John preferred to be called by his middle name, McIntyre. He was the second son of Robert & Sarah (Zane) Armstrong. His siblings were Silas, Hannah, & Catherine.
A little about the history of John's parents can be seen on their memorials. John was born near Zanesfield, Logan Co, OH on October 7, 1813. His parents moved from Logan Co, OH & settled three miles south of Upper Sandusky in Wyandotte county.
John was 10 years old when his father died in 1823. He attended the Mission school near Upper Sandusky until he was 16 years of age, with occasional periods of work on his mother's farm. He worked very hard for three years, which resulted in the fine homestead known as the "Armstrong Farm."
During this time he borrowed books from the Mission library & steadily pursued his studies. One of the books, "Dick's Philosophy," influenced his decision to obtain a good education. He sold land he had inherited from his father & entered Norwalk Seminary in Huron county, where he studied from the autumn of 1833 to the spring of 1836. He was distinguished for his proficiency in natural science.
In June, 1835 John won the second oratorical prize. He was always a lover of science & contributed articles about scientific subjects to the "Ohio State Journal," the "Western Christian Advocate," & "The Ladies' Repository."
In May, 1836 he entered the law office of Judge Stewart, father-in-law of Honorable John Sherman, at Mansfield, OH & pursued his studies diligently. At time he had to attend to duties on the farm. He was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in April, 1839.
John married Miss Lucy Bigelow of Mansfield, OH on February, 20, 1838. Her father was a missionary to the Wyandottes in 1827/1828 after which he was their presiding elder for four years. During this time he formed a very high opinion of John.
As soon as John was admitted to the bar, he had an office in at Bucyrus, OH where he practiced. He was nominated for prosecuting attorney of Crawford county on the Whig ticket, but was defeated because the the county was strongly Democratic. During all these years, he retained his connection with the Wyandottes. His practice was often interrupted by his visits to Upper Sandusky to attend the frequent councils of that nation when they persistently attempted to get the US government to purchase their lands on the Sandusky river.
He returned to the Nation for the purpose of aiding the people who were opposed to removing to the Indian Territory, & resumed farming in April, 1840.
John worked hard to secure the real value of the land owned by the Wyandottes. In the summer of 1843, he moved to the West with the Nation. There wasn't any US land where they could settle, so most of the people camped on a strip of ground lying between the west line of Missouri & the Kansas river, where Kansas City, KS now stands, which had been reserved by the Government when the Shawnee treaty was made.
John & some other members of the Nation took up their residence at Westport, where they remained for four months. During this time, the Wyandottes bought land from the Delawares lying between the Missouri & Kansas rivers extending from their confluence, which included 39 sections of land. John built his cabin near Jersey creek, about half a mile from the Missouri river & moved into it on December 10, 1843. This was the first house occupied on the site of Wyandotte, & the first to entertain guests.
John had had been appointed as a US Interpreter the preceding fall, so each alternate Tuesday night the US agent to the Wyandottes lodged there. The missionary was entertained on each alternate Sunday evening, previous to the Sabbath services that he conducted. John continued this as long as he lived.
In July 1844 John opened the first school ever taught in Wyandotte. In December, 1845 he was sent by the Wyandotte Nation to Washington City. While there he procured the location of a post office in Kansas City, MO.
John was the church interpreter for the Nation for a period of ten years, was licensed to preach in 1844, & held religious services among the Delawares, Kickapoos, & Shawnees, as well as among his own people. He was a teacher & superintendent of his church, a leader in the temperance cause, signing every temperance pledge he ever saw, & was a member of the Order of Sons of Temperance in Kansas City, MO. He delivered the address before the lodges of Kansas City & Westport, at their union celebration, Christmas, 1850.
He remarked a few months before his death that he had never taken a dram of whiskey, sworn an oath nor played a card in his life. When in Washington, he belonged to the lodge of United Brothers of Temperance in that city.
When he was 10 years old, he united with the Methodist Episcopal church & remained a consistent member while he lived. He saw no necessity for the division of the denomination & adhered to the old organization, although greatly persecuted & his life threatened on that account. When informed that he would be dismissed from his office of US Interpreter if he adhered to the Methodist Episcopal church, he replied: "The office of the President of the United States would not tempt me to go contrary to the dictates of my conscience." Though firm, he was not rash or violent, but moderate and peaceful - emphatically, the Christian gentleman.
In the summer of 1851, it was decided to adopt a new constitution & revise the laws of the Wyandotte Nation. A constitutional convention was elected, consisting of 13 men with John as secretary. He drafted every article of the constitution &d submitted it to the members for their approval; as they accepted each article it was submitted to a national council, consisting of every voter in the Nation, for ratification.
His work as secretary was most acceptable, and the whole was unanimously ratified. It provided for a legislative council & a head chief's council. John was elected secretary of the legislative council & codified the laws for the Wyandotte Nation.
This same summer he taught the uneducated Wyandottes music from the blackboard, & they were sufficiently proficient to read the natural scale. When many of his people became ill during that season, he had to discontinue his instructions. This was also the reason a course of lectures on natural science, which he was delivering in the Wyandotte language, was interrupted.
