Labette County was created on February 26, 1867 Neosho County. The County Seat is Oswego. The County was named for, Tradition asserts that, the name is from the French words la bête, meaning 'the beast.'; the story goes that Labette Creek, the second largest stream in the county, was named by a group of French trappers after an encounter with a skunk; the county then took its name from the creek. Other sources, however, state the stream and the county are named for Pierre Bete [also spelled Baete or Beatte], a French-Canadian trapper and trader who married into the Osage tribe and lived along the Neosho River in the 1830s and 40s. Pierre Bete served as a guide for Washington Irving during the author's tour across the prairie in 1832.
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All Departments below can be contacted by clicking the link, by contacting the Phone number below for each department or contacting the County Courthouse at 501 Merchant, Oswego, KS 67356; Phone: (620)795-2138.NOTE: The record dates below are from the earliest date to present time.
Labette County Clerks Officehas Birth Records from 1885-96, Marriage Records from 1867 and Death Records from 1885-93.
The Register of Deeds shall have custody of and safely keep and preserve all the books, records, deeds, maps, papers and microphotographs deposited or kept in the office of the Register of Deeds. The Register of Deeds shall also record or cause to be recorded all deeds, mortgages, maps, instruments and writings authorized by law to be recorded in the office of the Register of Deeds and shall perform all other duties as are required by law.
Labette County Register of Deeds Officehas Land Records from 1867.
The Register of Deeds shall have custody of and safely keep and preserve all the books, records, deeds, maps, papers and microphotographs deposited or kept in the office of the Register of Deeds. The Register of Deeds shall also record or cause to be recorded all deeds, mortgages, maps, instruments and writings authorized by law to be recorded in the office of the Register of Deeds and shall perform all other duties as are required by law.
Labette County Clerk of District Court has Probate Records from 1868 and Court Records from 1867. The Clerk of Court is part of the Judicial Branch of local government and as such is required to maintain a record of all documents filed with the courts, keep a record of all court proceedings, and collect various fines and forfeitures ordered by the court and specified by statute.
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Kansas Election List, 1854: Listing of voters from Kansas in 1854 taken from Congressional report in 1856
For the most part, tax records remain at the local level. Assessment and tax rolls are kept, permanently, by the County Treasurer's office.
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Labette County Treasurers Office
The County Treasurer's Office by Kansas State law is responsible for the tax billing, collection and distribution of tax money for the State, County, Cities and all other taxing entities that levy Ad Valorem and/or special assessment taxes.
Click Here to Search Kansas Birth, Marriage & Death Records! - Birth, marriage, and death records are connected with central life events. They are prime sources for genealogical information. Look also for baptism, christening, and burial records in this collection.
Office of Vital Statistics, 1000 S W Jackson, Suite 110, Topeka, KS 66612; (785) 296-1400 Info; (785) 296-3253.
All Fees below cover a five-year record search – one certified copy is issued if the record is found and if not found, the fee is retained. You will receive either the certified copy or a letter explaining the search conducted and that no record was located. All Request Filled requests take 2-4 weeks when ordered by mail (Application for Birth, Marriage, Divorce or Death) or 2-5 Days when you order ONLINE.
They have the following records:
Birth Certificates: In Kansas, Birth certificates began being filed with the Office July 1, 1911. The Kansas Historical Society and/or the County Clerk holds birth records before July 1, 1911.
Cost: $12.00 fee for a certified birth certificate copy is $7 for each additional copy of same record ordered at same time.
Delayed Certificates of Birth: are on file with dates of birth dating back to the 1860's. In 1940, statutory authority was received by the Office which allowed individuals still alive in 1940 and later with no prior birth record filed to submit certain documentation to file a Delayed Certificate of Birth. A request for a Delayed Certificate of Birth is made in the same manner as one for a regular birth certificate – just specify the date of birth. If the date specified is between the late 1860's and July 1, 1911, a Delayed Certificate of Birth search will be conducted.
Death Certificates: In Kansas, Death certificates began being filed with the Office July 1, 1911. The Kansas Historical Society and/or the County Clerk holds death records before July 1, 1911.
Cost: $13.00 fee for a certified birth certificate copy is $8 for each additional copy of same record ordered at same time.
Marriage Certificates: In Kansas, Death certificates began being filed with the Office May 1, 1913. The Kansas Historical Society and/or the County Clerk holds marriage records before May 1, 1913.
Cost: $12.00 fee for a certified birth certificate copy is $7 for each additional copy of same record ordered at same time.
