Joseph McNulty (1840 or 1841 - 1909) [1] was an American pioneer and Old West "lawman", who served in the Kansas Legislature in 1873. He was the first member of the Kansas Legislature seated from Rooks County, Kansas.
Joseph McNulty (1840 or 1841 - 1909) [1] was an American pioneer and Old West "lawman", who served in the Kansas Legislature in 1873. He was the first member of the Kansas Legislature seated from Rooks County, Kansas.
McNulty was born in Canada on March 3, 1841. From the age of fourteen, he farmed and worked as a blacksmith. He was the first person to settle in Rooks County, homesteading the first piece of land there (Section 13, T. 7, R. 18) under the Homestead Act in June, 1871, and he was an incorporator of that county's first town site of Stocktown township. McNulty subsequently read the law and commenced practice in town as a lawyer. [2] Four of McNulty's brothers were also early settlers of Rooks County. Originally named Stocktown, as the McNulty brothers and many of the County's other early settlers were cattle dealers, the municipality is today known as Stockton, Kansas and is the County seat of Rooks County. [3]
Joseph McNulty was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives on December 31, 1872, [4] and he was seated as a member of its thirteenth annual or 1873 session. [5] Joseph McNulty's younger brother Francis McNulty, also a lawyer, served as Rook County's representative in the Kansas House of Representatives in 1875. In 1874, Kansas Governor Thomas A. Osborn had appointed Joseph McNulty Sheriff of Rooks County to fill a vacancy until an elected sheriff could take office in 1875, and in the fall, McNulty was elected to the full 2-year term as sheriff. [2] [6]
Kansas was still quite lawless when McNulty served as sheriff. According to Blackmar's Kansas Cyclopedia on 7 June 1875, two men camped outside of Stockton and offered 35 ponies for sale. While one of the men rode into Stockton for supplies, Sheriff Joseph McNulty accompanied by an instigating Sheriff Alexander Ramsey of neighboring Ellis County, Kansas rode up heavily armed on the remaining man and announced that the ponies were stolen and ordered him to surrender. The suspected horse thief instead jumped behind his horse and drew his gun. Both Sheriff Ramsey and the suspected thief fired their pin guns simultaneously, killing each other. The other suspected horse thief was hunted and shot in the jaw but escaped. The ponies were recovered. [4] Just some year earlier Sheriff Ramsey had wounded and captured Henry Born (1849-1921), "Dutch Henry", the most notorious "horse thief on the prairie frontier" after "an exciting chase". Sheriff Alexander Ramsey (1847-1875), who like Wild Bill Hickok shortly before him, had been first a city marshal of notorious Hays City, Kansas, in Ellis County and later sheriff of the county, had prior killed a total nine men while discharging his duties. He had "broke up" several bands of horse thieves about Hays City, gaining a local reputation. [6] [7]
Joseph McNulty was later permanently disabled (source says "crippled") when his horse fell over on him. [2] McNulty, who had served with the Union Army to the rank of Quartermaster Sergeant during the U.S. Civil War, [2] survived at least partially in his final years on an army "invalid" pension, which he received under the 1890 federal Disability Pension Act. [8] His specific pension was increased by an Act of the U.S. Congress, effective January 14, 1907. [9]
Rooks County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 4,919. The county seat is Stockton, and the largest city is Plainville. The county was named for Private John C. Rooks of the 11th Kansas Infantry who died at the Battle of Prairie Grove near Fayetteville, Arkansas, during the Civil War.
Stockton is a city in and the county seat of Rooks County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 1,480.
Joseph Ralph Burton was a lawyer and United States Senator from the state of Kansas. He was the first Senator to be convicted of a crime. He served in the Kansas House of Representatives several times in the 1880s, and was elected to the United States Senate in 1901, but was convicted of accepting bribes in 1905. He appealed twice to the Supreme Court, but the judgement was eventually upheld and he resigned. He lived out his life as a lawyer and newspaperman.
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John Davis was a U.S. Representative from Kansas.
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Francis "Frank" McNulty was an American pioneer and a member of the Kansas Legislature in 1875. One of five Canadian born brothers, who were the first to settle Rooks County, Kansas in January 1871, Francis, a lawyer, was in November, 1874 elected to a term in the Kansas House of Representatives. He was present as a member of the Kansas House of Representatives for Rook's County for the House's fifteenth annual session, which opened on January 12, 1875. The McNulty brothers erected Stockton Township's, today, Stockton, Kansas, and Rook County's first house, a lodging establishment, in February, 1871 and the first child born in Rooks County was Myrtle Maud McNulty, born to Thomas McNulty and his wife Mary Dillon on Christmas evening 1871.
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Sugarloaf is a ghost town in Sugar Loaf Township, Rooks County, Kansas, United States.
Samuel Jefferson Jones was a pro-slavery settler who held the position of Douglas County sheriff in Kansas Territory from late 1855 until early 1857. He helped found the territorial capital of Lecompton and played a prominent role in the "Bleeding Kansas" conflict.