Levil Hensel aka “Bona”
Levil Hensel was Born . 29
Feb 1832 New Philadelphia, Tuscarawas County, OH
last child after 6 brothers and 5 sisters
Father was John Hensel, Mother Rachel Barton. Shortly after his birth, the Hensel family moved to Kansas.
By 09 Aug 1830 Hensel was 18 and on his own apart from his parents. Part of that time he worked as a correspondent for a New York newspaper.
He married Mary Jane Morrow on 05 Nov 1857 at Clark County, IA. Her father was Thomas Adam Morrow, her mother Esther U. Scott, also of Tuscarawas County , OH.
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Shortly after their marriage, Levi and Mary Jane
emigrated to Kansas Territory, settling in Seneca, Nemaha County. He
established a blacksmith shop. Per William G. Cutler’s History of
the State of Kansas, “a black-smith’s shop was put up, consisting of
four poles covered with brush, with a few boards over the forge. Its
owner was Levi Hensel, who was able to utilize his powers either as a
son of Vulcan, or as a correspondent of the New York Tribune, for
which he made one of the most valuable contributions descriptive of this
immediate section of the country.” 1854-1861 was a turbulent time in the Kansas Territory, better known as “Bleeding Kansas” because of the violent clashes between pro-slavers, free-stators, and abolitionists. The anti-slavery forces finally prevailed when Kansas entered the Union as a free state on 29 Jan 1861. By 12 Apr 1861 the American Civil War had been initiated. |
Esther Hensel was born in 1859 to Levi and Mary Jane, the first child in Seneca. “Upon her birth, a town lot was conveyed to her by the town company in honor of the event. She died less than three years later.”
Pony Express In 1860 the Pony Express began its 18-month existence, founded by the Central Overland CA and Pikes Peak Express Co. Riders carried mail and news across more than 1,800 miles. A rider left St. Joseph, Missouri and traveled through today’s Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Nevada. He ended at Sacramento, California ten days later. Riders went east and west over these routes.
Hensel worked as a station master and blacksmith for them. Per chapter 3 of The Pony Express Historic Resource Guide: “The backbone of the Pony Express was the station keepers. Though they did not receive as much notoriety as Pony Express riders in the historical literature on the Pony Express, they nevertheless were very important to the organization of the operation. While a good majority of the Pony Express riders are known by name, the identities of two-thirds or more of the station keepers are still un-known. At the Seneca station in Kansas, the station keeper Levi Hensel and his wife [Mary Jane] lived in a two-story house where they ‘set up a splendid table’ and held many dances.”
Civil War period On 02 Jul 1862 President Lincoln called for 300,000 more volunteers in the Civil War. The State of Kansas answered the call. Levi Hensel was among those that could not resist their President’s request for aid, and he enlisted in the Union cause on September 20. He was quickly commissioned as a 1st Lt. in Co. G, 13th KS Cavalry. They were recruited during August and September from the counties of Atchison, Brown, Doniphan, Marshall, and Nemaha. They rendezvoused at Camp Station, where they were mustered into the US Service.
The 13th KS Cavalry initially was sent to the Indian Territory and was henceforth part of the Army of the Frontier. It then moved to Arkansas, where it participated in the battle of Cane Hill and was warmly engaged at the battle of Prairie Grove. On 27 Dec 1862 it moved with the army by forced march to Van Buren, Arkansas. This march was made in extremely cold weather and the command was forced to ford a rapid mountain stream several times, resulting in numerous deaths from exposure.
In January 1863 it made another forced march, this time to Springfield, Missouri, in order to resist a threatened attack. There it remained through the spring, performing garrison duty.
On May 19, the regiment moved to Fort Scott and thence to Dry Wood, where they performed garrison duty for another two months.
In August 1863 the regiment again took to the field, participating in General Bluntis’ campaign against the irregular forces of Cooper, Cabell, Steele, and Stand Watie, which resulted in driving the enemy to the Red River and the capture of Fort Smith.
The regiment marched over 400 miles in August, 200 of which were during the last ten days of the month. They subsequently returned to Indian Territory, performing outpost and scout duty until 06 Oct 1863, when they were ordered to Van Buren, Arkansas and went into winter quarters.
In March 1864 Levi Hensel’s Company G was among those ordered to Fort Smith, Arkansas where they remained for the rest of the year, performing garrison and scout duty. While at Fort Smith on March 25 Lt. Hensel was appointed Assistant Regismental Postmaster.
The 13th KS Cavalry was ordered to Little Rock on 03 Mar 1865, where it per-formed guard and provost duty.
On 26 Jun 1865 Levi was mustered out with his regiment. The men were subsequently discharged at Fort Leavenworth on July 13.
Lt. Nathaniel Slosson, a fellow comrade of Company G, had this to say of Levi Hensel’s time in the service: “He participated in the battles of Cane Hill, Prairie Grove, and the raid on Van Buren. The regiment lived hard and was very much exposed to cold weather on this raid. And a forced march was made to Springfield immediately after the taking of Van Buren, which broke down a great many men of the regiment. Lt. Hensel was always regarded as one of the best officers of the regiment and never sought to avoid any duty when he was able to perform it.”