He was litigating Indian claims against the United States at this time & expected to spend the next winter in Washington, in which he intended to bring back the necessary apparatus for teaching natural philosophy, chemistry, & astronomy where he gave lectures in the Wyandotte language, but death intervened, & his useful labors were prevented.
Because of his legal knowledge, and also because he was an Indian, many of the other Indians & Indian nations had employed him to prosecute their claims against the United States.
After teaching the Wyandotte National School during the winter months of 1851/1852, John started for Washington City on March 24th to prosecute his claims. While traveling on the Ohio River he had chills and fever, but obtained medicine in Cincinnati to help stop his chills. Not feeling well & having some business in Mansfield, OH, he stopped to rest over the Sabbath and rest. On Sabbath morning he had severe chills while visiting at a friend's house. His mother-in-law, with whom he was stopping, wasn't alarmed when he was absent because he had so many friends in the city. After he returned to her home, Monday afternoon, she immediately called her physician who sent a young man he had just taken into partnership, who diagnosed his ailment as typhoid lung fever & bled his patient quite freely. Other physicians were called, but they couldn't help, & John died the following Sunday night. During these last hours, referring to the persecutions he had endured on account of the split in the Methodist church, he said to his mother-in-law, "The Lord has been with me through all my troubles & will take me to rest." (John died on April, 11, 1852.)
John was one of nature's gentlemen. To his natural sensibility & nice perceptions of honor, he added the graces of genuine Christian character. Generous in his disposition, intellectual in his tastes, philanthropic in his life, he dedicated himself to a science, in which many have engaged for solely mercenary ends, but which awakened all the generosity of his being, enlisted all the talents & experience of his educational manhood, & to which he devoted himself with a singleness of aim, a fidelity of service & a display of administrative ability that have scarcely had a parallel in the history of Indian affairs in America.
He could have no nobler epitaph than this, which all his life declared: "He was the Indian's friend."
Edited & paraphrased from "Heritage of the Wyandots and The Armstrong Story" by Paul Armstrong Youngman, pg. 36-40. Information from Lucy B. Armstrong (widow of John M. Armstrong) was incorporated in Mr. Youngman's book.
*****
A few facts of interest:
1844 - The Wyandot Tribal Council authorizes John M. Armstrong to contract with a carpenter from Liberty, Missouri to build a tribal schoolhouse, on the east side of the present 4th Street between State and Nebraska Avenues.
1844 - July 1; the Wyandot tribal schoolhouse opens with John M. Armstrong as teacher.
1845
In November, feeling that they are being cheated in the matter of the Ohio appraisals, the Wyandot Tribal Council sends James Washington, Henry Jacquis, John W. Greyeyes and John M. Armstrong to Washington.
1846 - April 17; the Wyandot Tribal Council grants full power of attorney to Henry Jacquis and John M. Armstrong for their negotiations in Washington. They again request the $350 still due as the balance of the removal fund.
1846 - June 4; the Wyandot Tribal Council unanimously adopts and sends a letter of full support to John M. Armstrong in Washington. He is authorized to inform the government that no attention is to be paid to communications from persons acting on their own responsibility, "...particularly from James Rankin."
1947
Also in June, Hester A. Zane and Lucy B. Armstrong's sister Martha Bigelow organize the first Wyandot Sunday School, held in John M. Armstrong's school building.
1847
John McIntyre Armstrong is said to have been the first of the Wyandots to erect a dwelling, although he was only a few days in advance of others in completing it. It was built of logs and stood about fifty yards northeast of what is now the intersection of Fifth street and Freeman avenue. It was occupied by the Armstrong family until 1847.
A more imposing residence was built among forest trees on the sloping hillside about one hundred and fifty yards to the southwest of the Fifth street freight depot of the Kansas City-Northwestern Railroad, and for many years it was the center of culture and religious influence. While John McIntyre Armstrong was a man of education, his wife, Lucy B. Armstrong - the daughter of the Rev. Russell Biglow, one of the early Methodist missionary preachers in Ohio - was a Christian woman of refinement and influence.
1847 - John and Lucy Armstrong's log house in Wyandott is replaced with a large frame residence in the same general location (demolished circa 1904).
1849 - July 31; Lucy B. Armstrong writes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Brown, protesting the government's withholding John M. Armstrong's salary as Wyandot interpreter for the time he was in Washington on tribal business, Dr. Hewitt's dismissal of Armstrong without cause, Moseley's upholding of Walker's appointment, and Moseley's avowed pro-slavery views. She notes that there are just three slaves owned in the Wyandot Nation, but the blacksmith has 5 or 6 and now Moseley threatens to bring in more.
1850
After a long period of meeting in a tree grove and in members' homes, a new Wyandot Methodist Episcopal Church is built of logs on land donated by Lucy B. Armstrong at the northeast corner of the present 38th Street and Parallel Parkway. The Rev. James Witten has replaced the Rev. T. B. Markham as missionary representing the Ohio Conference.
1852 - March 31; death of John M. Armstrong at the home of his mother-in-law in Mansfield, Ohio, at the age of 38, while traveling to Washington on tribal business.
1852 - April 16; the Wyandot Tribal Council buys John M. Armstrong's school building for use as a council house. The school moves to the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
1852 - June 13; a memorial service is held for John M. Armstrong in the Wyandots' brick church, the sermon being preached by the northern missionary, the Rev. James Witten.
