HENRY SCHIFFBAUER.
Henry Schiffbauer, pioneer, plainsman, Government scout, and friend of Buffalo Bill, now lives in comparative quiet on his farm in Kapioma township, Atchison county, after having seen the wildest and wooliest parts of the great West in its early days. Under his own eyes, Kansas has changed from a land of Indians, daubed with bright paint, shouting a war-whoop and brandishing tomahawks, to a quiet farming community, where peaceable citizens drive to church every Sunday. He has seen Kansas changed from a broad prairie, with its countless thousands of buffaloes to a great farming country, with its productive fields, and the trudging ox has been succeeded by the tractor and automobile. Henry Schiffbauer, in his seventy-five years, has seen the making of a nation; he has seen the wild frontier grow into a civilized community, which ranks among the highest in intelligence and prosperity. Mr. Schiffbauer was born January 27, 1841, on the River Rhine, in Prussia, Germany. His parents, Michael and Gertrude (Frentz) Schiffbauer, had thirteen children. The father followed farming in his native land, and in 1851 immigrated to the United States, settling on General Taylor’s farm, in Gamwell county, Kentucky. Four years later he moved to Missouri, and in the same year came to Kansas, where he homesteaded a claim in Jefferson county, which he farmed until about eight years before his death, which occurred when he was eighty-nine years old. The mother of Henry Schiffbauer died in 1854, at the age of fifty-five years. She fell before the terrible scourge of cholera which swept the United States about that time. The four children living are: Charles, Cripple Creek, Colo.; Trassie, a nun, at Leavenworth, Kan.; Frank, Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Henry, the subject of this sketch. All but Frank were born in Germany, he having been born in Gamwell county, Kentucky.
Henry Schiffbauer’s boyhood was one of rough and hard adventure. He received his education by driving a six-mule team, and his book learning was scanty. When he was seventeen years old he went to work for Dr. Davis, at Leavenworth, Kan. In 1857 he was stationed in the quartermaster’s department at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., where he was employed eight years. After Lee’s surrender, in 1865, Henry returned to his home in Jefferson county, Kansas, and met Buffalo Bill, or as he is known in private life, William Cody, for the first time. Here was begun a friendship which continued for many years, and which probably will live until one of the friends passes away. Two years later, however, the two men were thrown closer together, and their acquaintance ripened into a close friendship. Henry was guarding and herding mules when he met Buffalo Bill the second time. The latter was an extra hand on Major & Russell’s overland freight train. Henry Schiffbauer was the man who taught Buffalo Bill to shoot from a saddle, it is said, and the unequalled skill of the great hunter may be laid at the feet of the subject of this sketch. It may be that if Buffalo Bill had not met Henry Schiffbauer, his life history might have been different, for undoubtedly it was the stories which Henry told of his experiences that tempted the young man to leave his oxen and follow the wilder life of a Government scout. Mr. Schiffbauer has seen the most sensational life of the West in its most dangerous days. Just before the outbreak of the Civil war he carried messages for the Government from Ft. Kearney, Neb., to Ft. Laramie, Colo., and to Salt Lake City, and Ft. Floyd, Utah. These were times when it was dangerous to be a Government messenger. The dispatchers of the Government were not held in such awe in those days, and it was not at all unusual to kill a messenger to get his papers. But Mr. Schiffbauer was able to take care of himself, and passed through these uncertain times without harm. He served in the secret service department for eight months, about the time of the second election of Abraham Lincoln. It was feared by governmental officials that attempts on the President’s life were being planned, and General Thayer, then in command at Ft. Smith, Ark., secured the services of Henry Schiffbauer in this difficulty. This was a position won because of fearlessness and coolness, even in the most dangerous situations, and to be one of the protectors of the President was the honor which repaid him. In 1865 Lee surrendered and conditions began to settle.
