Biography: Robert Wilson:
Part of a letter written to Ilah Allgood Jacobsen from her Uncle Bernard John Wilson, about his father Robert Rich Wilson and grandfather, Robert Wilson:
Dad's father (Robert Wilson) was a colonel having come west from the State of Virginia. I'm not sure but somehow I seem to have it deep in mind that he eventually became a post trader at some western out-post and that was when dad (Robert Rich Wilson) was still a baby.
Some history research by Ilah Allgood Jacobsen, great granddaughter of Robert Wilson:
1814-1821?
Robert Wilson was a store-keeper in the army. He established the first post-office in Davis County in 1853. He had daughter, Clara and son, Robert Rich. The Newspaper-- the Smoky Hill and Republican Union, "states on 1 Apr 1871 a brief account of career of Robert Wilson. At Fort Leavenworth from 1833 to 1842 as a sutler; in 1844 a sutler at Council Bluffs, Iowa, and also at Vancouver Island. He was a sutler at Fort Kearney and Fort Riley,(Kansas). Later years a superintendent of the Davis County, Poor Farm."
1862
He was a Post-Trader at Fort Riley in Sep 1862 with his family with him. He was a member of Pawnee Township association, organized 27 Sep 1854. In 1844 he established a trading post in Salt Creek Valley near Salt Creek Bridge, and sold it in 1852 and became a sutler in Fort Riley. With others he started a town in Humbolt in the summer of 1857. In 1861 he was still a sutler in Western Kansas. He was in Omaha, Nebraska in 1872.
1871
Article written about Robert Wilson in the Union Paper, Saturday, April 15, 1871:
A WESTERN CHARACTER:
"We mentioned, not long since, that Robert Wilson, Esquire, was in Leavenworth, and took occasion to give some account of the varied life and experience of the man. His first visit to Fort Leavenworth was in 1833, when Leavenworth was known only as a favorite retreat of coyotes and a good hunting ground. He remained at the Fort til 1842, and then made a pleasant trip to the Rocky Mountains. Returning to the Missouri we find him next sutler at Council Bluffs in1844. He surrendered this position to join a party going to California, and soon reappeared on the surface as a sutler on Vancouver Island. Once more he takes the back track and sutlerizeds at Fort Kearney, on the Plains. He then returns again to Kansas, starts the town of "Pawnee," builds the first house at Fort Riley, and starts both the town and the first paper of Junction City.
The sketch of Mr. Wilson's career is a mere skeleton outline of what he has really experienced. One year he would be rolling in wealth and the next penniless, but his spirits never flagged, his heart never failed. When things looked darkest he only worked harder. He is still young, the picture of health and as full of new projects as an egg of substance. Although now located at Omaha we count him a 'Kansas man,' and a good type of those brave and intelligent pioneers to whom our country is so largely indebted for its rapid progress and development." - (Times and Bulletin.)
Additional History research of Robert Wilson by great-great grandson, Daniel E. Jacobsen:
Leavenworth - Beginning to Bicentennial, By J. H. Johnson III:
KICKAPOO AND THE "OLD KICKAPOO" CANNON
"Kickapoo was the outgrowth of disappointed town speculators who failed to get an original foothold in Leavenworth, and only partially so in Atchison," wrote H. Miles Moore in his "Early History of Leavenworth City and County."
"The truth was, Leavenworth was thought to be a little too strongly tinctured with Free Soilism and Atchison was already supplied with a full measure of the opposite extreme; and it required a fresh outbreak, a special geyser of their own, from which their super-abundant amount of gas, wind, froth, steam and mud might be emitted; for that reason Kickapoo was hatched or incubated from the mental and physical womb of old Mrs. West on, and which last effort threw the old lady into a decline from which she never rallied."
Moore's reference was to the town of Weston, Missouri, from where pro-slavery adherents crossed the Missouri River with the objective of colonizing the Kansas Territory along slave state principles.
Kickapoo township, situated in northeast Leavenworth County, was home first to the Kickapoo Indians, and beginning in 1844, a homestead for white settlers.
Andreas places Major Robert Wilson as the first white resident of Salt Creek Valley and keeper of a trading post a short distance west of Salt Creek Bridge.
On June 10, 1854, the first squatter meeting in the Territory was conducted in that trading post, Wilson having sold it to Major M. P. Rively.
"It is generally admitted that Kickapoo City was laid out as a premeditated rival of Leavenworth, by citizens of Weston and Platte County, Mo.," stated Andreas."
A large portion of the township, including the town site, was open to preemption, under the laws of the United States, and for this reason it was supposed that Leavenworth would find it hard to compete with her rival. And Kickapoo was, for some time, a bitter political as well as business rival." Emigration to Kickapoo was lively by November of 1854. with town lots being sold for up to one hundred and ten dollars each. [page 47].
