Transcribed from A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans,
written and compiled by William E. Connelley, Secretary of the
Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. Chicago: Lewis
Publishing Company, copyright 1918 JACOB RUMBAUGH was for
twenty-eight years one of the most widely known citizens of Fort
Scott. He had come to that section of Kansas and established a
home on lands just across the state line in Missouri in 1870. He
endured all the trials and vicissitudes that beset the average
farmer of his day. But he was not himself an average man. He had
a resourcefulness, a faculty for hard work, that often made him
prosper while others were blaming fate for hard times and
misfortunes. He was optimistic. As long as he lived he was
sustained by hope. It has been well said that when a man ceases
to hope he is spiritually dead. Hope is only another word for
faith. It was faith that took Jacob Rumbaugh through every trial
of life. It was faith that sustained him during the 15 years he
spent as an invalid prior to hi