Hensel returned home after the war and settled back into family life. He and Mary Jane produced three children: Robert S. Hensel (b. c 1867), John Levi Hensel (b. 27 Apr 1869), and Ellen M. “Nellie” Hensel (b. 03 Oct 1872).
He continued to be a prominent part of the community and was an Assistant Marshall and census enumerator for Nemaha County in 1870.
By 1875, however, Levi moved his family to the Colorado Territory, settling at Silver Cliff in Pueblo County. Here Hansel continued his career as a journalist, which must have proved interesting the following year when Colorado achieved statehood. The Pueblo Chieftain hired Hensel to be a “traveling solicitor,” who traveled throughout Colorado’s prairies and mining towns to obtain subscriptions, advertising and news.
Hensel showed up on the Fourth of July 1876 when residents of the Nathrop area gathered for a patriotic picnic. He caught a ride back to Ponca Springs with the Burnett family. His report of the Nathrop get-together was one of his first contributions to The Chieftain’s news columns. Many others followed.
Hensel filed for divorce from Mary Jane. It was granted 27 Apr 1887 by the Arapahoe County Court.
Hensel moved to the New Mexico Territory shortly after his divorce. On 10 Sep 1887 he married a widow, Mrs. Lavinia Ada (Hull) at Santa Fe. They moved to Espanola to live for a few years before returning to Pueblo County, Colorado.
During later years, Hensel continued his journalistic work as a reporter for a local newspaper. One of his writings follows about Robert Sewell, “Old Bob Ridley.” He was known to all and lived near Log Chain, Kansas, quite a character on the Overland Stage Line in the early 1860s. He mainly drove the stagecoach between Atchison and Fort Kearney. He was quiet and good-natured, a story teller and good conversationalist, and he never failed to entertain his listeners. Levi Hensel lived along the trail of this route near Seneca, Kansas and wrote about “Old Bob” in 1900:
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Bob was a humorist; and he had a great faculty for begging tobacco off the passengers, when he met the up- and down-coming coach. A man would pass his plug to Bob, who would cut off a great chunk and put in his pocket, and then, as he was about to pass the plug back, cut off another piece, remarking: “I have a brother that chews, and I guess I’ll take a little for him.” Congressman Champ Clark, of Missouri, was one of his victims; and when he made the stereotyped remark about his brother chewing, and handed back the remnant of the plug, Clark examined it, and then threw it at him with the remark: “I guess the whole family chews, and you’d better take the rest.” The laugh was on Bob that time, but he picked up the tobacco and thanked the congressman very politely. He kept all the stock tenders and other drivers on his run in tobacco. He was a very liberal fellow, and only begged tobacco out of “pure cussedness” for the “fun of the thing.” He was a faithful man, and I once saw him catch two fellows by the nape of their necks and bump their heads together till they could see stars, when they were about to fight, remarking to the belligerents: “Your little hands were never made to tear each other’s eyes.”
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He died 13 Mar 1911 at the age of 79 in the Blocks (then known as 128 Block P) from senility and gangrene in his lower extremities for seven weeks. He was buried at Roselawn Cemetery in Pueblo, Colorado.
per Pueblo Chieftain 30 May 1993:
During its 125 years of service to Southern Colorado, the Chieftain has relied on a cadre of housewives, teachers, ranchers and an occasional journalism-school graduate for coverage of the many communities in its far-flung circulation district. The corresponddents have kept Chieftain readers apprised of what’s going on in places like Camp, Caroso, Springfield, Whitehorn, Alamosa, Trinidad, Lamar, Stringtown and points beyond and in between.
One of the paper’s first correspondents—actually a roving reporter—was Levi Hensel, who wrote under the name of “Bona” (his childhood nickname was Bonaparte because of his small stature and strategy against larger ruffians in winning snowball fights). A Kansas newspaperman, Hensel rode into Pueblo on 05 Mar 1876 on a Santa Fe train loaded with newsmen and politicians who came to celebrate the arrival of Pueblo’s first railroad lines directly to the east.
Hensel had that rare ability to remember every person he met. He traveled Southern Colorado between Kansas and Utah, selling subscriptions, advertising and comer-cial printing, and writing about what he saw. And he saw a lot. He also made a few trips to Dodge City, Kansas, and wrote about affairs at that town, which was the residence of several ex-Puebloans.
It was Hensel who broke the news of the carbonate strike in Oro City, which soon became Leadville. He also kept the world informed of mining activities at places like Camp Paquin and Silver Cliff. He visited the folks on the ranches as well as in the towns. Hensel covered the first session of the Colorado General Assembly for The Chieftain. In his day, “Bona” was well known and respected as any man in the state.
Information researched by
Early Reference Levil Hensel in Seneca 's History on seneca-ks.com web page