Samuel J. Reader

{{Infobox writer

| name = Samuel J. Reader

| image = Portrait of Samuel J. Reader.jpg

| caption = Reader in 1855

| birth_name = Samuel James Reader

| birth_date = {{birth date|1836|01|25}}

| birth_place = Greenfield (present-day Coal Center), Pennsylvania, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1914|09|15|1836|01|25}}

| death_place = Topeka, Kansas, U.S.

| resting_place = Rochester Cemetery,
Topeka, Kansas, U.S.

| resting_place_coordinates = {{coord|39|06|16.0|N|95|40|48.9|W|region:US-KS_type:landmark|display=inline}}

| occupation = {{flatlist|

Farmer
writer
artist
amateur photographer

}}

| spouse = {{marriage|Elizabeth Smith|December 17, 1867}}

| children = 3

| years_active = 1849–1914

| module = {{Infobox military person|embed=yes

| branch = Kansas State Militia

| serviceyears = 1863–1864

| rank = 35px Second Lieutenant

| unit = 2nd Kansas Militia Infantry Regiment

| battles = American Civil War

Battle of the Blue{{POW}}

}}

Samuel J. Reader (1836–1914) was an American diarist and artist who wrote about his experiences during Bleeding Kansas and the American Civil War.{{cite web |url=https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/samuel-j-reader/12180 |title=Samuel J. Reader – Kansapedia – Kansas Historical Society |website=www.kshs.org}}

Early life

Image:Indianola Kansas by Samuel J. Reader.jpg in 1860 – From an Oil Painting by Samuel J. Reader, 1901]]

Samuel James Reader was born on January 25, 1836, in Greenfield (present-day Coal Center), Pennsylvania,{{cite web |url=https://www.kshs.org/p/samuel-james-reader-papers-1853-1955-bulk-1853-1914/14102 |title=Samuel James Reader Papers, 1853–1955 |website=Kansas Historical Society |accessdate=May 28, 2018}} where his father settled in 1847 upon his second marriage, the son of carpenter and millwright Francis Reader and Catherine (née James) Reader.{{cite book |author=John W. Jordan, LL.D. |title=Pennsylvania |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofpe05jord |year=1914 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofpe05jord/page/n144 529]-530}} His mother died May 19, 1836, and he was raised by his maternal grandparents and an aunt, Eliza James. He lived in La Harpe, Illinois, from the age of five to 18.{{efn|While Samuel moved to La Harpe, Illinois with his aunt and sister, his father remained in Pennsylvania and married a second time in 1842 to Eleanor Bentley Smith. After having three children, his wife died of typhoid fever in 1847. Although it is said that Samuel lived in La Harpe, Illinois until he was 18, Jordan states that he was reunited with his father upon his third marriage in 1849 to Mrs. William Duvall Jackson, who died in 1854.}} He had a sister, Eliza Matilda, who later became the wife of Dr. M. A. Campdoras.

Career

He began recording events of his life in journals in 1847 after being inspired by the documentation of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In 1855, he traveled in a wagon from Illinois and settled on a farm near Indianola, Shawnee County, Kansas, with his sister and his aunt.{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1025985/samuel_j_reader/ |title=Samuel J. Reader Was Shawnee County Pioneer |date=September 18, 1914 |page=6 |newspaper=The Topeka Daily Capital |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=May 28, 2018}} An early settler of Shawnee County who remained a resident of the state until his death, his continuing journals captured the history of the territory and early years of the state. He illustrated his writings with primitive watercolor and oil paintings and pen and ink illustrations.{{cite book |title=Kansas, a Guide to the Sunflower State |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9s96CIPhxj0C&pg=PA137 |year=1939 |publisher=Best Books |isbn=978-1-62376-015-1 |page=137}} They were written in English and French.

File:Price Raid.gif, Topeka, Kansas]]

He served as a sergeant of the Indianola Guards, a local militia group, and was a member of John Brown's forces, opposing slavery and supporting Kansas as a free state prior to the Civil War. In 1856, he participated in the conflict against the Border Ruffians and fought in the Battle of Hickory Point, coming "under fire" for the first time.

He was a second lieutenant and later paymaster of Company D of the Kansas state militia during the Civil War and fought in the Battle of Little Blue River (October 1864). He was captured and escaped three days later. He depicted the conflict in an oil painting, which is now in the collection of the Kansas Historical Society{{cite book |author=Glenn Dedmondt |title=The Flags of Civil War Arkansas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KCAxwqU1oAEC&pg=PA94 |year=2009 |publisher=Pelican Publishing |isbn=978-1-4556-0432-6 |page=94}} with four of his other paintings. His journal includes accounts of several Civil War battles,{{cite web |url=http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/206900 |title=Samuel J. Reader's autobiography, volume 3 – Kansas Memory |website=www.kansasmemory.org}}{{Primary source inline|date=November 2019}} and his painting Before Dawn is used on the cover of the book Kansas's War: The Civil War in Documents (2011) by Pearl T. Ponce.{{cite book |author=Pearl T. Ponce |title=Kansas's War: The Civil War in Documents |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jRlrVrHbMDcC&pg=PR15 |date=February 15, 2011 |publisher=Ohio University Press |isbn=978-0-8214-1936-6 |pages=iv, xv}}{{Primary source inline|date=November 2019}} He retired from service on October 30, 1864.

On December 18, 1867, he married Elizabeth Smith at La Harpe, Illinois. They had three children, the only one of whom survived was their daughter, Elizabeth. His wife died in 1898 in Topeka. He died at his home on September 15, 1914, and was buried in Rochester Cemetery.