Researched and compiled by Virginia Brown
November 2012
A little about the history of John's parents can be seen on their memorials. John was born near Zanesfield, Logan Co, OH on October 7, 1813. His parents moved from Logan Co, OH & settled three miles south of Upper Sandusky in Wyandotte county.
John was 10 years old when his father died in 1823. He attended the Mission school near Upper Sandusky until he was 16 years of age, with occasional periods of work on his mother's farm. He worked very hard for three years, which resulted in the fine homestead known as the "Armstrong Farm."
During this time he borrowed books from the Mission library & steadily pursued his studies. One of the books, "Dick's Philosophy," influenced his decision to obtain a good education. He sold land he had inherited from his father & entered Norwalk Seminary in Huron county, where he studied from the autumn of 1833 to the spring of 1836. He was distinguished for his proficiency in natural science.
In June, 1835 John won the second oratorical prize. He was always a lover of science & contributed articles about scientific subjects to the "Ohio State Journal," the "Western Christian Advocate," & "The Ladies' Repository."
In May, 1836 he entered the law office of Judge Stewart, father-in-law of Honorable John Sherman, at Mansfield, OH & pursued his studies diligently. At time he had to attend to duties on the farm. He was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in April, 1839.
John married Miss Lucy Bigelow of Mansfield, OH on February, 20, 1838. Her father was a missionary to the Wyandottes in 1827/1828 after which he was their presiding elder for four years. During this time he formed a very high opinion of John.
As soon as John was admitted to the bar, he had an office in at Bucyrus, OH where he practiced. He was nominated for prosecuting attorney of Crawford county on the Whig ticket, but was defeated because the the county was strongly Democratic. During all these years, he retained his connection with the Wyandottes. His practice was often interrupted by his visits to Upper Sandusky to attend the frequent councils of that nation when they persistently attempted to get the US government to purchase their lands on the Sandusky river.
He returned to the Nation for the purpose of aiding the people who were opposed to removing to the Indian Territory, & resumed farming in April, 1840.
John worked hard to secure the real value of the land owned by the Wyandottes. In the summer of 1843, he moved to the West with the Nation. There wasn't any US land where they could settle, so most of the people camped on a strip of ground lying between the west line of Missouri & the Kansas river, where Kansas City, KS now stands, which had been reserved by the Government when the Shawnee treaty was made.
John & some other members of the Nation took up their residence at Westport, where they remained for four months. During this time, the Wyandottes bought land from the Delawares lying between the Missouri & Kansas rivers extending from their confluence, which included 39 sections of land. John built his cabin near Jersey creek, about half a mile from the Missouri river & moved into it on December 10, 1843. This was the first house occupied on the site of Wyandotte, & the first to entertain guests.
John had had been appointed as a US Interpreter the preceding fall, so each alternate Tuesday night the US agent to the Wyandottes lodged there. The missionary was entertained on each alternate Sunday evening, previous to the Sabbath services that he conducted. John continued this as long as he lived.
In July 1844 John opened the first school ever taught in Wyandotte. In December, 1845 he was sent by the Wyandotte Nation to Washington City. While there he procured the location of a post office in Kansas City, MO.
John was the church interpreter for the Nation for a period of ten years, was licensed to preach in 1844, & held religious services among the Delawares, Kickapoos, & Shawnees, as well as among his own people. He was a teacher & superintendent of his church, a leader in the temperance cause, signing every temperance pledge he ever saw, & was a member of the Order of Sons of Temperance in Kansas City, MO. He delivered the address before the lodges of Kansas City & Westport, at their union celebration, Christmas, 1850.
He remarked a few months before his death that he had never taken a dram of whiskey, sworn an oath nor played a card in his life. When in Washington, he belonged to the lodge of United Brothers of Temperance in that city.
When he was 10 years old, he united with the Methodist Episcopal church & remained a consistent member while he lived. He saw no necessity for the division of the denomination & adhered to the old organization, although greatly persecuted & his life threatened on that account. When informed that he would be dismissed from his office of US Interpreter if he adhered to the Methodist Episcopal church, he replied: "The office of the President of the United States would not tempt me to go contrary to the dictates of my conscience." Though firm, he was not rash or violent, but moderate and peaceful - emphatically, the Christian gentleman.
In the summer of 1851, it was decided to adopt a new constitution & revise the laws of the Wyandotte Nation. A constitutional convention was elected, consisting of 13 men with John as secretary. He drafted every article of the constitution &d submitted it to the members for their approval; as they accepted each article it was submitted to a national council, consisting of every voter in the Nation, for ratification.
His work as secretary was most acceptable, and the whole was unanimously ratified. It provided for a legislative council & a head chief's council. John was elected secretary of the legislative council & codified the laws for the Wyandotte Nation.
This same summer he taught the uneducated Wyandottes music from the blackboard, & they were sufficiently proficient to read the natural scale. When many of his people became ill during that season, he had to discontinue his instructions. This was also the reason a course of lectures on natural science, which he was delivering in the Wyandotte language, was interrupted.
He was litigating Indian claims against the United States at this time & expected to spend the next winter in Washington, in which he intended to bring back the necessary apparatus for teaching natural philosophy, chemistry, & astronomy where he gave lectures in the Wyandotte language, but death intervened, & his useful labors were prevented.
