Samuel Beattie

SAMUEL BEATTIE. - Among the older and more highly respected residents of Wyandotte county is Samuel Beattie, a retired agriculturist, now living at 945 Armstrong avenue, Kansas City. A son of William Beattie, he was born October 13, 1833, in county Donegal, Ireland, where both his paternal grandparents, Samuel and Lena Beattie, and his maternal grandparents, John and Mary (Armstrong) Wilson, were life long residents.

William Beattie married, in county Donegal, Ireland, Nancy Wilson, a buxom Irish lassie, and they became the parents of three children. He died in 1843, when his son Samuel was a lad of ten years. His widow subsequently married for her second husband John Long, and in 1849 came with her family to the United States, crossing the ocean in a sailing vessel, and after a tedious voyage of seven weeks landing at New Orleans. They continued their journey northward up the Mississippi river to Savanna, Illinois, thence to Freeport, Stephenson county, where Mr. Long embarked in the grocery business, and where Mrs. Long died the following year, in 1850.

Samuel Beattie obtained his rudimentary education in Ireland, completing his early studies in the public schools of Stephenson county, Illinois. After the death of his mother he entered the employ of a cousin, clerking for him in a grocery until 1853, when he went to New Orleans. Yellow fever being then prevalent in that city, Mr. Beattie went back to Illinois, and remained there two years. In 1856 be made another trip to New Orleans, going there for medical treatment, having been crippled in his right knee. Coming to Kansas in 1858, he spent a year in Kansas City, and in 1859 embarked in mercantile pursuits at Shawnee, Johnson county, opening first a grocery, and subsequently putting in a stock of dry goods, converting it into a general store, which he operated successfully until 1863, when, in the month of October, bushwhackers, under comand[sic] of Quantrell, burned the town. Mr. Beattie was taken prisoner and robbed of all the money and clothing that he had. The town was again burned in the following June, and in the fall of 1863 Mr. Beattie took a stock of goods to Colorado, locating near Pueblo, where he remained until June, 1864.

Locating then in Kansas City, Missouri, Mr. Beattie became part owner of a wagon train, which he conducted safely to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Returning to Kansas City, Missouri, he, in company with Captain Keeler, took the contract to open up what is now Twelfth street, from Main street to the Bottoms, being a year in completing the work. He then invested his money in land, buying five hundred acres on the Kaw river, sixty-five acres being on the hill, and the remainder, all but thirty acres of which was covered with timber, being on the bottoms. Erecting a log cabin in an opening, Mr. Beattie began clearing the land, and until 1895 was busily engaged in tilling the soil, raising large crops of corn and potatoes, until 1895 being employed in general farming.

Mr. Beattie married, in April, 1875, Florence C. Hoffman, who was born in Wyandotte county, Ohio, a daughter of Henry and Mary Hoffman. Five children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Beattie, namely: Delphine, who died in infancy; Dyssie; Bertha died when a year old; William A., engaged in the real estate business in Kansas City, Missouri; and Evelyn. Politically a sound Democratic, Mr. Beattie served four years as commissioner of Wyandotte county. Fraternally he belongs to Shawnee Lodge, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons, of Shawnee, Kansas. Religiously he is a member of the Presbyterian church.