Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Page 494 

LEON C. FOUQUET, Postmaster at Magnolia, and dealer in general merchandise, is a native of France, and was born Dec. 12, 1848. His stepfather, Rene Boutier, together with his wife, who in her girlhood was Miss Desire Launay, were natives of France, and emigrated to the United States in 1875, making their way to this county and locating on section 27, in Sherman Township, where they still reside.

            Our subject was the only son of his parents, whom he left in their native France in 1868, and crossing the Atlantic, located first in Springdale, near Leavenworth, this State, where he engaged in farming for a time, but the following year went into the city and was employed as clerk in a store of general merchandise, and was thus occupied until August, 1870. That year he took up a claim of 160 acres near the city of Wichita, which, however, he subsequently abandoned for another tract of land. This he sold six months later, and homesteaded 160 acres on section 10, in Sherman Township, from which he built up his present fine homestead. The fields are enclosed with hedge fence, and the buildings are creditable to the enterprise and industry of the proprietor.

            Mr. Fouquet, in connection with his farming operations, carried on a store of general merchandise on his farm until the completion of the railroad, then removed to Andale, a short distance from his present homestead, and where he also had charge of the post-office. He removed to Wichita in 1870, when it was a mere village, and Indians were numerous throughout this section. He did not for some time see a white woman there, and the nearest trading-point, aside from Wichita, was at Emporia, 100 miles distant. Buffalos were plentiful, and in 1873 our subject, in company with two other men, went out upon a hunt, and were pursued by a band of thirty or forty Indians, who threatened to take them captive, but were finally persuaded by the chief, as they judged, to let them go. The savages were decorated with their war paint and well armed with guns, revolvers and lances. It is hardly necessary to say that when they parted company with the Indians our hero and his comrades abandoned the hunt for that day, but afterward fell in with a company of whites and supplied themselves with a quantity of buffalo meat, which was their main dependence through the winter.

            Mr. Fouquet took charge of the post-office under the Republican administration in 1885. He was married in Wichita Township, in November, 1875, to Miss Mathilde Foucher, who was also of French descent, and of a family noted for longevity, her paternal grandfather, who died Jan. 3, 1888, having reached the advanced age of ninety-two years. Mrs. Fouquet was born Sept. 7, 1855, in Paris, and of her union with our subject there are five children, namely: Charles, Emily, Rose, Hermance and Robert Cleveland.

            Mr. Fouquet, in 1886, put up his present store building, which is two stories in height, the upper part occupied as a residence and the lower part containing his merchandise and the post-office. He is independent in religion and politics, and a man generally respected by the community.

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