These are a few statements or paragraphs I found in the book "The History of Fort Riley," about Robert Wilson:
"Fifteen in all died on the third of August - Major Ogden, Mrs. Armistead, Mrs. Wood and two children, the major's orderly, and nine workmen. A few men were at work all the time and Mr. Sawyer encouraged them to continue, but their surroundings were distracting. A delegation waited on Mr. Sawyer and earnestly insisted that the balance due them should be paid and they allowed to go. Sawyer explained to them that, even if they were entitled to more pay, it would not be given to them, as there was no one to pay them, and the money was locked up in the safe, which could not be opened. A little after noon I galloped off to my camp on the Republican, found everything all right and no sickness among the fifty men there. I did not dismount, nor did I allow anyone to come near me. I returned to the cost about three o'clock and saw Mr. Sawyer and Reverend Mr. Clarkson sitting on the latter's front porch looking at a band of men in the middle of the parade ground. Sawyer called to me, and I hitched my horse and joined them on the porch. Mr. Clarkson made the following statement; Mr. Robert Wilson, the post sutler, who had a very large stock of goods in his store, had locked up everything and taken his family away in the morning accompanied by one of Major Ogden's clerks. Soon after I left, about one o'clock, the store was broken into by a gang of men, some goods scattered about, a barrel of whiskey rolled out, the head knocked in and, with tin cups, the men helped themselves. When well liquored up, led by a big stone mason, some of them broke open the building used for the ordnance department and armed themselves with guns, pistols and ammunition." [pages 68 and 69].
1862
There were no troops at the post at the time. Mr. Robert Wilson was post trader. Sept. 1862. [page 84].
The Chaplain's quarters, occupied by Chaplain Clarkson of Mr. Low's narrative, for several years and utilized as the chaplain's quarters until the rebuilding of the post in the eighties, is now building Ho. 123 and is occupied as a dwelling by southwest of the old chaplain's quarters, now designated as building No. 124, and occupied by a warrant officer of the school staff, was originally occupied by the post trader or sutler. It was built by Bob Wilson, the first sutler. Back of this building are two or three graves and there is a story to the effect that one of them is that of a woman who drowned herself In a deep well because of unrequited love. This house got the name of being haunted from that fact. In regard to this Mr. Faright states: " I told Mrs. Waters (wife of Mose Waters, who was then occupying the quarters) of this and asked her if she ever heard anything to annoy her. She did not know the house as the haunted house until I told her. She answered that when they went to live in it they heard terrible noises at night like a log chain being dragged. [page 88].
1854
September 27, 1854, the Pawnee Town Site Association was organized, consisting of Major Montomery, Second Infantry, Commanding Officer at Fort Riley; W. A. Hammond, afterward Surgeon-General of the Arny; C. S. Lovall; Ed Johnson; Nathaniel Lyon; M. T. Polk; R. F. Hunter; R. S. Ogden; M. Mills; G. McR. Hudson; Janes Simons; D. H. Vinton; Alden Sargent; J. T. Shaaff; H. Rich; W. S. Murphy; Robert Wilson; J. M. Dyer; R. C. Miller; A. H. Reeder; A. J. Isaacks; J. B. Donalson; Rush Elmore, and L. W. Johnson.
1861
Mr. George V. Martin in his article, "The Territorial and Military Combine at Fort Riley," states that fourteen of the above were officers of the army and five were territorial officials. Lyon, a captain in the 2nd Infantry, was afterward quite intimately connected with the history of Fort Riley and Kansas and was known as the "Hero of the Battle of Wilson Creek" where he was killed August 10, 1861.
1844
Andrew Jackson Isacks was a lieutenant of infantry in the Mexican War and was honorably mustered out July 25, 1848. Robert Wilson was a military storekeeper in the army from 1814 to 1821. In l844 he established a trading post in Salt Creek valley near Salt Creek bridge. This he sold out in 1852 to Major M. P. Rively and became sutler at Fort Riley. Johnson, Ruch Elmore, Donaldson, Isaacks and Reeder ware territorial officers, [page 102 and 103].
1853
By order of Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, the boundaries of the reservation of Fort Riley were enlarged to include Pawnee. This order was not executed until the fall of 1855 when Colonel Philip St. George Cooke arrived from Texas with the Second Dragoons and pulled the houses down. At its height, Pawnee had about five hundred inhabitants. Most accounts state that the capital building and Pawnee was planned for that purpose by Robert Wilson. Mr. George W. Knapp who was a settler in old Pawnee, stated that as near as he could remember the building was about 150 feet from the river bank, as the military road ran between the building and the river, [page 108].
1857
In the summer of l857 a town company was organized by Thomas Reynolds, A. J. Mead, J. R, McClure, Robert Wilson and Abram Barry. The company started a town, or rather selected a site, to which they gave the name of Humboldt. The object of the organizers was to locate their town on the abandoned town site of Mlllard but the attempt was a failure. The history of Junction City actually began with the organization of the Junction City Town Company in the fall of 1857. The name Junction City was derived from the location proposed townsite at the junction of the Republican and Smoky Hill forks of the Kansas River. The nickname "Junktown" was first applied to the town by plainsmen in the early days and was not first used in derision by military offers at Fort Riley, as has been commonly supposed J. R. McClure was president of this company. Daniel Mitchell secretary and Robert Wilson, treasurer. Other members were F. N. Blake, John T. Price and P. Z. Taylor. The survey of the town site was begun in the latter part of December and finished in the summer of 1858. Work on the first building in Junction City began in May 1858. It was near the intersection of Washington and Seventh Streets." [pages 121 & 122].
