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PHILLIPS FAMILY HISTORY
Last Revised December 27, 2011
Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
Grandson of Frank Dewey Phillips
Great-Great-Grandson of Joseph Harmon Phillips
THE PHILLIPS BROTHERS
Joseph Harmon Phillips was my great-great-grandfather. He was the patriarch
of the Phillips family in Paola, Miami County, Kansas. For years we did not
know where he was born, or why he came to Kansas, until his obituary and
eulogy turned up in a box of family records in Connecticut. The obituary was
published on 8 February 1907, and the eulogy on 15 February 1907, in the
Paola newspaper, “Western Spirit.” Also found were obituaries of his wife,
the former Marian Helen Guilliams, published June 14, 1907 in the “Western
Spirit” and the “Miami County Republican,” a brief handwritten biography of
Marian, articles on the murder of their only son, Will G. Phillips (my great-
grandfather), published in January and February 1888 in the “Miami County
Republican,” and the obituary of their daughter-in-law, May Dewey Phillips,
whose lineage is presented in a separate study HERE A second obituary for
Joseph Harmon Phillips, published 8 February 1907 in the Miami Republican,
has been found in the microfilm collection at the Kansas State Museum, and
in a scrapbook kept by Joseph's daughter-in-law, May Dewey Phillips. The
following biography is drawn from his obituaries unless otherwise noted.
Joseph Harmon Phillips was born 1 December 1831 in Randolph County, North
Carolina. He learned the trade of carpentry as a teenager, “and engaged in
the business of building cotton mills.” But having been born of poor white
parents, “he had but little chance to get up or on in the world. Slavery was
in front of him and the rich above him.” In 1852, accompanied by his younger
brother, James A. Phillips, he left home on foot, walking the entire distance
from North Carolina to Cincinnati, Ohio, from which point the two of them
traveled by train to Indiana, where he first heard of Kansas. “This was his
first sight of a railway train and his initial ride thereon.” It was my
father's understanding that James and Joseph had kinfolk in Indiana; the
census records, obituaries, and probate cases bear this out (see below).
In 1855 James and Joseph came to Kansas Territory. (This early arrival date
is confirmed in Cutler's “History of the State of Kansas,” 1883, Page 876).
They took up a claim in Anderson County, but did not hold it. (The deed to
Joseph H. Phillips and James A. Phillips for SW 1/4 sec 9, T 19 S, R 21 E,
3.5 miles west of the Miami County line, is dated 6 July 1857 and recorded at
Book A, Page 69). In 1857 Joseph moved to Paola, where he helped build the
first wood framed house ever erected in the town. In 1858 he married Melissa
Guilliams, “whose death occurred one month later.” On 2 September 1860 he
married her sister, Marian Helen Guilliams, who survived him. “To this union
six children were born, four of whom died in infancy.” An older son, William
Grant Phillips, born 21 September 1863, died 7 February 1888. His daughter,
Alice Gertrude Phillips, born 20 September 1861, survived him. Joseph is
listed as a carpenter in the 1860 United States census for Paola Village,
Lykins County (as Miami County was then called). He was elected County
Treasurer in 1861 but resigned to join the army, enlisting on 18 September 1863
as First Lieutenant of Company C in the Fifteenth Kansas Cavalry.
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