Early Settler – Wayne Cemetery, Lewis, Edwards, Kansas

The Andrew Cross family came to Kinsley on the Santa Fe railroad in 1879. His two sons, Sam and Charley, traveled in the immigrant car to care for the stock animals. The rest of the family came on the passenger train.

Andrew Rusk Cross was born in Virginia in 1836. In 1856, he married Ruth Strickler. Two children were born while still living in Virginia. They just started west when the Civil War broke out.

“Andrew was taken prisoner by the Kittrell gang in Kentucky. For eighteen months they compelled him to make boots for them. While he was prisoner, his wife cared for the children in the wilds of Kentucky alone.”1

The family arrived in Kinsley and settled in a hotel until a home could be built. Andrew purchased a northwest corner of a half section from the railroad at $3.50/acre. The Kinsley Graphic of 1 Apr 1887 states “A.R. Cross . . . has 160 acres, 140 under cultivation 20 under fence. He has a large frame house, a large frame barn and granary, and a barn for cattle, also a young orchard consisting of peaches, apples, pear, grapes, etc. His orchard is protected by a forest of cotton and mulberry.”

Andrew’s father, Lewis, came with the family as his wife had died in Virginia. Ruth passed away in 1886. They are buried in Wayne Cemetery. A year later, Andrew married Hannah Dugger. Two children were born with one having died in infancy.

Of his nine children, eight of the nine are buried in Wayne Cemetery. Alex died on August 27, 1915. He shares a headstone with his first wife and son Lee (1877-1879). Hannah, his second wife, died in 1923 and is buried with her parents in Trotter Cemetery.

1The Kinsley-Edwards County Centennial