Because of his legal knowledge, and also because he was an Indian, many of the other Indians & Indian nations had employed him to prosecute their claims against the United States.
After teaching the Wyandotte National School during the winter months of 1851/1852, John started for Washington City on March 24th to prosecute his claims. While traveling on the Ohio River he had chills and fever, but obtained medicine in Cincinnati to help stop his chills. Not feeling well & having some business in Mansfield, OH, he stopped to rest over the Sabbath and rest. On Sabbath morning he had severe chills while visiting at a friend's house. His mother-in-law, with whom he was stopping, wasn't alarmed when he was absent because he had so many friends in the city. After he returned to her home, Monday afternoon, she immediately called her physician who sent a young man he had just taken into partnership, who diagnosed his ailment as typhoid lung fever & bled his patient quite freely. Other physicians were called, but they couldn't help, & John died the following Sunday night. During these last hours, referring to the persecutions he had endured on account of the split in the Methodist church, he said to his mother-in-law, "The Lord has been with me through all my troubles & will take me to rest." (John died on April, 11, 1852.)
John was one of nature's gentlemen. To his natural sensibility & nice perceptions of honor, he added the graces of genuine Christian character. Generous in his disposition, intellectual in his tastes, philanthropic in his life, he dedicated himself to a science, in which many have engaged for solely mercenary ends, but which awakened all the generosity of his being, enlisted all the talents & experience of his educational manhood, & to which he devoted himself with a singleness of aim, a fidelity of service & a display of administrative ability that have scarcely had a parallel in the history of Indian affairs in America.
He could have no nobler epitaph than this, which all his life declared: "He was the Indian's friend."
Edited & paraphrased from "Heritage of the Wyandots and The Armstrong Story" by Paul Armstrong Youngman, pg. 36-40. Information from Lucy B. Armstrong (widow of John M. Armstrong) was incorporated in Mr. Youngman's book.
*****
A few facts of interest:
1844 - The Wyandot Tribal Council authorizes John M. Armstrong to contract with a carpenter from Liberty, Missouri to build a tribal schoolhouse, on the east side of the present 4th Street between State and Nebraska Avenues.
1844 - July 1; the Wyandot tribal schoolhouse opens with John M. Armstrong as teacher.
1845
In November, feeling that they are being cheated in the matter of the Ohio appraisals, the Wyandot Tribal Council sends James Washington, Henry Jacquis, John W. Greyeyes and John M. Armstrong to Washington.
1846 - April 17; the Wyandot Tribal Council grants full power of attorney to Henry Jacquis and John M. Armstrong for their negotiations in Washington. They again request the $350 still due as the balance of the removal fund.
1846 - June 4; the Wyandot Tribal Council unanimously adopts and sends a letter of full support to John M. Armstrong in Washington. He is authorized to inform the government that no attention is to be paid to communications from persons acting on their own responsibility, "...particularly from James Rankin."
1947
Also in June, Hester A. Zane and Lucy B. Armstrong's sister Martha Bigelow organize the first Wyandot Sunday School, held in John M. Armstrong's school building.
1847
John McIntyre Armstrong is said to have been the first of the Wyandots to erect a dwelling, although he was only a few days in advance of others in completing it. It was built of logs and stood about fifty yards northeast of what is now the intersection of Fifth street and Freeman avenue. It was occupied by the Armstrong family until 1847.
A more imposing residence was built among forest trees on the sloping hillside about one hundred and fifty yards to the southwest of the Fifth street freight depot of the Kansas City-Northwestern Railroad, and for many years it was the center of culture and religious influence. While John McIntyre Armstrong was a man of education, his wife, Lucy B. Armstrong - the daughter of the Rev. Russell Biglow, one of the early Methodist missionary preachers in Ohio - was a Christian woman of refinement and influence.
1847 - John and Lucy Armstrong's log house in Wyandott is replaced with a large frame residence in the same general location (demolished circa 1904).
1849 - July 31; Lucy B. Armstrong writes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Brown, protesting the government's withholding John M. Armstrong's salary as Wyandot interpreter for the time he was in Washington on tribal business, Dr. Hewitt's dismissal of Armstrong without cause, Moseley's upholding of Walker's appointment, and Moseley's avowed pro-slavery views. She notes that there are just three slaves owned in the Wyandot Nation, but the blacksmith has 5 or 6 and now Moseley threatens to bring in more.
1850
After a long period of meeting in a tree grove and in members' homes, a new Wyandot Methodist Episcopal Church is built of logs on land donated by Lucy B. Armstrong at the northeast corner of the present 38th Street and Parallel Parkway. The Rev. James Witten has replaced the Rev. T. B. Markham as missionary representing the Ohio Conference.
1852 - March 31; death of John M. Armstrong at the home of his mother-in-law in Mansfield, Ohio, at the age of 38, while traveling to Washington on tribal business.
1852 - April 16; the Wyandot Tribal Council buys John M. Armstrong's school building for use as a council house. The school moves to the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
1852 - June 13; a memorial service is held for John M. Armstrong in the Wyandots' brick church, the sermon being preached by the northern missionary, the Rev. James Witten.
