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JOHN NEWTON FLORER
Vol. 3, p. 949
Book has photo

One of the greatest of the pioneer characters of old Indian
Territory was the late Colonel FLORER, whose extensive interests and
operations made him a familiar personality throughout the territory,
and particularly among the Osage tribe. Much of his life was spent on
the frontier and in close contact with men and conditions he gained
that hardy self-reliance that resourcefulness, and courage in face of
adversity, which eventually brought him to almost a pre-eminent
station among the men of wealth and influence in his section. The
best sketch and estimate of his career are found in the words of an
article penned a short time after his death and by one who had long
been familiar with his activities and character.

Born in the City of Cincinnati, Ohio, April 19, 1844, Col. John
Newton Florer had many vicissitudes and experiences in the course of
his lifetime, and died at Bartlesville, Indian Territory, January 6,
1907. His mother was a New Englander, and his father and his ancestry
were Virginians. Colonel Florer in a marked degree combined in his
character the heritage of both the New England and cavalier types. As
a boy he gained only the rudiments of an education, and was some what
weakly in physique, and received his first important influence toward
molding and hardening his plastic life when he volunteered at the age
of seventeen as a soldier in the Civil war. The restive desire to be
something and to do something beyond the lot of the ordinary man
controlled him through life, and immediately after the war he went
out to Kansas, and beginning as a clerk soon had charge of the
business at the City of Lawrence. While living there in July, 1869,
he married Miss Anna FINNEY, a sister to the first wife of Col. John
K. RANKIN, a very prominent man in business and politics in Kansas at
that time.

In 1871 Colonel Florer established the Landrath House and hotel at
Humboldt, Kansas and for several years was its owner and proprietor.
About that time the Osage tribe of Indians was moved from Kansas to
the Indian Territory. Forming a partnership with Robert DUNLAP under
the name of Florer & Dunlap, Colonel Florer went with the tribe and
began business as a licensed trader at the point now marked by the
City of Pawhuska. The old red store in which he and his partner did
business was long considered the oldest building on the reservation,
and was destroyed only a short time before Colonel Florer's death.

The writer of the sketch already referred to furnishes some
interesting data on the life of the old Indian trader and
particularly of Colonel Florer's relation in the capacity. The
following is a quotation: "The business of a licensed trader in the
early days was a very different undertaking than it is now. Indians
made long trips or hunts, two or three hundred miles distant, for the
buffalo that roamed the great Panhandle district. They would be gone
during a whole winter at a time. Colonel Florer would accompany them
on these trips, packing his supplies across the prairie, trading with
the Indians to such as extent that at times he would bring back as
much as ten thousand buffalo hides He became thoroughly conversant
with the Osage language, and the customs, habits and characteristics
of the Indians. He was their friend and adviser in prosperity,
sickness or death. He was the one to whom the Indians went when they
were in trouble and in whom they placed the greatest faith and
confidence down to the last days of his life. He was true to the
individual Indian and he was true to the tribe. He was familiarly
known and called by the Indian name of "Johnnie Shinkah." His life
and service have become a part of the history of the tribe. So much
so was this that in the bill for the allotment of the Osage
Reservation it was provided that Colonel Florer would have the forty
acres used by him as a home at Grayhorse. This is the only
recognition of this character to a white man contained in the bill.
It was done on the petition of and by the unanimous consent of the
Osage Indians themselves.

Through all this association and life with the Indians, and
notwithstanding his environment, Colonel Florer grew and broadened
into a true American, with his heart and soul in his family, his
relations and his friends, and he never forgot his beautiful home for
a moment, but adorned it with all that the best culture and taste
could suggest. His life is a strong proof of how the typical American
has a tendency to be the same and do the best under all
circumstances, and to rise above his conditions or surroundings.
Colonel Florer extended his realm of friends and acquaintances into
almost every part of the United States, and wherever he went was not
only welcome but he brought with him that generous spirit, kindly
disposition and courtly manner which won for him very many friends,
and his friendships were always intensified when the life of this man
and his rugged honesty of purpose was understood and appreciated.

"The writer of these lines can testify with exact knowledge when it
is said that Col. John N. Florer was the greatest friend of the Osage
tribe of Indians. He was instrumental in procuring the attention of
the outside world to the possibilities of the reservation in the
production of oil and gas prior to 1896. Of course there were no
indications as subsequently developed thereon, but Colonel Florer
always had said that oil and gas existed there in paying quantities.
Even after the lease was granted it was found to be a losing venture.
The prospecting was done and the wells were drilled in localities
yielding but a small return, so that after seven years of the life of
the lease no great discoveries had been made and the proposition was
bankrupt. It was Colonel Florer's presence in the business world, the
many trips that he took, and the many men that he interviewed, the
intensity of his arguments and his well known character for integrity
and probity that at last started the wheels moving again."

In 1882 Colonel Florer sold his mercantile interests, and his
restless spirit sent him into the cattle business on a large scale,
He fenced the great pasture in the Osage reservations, consisting of
300,000 acres. For the next three winters in succession he
experienced the worst of adverse fortune, and his possessions were
practically swept off the plains. With indomitable energy and
restless ambition he started over again to build up what he had lost.
In 1885 he returned to the business of licensed trader in partnership
with H. P. BRANHAM of Mississippi, a nephew of Secretary of the
Interior Lamar. They built the first store at Grayhorse in the Osage
reservation. Later he continued in the trading business with Dan
MCTAGGART, a well known legislator of Kansas, and this firm was
followed by the firm of John N. Florer & Company, in which A. C.
FITCH of Independence, Kansas, was interested, and also John L. BIRD,
up to 1902. Subsequently Colonel Florer was in business by himself
until joined by his brother-in-law, T. M. Finney.

Colonel Florer had a very happy marriage and was always devoted to
his home. Two children were born: Walter Osage Florer, who was the
first white child born in the Osage reservation, and who died in
1905, being survived by one daughter, Annie Florer. The other child
of Colonel Florer is Mrs. John L. Bird, mentioned on other pages.

Colonel Florer was affiliated with Masonry in the lodge at Lawrence,
Kansas, with the Chapter and Commandery at Independence, Kansas, with
the Scottish Rite Consistory at Wichita, and with Ararat Temple of
the Mystic Shrine at Kansas City. Colonel Florer belonged to the old
school that believed in the principle that humanity had something to
live for outside of selfish interests. There was no selfishness in
him, and his desire for business success was only an ambition to do
something to better the world. His time was given not only to his
friends but to mere acquaintances of the most lowly character. In his
charity and work he knew no caste. In speaking of his character an
able lawyer said: "Uncle John, as we have familiarly known Mr. Florer
for many years, can truly be described as one of nature's grandest
noblemen, and a man whose acquaintance was a splendid fortune to
possess. Philanthropic and generous to a fault, he lived throughout
his life and especially the last few years, for the good he might
render to others, rather than for consideration of self. Is
unfortunate that this world is without more men of the high minded,
exalted and benevolent dispositions of our beloved 'Uncle John.' When
the world moves on years hereafter, his name and memory will still be
bright and unforgotten, because of the splendid deeds of his
generosity and unfaltering citizenship."

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Vickie Neill Taylor December 29, 1998.