Talk:Buffalo Bill Boyhood Home

Unverified personal account
I've moved here the following unverified personal account by -- Elphion (talk) 07:16, 24 August 2022 (UTC)


 * This house was built by my 3rd great-grandfather in 1841 - Laurel Summers. He moved to IA from Indiana in 1840 & married Mary Parkhurst in 1841. This was their first home.  The town was then called Parkhurst.  Bill Cody never technically never lived in the town of LeClaire.  When his family lived in town, Parkhurst had not merged with LeClaire.


 * Bill Cody was born in a log cabin 5 miles west of Parkhurst/LeClaire. The log cabin sat in a field owned now by the Ehrke family. When I was a kid, you could still see the cabin foundation in the field.  Harold Ehrke was very careful not to disturb the foundation while farming.


 * About 1848, the Cody family bought farm land in Long Grove, Iowa. Issac started building the house & barn on the property. Isaac moved his family to a log cabin on the Wapsi River, but didn't want to leave his family alone while he was away building so moved his family into the Summers home in Parkhurst. They stayed in the home for a little over a year & then moved onto their new farm.  Shortly after the move, the oldest boy Samuel, died in a horse accident.  That coupled with the gold rush, the family moved to Kansas in 1853.


 * Buffalo remained friends with my family. He gave several guns & knives to my grandfather, Curtis Rogers. Grandpa wasn't well, & in about 1954 he donated all of that to the Buffalo Bill Museum in LeClaire - most of which was stolen or sold, never to be seen again.  There was a big walnut deck originally on the house.  My grandfather kept the deck wood & made furniture out of it, which our family still owns.  I have several pieces here with me.  The last picture we had of Bill Cody was taken in 1917. He came to visit my family while he had his show in Davenport, Iowa.  He is standing next to my grandfather with his arm around his shoulder.


 * Before the house was sold to the railroad, it had been used by some Parkhurst family members as a mercantile store.


 * Verification can be made through census records & land sale records.

Elphion (talk) 07:16, 24 August 2022 (UTC)