Divorces: Divorce Certificates began being filed with this office July 1, 1951. The divorce decree is not filed with this office. The decree is the court document detailing the settlement of the divorce. The divorce certificate is completed by the plaintiff's attorney and contains only basic information – names of husband and wife, date of marriage, date of divorce, etc. Certified copies of divorce decrees are obtained from the Clerk of the District Court in the county where the divorce was filed.
Cost: $12.00 is the cost for the search, which includes one copy of the divorce certificate, if found. Additional copies of the same record, requested at the same time as the first, are $7.00 each.
Order On-Line: To obtain a certified copy of a vital record by on-line purchase with a credit card, please link to VitalChek.
Order In Person: Go to Curtis State Office Bldg., 1000 SW Jackson, Ste. 120, Topeka, KS 66612. Open 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. weekdays.Payment made by cash, check, money order, or credit card.
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Kansas Census, 1850-90: This database contains indexes to the Kansas (U.S.A.) portions of the 1850-18700 U.S. Federal Censuses as well as to the 1855-1859 state and territorial census, and the 1890 Veterans Schedules. Information contained in these indexes can include name, state, county, township, year of record, and name of record set.
Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1915: This database contains state censuses for Kansas from 1855-1915. Information available in this database includes: name, age, gender, race, relationship to head of household, birthplace, marital status, and place of enumeration. Additional information about an individual may be listed on the original record.
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You can view rotating animated maps for Kansas showing all the county boundaries for each census year overlayed with past and present maps so you can see the changes in county boundaries. You can view a list of maps for other states at Census Maps
You can view rotating animated maps for Kansas showing all the county boundary changes for each year overlayed with past and present maps so you can see the changes in county boundaries . You can view a list of maps for other states and State Department of Transportation Maps at County Maps. The Kansas Department of Transportation has county maps the show the locations of churches, cemeteries, roads, ect... free for viewing or download here
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The uses and value of military records in genealogical research for ancestors who were veterans are obvious, but military records can also be important to re-searchers whose direct ancestors were not soldiers in any war. The fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and other close relatives of an ancestor may have served in a war, and their service or pension records could contain information that will assist in further identifying the family of primary interest. Due to the amount of genealogical information contained in some military pension files, they should never be overlooked during the research process. Those records not containing specific genealogical information are of historic value and should be included in any overall research design. A list of Wars fought on American.
Below is a list of online resources for Labette County Military Records. Email us with websites containing Labette County Military Records by clicking the link below:
Kansas Civil War Soldiers: Listing of over 20,000 men who served in the Union Army from Kansas, 1861-1865
Leavenworth, Kansas Veterans, 1915-16: One of the oldest and most important communities in Kansas, Leavenworth has been home to thousands of military veterans. This database is a listing of residents of the Western Branch of the Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers between 1915 and 1916.
Southern Claims Commission from the State of Kansas (The National Archives): View, Print Copy & Save Original Documents In the 1870s, southerners claimed compensation from the U.S. government for items used by the Union Army, ranging from corn and horses, to trees and church buildings.
The Repositories in this section are Archives, Libraries, Museums, Genealogical and Historical Societies. Many County Historical and Genealogical Societies publish magazines and/or news letters on a monthly, quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis. Contacting the local societies should not be over looked. State Archives and Societies are usually much larger and better organized with much larger archived materials than their smaller county cousins but they can be generalized and over look the smaller details that local societies tend to have. Libraries can also be a good place to look for local information. Some libraries have a genealogy section and may have some resources that are not located at archives or societies. Also, take a special look at any museums in the area. They sometimes have photos and items from years gone by as well as information of a genealogical interest. All these places are vitally important to the family genealogist and must not be passed over.
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Kansas Newspapers & Periodicals Records - Newspapers and periodicals are the diaries of local communities. They are excellent sources of family history details - often recorded nowhere else. Look for obituaries, marriages, legal notices, and more found in our Historical Newspaper Archives.
Click Here to Search Kansas Obituary Records! - This database is a compilation of obituaries published in U.S. newspapers, collected from various online sources. Obituaries can vary in the amount of information they contain, but many of them are genealogical goldmines, including information such as names, dates, places of birth and death, marriage information, and family relationships.
The earliest churches were established among the native tribes settled in Kansas long before it was organized as a territory. The Methodist, Baptist, Society of Friends, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches all had early missions which grew as the white settlers immigrated.
