Biography of Lewis Byram Hull

Lewis Byram Hull
Company F
1841-1902

Lewis Byram Hull was born November 18, 1841, near Greenfield, Highland County, Ohio. His father's family came to Southern Ohio from Rockridge County, Virginia, about 1818. His mother, Tabitha Byram, was a lineal descendent of John Alden.

In the Fall of 1861, after withdrawing from college, Lewis enlisted in the 60th Ohio Infantry at Camp Mitchell in Ohio. He, however, was not the first in his family line to enlist and become a soldier. His great grandfather, Edward Byram, Sr., was in the Revolutionary War and Edward Byram, Jr. was in the War of 1812.

Lewis served in the Virginia Campaign, with his cousin Will Odell, until the regiment surrendered to General Jackson at Harper's Ferry on September 15, 1862. After the fall of Harper's Ferry he was mustered out November 10, 1862 under parole not to re-enlist in the War Between the States.

On February 2, 1864, he re-enlisted in the 11th Ohio Cavalry and served with this regiment at Fort Laramie, Wyoming and other points in the Northwest. These soldiers were fighting with Indians and protecting wagon trains, until they were mustered out at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on July 14, 1866.

In the Fall of 1866, Lewis married Eliza Emily "Lide" Sinclair of Rainsboro, Ohio. Eliza was the sister of Tom Sinclair. Lewis and Eliza pioneered in Missouri six years and then moved to Butler County, Kansas where they lived until his death May 9, 1902. Eliza died in Lawrence, Kansas in 1929.

At the time of his death, Alvah Shelden, the editor of the Walnut Valley Times in El Dorado wrote: "In the death of Lewis B. Hull, Butler county lost one of her best and most intelligent citizens. He was an early settler in the county, and a bright student of her conditions and possibilities. He read much and worked much. He experimented much in fruit and other horticultural lines. He bred fine stock and was an intelligent farmer in a very high sense. He reared a large family and spared no pains in giving his children the advantages of high education. He was public spirited and charitable. The good he did was beyond estimate."

Hull, Lewis Byram. The Virginia Campaign: The Diary of Lewis Byram Hull, 1861-1862.Transcribed by Myra E. Hull.

Hull, Lewis Byram. "Soldiering on the High Plains: The Diary of Lewis Byram Hull, 1864-1866, " Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. VII, No. 1, pages 3-53, February 1938. Edited by Myra E. Hull.