From the book "Kansas and Kansans" Copied as written

Welton Modesitt Kuykendall. The name Kuykendall has been identified
with the rural enterprise and community upbuilding of Edwards County for
more than thirty years. The large and now handsomely improved Kuykendall
farm is located in Franklin Township, not far from the town of Centerview.

It was in 1884 that a party of two families, one of them headed by
Welton M. Kuykendall and the other by his father-in-law Milton H. Smith,
left Vigo County, Indiana, and traveled westward until they came to a halt
twelve miles south of Kinsley. Here the heads of the families took up Indian
trust land, Mr. Kuykendall the southwest quarter of section 27, township 26,
range 18, and Mr. Smith the southeast quarter of the same section.

Mr. Kuykendall was born in Vigo County, Indiana, June 5, 1855. His
grandfather, John Kuykendall, came from Holland (*), and the
great-grandfather of Milton H. Smith was of the same ancestry and origin.
George W. Kuykendall, son of John, was a native of Kentucky (*) and married
Nancy Art, a native of the same state. Her father, Thomas Art, was a native
of South Carolina and was of Scotch-Irish (sic) stock. George W. Kuykendall
was an ardent republican and a strong Union man, and two of his sons were
soldiers in the Union army. He was an active member of the Congregational
Church. He was born October 16, 1811, and died November 9, 1864. His wife,
Nancy Forsithe Art, was born January 1, 1818, and died December 19, 1891.

Their children were as follows: John T., who was born September 18, 1841,
was a Federal soldier three years in the 85th Indiana Infantry and died
October 1, 1892, in Vigo County; Mary J., born April 22, 1843, married H. B.
Smith and lives in Vigo County; William E., born September 18, 1844, was a
soldier in the 11th Illinois Cavalry and now lives at Kansas, Illinois;
James McE., born April 4, 1847, died in Vigo County January 20, 1899; Nancy
E., born August 9, 1849, married George W. Smith and died in Vigo County;
Malinda died in infancy; Welton M., born June 5, 1855; Alfred Crusan, born
October 26, 1857, died in Vigo County March 26, 1914; and Henry Dean, born
January 5, 1860, died in the same year.

Welton M. Kuykendall grew up on a farm near Sanford, seven miles west of
Terre Haute and near the Illinois state line. He came of a long line of
farming ancestry and he lived practically all his life in a rural
environment. He found his wife practically in the same community where he
grew up, though his marriage was celebrated across the state line in Edgar
County, Illinois. He was married December 28, 1882, to Miss Clara Olive
Smith, daughter of Milton H. and Sarah A. (Crowther) Smith.

As one of the early settlers of Edwards County some special mention
should be made of Milton H. Smith. He was born in Vigo County, Indiana,
March 10, 1837. He had country school advantages and spent his life largely
as a farmer. In 1862, at Terre haute, he enlisted in Company B of the 71st
Indiana Infantry, but after a year of service he was transferred to the 6th
Indiana Cavalry. Much of his army service he was in Kentucky and Tennessee
and he was present during the siege of Knoxville, and was still in uniform
when the war ended. After coming to Kansas he joined the Kinsley Post of the
Grand Army of the Republic. While not a politician he was a vigorous
supporter of republican principles, and also a prohibitionist. Much of his
time outside of farming was given to his church work. He was an exhorter of
the Methodist Church and frequently filled the pulpit as a supply. He was
class leader many years, did much to organize and keep up Sabbath schools
and was a generous contributor to the Kinsley and Lewis Methodist Episcopal
churches. He died July 18, 1915.

Milton H. Smith was married March 15, 1860 to Sarah H. Crowther, who was
born in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, March 9, 1842, a daughter of Edward and
Elizabeth (Hanson) Crowther. The Crowther family came to the United States
in 1851, locating at Terre Haute, but their home when Mr. Smith became
acquainted with the family was on a farm a few miles west of that city.
Milton H. Smith and his wife had three children. Of these, Mrs. Kuykendall
was born December 11, 1862. Harry Edward, who was born March 20, 1872, now
lives on the old Smith farm in Edwards County. He married Etta Luella
Miller, and their children are Irwin E., Marion R., Olive G., Roy, Charles
William and Etta May. For his second wife Harry Edward Smith married Lavinia
Berry, and by that union had children named Leo James and Dale.