There is no central registry of cemetery locations in Kansas. The Woman's Kansas Day Club has identified and located many Kansas cemeteries. The project's results are at the Kansas State Historical Society which has additional collections of published cemetery inscriptions, though not comprehensive, listed in their card catalog.
The Register of Deeds in each county is often able to assist in locating cemeteries. Certain maps distributed by the Kansas Department of Transportation show the location of known cemeteries in relation to county roads.
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Genealogy Encyclopedia: General Abbreviations, Early Illnesses, Nickname Meanings, Worldwide Epidemics, Early Occupations, Common Terms, Censuses Explained, Free Genealogical Forms
Kansas Family & Local History Records - The Family & Local Histories Collection lets you read journals, memoirs, and other first-hand historical narratives right on your computer. Gathered from some of the world's finest libraries, these materials may provide hard-to-find town, county, and state information; tax records and wills; military, church, and court records; as well as photographs, stories, and maps.
Transcribed from Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912.
Labette County, in the southern tier, is the second county west from the Missouri line. It is bounded on the north by Neosho county, on the east by Crawford and Cherokee, on the south by the State of Oklahoma, and on the west by Montgomery county. It was established by the legislature of 1867 and the boundaries fixed to include the territory extending from the sixth standard parallel on the north to the boundary of the state on the south, and from the Cherokee neutral lands on the east to the Osage reserve on the west. Labette was formed of the southern part of Dorn county (q. v.). It took its name from the stream which had been named in honor of Pierre Labette, a Frenchman.
The first white man to make a permanent settlement within the limits of the county was John Mathews, who established a trading post among the Osage Indians, where Oswego now stands, in 1840. Larkin McGee, who came to the county in 1847 and established a trading post where Chetopa now stands, found five families there at that time. They were the families of Mrs. Tianna Rodgers, William Blythe, Finchel Monroe, Daniel Hopkins and a man named Tucker. John Mathewson had attained considerable prosperity, having a two-story frame house plastered on the inside, fine blooded race horses and a private race track. He took his horses to all the big races in the west and was very successful. In 1857, George Lisle, Abraham Ewers, George Ewers and Samuel Steel came to the present site of Chetopa, built a double log house, a shop and an office, and established a trading post. During the war very little was done in the way of settlement. It is said that the raids and disorders of guerrilla warfare so destroyed the settlements that from 1860 to 1865 there were only two white men living within the limits of the county, S. M. Collins and A. T. Dickerman, who had received the consent of Chief White Hair to locate at a point 4 miles south of the present city of Oswego. In the fall of 1865 immigration began again and among those who settled at this time were J. C. Rexford, A. P. Elsbee, C. C. Clover, D. M. Clover, Bergen VanNess, C. E. Simmons, Norris Harrar, Cal. Watkins, William White and sons, and Grant Reeves, most of them locating along the Neosho valley.
Early in the war John Mathews allied himself with the Confederacy and raised a body of troops over which he was commander. He fought a guerrilla warfare until killed in 1863. In Nov., 1863, about 300 soldiers (Indians, half breeds and whites), under command of Capt. Willits, Adjt. Able and Lieut. Joslyn, came into the county, and, stating that they were acting under orders from their superior officers, burned practically all the property of the settlers in the county. The Chetopa settlement was wiped out and the settlers driven to council Grove, James Childers was brutally murdered for his money and left unburied, his neighbors being refused permission to bury him. On the occasion of Mathews being killed and his buildings burned, which must have happened before the wholesale raid, the male inhabitants were all arrested and tried by court martial on the charge of assisting the rebels.
The first postoffice in the county was granted to Chetopa in 1859. There was then no mail route to that point and no available means of securing the service, hence the office was not opened until 1861, when a route was established. Some of the early postoffices were: Chetopa, Montana, B. F. Simmons postmaster; Jacksonville, M. L. McCaslin postmaster; Oswego, D. N. Carr postmaster, and Neola in the same year with W. J. Connor postmaster. The first school was taught in Oswego township by Mrs. Herbaugh. The first religious services were held by Rev. J. P. Barnaby, a preacher belonging to the Southern Methodist church, who established a circuit among the settlements in 1858. The first marriage was between Sarah Rodgers and Larkin McGee, in 1848, and the first birth was that of their son. The first newspaper was the Eagle, published at Jacksonville in 1868, by B. K. Land.