1853
The first post office in Davis County was that established by Robert Wilson, the sutler, at Fort Riley In 1853. [page 126].
William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas, Davis County. Part 4.
J Smoky Hill Township.--This township was organized August 7,1872. The first settler in the township was Thomas Reynolds, who settled there in 1853. The township embraces all that portion of the county lying between the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers from their point of junction to the west line of the county. Fort Riley is within the limits of this township. It was also is this township that the old town of Pawnee was situated, the founders of which were Col. Montgomery; U. S. A.; Surgeon W. A. Hammond, U. S. A.; Capt Nathaniel Lyon, U. S. A.; Robert Wilson, Post Sutler, and Robert Klotz. The town was founded in the fall of the year 1854, but was destroyed by the military in 1855, owing to its being located on the military reservation. In 1854, J. R.. McClure located at Pawnee, followed m March, 1855, by G. F. Gordon and Abram and Marshal Barry.
A family by name of Fleming also resided in. the township in 1854, as to this family is accredited the birth of the first child . which was born on December 20,1854, and to which was given the name of John. The first merchant in the township was John T. Price, who established a grocery store at Pawnee in 1854. The first couple married in the township were Thomas Jenkins and Ella Wicks, October 1, 1855. The first post office was established at Fort Riley in 1853, with Robert Wilson as postmaster.
1861
The Smoky Hill and Republican Union informs us that in-November 1861, Robert Wilson was still sutler, as he was then advertising 1st paper at the "Oldest Established Trading Depot In Western Kansas." Under date of January 30, 1862, we find that the garrison of Riley consisted of two companies of volunteers. [page 144].
On page 155, it state: "During the years immediately following the Civil War, Wild Bill Hickcock, Buffalo Bill. California Joe, Comstock, Charlie Reynolds and other men later famous for their prowess with firearms were employed by the government as scouts. Wild Bill and Buffalo Bill were frequent visitors at Fort Riley and Junction City and, at least once or twice, Hickcock was at the Post in his capacity as scout. Mr. Henry Thiele told the writer he had seen Wild Bill stand on the corner of Sixth and Washington Streets in town, and with a six-shooter, shoot silver half dollars out of the cleft." These scouts were often visitors to Robert Wilson's trading post in Fort Riley.
Robert Wilson's grandson, Bernard John Wilson had giving a incident in his life, as follows: "Although very young, I still remember when Bill Cody (Buffalo Bill) visited Dad (Robert Rich Wilson) in Ogden at Grandfather's Lamoreaux's place, and they talked over old scenes of the battlefield.
1867
Forgoing is a statement by (President) Ulysses Simpson Grant of Robert Wilson's application to become a sutler:
On April 15, , Robert Wilson, Denver, Colorado Territory, wrote to USG. "Understanding that a Military Post is about being established at or near Pueblo, on Arkansas River Colorado Ter. I respectfully apply to you for the position of Sutler. I have been Sutler at Fort Kerney Neb Ter. Fort Hall Utah, Forts Dalls & Vancouver in Orgon, and for ten years previous in 1864 at Fort Riley Kansas--I have addressed Letters to General I N Palmer, General P. St. Geo Cook, Genl James Totten, Genl Sturgess, Genl Sackett and Genl Denver---asking their recommendations to you. All these Offices were acquainted with me during my Sutlership and I feel confident will endorse me favourably. As soon as these documents are returned, with endorsements, I will forward them to you, Soliciting your favourable consderation of this application..." ALS, ibid. On the same day, Wilson wrote to James W. Denver converning the appointment. ALS, Abid. On Apri 30, Denver, Washington, D. C. endorsed this letter. "Respectfull submitted to Gen. U. S. Grant with the remark that if Mr. Wilson is correct as to the law, the undersigned would regard it as a personal favor if he will grant Mr. Wilson his request. PayMaster Gen. Brice is well acquainted with Mr. Wilson." AFS, ibid.
1871
The Junction City Union of April 1, l87l, had a brief account of the career of Robert Wilson. "He was originally a Military Storekeeper in the army, serving as such from 1814 to 1821. He was a member of the Junction City Land Company and a member of the Pawnee Association, and brought the first paper press to Junction City. During his career he made and lost - several conformable fortunes for those days. He was at Ft Leavenworth from 1833 to 1842, presumably as sutler. In 1844 he was sutler at Council Bluffs. He was also sutler for a while at Vancouver Island and was the first sutler at Fort Kearney, as well as the first at Fort Riley. He built the first houses at the last posts. In later years he was Superintendent of the Davis County Poor Farm." [pages 166 and l67].
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