Alfred Webb Woody, son of Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Askew Woody, was born in Dahlinega, Georgia, the county seat of Lumpkin county. His father, a Baptist minister, was born in Dahlinega in 1823. Mr. Woody’s ancestors, the first Woodys to come to the United States, settled originally in Georgia and were granted charter for a large expanse of land by George II of England through General Oglethorpe. So far as is known, only one descendant carrying the family name still resides in the gap of the Appalachian Mountains. The land which was once the [can’t read one word] possession of the early Americans named Woody, gradually wore out and has since been turned into the loveliest of National Parks; beautiful timber and excellent fishing streams are plentiful there. Henry Woody, whose home is in the gap, is in charge of the area once owned by his forefathers.
The [can’t read, one or two words] J.A. Woody was a chaplain for the soldiers in gray all during the Civil War, and he often remarked that he never preached to a more appreciative audience that the boys who fought for the Confederacy.
A close friend of the Woodys in Georgia was Alexander Stevens, the vice-president of the Confederacy, a small crippled man with a pleasant disposition, whom A.W. Woody remembers as having been a frequent visitor in his boyhood home.
The Civil War closed in 1865. Webb remembers having watched General Sherman’s men pass by his home as they returned to the North. A continuous "ribbon of blue" filed past the Georgia plantation for one half day. Many of the soldiers turned in at the gate and quenched their thirst with rich buttermilk which an old negress had on the porch. Two negro women churned butter every day except for the day when Sherman’s men consumed the buttermilk in short order, they would call to the nearest negro cottage, "Da’s milk!" Two hundred negroes lived in little houses facing each other on little streets which jutted out from the palatial home of the overseer. The negroes would come running with cups as the call "Da’s milk!" was repeated all along the way down each street.
A certain Bapist deacon owned these 200 negroes; he hired the Rev. J.A. Woody, who was also a cabinetmaker, and another Baptist minister to act as overseers of his negroes. Webb recalls that the negro women were efficient servants and nursemaids; loved dearly by the white children for whom they cared. The negroes, in turn, loved their masters; only one of the 200 negroes deserted the plantation in favor of fighting with the army. He was a mean negro who had always been unruly, so that Rev. Woody counseled the old negro man in direct charge of the colored folk to let the young fellow go before he caused serious trouble at home.
Following the Civil War, the Governor of Georgia called together a number of friends and statesmen to formulate a plan of reconstruction for the damaged property in the South. As is customary on such occasions, every word spoken during the course of the meeting was copied down and is now in a book in the public library in Washington, D.C. One of Mr. and Mrs. Webb Woody’s daughters was privileged to read the entire speech made by her grandfather Woody on this memorable occasion while she was seeking data in Washington, D.C., less than a month ago. She also found interesting material concerning her grandmother Woody’s family, the Bryans, who were diplomats in early American politics. All printed material concerning Rev. Woody in Georgia indicates that he was highly respected by all who knew him.
When traveling to Hickman, Kentucky, the Woody family rode on a train. They continued their journey to Cairo, Illinois, on a new steamboat, "The Mountaineer," which had the semblance of a palace. Webb’s mother had cooked a lot of food and the rest of the family ate in state, so to speak, but Webb, always the "sickly" child of the family, was unable to eat a thing until his father purchased a large roll of cheese at Cairo, Illinois. Webb, for some reason, craved the cheese and could not eat enough to satisfy him. The Woody family came from Platte City, Missouri, about 12 miles distant from Leavenworth, Kansas, to their homestead four miles east of Barnard in a covered wagon. Rev. and Mrs. Woody brought eight of their 11 children with them in the covered wagon; they left one son in Tennessee, and one of their married daughters, Mrs. M.H. Lance, and Mr. Lance had already homesteaded near Barnard. The journey to their prospective Kansas home took the Woody family three weeks. According to Mr. Woody, the land claimed by his father and brother-in-law is now considered [can’t read] part of Lincoln county.
The Woody boys walked a great deal of the way beside the covered wagon drawn by a good team of oxen for which Rev. Woody received a goodly price after settling on his claim. On the final stretch between Beverly and Barnard, the Woody sisters, who were young women, got out and walked to rest their bodies from the long ride. Most of the men living in this section of the county at that time were bachelors and it was not surprising that they should keep an appraising eye cocked for comely young women passing through. Some young men watching the family pass by on a nearby trail were joshing each other about which one would get which girl; one of them named Berry pointed out the girl of his choice. The first Sunday after Woodys arrived in Lincoln County, young Berry called on the aforementioned Miss Woody; he rode horseback 10 miles every night for three weeks to call on the fair maiden who had captured his admiration at first sight, at the end of which their "whirlwind romance" was climaxed by a wedding which united them for many years of happiness together.