In 1865, the news of the treaty with the Osages caused a flood of immigration to come into Labette county and settle on lands, even before the treaty was ratified and while the Osages were away from home on a hunting expedition. When the Indians returned and found their lands occupied by the whites, they were very much dissatisfied and asked their agent to have the intruders removed. An order was issued commanding all settlers to leave the Osage lands. This created great consternation and resulted in a meeting of some 300 of the settlers at Hickory creek. A deputy was appointed to carry a petition to the Indian agent, asking that the settlers be permitted to live on their claims. An agreement was finally reached by which each claim holder was to pay the Indians $1 per year until the treaty was ratified and they received pay for their lands, which occurred the same summer. The winter of 1866 was an unusually hard one. The weather was cold and bleak and the cabins insufficient for protection. The streams were swollen so that it was impossible for some time to secure provision. The provender for cattle and horses gave out, and as it was impossible to procure more most of the animals died of starvation or disease, and in the spring many of the settlers were without the means to farm their lands. The Indians who had been paid for their lands and had moved away, came back to steal from the settlers, and intimidate as many as possible into paying rents. In Feb., 1866, the settlers of Labette and Hackberry creeks formed what was known as the Hackberry Mutual Protection Society for the purpose of protecting the persons and property of its members from the red men. Similar organizations were effected in other parts of the county, and in May a county organization was formed. Speedy retribution was visited on the perpetrators of all sorts of lawlessness.
In the fall of 1866 the citizens of what was soon to become Labette county, thinking they ought to have a separate county government, and not wishing to await the pleasure of the legislature called an election and elected C. H. Bent as representative to the legislature. Not bearing legal credentials he was not given a seat. The matter was taken up immediately, however, and the county of Labette was created, after which Bent was seated. The governor located the county seat temporarily at Oswego, and appointed the following officers: Commissioners, S. W. Collins, J. Rice and C. H. Talbot; probate judge, Bergen Van Ness; district clerk, Elmore Craft; county clerk, A. T. Dickerman; sheriff Benjamin Rice. An election was held in May, 1867, at which the following officers were chosen: Commissioners, Nathan Ames, D. C. Lowe and Mr. Shay; sheriff, Benjamin Rice; probate judge, Bergen VanNess; assessor, A. W. Jones; county clerk, A. T. Dickerman; district clerk, Elmore Craft; treasurer, C. C. Clover; superintendent of schools. J. F. Newlon; county attorney, J. W. Parkinson. The county seat was permanently located at Oswego.
This county was the field of the operations of the famous Bender family (q. v.), who committed several atrocious crimes in the '70s.
The county is well supplied with railroads. The first one built was the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, which enters the county in the central part of the north line, and extends southeast to Oswego and South to the state line. The next line to be built was the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, which runs across the extreme northwestern corner. The St. Louis & San Francisco R. R., which passes through the central part of the county from east to west, was constructed in 1879. A line of the same road which passes through the northern part was built in 1882. In addition to these lines there is the Missouri Pacific R. R., running from east to west across the southern tier of townships, and three other lines of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, one running east from Altamont, one runnning north from Parsons, and another crossing the northern line of the county and running southwest through Mound Valley.
The townships of the county are as follows: Canada, Elm Grove, Fairview, Hackberry, Howard, Labette, Liberty, Montana, Mound Valley, Mount Pleasant, Neosho, North, Osage, Oswego, Richland and Walton. The cities, towns and villages are, Oswego, the county seat, Altamont, Angola, Bartlett, Cecil, Chetopa, Dennis, Edna, Elm City, Idenbro, Labette, Laneville, Mathewson, Montana, Mortimer, Mound Valley, Oswego, Parsons, Valeda and Wilsonton.
The surface of the county is generally undulating prairie, with gentle slopes, and numerous streams. The largest stream is the Neosho, which flows south through the eastern tier of townships as far as Oswego. Labette creek rises in the northwest and flows southeast across the county. Big Hill, Pumpkin, and a number of smaller creeks, drain different parts of the county. Well water is found in abundance at a depth of 30 feet.
Common limestone for flagging, and a superior grade of sandstone are plentiful. Brick clay, coal and salt are to be had in commercial quantities. Oil and gas underlie almost the entire surface of the county.
The area is 649 square miles or 415,360 acres, of which nearly 300,000 acres have been brought under cultivation. The farm products for 1910 were valued at $2,855,112, of which corn brought $643,776; oats, $610,160; wheat, $116,953; hay (including alfalfa), $318,695; animals sold for slaughter, $572,963; poultry and eggs, $155,070; and dairy products, $259,977. The population of the county in 1910 was 31,423, a gain of 4,036 during the preceding decade, and the assessed valuation of all property was $35,377,355.
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