Cyrus William Higginbotham

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Obituary- Higginbotham, Cyrus W. 1

Cyrus W. Higginbotham, the Last of the Pioneers, Who Came to Rossville in the Pre-War Days
Cyrus W. Higginbotham was born in Amherst County, Virginia, September 11, 1836, and died July 9, 1922, at his home in Rossville, Kansas, where he had lived for 67 years, aged 85 years, 9 months and 28 days.
He was the son of Elizabeth and Aaron Higginbotham, the youngest child of a large family, all of whom have passed on.
At the age of 19 he came west to seek a home and in 1855 landed in Shawnee county—-although at that time the county had not been organized as a county and was a portion of the Third dis¬trict of the Territory of Kansas.
Seven years later, on Septem¬ber 15, 1862, at the age of 26, he was married to Henrietta Button, the only child of Rev. and Mrs.
A.R. Button, of Topeka. Three children were born to this union, all of whom have passed on. Mrs. Henrietta Higginbotham died in 1866. Five years later, on Octo¬ber 31, 1871, he was married to Mary Howard, youngest child of Jared and Mary Howard of Shaftsbury, Vermont. Six children were born to this union, two of whom, Edith I. and George A. Higginbotham, survive. Mrs. Mary Higginbotham passed on March 8, 1919, after a wedded life of nearly fifty years spent in the home in Rossville she came to as a bride. Cyrus Howard Hig¬ginbotham, the youngest child of this union, who grew to manhood here, died May 4, 1919.
Mr. Higginbotham was one of the contractors who helped build the Union Pacific railroad be¬tween Kansas City and Denver. For several years he was in charge of an Indian trading post and in those years he learned to talk fluently the Pottawatomie tongue which in later years drew much of the Indian trade to his mercantile establishment.
In 1871 the present site of the town of Rossville was laid out for a town and named Edna, but at the suggestion of Mr. Higginbotham, Col. Geo. W. Veale and A.C. Sherman, who purchased the townsite of Anthony Navarre, changed the name to Rossville, in honor of an Indian agent W.G. Ross, a brother of Senator Ross. The town was incorporated ten years later, in 1881.
He helped organize the first church in Rossville, the Baptist, in 1871, and was a faithful mem¬ber, supporting it generously until it disbanded and then contin¬ued his support to other church organizations of the town.
He was a charter member of the first Masonic lodge in Shawnee county, the old Indianola lodge, and the first Worshipful Master of Hesperian Lodge, of Rossville, chartered in 1872, He was also a member of A.O.U.W. and I.O.O.F. orders.
For nearly twenty-five years be served on the school board and as president of the board for fifteen years. In township affairs he served as treasurer for a number of years and in other capacities, on many occasions without oppo¬sition.
Mr. Higginbotham was in the mercantile business nearly forty
years, first at Indianola and later in Rossville. He was a pioneer in the pureblood, livestock busi¬ness of the state, and was always interested in the improving of livestock.

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