It was only a year or so after their marriage that Mr. And Mrs.
Kuykendall and her parents came west to Kansas. On his homestead Mr.
Kuykendall built a sod house 11 by 13, and Mr. Smith put up a soddy 12 by
12. For roof they covered these humble abodes with boards and sod. The Smith
family subsequently moved eleven miles east where they erected a frame
building 16 by 20 feet, and there made a second beginning in Kansas.
For nine years the original sod house served the Kuykendalls as a
dwelling. It was plastered with mud and the walls covered over with
newspapers, and on the inside was very cozy and comfortable, though lacking
the conveniences and comforts to which the family is now accustomed. It
seems wonderful how much a little house like this could accommodate when
emergency required. In a space hardly equal to a single room in the present
Kuykendall residence an entire family of five slept, ate and had all their
indoor activities and there was even room for friends who occasionally came
in. The furniture in that pioneer house consisted of a stove, table, bed,
safe, a clothes press made of a dry goods box, and a sewing machine.
After nine years in that locality Mr. Kuykendall exchanged farms with
Mr. Smith and thus secured his present home, the northwest quarter of
section 19, township 26, range 17. He moved his family from the old sod
house into the two-room frame house which had been erected by Mr. Smith. As
a farmer Mr. Kuykendall had found his most reliable source of income in
wheat raising. Occasionally his efforts have repaid him to the extent of
thirty-one bushels of wheat to the acre. As a stock raiser he confined his
attention chiefly to raising a few cows, which provided milk and butter. Mr.
Kuykendall had practically no resources when he came to Kansas, and the
modest fortune he has since built up is to be credited to his own efforts
taken in combination with Kansas soil and climate. For some years he did
considerable truck farming, raising potatoes, melons and other crops,
selling one year $43 worth of melons in Kinsley. For many recent years wheat
and corn and small grains were his staple crops.

In the pioneer house erected by Mr. Smith, Mr. Kuykendall lived about
twenty years. That house was succeeded by the present home, two story and
basement, eight rooms and with modern comforts and facilities. His barn is
32 by 46 feet and he has a granary of 2000 bushels capacity, garage, machine
and wagon shed. His building improvements in themselves represent a large
investment. About 1900 he saw his way clear to secure more land. He then
bought the southwest quarter of section 19 and later bought an eighty in
section 12. This gave him 400 acres practically in a body. Mr. Kuykendall
never resorted to a mortgage, though he borrowed a little money from his
eastern friends when forced to do so. It was his aim always to get along
without incurring obligations, except as a last resort.

The progress and welfare of the community found in him a staunch friend
always. For about ten years he was clerk of the school board in district No.
41. He always voted as a republican in national matters and was a strong
advocate of bone dry prohibition measures. He and his family were active in
church work, first as Methodists and more recently as members of the United
Brethren Church.

The children of Mr. And Mrs. Kuykendall are: Bessie Estella, born
November 30, 1883; Lora Alice, born October 7, 1890; Sadie Olive, born March
22, 1893; and Dean William, born March 21, 1896. Bessie E. married Richard
Ogden of Edwards County and has two children, Mahlon and Pearl. Lora Alice
is the wife of Earl Parker of Edwards County and has a daughter, Evelyn.
Sadie Olive is the wife of Russell Parker of Edwards County and has a
daughter, Emily. Dean William married March 13, 1918, Nora Blank. Mr.
Kuykendall died July 20, 1918.

(Note error in the above. Grandfather John Kuykendall came from West
Virginia. More remote ancestors came from Holland in the early 1600s.)

Additional note:  Milton Smith’s sister-in-law, my great grandmother, Mary Jane Martz Smith (widow of Henry Gilbert Smith) moved to Edwards County about 1909. Until I read this article I never could figure out why she moved to desolate Edwards County, Kansas.

Judi Assony 1999.