Researched and compiled by Virginia Brown
November 2012
John preferred to be called by his middle name, McIntyre. He was the second son of Robert & Sarah (Zane) Armstrong. His siblings were Silas, Hannah, & Catherine.
A little about the history of John's parents can be seen on their memorials. John was born near Zanesfield, Logan Co, OH on October 7, 1813. His parents moved from Logan Co, OH & settled three miles south of Upper Sandusky in Wyandotte county.
John was 10 years old when his father died in 1823. He attended the Mission school near Upper Sandusky until he was 16 years of age, with occasional periods of work on his mother's farm. He worked very hard for three years, which resulted in the fine homestead known as the "Armstrong Farm."
During this time he borrowed books from the Mission library & steadily pursued his studies. One of the books, "Dick's Philosophy," influenced his decision to obtain a good education. He sold land he had inherited from his father & entered Norwalk Seminary in Huron county, where he studied from the autumn of 1833 to the spring of 1836. He was distinguished for his proficiency in natural science.
In June, 1835 John won the second oratorical prize. He was always a lover of science & contributed articles about scientific subjects to the "Ohio State Journal," the "Western Christian Advocate," & "The Ladies' Repository."
In May, 1836 he entered the law office of Judge Stewart, father-in-law of Honorable John Sherman, at Mansfield, OH & pursued his studies diligently. At time he had to attend to duties on the farm. He was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in April, 1839.
John married Miss Lucy Bigelow of Mansfield, OH on February, 20, 1838. Her father was a missionary to the Wyandottes in 1827/1828 after which he was their presiding elder for four years. During this time he formed a very high opinion of John.
As soon as John was admitted to the bar, he had an office in at Bucyrus, OH where he practiced. He was nominated for prosecuting attorney of Crawford county on the Whig ticket, but was defeated because the the county was strongly Democratic. During all these years, he retained his connection with the Wyandottes. His practice was often interrupted by his visits to Upper Sandusky to attend the frequent councils of that nation when they persistently attempted to get the US government to purchase their lands on the Sandusky river.
He returned to the Nation for the purpose of aiding the people who were opposed to removing to the Indian Territory, & resumed farming in April, 1840.
John worked hard to secure the real value of the land owned by the Wyandottes. In the summer of 1843, he moved to the West with the Nation. There wasn't any US land where they could settle, so most of the people camped on a strip of ground lying between the west line of Missouri & the Kansas river, where Kansas City, KS now stands, which had been reserved by the Government when the Shawnee treaty was made.
John & some other members of the Nation took up their residence at Westport, where they remained for four months. During this time, the Wyandottes bought land from the Delawares lying between the Missouri & Kansas rivers extending from their confluence, which included 39 sections of land. John built his cabin near Jersey creek, about half a mile from the Missouri river & moved into it on December 10, 1843. This was the first house occupied on the site of Wyandotte, & the first to entertain guests.
John had had been appointed as a US Interpreter the preceding fall, so each alternate Tuesday night the US agent to the Wyandottes lodged there. The missionary was entertained on each alternate Sunday evening, previous to the Sabbath services that he conducted. John continued this as long as he lived.
In July 1844 John opened the first school ever taught in Wyandotte. In December, 1845 he was sent by the Wyandotte Nation to Washington City. While there he procured the location of a post office in Kansas City, MO.
John was the church interpreter for the Nation for a period of ten years, was licensed to preach in 1844, & held religious services among the Delawares, Kickapoos, & Shawnees, as well as among his own people. He was a teacher & superintendent of his church, a leader in the temperance cause, signing every temperance pledge he ever saw, & was a member of the Order of Sons of Temperance in Kansas City, MO. He delivered the address before the lodges of Kansas City & Westport, at their union celebration, Christmas, 1850.
He remarked a few months before his death that he had never taken a dram of whiskey, sworn an oath nor played a card in his life. When in Washington, he belonged to the lodge of United Brothers of Temperance in that city.
When he was 10 years old, he united with the Methodist Episcopal church & remained a consistent member while he lived. He saw no necessity for the division of the denomination & adhered to the old organization, although greatly persecuted & his life threatened on that account. When informed that he would be dismissed from his office of US Interpreter if he adhered to the Methodist Episcopal church, he replied: "The office of the President of the United States would not tempt me to go contrary to the dictates of my conscience." Though firm, he was not rash or violent, but moderate and peaceful - emphatically, the Christian gentleman.
In the summer of 1851, it was decided to adopt a new constitution & revise the laws of the Wyandotte Nation. A constitutional convention was elected, consisting of 13 men with John as secretary. He drafted every article of the constitution &d submitted it to the members for their approval; as they accepted each article it was submitted to a national council, consisting of every voter in the Nation, for ratification.
His work as secretary was most acceptable, and the whole was unanimously ratified. It provided for a legislative council & a head chief's council. John was elected secretary of the legislative council & codified the laws for the Wyandotte Nation.
This same summer he taught the uneducated Wyandottes music from the blackboard, & they were sufficiently proficient to read the natural scale. When many of his people became ill during that season, he had to discontinue his instructions. This was also the reason a course of lectures on natural science, which he was delivering in the Wyandotte language, was interrupted.
