WILLIAM FREDERICK MILTON ARNY was born at Georgetown,
District of Columbia, May 9, 1813. He died at Topeka, September 18, 1881. He
was educated in the public schools and at Bethany College, Virginia. He was for
several years secretary of Bethany, when the celebrated preacher, Alexander
Campbell, was its president. He came to Kansas from Illinois in 1855, and
settled at Hyatt, now Garnett, where he lived until he moved to New Mexico in
1862, settling at Santa Fe. He was United States Indian agent for the Navajos
for several years, when President Lincoln made him secretary of the territory,
during much of which time he acted as governor. Upon the expiration of this
service he was again appointed Indian agent. He represented New Mexico at the
Centennial Exposition, at Philadelphia, in 1876.
Kansas suffered from a severe drought in the year 1860. On
the 14th of November, 1860, a territorial relief convention was held at
Lawrence. The convention was presided over by Robert B. Mitchell president, and
R. G. Elliott and John A. Martin secretaries. A committee was appointed, of
which Samuel C. Pomeroy was elected president; Rev. Charles Reynolds, D. D.,
vice president; James L. McDowell, secretary; George H. Fairchild, treasurer.
January 9, 1861, W. F. M. Arny was appointed general shipping agent. A
statement by Arny, from the beginning to June 6, 1861, which was probably the
end of the business, shows that Arny contracted with railroads for the shipment
of 12,722,810 pounds of food, including some seeds, medicines, boots and shoes,
and that he received $47,437.96 in money. An auditing committee, composed of S.
C. Pomeroy, Rev. Lewis Bodwell, F. P. Baker, and W. W. Guthrie, checked Arny’s
accounts up as all right. Thaddeus Hyatt says Arny was “most faithful and
unselfish.” The first acknowledgment of goods received was on January 5, 1861,
before Arny's time, Pomeroy reporting that he had received 867,619 pounds of
goods.
SOURCE: George W. Martin, Editor, Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society, Volume 7, p.
203
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