Early Life
William T. Anderson was born in 1839 in Hopkins County, Kentucky, to William C. and Martha Anderson. His siblings were Jim, Ellis, Mary Ellen, Josephine and Janie. His schoolmates recalled him as a well-behaved, reserved child. During his childhood, Anderson's family moved to Huntsville, Missouri where his father found employment on a farm and the family became well respected. In 1857, the family relocated to Kansas, traveling southwest on the Santa Fe Trail and settling 13 miles (21 km) east of Council Grove, Kansas. The Anderson family supported slavery, although they did not own slaves; however, their move to Kansas was likely for economic rather than political reasons. At that time, there was significant debate about slavery in Kansas, and many residents of the northern United States had moved there to ensure that it would not become a slave state. Animosity soon developed between these immigrants and Confederate sympathizers, but there was little unrest in the Council Grove area. After settling near Council Grove, the family became friends with A. I. Baker, a local judge who was a Confederate sympathizer. By 1860, William T. Anderson was a joint owner of a 320-acre (1.3 km2) property that was worth $500 and his family had a net worth of around $1,000. On June 28, 1860, Martha Anderson died after being struck by lightning.
In the late 1850s, Ellis Anderson fled to Iowa after killing an Indian. Around the same time, William T. Anderson fatally shot a member of the Kaw tribe outside of Council Grove; he related that the man had tried to rob him. He joined the freight shipping operation that his father worked for and was given a position known as "second boss" for a wagon trip to New Mexico. The trip was not successful: he returned to Missouri without the shipment, and stated that his horses had disappeared with the cargo. After he returned to Council Grove, he began horse trading, taking horses from towns in Kansas, transporting them to Missouri, and returning with more horses.
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“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
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