause of education and benevolence
in the state.  In 1848, he joined Phoenix Lodge, I.O.O.F., at Weston,
and still remains a member of the lodge and Encampment there, having
devoted much time to advancing the order, and has been honored as 
Grand Master and Grand Representative, has instituted lodges; traveled
over the state instructing in the work, lecturing and giving his per-
sonal aid to the cause, and invariably refused to accept compensation
in any form for these services.  In 1852, he married Miss Fanny
Thornton, of Clay County, a daughter of the late Colonel John Thornton,
and a sister to Mrs. General A. W. Doniphan, Mrs. Captain O.P. Moss,
Mrs. William Morton, Mrs. R.W. Donnell, Mrs. James H. Baldwin and Mrs.
L.M. Lawson.  In 1872, he was appointed attorney of the St. Joseph
and Denver City Railroad Co., which position he has continued to fill,
to the satisfaction of the company and its patrons.  In 1859, in conn-
ection with Judge James N. Burnes, he organized the Weston and Atchison
Railway Co., and together paid out of their means the expenses of
surveys, plats, etc., having been elected the first President of the
company, Colonel Doniphan gave a year in hard work to make a success
of the project.  In 1860, he assisted in the organization of the 
Missouri Valley Railroad Company, from Weston to Moberly, and was 
elected attorney of it, and had surveys and estimates made largely at
his own expense, all of which were lost by reason of the war.  Colonel
Doniphan has never been a seeker for position or place outside of his
profession, and those he has held have been more the result of solici-
tation than from any desire on his part to secure them.  He is domestic
in his habits and tastes, and has often said he would rather receive
the "Well done", of his wife, than the plaudits of the multitude.  As
a practicing lawyer for more than thirty years, a member of the Legis-
lature for seven sessions, and an active hard worker of great practical
common sense, he has done much to shape the law and political economy
of his county and state, and takes a great interest in public enter-
prises calculated to ameliorate and elevate his fellow citizens; he is
a trustee of the Lunatic Asylum No. 2, having been appointed by Gov-
ernor Phelps, without his solicitation of knowledge; also the professor
of medical jurisprudence in the St. Joseph Hospital Medical College,
and several other positions of trust for the public good.  Colonel
Doniphan was attorney of the Weston and St. Joseph Railroad, and its 
successor, the Missouri Valley, for ten years, and obtained the right 
of way and assisted in the construction from Kansas City to Hopkins
and Forest City, resigning in 1870.  He built from Atchison to Edgerton
thus making the Atchison Bridge and Winthrop necessities, and additions
to the wealth of Buchanan County.  In 1879, as agent of Jay Gould, he
built the Hastings and Grand Island and Blue Valley Railroads, as
tributaries to St. Joseph.  As a lawyer he has been successful in de-
fending over one hundred and sixty cases of felony; he has never had 
but three clients ultimately convicted, and these were a part of those
where he was defending under opposition from the court, and out of 
over thirty murder cases he has never had a client convicted capitally.
Colonel Doniphan is an eloquent and forcible speaker, a compact and
close reasoner, but seems to use pathos and logic only as a means of 
conviction.  Perhaps the best illustration of his reserved powers as
a public speaker was given in opposition to the sell out bill intro-
duced into the State Senate by Hon. David Wagner, afterwards Chief
Justice, in January, 1864, by which the State sold the Missouri Pacific
Railroad to John C. Fremont for seven million State bonds, then worth
twenty five cents on the dollar.  Fremont was then in the zenith of
his fame, a favorite of the Missouri Republicans as against Mr. Lincoln
for the Presidential nomination of 1864.  He was in Jefferson City with
a large hotel and restaurant run full, with many talented followers and
lobyists, of the Senate to favor it, and had it presented suddenly by
one of the ablest members in a forcible and clear speech.  Immediately
upon Judge Wagner being seated, Col. Doniphan arose, and, in a speech
of half an hour in length, dealt the proposition such fearful blows,
and denounced the measure as one so fraught with peril to the State,
that the Senate refused to receive the proposition.  The Missouri
Republican of the next day, says of the speech: "Thanks to John Doni-
phan when Wagner, of Lewis County, yesterday, introduced a bill to
sell out the Pacific Railroad to John C. Fremont and others at seven
millions of State bonds, the first installment of one million to be
paid in 1864, John Doniphan, in the right way and on the instant, hit
it just in the bull's eye, and Wagner may be thankful to our friend
Bush that the fraudulent thing ever kicked afterwards.  The Senate
refused to receive the bill, but the good nature of Mr. Bush had it
so far reconsidered as to refer to a committee.  We have seldom seen
remarks more pertinent and killing to any measure than those submitted
by Mr. Doniphan.  He exposed with an effect which must have been
electric upon the Senate, the infamous character of the proposition.
Introduced at an unexpected moment, for it had been understood that
the House was first to be favored with the bill, he seems to have 
comprehended at a glance the enormity of the provisions of the bill,
the sacrifice of State, county, city and individual interests, and
the disregard of State honor and State independence, and to have de-
nounced it with a vehemence and a sense of the injustice even in
entertaining such a proposition, which commands our admiration.  We
have no fear of the adoption of a sell out proposition while he stands
ready to expose it, and we are quite sure he will."  Col. Doniphan 
seems contented in the devotion of one of the noblest of women, and
in humbly aiding in the development and advancement of the country.

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