Pages 145-146, transcribed by Carolyn Ward from History of Allen and Woodson Counties, Kansas: embellished with portraits of well known people of these counties, with biographies of our representative citizens, cuts of public buildings and a map of each county / Edited and Compiled by L. Wallace Duncan and Chas. F. Scott. Iola Registers, Printers and Binders, Iola, Kan.: 1901; 894 p., [36] leaves of plates: ill., ports.; includes index.



 

  WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS. 145 cont'd

WILLIAM T. STOUT

WILLIAM T. STOUT, who is recognized as one of the substantial of the moderate farmers of Deer Creek township, has been a citizen of Allen county twenty years. He came to the county in 1880 and first settled upon section 5, township 24, range 20. For seventeen years prior his home was in Linn county, Missouri, to which county he went from Bond county, Illinois, the year following the close of the Civil war.

Mr. Stout was born in Bond county, Illinois, November 29, 1844. His father, Harvey E. Stout, was born in the state of Illinois and was a son of Thomas Stout, whose life was passed as a miller and later as a hotel man in Greenville, that state. He was of German stock and went into Illinois as a pioneer. His son Harvey was born in 1820. The latter was reared in Illinois, learned the carpenter trade, married Minerva Young, a daughter of William Young, and went into Wappelo county, Iowa, some years before the Rebellion. He died in 1865 and is buried at Agency City, Wappelo county. His wife, the mother of our subject, died in 1846. William Stout is her sole surviving heir. Another son, Richard E. Stout, died in Denver, Colorado, in 1894, leaving a son, William.

Our subject spent his youth upon the farm. The war came on before he reached his majority and he enlisten[sic] in 1861 in Company E, 22nd Illinois, Capt. McAdams and Cols. Dougherty and Hart, in their order, and finally Col. Swanrick. He was mustered in at Cairo, Illinois, and left the command for a scout after Jeff. Thompson whose men he met at Bertrand, Missouri. In the spring of 1862 his regiment was sent across Missouri to New Madrid to aid in cutting off the rebels. It went down to Fort Pillow and was ordered back to Shiloh to re-enforce Grant. The siege of Corinth followed and the 22nd was in it. Company E was camped near a railroad bridge, guarding this thoroughfare during a portion of its stay around Corinth. Following Corinth came Stone River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge and Chattanooga. Mr. Stout was in east Tennessee when his term of enlistment expired and he re-enlisted in the 42nd Illinois and furloughed home for thirty days. He joined his regiment—a

146 HISTORY OF ALLEN AND  

part of the 4th corps—just before the Atlanta campaign and, following close upon the heels of that, his regiment was a part of the army at Schofield that whipped Hood at Nashville. The 42nd was ordered from east Tennessee and had something to do with the demoralization of the Confederate troops in that region. Later it was ordered into Texas and was stationed at Port Lavaca, that state, when Mr. Stout was discharged in the winter of 1865.

Notwithstanding the long, continuous and dangerous service Mr. Stout was exposed to he escaped serious injury, He was only one of many thousand who accomplished this feat but this fact does not detract from the value of his service nor from the spirit of patriotism which prompted it. At all times he fulfilled the requirements of a soldier—he obeyed orders.

On September 19, 1867, Mr. Stout was married to Sarah E. Warren, a daughter of Thomas C. Warren, from Kentucky. Their children are: Mary, wife of Thomas Wollard; James W. Stout, who married Lily Wagner; Ola J., widow of Carl Stickney; Ida, who married Thomas L. Dickerson; Thomas Stout, who married Mattie Trout; Nora E., wife of Ralph Sprague; Lucy Elva, wife of Thomas Jackson; George A., Albert, Leonard, Raymond and Quincey, all residing in Allen county.

William T. Stout came to Kansas with a large family and little means. Fifty dollars covered his cash possessions, and with body filled with industry he rented land and went to work. He bought a forty acre tract in Osage township the second year, or arranged to buy it, and later on another forty (railroad land) and his start uphill dated from that time. He sold his Osage possessions and located in his present place in 1883. As a citizen he is regarded with confidence by his neighbors and fellow townsmen and in politics, in his somewhat limited sphere, he stands for the principles of Republicanism as expounded in the Philadelphia platform of 1900.


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