JOHN BENONI SCOTT b. ca. 1815 Virginia d. 8 Apr 1873 LeRoy, Coffey co. Kansas m/1. ca. 1835 Rena Halsey, who d. ca. 1836 (one or two children); m/2. 24 Aug 1837 Fulton co. Ill. Anna Davis d/o George & Martha Aylsworth Davis b. 1810's Columbia, New York d. 12 Jun 1842 Fairfield, Jefferson co. Iowa (2 or 3 children- they are listed living in Dewitt county Illinois in 1840, with a boy and girl under 5; John also voted in Dewitt county in 1839); m/3. 2 Nov 1843 Fulton co. Ill. Lucinda Adams Davis d/o George & Martha Aylsworth Davis b. 1824/5 New York d. 1880 Le Roy, Coffey co. Kansas (5 known children). Anna and Lucinda Davis were sisters.
About 1841, John moved to Fort Des Moines, Iowa Territory, where he raised farm products for a garrison of Dragoons, traded with the Sac and Fox Indians, and ran a ferry business. In May 1843, he and a relative (recorded as “A. J. Scott”, but probably his cousin Wilson A. Scott) were recorded as building some of the first cabins and breaking the first land in Polk county; there were six soldiers stationed at the fort at the time. He was the first person regularly licensed as a ferryman across the Des Moines river and another across the Raccoon river at Fort Des Moines on 1 Feb 1847. During the California gold rush, as many as 250 teams consisting of over 650 horses and cattle and as many people crossed the ferry at Fort Des Moines. Early in 1852, the town council of Des Moines bought John’s ferrying business.
During the winter of 1845-6, Poweshiek, chief of the Fox Indians, relocated his village of about 40 lodges to a point near the Missouri line, and tensions were raised. John and two other men rode to the encampment to speak to Poweshiek. John was recorded to have said, “My friends and myself have traveled through the snow a long distance to help you out of this trouble. We are your friends. If you persist in your purpose of making war on the whites, many of your sqaws and papooses, and well as your braves, will be butchered. The remainder will be driven out into the cold and the snow to perish on the prairies. It would be better now for you to break up your lodges and go in peace to your reservation in Kansas, which the government has provided for you”. The chief eventually acquiesced and moved.
The Indians were said to have relocated to Kansas in 1849, and at some point John moved with them- they owed him $20,000. He left the reservation in 1854 and formed the town of Le Roy, Kansas, with his brother-in-law Frederick Troxel. He kept the first post office there, and was the first Justice of the Peace in Coffey county, commissioned in 1855. He was authorized in 1860 by the Kansas state legislature to, with two others, keep a ferry running over the Neosho river in Coffey county. He was known as "General" John B. Scott because he was appointed Major General of the Kansas Home Guards. General Scott commanded the troops of the Neosho Valley Home Guard contingent of the 9th Kansas Cavalry, during the Civil War. He and his command were garrisoned at Fort Scott during this conflict. The First and Second All Indian Home Guard Units were attached to his command. John’s great-great grandson is former governor of Kansas Bill Graves.
There is no record anywhere of John’s marriage to Rena Halsey; her name appears only in the biography of their son William M. Scott, and nothing else is known of her other than William reported in the census that she was born in Virginia. It is unclear which of the following children are by Rena and which are by Anna Davis.
By Lucinda Adams Davis: