Early Years
Charles Colcord was born near Cane Ridge, Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky to Col. William Rogers Colcord (November 26, 1827 - January 10, 1901) and Maria Elizabeth Clay (March 1832, Paris, KY - ?, Denver CO). His father was a son of Charles B. Colcord and Louisa Metcalfe Bristow. with deep roots in Kentucky, as attested by his brother's biography:
This interesting and gentlemanly proprietor of Burr Oak farm, is a son of C. B. Colcord and Louisa Metcalf, who was a niece of the honored George Metcalf. The father of our subject settled in 1813 at Middletown, this county, from the State of New Hampshire, he being then about twenty-seven years of age, and soon after engaged in business at that place with an older brother who accompanied him to his new settlement. Their spirit of business adventure, however, was not to be satisfied in a village traffic, but they engaged in extensive speculation which proved remunerative, C. G. Colcord being the first man who ever took a drove of mules to New Orleans by land from Bourbon County; he was married to Miss Metcalf in 1824, and by that union were born six children, only two of whom grew to maturity; viz: William R., born Nov. 26, 1827; married in the vicinity of Middletown, now residing in Wichita, Ka., where he is extensively engaged in the stock business. Our subject was born Sept. 17, 1829; received a liberal education, attending the Western Military Institute in 1849 and '50, then located at Middletown; one of his preceptors and intimate friends being the Honorable James G. Blaine, Secretary of State. Mr. Colcord is an enterprising, thrifty farmer, with 432 acres of choice land, about eight miles from Paris, which he has well stocked, and conducts in a successful manner. He was never married, but enjoys an independent life with his pleasant surroundings.
His mother's parents were William Green Clay and Patsy Bedford of Paris. His maternal grandfather was General Green Clay of Paris, Kentucky, a cousin of Sen. Henry Clay and father of abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay.
For much of his young childhood his father was an officer fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War, and moved his family to Georgia and New Orleans. After the war, the senior Colcord sold his interest in the family farm to his brother and used the proceeds to purchase a sugar plantation north of New Orleans. When son Charley, then about ten, contracted malaria from a nearby swamp, his father sent him to the ranch owned by his friend Charles Sanders near Banquete, Texas so that he could recover. When W. R. Colcord opened a ranch near Corpus Christi, Texas to raise horses, Charley ran away to work as a cowboy. In 1875, he was sent on a cattle drive to Baxter Springs followed by a buffalo hunt on the western prairies. There he learned of the need for horses in central Kansas, which he reported back to his father.
Read more about this topic: Charles Francis Colcord
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