John W. Forman
Constitutional Delegate. Born: October 18, 1818, Bourbon County, Kentucky. Married: Mary I. Pemberton, September 1841. Died: September 18, 1898, Canton, Missouri.
Born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, on October 18, 1818, John W. Forman removed to Missouri with his parents in 1836. He took up the surveying profession, and was elected county surveyor of Lewis County, Missouri, in 1839. Forman married in September 1841 to Mary I. Pemberton and accepted appointment as government farmer for the Sac and Fox Indians (the Great Nemaha sub-agency) in March 1844 and moved to "Kansas." In 1847 Forman resigned as farmer in order to become a licensed Indian trader, buying out the stock of Joseph Robidous. Forman's involvement with the Sac and Foxes continued until 1854 when he took a claim at Doniphan and was appointed the town's first postmaster in 1855. That spring, he won election to the first territorial Council, and thus was a member of the famous "bogus legislature," which convened in July 1855, and represented Doniphan County in the lower house of the state legislature during the 1863 and 1864 sessions. Subsequently, Forman moved to Atchison where he engaged in the lumber business and remained active in local affairs. In the 1870s he moved to Texas and eventually to Canton, Missouri, where he died on September 18, 1898. 27
Entry: Forman, John W.
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: June 2011
Date Modified: January 2013
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