“Larned’s First Documented Death”

 Seth McFarland

February 2, 2023

An article published in the Larned Chronoscope stated that in January, 1873 "The first tragedy and the first death in Larned when a man was shot and killed, and a woman so dangerously wounded that she was taken to the hospital at Leavenworth, but died a few days later. No one ever knew who did the shooting. When the residents came to bury the man, they were up against a serious proposition. The ground was so hard as a rock, and in the town were no spade or shovel, so someone suggested a certain place on the hill."

The article continued by describing that a previously dug grave of a Native American should be reused for the recently murdered Larned man. The body was exhumed, and the grave was used to bury the recently shot Larned man. Major Inman, one of the previous editors of the Chronoscope Newspaper of Larned kept the exhumed bones for examination. No more is written about the identity of the murdered victims or the suspected shooter. In regard to the removed remains, Major Inman did donate skeletal remains of a Cheyenne warrior of Ness County to the Kansas Zoological Museum. It is not certain if it was the same individual.  Major Inman was on the board of directors for the Kansas Historical Society.

By today's standards, most individuals would be appalled by this action of disrespect. In years prior to 1873, Plains Indians had been in conflict throughout the Southern Plains. In 1867, that General Winfield Scott Hancock had ordered the burning of the Cheyenne and Sioux village on the Pawnee Creek in Ness County. This action ignited more attacks throughout Kansas. By late 1867, General Philip Sheridan arrived to support the signing of the Medicine Lodge Treaty which was to bring temporary peace. The last battle occurred in Scott County in 1878.

Major Inman was born in New York, and became a soldier, frontiersman and author. He served in the military during the Indian campaigns and the Civil War.  He was made a lieutenant-colonel during the 1868-1869 Indian winter campaign under General Sheridan.  Inman was tried for embezzlement while serving as paymaster at Fort Harker, and he was dismissed in 1872. After his dismissal, he settled in Larned, and worked as a journalist and author. A friend of Buffalo Bill Cody, Inman co-authored a book with Cody titled the Great Salt Lake Trail. He also wrote The Old Santa Fe Trail and a book about Buffalo Jones, along with several other titles, some which were incomplete at the time of his death in 1899.