He was litigating Indian claims against the United States at this time & expected to spend the next winter in Washington, in which he intended to bring back the necessary apparatus for teaching natural philosophy, chemistry, & astronomy where he gave lectures in the Wyandotte language, but death intervened, & his useful labors were prevented.
Because of his legal knowledge, and also because he was an Indian, many of the other Indians & Indian nations had employed him to prosecute their claims against the United States.
After teaching the Wyandotte National School during the winter months of 1851/1852, John started for Washington City on March 24th to prosecute his claims. While traveling on the Ohio River he had chills and fever, but obtained medicine in Cincinnati to help stop his chills. Not feeling well & having some business in Mansfield, OH, he stopped to rest over the Sabbath and rest. On Sabbath morning he had severe chills while visiting at a friend's house. His mother-in-law, with whom he was stopping, wasn't alarmed when he was absent because he had so many friends in the city. After he returned to her home, Monday afternoon, she immediately called her physician who sent a young man he had just taken into partnership, who diagnosed his ailment as typhoid lung fever & bled his patient quite freely. Other physicians were called, but they couldn't help, & John died the following Sunday night. During these last hours, referring to the persecutions he had endured on account of the split in the Methodist church, he said to his mother-in-law, "The Lord has been with me through all my troubles & will take me to rest." (John died on April, 11, 1852.)
John was one of nature's gentlemen. To his natural sensibility & nice perceptions of honor, he added the graces of genuine Christian character. Generous in his disposition, intellectual in his tastes, philanthropic in his life, he dedicated himself to a science, in which many have engaged for solely mercenary ends, but which awakened all the generosity of his being, enlisted all the talents & experience of his educational manhood, & to which he devoted himself with a singleness of aim, a fidelity of service & a display of administrative ability that have scarcely had a parallel in the history of Indian affairs in America.
He could have no nobler epitaph than this, which all his life declared: "He was the Indian's friend."
Edited & paraphrased from "Heritage of the Wyandots and The Armstrong Story" by Paul Armstrong Youngman, pg. 36-40. Information from Lucy B. Armstrong (widow of John M. Armstrong) was incorporated in Mr. Youngman's book.
*****
A few facts of interest:
1844 - The Wyandot Tribal Council authorizes John M. Armstrong to contract with a carpenter from Liberty, Missouri to build a tribal schoolhouse, on the east side of the present 4th Street between State and Nebraska Avenues.
1844 - July 1; the Wyandot tribal schoolhouse opens with John M. Armstrong as teacher.
1845
In November, feeling that they are being cheated in the matter of the Ohio appraisals, the Wyandot Tribal Council sends James Washington, Henry Jacquis, John W. Greyeyes and John M. Armstrong to Washington.
1846 - April 17; the Wyandot Tribal Council grants full power of attorney to Henry Jacquis and John M. Armstrong for their negotiations in Washington. They again request the $350 still due as the balance of the removal fund.
1846 - June 4; the Wyandot Tribal Council unanimously adopts and sends a letter of full support to John M. Armstrong in Washington. He is authorized to inform the government that no attention is to be paid to communications from persons acting on their own responsibility, "...particularly from James Rankin."
1947
Also in June, Hester A. Zane and Lucy B. Armstrong's sister Martha Bigelow organize the first Wyandot Sunday School, held in John M. Armstrong's school building.
1847
John McIntyre Armstrong is said to have been the first of the Wyandots to erect a dwelling, although he was only a few days in advance of others in completing it. It was built of logs and stood about fifty yards northeast of what is now the intersection of Fifth street and Freeman avenue. It was occupied by the Armstrong family until 1847.
A more imposing residence was built among forest trees on the sloping hillside about one hundred and fifty yards to the southwest of the Fifth street freight depot of the Kansas City-Northwestern Railroad, and for many years it was the center of culture and religious influence. While John McIntyre Armstrong was a man of education, his wife, Lucy B. Armstrong - the daughter of the Rev. Russell Biglow, one of the early Methodist missionary preachers in Ohio - was a Christian woman of refinement and influence.
1847 - John and Lucy Armstrong's log house in Wyandott is replaced with a large frame residence in the same general location (demolished circa 1904).
1849 - July 31; Lucy B. Armstrong writes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Brown, protesting the government's withholding John M. Armstrong's salary as Wyandot interpreter for the time he was in Washington on tribal business, Dr. Hewitt's dismissal of Armstrong without cause, Moseley's upholding of Walker's appointment, and Moseley's avowed pro-slavery views. She notes that there are just three slaves owned in the Wyandot Nation, but the blacksmith has 5 or 6 and now Moseley threatens to bring in more.
1850
After a long period of meeting in a tree grove and in members' homes, a new Wyandot Methodist Episcopal Church is built of logs on land donated by Lucy B. Armstrong at the northeast corner of the present 38th Street and Parallel Parkway. The Rev. James Witten has replaced the Rev. T. B. Markham as missionary representing the Ohio Conference.
1852 - March 31; death of John M. Armstrong at the home of his mother-in-law in Mansfield, Ohio, at the age of 38, while traveling to Washington on tribal business.
1852 - April 16; the Wyandot Tribal Council buys John M. Armstrong's school building for use as a council house. The school moves to the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
1852 - June 13; a memorial service is held for John M. Armstrong in the Wyandots' brick church, the sermon being preached by the northern missionary, the Rev. James Witten.
