By David Dary

For The Transcript

David L. Payne was an adventurer, scout, soldier, politician, and a Boomer, someone who wanted to settle in Indian Territory, a region set aside only for Indians.

Many people call Payne the “Father of Oklahoma,” but others oppose the title because Payne died six years before Oklahoma Territory was formed in 1890 and because his

actions as a Boomer suggest he ignored the rule of law.

David Payne was born on a farm in Grant County, Indiana, on December 30, 1836, He attended a rural school near his home. In the spring of 1858 Payne and his brothers

left Indiana to fight in the Mormon War. As they headed west across Illinois and Missouri, David Payne’s desire to fight waned.

Crossing the Missouri River into Kansas Territory, David Payne found beautiful wooded country in Burr Oak Township, Doniphan County, in northeast Kansas. At age 22 he acquired some land and built a sawmill. His business, however, soon failed. He turned

to hunting wild game to survive. He became a good hunter and learned to read signs. Impressed with his skills, neighbors hired him to do their hunting. In time, the federal government hired him as a scout on several expeditions. One of them took Payne into what is now Oklahoma in the 1850s.

When the Civil War began, Payne enlisted in the 4th Kansas Volunteers created to protect settlers from Indians. In April 1862 Payne’s regiment was consolidated with another unit creating the 10th Kansas Infantry, which saw action in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Indian Territory. Payne and 386 other men in the 10th joined more than nine thousand other Union soldiers in the Army of the Frontier and fought in the Battle of Prairie Grove that secured northwest Arkansas for the Union.

Payne left the army in August 1864 and returned to Kansas where he was elected to the Kansas legislature serving in the 1864 and 1865 sessions. In March 1865 he joined for one year the 10th Kansas Cavalry organized by the legislature to protect settlers from Indians in western Kansas. After his year, he answered a call from Kansas Governor Samuel Crawford for volunteers to stop Indian attacks in Kansas. Payne was appointed a captain of company D of the 18th Kansas Cavalry.

In `1867, Payne became postmaster at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, but in the fall of 1868 he joined the army again. He became a lieutenant in the 15th Kansas Cavalry and served in the winter campaign against Indians during 1868 and ’69. For a time he served as a scout for General Philip Sheridan. When his tour ended in 1870, Payne moved to south central Kansas. A year later, he again was elected to the Kansas legislature. Later, in 1875 and 1879, Payne served as assistant to the Doorkeeper in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

There Payne became friends with Elias C. Boudinot, a Cherokee working as a lobbyist for the railroads who wanted to lay their tracks through Indian Territory. President Rutherford B. Hayes opposed white settlement in Indian Territory. He declared it was

unlawful white settlers to entry the territory. Hayes’ action gave supporter of white settlement a chance to rally.

Attracted to the movement, Payne returned to Kansas where he learned that another Boomer, Colonel C. C. Carpenter, had taken a party of settlers from Coffeyville, Kansas, into Indian Territory. After they reached the North Canadian River, soldiers escorted the group back to Kansas.

Payne organized his own party and entered Indian Territory and laid out a town site where Oklahoma City stands today. Soldiers arrested Payne and his group, took them to Fort Reno, and then escorted them back to Kansas. Payne resented the fact federal law

prohibited the military from interfering in civil matters.

In July 1879, Payne took another party back to the site of Ewing. Again soldiers arrested them and this time took them to federal court at Fort Smith, Arkansas. Judge Isaac Parker ruled against Payne and fined him $1,000.

Payne did not give up. He organized other parties in southern Kansas that tried unsuccessfully to settle in Indian Territory. He even founded the Oklahoma War Chief to promote the cause.

On one of his trips soldiers seized Payne’s printing press, burned a building, and again took Payne and his group to Fort Smith.

The public began to complain about the military’s treatment of Payne and the others. The case was turned over to the U. S. District Court in Topeka, Kansas. Judge Cassins G. Foster quashed the charges and ruled that settling on the Unassigned Lands was not a

criminal offense. Payne’s group cheered, but the government did not immediately accept the court’s ruling.

Payne continued to work for opening Indian Territory to settlement. He gave many speeches. His last was in Wellington, Kansas, on November 27, 1884. The next day he died of heart failure at about age 48. Thousands of people attended the funeral in the Methodist Episcopal Church at Wellington and visited his grave in a local cemetery.

Payne did not live to see white settlement occur in Indian Territory. The Unassigned Lands were not opened to settlement until 1889 four years after Payne died. His grave remained in Kansas until 1995 when his remains were moved to Oklahoma. A monument was dedicated over the new grave in Stillwater, Payne County, named in his honor