Rev. J.A. Woody was the first minister to settle in Lincoln county, Kansas. To quote his son, Webb, Rev. Woody "established religion from the blue hills to Solomon; he preached regularly in the blue hills, Minneapolis, Salt Creek and Solomon, and was the founder of 10 Baptist churches." Rev. Woody cooperated with two other pioneer ministers who preached in his district, namely, Rev. Bradbury, the well-known Presbyterian minister, and "Grandma" Starbuck’s father, Rev. Golden, the Methodist circuit-rider. Rev. Woody also laid out the first road between Lincoln Center and his home, 10 miles northeast of Lincoln, and he maintained the "Woody Post Office" in his home.
A smile creeps over the lips of Mr. and Mrs. Woody as they reminisce about the old road which has long since been replaced by a definite highway. The young people who courted at the same time as Mr. and Mrs. Woody were accustomed to putting hay, blankets and hot stones in a wagon box and several couples would "snuggle up" for a merry ride by moonlight. The moon apparently "got in their eyes" one night, however, because following an afternoon fishing party, they lost the road and didn’t find their way home until quite late, pardon us, it was rather early.
Rev. Woody killed a buffalo in 1871 someplace near the blue hills; the herd which had numbered six million only three years before that, had dwindled to four and one-half million in 1871, and in an unusually short time had become extinct due to the wastefulness of many of the hunters who killed only for sport. Webb recalls having seen many bone piles resulting from the mass slaughter of the shaggy beasts that once roamed the Kansas prairies.
Because people came to summon Rev. Woody on errands of mercy at all hours of the day and night Webb’s mother formed the habit of arising on a minute’s notice to prepare a meal for the caller whether he be friend or stranger.
Webb has a vivid recollection of his first meeting with the beloved Rev. Bradbury. Rev. Woody and his sons had just completed the dugout in which they lived at first and were constructing a fence one evening at sunset when a young man driving a spirited team of horses hitched to a buckboard drew up to inquire the way to Lincoln Center. He started off abruptly and threw a packet of literature across the fence as his team dashed past. Rev. Woody, realizing that his visitor was undoubtedly a minister, called the bemused young man and commanded him to remain for the night. Rev. Bradbury remained a bosom friend of the Woody family. He once lived in the house now occupied by the John Schlappy family on North Second street. Looking east from his study-window, it was his habit to rest his eyes on the beauty of a huge cottonwood tree that had passed the century mark. In reply to Rev. Bradbury’s request that the grand old sentinel be spared the axe, Webb Woody promised faithfully that the tree would never be harmed as long as Rev. Bradbury lived. Only in recent years was Mr. Woody compelled to cut the tree down after it became infested with tree-rot.
The warfaring Indians had disappeared before the Woodys came to Kansas, but Webb recalls the fright ten Indians gave one of their neighbors, "Can" Smith, on one occasion. Ten Indians had deserted the Government Reservation in Oklahoma and were trecking back to their former hunting-stamping grounds in Montana when they passed through this locality. Incidentally this group of Indians were later found by the Government and returned to the reservation. It was been told that under normal circumstances, an Indian could eat four times as much as an average white man and still call for more. Such was evidentally the case with the Indians Webb saw; they stopped at every house along the way and asked for food, as far as is known they always got it. "Can" Smith was a bachelor who desired little more from life apparently than to maintain his claim. He was greatly startled about 10 o’clock one morning to awaken and find some real Indians staring him in the face. He was so frightened that he grabbed the six-shooter from the Indian chieftain and [made a] hasty exit by way of opening a window, jumping through it. He clicked the six-shooter in the face of the protesting Redskin and never doubted but what the gun was empty. Having reached his neighbor, Rev. Woody, one-half mile distant, in his shirt-tail in record breaking time, "Can" gasped that a bunch of Indians were after him. Disarming the frightened homesteader, Rev. Woody discovered that one shell remained in the weapon and would undoubtedly have been discharged with fatal consequences if Smith had pressed the trigger a fourth time.