Researched and compiled by Virginia Brown
November 2012
A little about the history of John's parents can be seen on their memorials. John was born near Zanesfield, Logan Co, OH on October 7, 1813. His parents moved from Logan Co, OH & settled three miles south of Upper Sandusky in Wyandotte county.
John was 10 years old when his father died in 1823. He attended the Mission school near Upper Sandusky until he was 16 years of age, with occasional periods of work on his mother's farm. He worked very hard for three years, which resulted in the fine homestead known as the "Armstrong Farm."
During this time he borrowed books from the Mission library & steadily pursued his studies. One of the books, "Dick's Philosophy," influenced his decision to obtain a good education. He sold land he had inherited from his father & entered Norwalk Seminary in Huron county, where he studied from the autumn of 1833 to the spring of 1836. He was distinguished for his proficiency in natural science.
In June, 1835 John won the second oratorical prize. He was always a lover of science & contributed articles about scientific subjects to the "Ohio State Journal," the "Western Christian Advocate," & "The Ladies' Repository."
In May, 1836 he entered the law office of Judge Stewart, father-in-law of Honorable John Sherman, at Mansfield, OH & pursued his studies diligently. At time he had to attend to duties on the farm. He was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in April, 1839.
John married Miss Lucy Bigelow of Mansfield, OH on February, 20, 1838. Her father was a missionary to the Wyandottes in 1827/1828 after which he was their presiding elder for four years. During this time he formed a very high opinion of John.
As soon as John was admitted to the bar, he had an office in at Bucyrus, OH where he practiced. He was nominated for prosecuting attorney of Crawford county on the Whig ticket, but was defeated because the the county was strongly Democratic. During all these years, he retained his connection with the Wyandottes. His practice was often interrupted by his visits to Upper Sandusky to attend the frequent councils of that nation when they persistently attempted to get the US government to purchase their lands on the Sandusky river.
He returned to the Nation for the purpose of aiding the people who were opposed to removing to the Indian Territory, & resumed farming in April, 1840.
John worked hard to secure the real value of the land owned by the Wyandottes. In the summer of 1843, he moved to the West with the Nation. There wasn't any US land where they could settle, so most of the people camped on a strip of ground lying between the west line of Missouri & the Kansas river, where Kansas City, KS now stands, which had been reserved by the Government when the Shawnee treaty was made.
John & some other members of the Nation took up their residence at Westport, where they remained for four months. During this time, the Wyandottes bought land from the Delawares lying between the Missouri & Kansas rivers extending from their confluence, which included 39 sections of land. John built his cabin near Jersey creek, about half a mile from the Missouri river & moved into it on December 10, 1843. This was the first house occupied on the site of Wyandotte, & the first to entertain guests.
John had had been appointed as a US Interpreter the preceding fall, so each alternate Tuesday night the US agent to the Wyandottes lodged there. The missionary was entertained on each alternate Sunday evening, previous to the Sabbath services that he conducted. John continued this as long as he lived.
In July 1844 John opened the first school ever taught in Wyandotte. In December, 1845 he was sent by the Wyandotte Nation to Washington City. While there he procured the location of a post office in Kansas City, MO.
John was the church interpreter for the Nation for a period of ten years, was licensed to preach in 1844, & held religious services among the Delawares, Kickapoos, & Shawnees, as well as among his own people. He was a teacher & superintendent of his church, a leader in the temperance cause, signing every temperance pledge he ever saw, & was a member of the Order of Sons of Temperance in Kansas City, MO. He delivered the address before the lodges of Kansas City & Westport, at their union celebration, Christmas, 1850.
He remarked a few months before his death that he had never taken a dram of whiskey, sworn an oath nor played a card in his life. When in Washington, he belonged to the lodge of United Brothers of Temperance in that city.
When he was 10 years old, he united with the Methodist Episcopal church & remained a consistent member while he lived. He saw no necessity for the division of the denomination & adhered to the old organization, although greatly persecuted & his life threatened on that account. When informed that he would be dismissed from his office of US Interpreter if he adhered to the Methodist Episcopal church, he replied: "The office of the President of the United States would not tempt me to go contrary to the dictates of my conscience." Though firm, he was not rash or violent, but moderate and peaceful - emphatically, the Christian gentleman.
In the summer of 1851, it was decided to adopt a new constitution & revise the laws of the Wyandotte Nation. A constitutional convention was elected, consisting of 13 men with John as secretary. He drafted every article of the constitution &d submitted it to the members for their approval; as they accepted each article it was submitted to a national council, consisting of every voter in the Nation, for ratification.
His work as secretary was most acceptable, and the whole was unanimously ratified. It provided for a legislative council & a head chief's council. John was elected secretary of the legislative council & codified the laws for the Wyandotte Nation.
This same summer he taught the uneducated Wyandottes music from the blackboard, & they were sufficiently proficient to read the natural scale. When many of his people became ill during that season, he had to discontinue his instructions. This was also the reason a course of lectures on natural science, which he was delivering in the Wyandotte language, was interrupted.
He was litigating Indian claims against the United States at this time & expected to spend the next winter in Washington, in which he intended to bring back the necessary apparatus for teaching natural philosophy, chemistry, & astronomy where he gave lectures in the Wyandotte language, but death intervened, & his useful labors were prevented.
