Fairbury native, Walter Shelley Phillips, known as El Comancho, was a self-educated and self-trained naturalist, artist, geologist, newspaper reporter, freelance writer, and author of numerous books.
The life story of Walter Shelley Phillips begins with the McDowell family. William McDowell was born in 1785 in Kentucky. In 1809, William married Sarah Dever (1787-1858) in Scioto County, Ohio. When they married, William was 24, and Sarah was 22. William and Sarah McDowell had nine children. William McDowell served in the War of 1812. In 1818, one of their nine children, Woodford G. McDowell, was born in Sciota County, Ohio.
In 1832, the William McDowell family emigrated to AvocaTownship, about four miles north of Fairbury on Indian Creek. Son Woodford G. McDowell was 14 when they moved to LivingstonCounty. The McDowell family established the village of Avoca, southwest of the Avoca Cemetery. When the TP&W railroad came through in 1857, and Fairbury was founded, all the houses in the town of Avoca were moved to Fairbury, McDowell, or Kankakee. Today, nothing is left except the AvocaCemetery.
Unfortunately, William McDowell died in 1834 when he was only 48. Son Woodford G. McDowell was just 16 when his father died. Woodford G. McDowell became a lawyer and was eventually elected a Judge in LivingstonCounty.
In 1842, Judge McDowell married Elizabeth Lane. He was 24, and Elizabeth was 19 when they married. Woodford and Elizabeth had eight children. In 1844, Oregon Hazard Perry Phillips was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. In 1847, Judge McDowell and Elizabeth had a daughter they named Eliza Jane McDowell.
In the 1860 U.S. Census, Oregon Phillips was 16 years old and lived with his parents in Jefferson, Pennsylvania. Sometime between the 1860 Census and 1862, Oregon Phillips moved to Fairbury and was a salesman.
On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces started the Civil War by firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina. In July 1862, Oregon Phillips enlisted as a Private in Company D of the 71st Illinois Infantry. Oregon started his military service as a drummer boy and served until 1864. Oregon listed his height as five foot five inches on his enlistment papers, and his occupation was a salesman in Fairbury.
In 1866, Eliza Jane McDowell, daughter of Judge McDowell, married Oregon Phillips in Fairbury. He was 21, and she was 18 when they married. They had four children. The parents of Oregon Phillips were Eli Phillips (1796-1881) and Jenima Oliver (1804-1874). In 1867, Oregon and Eliza Phillips had a son named Walter Shelley Phillips in Fairbury.
In 1868, Judge McDowell went to Nebraska to make a lot of money by founding a new town that would also become the county seat.
In 1869, the Oregon and Eliza Phillips family moved in a covered wagon from Fairbury to Beatrice, Nebraska. Walter Phillips was just two years old when they moved. Oregon Phillips would later become a Colonel in the Nebraska National Guard.
Also, in 1869, Judge McDowell established the new town of Fairbury, Nebraska. He named the new city after his hometown of Fairbury, Illinois. The new town was 30 miles southwest of Beatrice, Nebraska. In 1870, the population of Fairbury, Nebraska, was 370. In 1871, the village became the county seat. In 1872, Fairbury, Nebraska, was incorporated. Many people moved from Fairbury, Illinois, to the new town of Fairbury, Nebraska.
In that era, there were still many Native Americans living in the Nebraska area. Custer's Last Stand was in 1876 in the MontanaTerritory. As a child, Walter Phillips became familiar with many Native American tribes, including the Otoes, Pawnees, Omahas, Sioux, Kiowa, Kansas, and others. Walter spent much of his time with the Otoes. He often lived for weeks at a time with the tribe's chief and the chief's family in their lodge and accompanied them on buffalo hunts. Chief High Horse of the Sioux Tribe gave Phillips the name "Comanche." Later in life, Walter changed the name to "El Comancho" and used that name as a pseudonym for his writing and artwork.
Walter Phillips did not like school but loved the outdoors and often left home to roam the country while school was in session. He traveled from anywhere between one week and one year at a time. He frequently made friends with different Native American tribes as he ventured as far as Seattle and southern California. All the tribes he encountered welcomed him; many referred to him as some variation of "Lone Man." Early in his adult life, Phillips became a hunter for workers building the Burlington railroad across Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana.
In 1891, Oregon Phillips moved to a ranch in WashingtonState. Unfortunately, he suffered a stroke caused by working too hard on his ranch. Oregon never fully recovered from the stroke and died in 1897 at the age of 53. In 1919, Eliza Phillips, wife of Oregon Phillips, died in Seattle at the age of 72.
Also, in 1891, Walter Shelley Phillips married Rena Adelia Egleston in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was 24, and she was 17 when they married. Walter and Rena Phillips had four children. Throughout Walter's career, he wrote professionally and made illustrations for many newspapers and magazines, including Forest & Stream, Beatrice Express, Lincoln Call, the Seattle Telegraph, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Chicago’s Northwestern Lumberman.
One of his newspaper columns, "Teepee Tales," was syndicated in newspapers nationwide. In 1904, he began the Pacific Sportsman magazine, which later became Outdoor Life. Phillips also wrote and illustrated his and others' books from the 1890s to the 1920s, including juvenile works, Indian legends, and more. He was also a talented artist. Walter sketched, painted, and made bas-relief carvings. He shared much of what he had learned and accomplished with the general public as he lectured nationwide.
Walter Phillips figured that over his lifetime, he made 198 round-trip tours of the country from coast to coast, and there was no 100-square-mile area in the country that he had yet to see. He spent much of the last 12 years of his life at the Twelve Mile Ranch near Custer, South Dakota. Phillips returned to Seattle in July 1940 to the home of his daughter. Walter died just over a month later, on September 1, 1940, of a brain hemorrhage. He was 73 and was buried in Fairbury, Nebraska.
Walter's wife, Rena Phillips, died in 1949 at the age of 75. She was buried in Mason City, Illinois, her birthplace.
Oregon Phillips served in the Civil War and became a prominent citizen in Nebraska. He married Eliza Jane McDowell, daughter of Judge McDowell in Fairbury. The son of Oregon and Eliza Phillips, Walter Shelley Phillips, led an adventurous life and became a naturalist, artist, geologist, newspaper reporter, freelance writer, and author of numerous books.
(Dale Maley's weekly history article on Fairbury News is sponsored by Dr. Charlene & Doug Aaron)
Adventurous life for sure!