Johnston Lykins

Johnston Lykins (April 15, 1800 – August 15, 1876) was a pioneering Baptist missionary to Native American tribes, and a founding civic booster in the American frontier boomtowns of West Port and Kansas, Missouri, which combined and became Kansas City, Missouri. He was editor of the first printing press in the Indian Territory that became the state of Kansas, publishing the Shawnee Sun as the first tribal language publication. He founded the area's first bank, newspaper, and Baptist church. He was the first president of town council in the town of Kansas, and the first duly elected mayor when it was reincorporated as the City of Kansas. He is reportedly "possibly associated with more Kansas City 'firsts' than any other early settler".

Early life
Lykins was born in Franklin County, Virginia on April 15, 1800. He was the second of 12 children born to David and Jemima Lykins. His childhood was mostly in Kentucky and Indiana. He was a student and teacher in Fort Wayne, Indiana and studied medicine at the prestigious Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky.

Missionary career
He became involved with the missionary work of Isaac McCoy, among the area's American Indian tribes. He joined the McCoy mission to the Wea peoples in northern Indiana in 1819. Lykins was not yet a Christian, and was hired only as a schoolteacher. He spent more time traveling for supplies and assisting the mission's functions than he did teaching school. He quit several times over the first several years, but kept returning.

In 1820, McCoy moved his mission west to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and in 1822 moved again west to Michigan Territory, founding the Carey Mission among the Potawatomi people. Lykins was baptized in 1822 and was soon appointed as a missionary by the Baptist Board of Missions for the United States.

Lykins applied himself diligently to his calling, and by 1824 could read religious discourses in the Potawatomi language. In 1828, he married Delilah McCoy, Isaac's daughter. He continued in Michigan until 1831.

The Indian Removal Act of 1831, which Lykins and McCoy had originally been good faith advocates of, resulted in many of the mission's constituents moving westward. In 1831, Lykins went with them, founding a mission in Missouri near the Shawnee reservation. Other groups' later forceful removals of tribes in 1838 along a similar route are known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death.

The Baptist mission board approved funds for printing religious tracts in native tribal languages, so in 1833, Jotham Meeker brought the first printing press to the Shawnee Mission. Books in Shawnee, Potawatomi, and other native languages were rapidly produced, to be used in missionary educational programs such as literacy. Lykins was co-author and editor of the Sinwiowe Kesibwi (Shawnee Sun), a small newspaper published entirely in the Shawnee language.

In 1843, Lykins founded a mission in Potawatomi territory at what later became the west side of Topeka, Kansas. That year, some of the tribal elders requested that he be named their tribal physician, a government post that provided him with a salary that was necessary to support the mission. His appointment was opposed by the Jesuits and the Potawatomi allied with them, but was granted in 1844. However, in that area, quarrels abounded between clergy of the different Christian religions and even clerics of the same faith. Lykins was an enthusiastic participant in these, and made many enemies. This, compounded by their criticism of his lack of medical credentials, led to his dismissal from the government post of Physician to the Potawatomi in 1851.

In 1848 he began a trade school there in the Pottawatomie Baptist Mission Building, and after three years he had 90 students. He left the Potawatomi mission soon after losing his medical position, returning to the Shawnee mission until 1855, when it was closed. At that time he moved to Kansas City, to be near his son. Long after his lifetime, the mission was restored and repurposed, and finally became a museum for the Kansas Historical Society next to its headquarters.

Kansas City life
A Kansas City Public Library historian said Lykins is "possibly associated with more Kansas City 'firsts' than any other early settler". Long before it became Kansas City, he cofounded the town of Kansas, becoming a wealthy civic booster and founding the area's first bank, newspaper, and Baptist church.

In 1831, Lykins purchased 16 acre in the initial plat for the town of Kansas, Missouri and cofounded the Town of Kansas Company. His property extended south from the Missouri River to Fifth and Broadway. He later expanded his holdings to 12th and Washington on Quality Hill. In 1856, he constructed the city's first mansion, reportedly the "handsomest residence west of St. Louis". While most citizens saw wooden sidewalks and muddy streets roamed by livestock, this classic revival, or neoclassical, style two-story brick mansion had 14 rooms, 10 fireplaces, circular staircases, and crystal chandeliers. It was often a gathering space for community representatives to discuss civil and political issues. After his death, his widow Mattie married artist George Caleb Bingham, and they lived there. It became an early home of the Barstow School for Girls. It was renovated into a hotel named Washington Hotel, Mondamin Hotel, and then Roslin Hotel. The Kansas City Star lamented its demolition in late 1990 as an icon of the cultural failure of the developers, the city government, and the public, to preserve historical architecture.

While residing in Kansas City, Lykins functioned as a medical doctor, apparently self-taught. He had no formal training, but medical training was often casual in those days. Faced by the desperate need of his Native American students and their families, who were succumbing to various diseases, he read and did what he could. He already had achieved a reputation as an effective physician when he first went to Missouri. There he was confronted by a smallpox epidemic on the Shawnee reservation and began a vaccination program, an unusual approach by then. He was the first president of Mechanics Bank.

In 1851, he married a second time, to Martha "Mattie" A. Livingston. The couple helped to establish the First Baptist Church in Kansas City in 1855. Mattie wrote a manuscript titled "Recollections of Early Times in Kansas City" which is in the collection of the Jackson County Historical Society.

In 1853, the town of Kansas, Missouri was reincorporated and renamed City of Kansas. Its first mayor, William Samuel Gregory, served only 10 months when it was discovered that he was not eligible to be mayor because he did not live within the city limits. Lykins was already the first president of the city council, so he became the second mayor and first legally valid mayor. He completed the final two months of Gregory's term and was elected to another one-year term.

During the American Civil War, he maintained Union loyalty while Mattie had to move to Clay County, Missouri, due to General Order No. 11 which required loyalty oaths for those living near the Kansas border south of the Missouri River.

Death
Lykins resided in Kansas City until his death on August 15, 1876. Mattie was his caregiver in his final weeks of peaceful infirmity. He is buried in Union Cemetery in Kansas City.

Legacy
His namesake Lykins Neighborhood is in the Historic Northeast district of Kansas City, directly east of his first mansion. It is characterized by an internationally diverse population including immigrants and refugees. The Lykins Neighborhood Association (LNA) became an exemplar of rehabilitation from historic blight caused by racist housing policies set by JC Nichols in the early to mid 1950s. The site of the now demolished Lykins School is at the northern forefront of Lykins Square Park.