Because of his legal knowledge, and also because he was an Indian, many of the other Indians & Indian nations had employed him to prosecute their claims against the United States.
After teaching the Wyandotte National School during the winter months of 1851/1852, John started for Washington City on March 24th to prosecute his claims. While traveling on the Ohio River he had chills and fever, but obtained medicine in Cincinnati to help stop his chills. Not feeling well & having some business in Mansfield, OH, he stopped to rest over the Sabbath and rest. On Sabbath morning he had severe chills while visiting at a friend's house. His mother-in-law, with whom he was stopping, wasn't alarmed when he was absent because he had so many friends in the city. After he returned to her home, Monday afternoon, she immediately called her physician who sent a young man he had just taken into partnership, who diagnosed his ailment as typhoid lung fever & bled his patient quite freely. Other physicians were called, but they couldn't help, & John died the following Sunday night. During these last hours, referring to the persecutions he had endured on account of the split in the Methodist church, he said to his mother-in-law, "The Lord has been with me through all my troubles & will take me to rest." (John died on April, 11, 1852.)
John was one of nature's gentlemen. To his natural sensibility & nice perceptions of honor, he added the graces of genuine Christian character. Generous in his disposition, intellectual in his tastes, philanthropic in his life, he dedicated himself to a science, in which many have engaged for solely mercenary ends, but which awakened all the generosity of his being, enlisted all the talents & experience of his educational manhood, & to which he devoted himself with a singleness of aim, a fidelity of service & a display of administrative ability that have scarcely had a parallel in the history of Indian affairs in America.
He could have no nobler epitaph than this, which all his life declared: "He was the Indian's friend."
Edited & paraphrased from "Heritage of the Wyandots and The Armstrong Story" by Paul Armstrong Youngman, pg. 36-40. Information from Lucy B. Armstrong (widow of John M. Armstrong) was incorporated in Mr. Youngman's book.
*****
A few facts of interest:
1844 - The Wyandot Tribal Council authorizes John M. Armstrong to contract with a carpenter from Liberty, Missouri to build a tribal schoolhouse, on the east side of the present 4th Street between State and Nebraska Avenues.
1844 - July 1; the Wyandot tribal schoolhouse opens with John M. Armstrong as teacher.
1845
In November, feeling that they are being cheated in the matter of the Ohio appraisals, the Wyandot Tribal Council sends James Washington, Henry Jacquis, John W. Greyeyes and John M. Armstrong to Washington.
1846 - April 17; the Wyandot Tribal Council grants full power of attorney to Henry Jacquis and John M. Armstrong for their negotiations in Washington. They again request the $350 still due as the balance of the removal fund.
1846 - June 4; the Wyandot Tribal Council unanimously adopts and sends a letter of full support to John M. Armstrong in Washington. He is authorized to inform the government that no attention is to be paid to communications from persons acting on their own responsibility, "...particularly from James Rankin."
1947
Also in June, Hester A. Zane and Lucy B. Armstrong's sister Martha Bigelow organize the first Wyandot Sunday School, held in John M. Armstrong's school building.
1847
John McIntyre Armstrong is said to have been the first of the Wyandots to erect a dwelling, although he was only a few days in advance of others in completing it. It was built of logs and stood about fifty yards northeast of what is now the intersection of Fifth street and Freeman avenue. It was occupied by the Armstrong family until 1847.
A more imposing residence was built among forest trees on the sloping hillside about one hundred and fifty yards to the southwest of the Fifth street freight depot of the Kansas City-Northwestern Railroad, and for many years it was the center of culture and religious influence. While John McIntyre Armstrong was a man of education, his wife, Lucy B. Armstrong - the daughter of the Rev. Russell Biglow, one of the early Methodist missionary preachers in Ohio - was a Christian woman of refinement and influence.
1847 - John and Lucy Armstrong's log house in Wyandott is replaced with a large frame residence in the same general location (demolished circa 1904).
1849 - July 31; Lucy B. Armstrong writes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Brown, protesting the government's withholding John M. Armstrong's salary as Wyandot interpreter for the time he was in Washington on tribal business, Dr. Hewitt's dismissal of Armstrong without cause, Moseley's upholding of Walker's appointment, and Moseley's avowed pro-slavery views. She notes that there are just three slaves owned in the Wyandot Nation, but the blacksmith has 5 or 6 and now Moseley threatens to bring in more.
1850
After a long period of meeting in a tree grove and in members' homes, a new Wyandot Methodist Episcopal Church is built of logs on land donated by Lucy B. Armstrong at the northeast corner of the present 38th Street and Parallel Parkway. The Rev. James Witten has replaced the Rev. T. B. Markham as missionary representing the Ohio Conference.
1852 - March 31; death of John M. Armstrong at the home of his mother-in-law in Mansfield, Ohio, at the age of 38, while traveling to Washington on tribal business.
1852 - April 16; the Wyandot Tribal Council buys John M. Armstrong's school building for use as a council house. The school moves to the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
1852 - June 13; a memorial service is held for John M. Armstrong in the Wyandots' brick church, the sermon being preached by the northern missionary, the Rev. James Witten.
Researched and compiled by Virginia Brown
November 2012
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