It seems remarkable to note that Rev. J.A. Woody’s wife was married at the age of fifteen, became the mother of fifteen children, and died at the age of ninety-five! Several of her relatives lived to more than 100 years of age. Mrs. J.A. Woody’s father, a Mr. Bryan, was a colonel in the Mexcian War. "Grandma" Woody as she was lovingly called, [lived a] useful life and was quite active until she was suddenly stricken with paralysis only 12 weeks prior to her death in the home of her son, Webb, with whom she lived the last three or four years of her life. Before coming to Kansas, Grandma Woody was famous for her ability to card, dye and weave wool almost as well as machinery can do. Many of her neighbors hired her to dye their wool, because she had achieved a special process of blue dye which none of her friends was able to match. Grandma kept one "Sunday best" dress, and two other dresses for general wear. Her best dress is proudly displayed even yet by one of her granddaughters. The material is of a very fine plaid which one cannot quite conceive as having been perfected entirely by hand, and the dress is cut from a simple pattern, not conspicuous, yet dainty and very practical. Many are the times that one or another of her grandchildren proudly wore it to a masquerade or "dress" party. The dye was easily attained where the Bryans and Woodys formerly lived because vegetables flourished there in abundance.
Mr. Webb Woody married a young school teacher, Miss Flora Baker, the daughter of William Baker who at one time served as congressman from this district. Mrs. Woody’s father, lovingly known to many as "Daddy" Baker, was reared on a farm, but because his family was rather well off, he was prvileged to receive a college education. Before coming to Kansas "Daddy" Baker was the superintendent of schools at Council Bluffs, Iowa. When his sons grew older, Mr. Baker decided he would like to have them live on a farm. Having attended the Centennial at Chicago in 1876, he was much impressed by the display put on by the comparatively new State of Kansas; immediately, he was stricken by the "Kansas fever" and the number swelled in the ranks of pioneers who followed the "Westward movement." Mrs. Webb Woody was born December 5, 1860, in Pennsylvania, and with her family started for Kansas in 1878. The Baker family traveled from Iowa to Solomon, Kansas, by train. They were delighted to see the lush grass and the beautiful flowers which grew in profuse masses on the Kansas plains and to see and hear the trilling meadow larks that seemed to be everywhere on that memorable 17th day of April 1878. The Bakers staked claims near Solomon, and having purchased teams and a wagon at Solomon proceeded to Lincoln county. Their journey from Solomon to Salina occupied the whole of one day. They remained overnight in Salina; and the remainder of the trip necessitated their spending two days on the road. The William Baker family stopped off about where the poor farm is now located. Immediately following their arrival, Frank Priest, then living in a one-room house on what is now the Metz farm, invited Mr. Baker to move his family into the tenant house back of the Priest home. At that time, they had to carry drinking water from a spring down near the Walters farm. Three weeks after Bakers settled in their first Kansas home, the largest train of immigrants to come to Lincoln county passed by.
One week after she had first glimpsed the territory called Lincoln county, Miss Flora Baker found herself teaching school in a dugout at Sunnyside, the school with a natural spring inside which has been mentioned previously by J.W. Biggs. Flora had never desired to teach; and although she had received more education than many young women of that period, she did not consider herself worthy of so grave an undertaking. Her father’s word was law with his family, however, and she realized it would be useless to argue the matter. The patrons seldom had cash to pay the teachers of subscription schools; and except for some money with which she bought a calico dress and a pair of shoes, all of Miss Baker’s wages were paid to her father in the form of meat, wheat flour, and the like. Her first teaching contract provided that she should teach for three months at $10 a month. She was to board in the various homes, two weeks at each place. The little dugout with slate walls and half-windows near the ceiling, and furnished with one long bench, some stools, and sawed-off logs for crude chairs, served for a Sunday school meeting-place and recreation [center] for social gatherings as well as the school. The room could accommodate standing room for 60 people.
Following their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Webb Woody lived one and one-half years on an old farm [can’t read] miles east of their present home; the next 12 years, they lived on the family homestead. For 43 years, Mr. and Mrs. Woody have lived in their fine home bordering the southeast part of Lincoln Center. The house in which they live was built in 1906, and Woodys moved in on January 1, 1907. Until recent years, Mr. Woody’s farm was noted for its fine big orchard of cherry, peach, and apple trees.
Mr. and Mrs. A.W. Woody, a very entertaining and pleasant pair of people to know, are the parents of five daughters and three sons, all married and living elsewhere. Mr. Woody, whose chief interests concern religion, politics, economics, and the present European war crises, laughingly remarks, "I was always considered a delicate child, but here I am, still up and going, able to manage my farm, work alone, and the parent of eight grown children who have achieved personal success in their respective ways!"