When Mr. Schiffbauer saw that his opportunity to serve his country had ceased, he located on the farm which he now owns and built a small farm house, thus settling down to the quiet life of a farmer. He broke his ground with oxen, and worked in the most primitive manner for a few years, but gradually he was rewarded for his labors, and he came to have more of the comforts and conveniences of a modern farmer, erecting a large stone residence in 1880. His place is one-fourth mile east of Arrington, Kan. It comprises 189 acres, and here he and his wife, Margaret Glimm, to whom he was married in 1865, have lived since, rearing a family of eight children. Mrs. Schiffbauer was born in Germany, March 6, 1848. She is a daughter of John and Christian Glimm, who came to Kansas in the early days, bringing their daughter with them. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Schiffbauer are: Christena, who married Allen Kinkaid, of Washington State; Charles E., Belle Plains, Sumner county, Kansas; Sarah married L. E. Wagner, of St. Louis, Mo.; Henry F., Valley Falls, Kan.; Gertrude married John Nevins, Kapioma township; Robert is farming near La Cygne, Linne county, Kansas; William, Arrington, Kan.; George, passenger conductor, East St. Louis, Ill. Mr. Schiffbauer is an independent in politics. He belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America, and to the Knights and Ladies of Security. He has had a remarkable career and remembers the incidents of his early life with vividness. Atchison county has few characters with such an interesting history.
In 1857 while in the quartermaster’s department at Ft. Leavenworth he was detailed with General Sumner’s expedition against the Cheyenne Indians in the far West. This trip required six months and was filled with great hardships for the troops. In April of 1858 he accompanied Gen. Sydney Johnston’s expedition to Salt Lake City for the purpose of subduing the Mormons, and was gone for eighteen months. He assisted in building a camp at Ft. Floyd, or Camp Floyd, as it became known at the time, forty-five miles south of Salt Lake City. During this trip Mr. Schiffbauer had his first experience in driving a six-mule team and hauling “adobes.” The fort was built under the direction of Colonel Crossmore. He returned to Kansas in the fall of 1859, and went to New Orleans in the Government secret service, and thence to Baton Rouge, where he remained until after Lincoln’s election, finally making his way out of the southland with great difficulty, accompanied with personal danger to himself. For a period of eight years this plainsman never slept under a roof, excepting twice at Ft. Bonta, where he was under shelter for the night. On one of his expeditions to the far West they had fed their last grain to the mules, made camp, and the next morning the entire camp was under two feet of snow. Mr. Schiffbauer himself being covered over in a gully where he had lain down, wrapped in his blankets and buffalo robes. He recalls that on this snowy morning the wagon-master shouted: “I wonder where that damned Dutchman is?” Henry raised himself out of the snow and called out: “Here I am.” The mules were picketed out two and two together the night before, but that morning they were put into corrals and were so starved that they tried to eat each other. The pioneer corps cut down cottonwood trees for fuel, and the mules ate the branches, which poisoned them, and they died in their tracks, the ravens eating out their eyes while the beasts were in their death throes. The expedition lost sixty mules each day, and the drove of 500 animals was depleted to less than sixty head. They lay in camp for twelve days, and then moved on the thirteenth day. Henry recalls that the favorite team, belonging to General Johnston, was drowned through the carelessness of a teamster in fording the swollen stream.
While Mr. Schiffbauer was at Baton Rouge in Government service, he was importuned by the rebels to join a company as bugler, but declined, and with the assistance of a steamboat captain, he managed to get out of the country, and at New Orleans boarded the steamer, “Henry Von Pool,” and made his way to St. Louis. From here he went to Ft. Leavenworth and handled Government dispatches, working between Ft. Leavenworth, Ft. Scott, Ft. Gibson, Ft. Smith, Little Rock, and hunting forage and wheat for the Government. During this service he was sent to Valley Falls, with 100 six-mule teams from Ft. Smith for recuperation on the Hoover farm. Henry bought all the forage for miles around in order to feed the mules, and had under him several men for assistants.