Excerpt from William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas

The Baptist Church was organized on November 27, 1870, by Rev. Winfield Scott, in honor of whom the city is named. Rev. E. P. Hickok supplied the society for about a year, and was followed by Rev. N. L. Rigby, who remained until 1875. The church was then supplied by Rev. A. F. Randall, and October 1, 1878, Rev. J. Cairns took charge. The church membership has risen from eleven in 1871 to 180 in 1882.  One of the first acts of the society was to erect the old stone church, which was used from its completion in 1872, to 1878. Soon after Mr. Cairns' arrival, services were held in the opera house, where they continued until the completion of the new church, In 1882. This building is said to be the finest in southern Kansas. It is of the fine limestone found about two miles from the city, cost $14,000, and seats 700. It is fitted throughout with St. Louis opera chairs, enabling attendants to combine bodily ease with mental exercise. A Sabbath school was organized in April, 1878, with J. McDermott Superintendent, and an average attendance of seventy. It now has over 200, and is in charge of E. T. Trimble.

Winfield First Baptist Church

 From the Winfield Censor of December 9, 1870 - "A BAPTIST CHURCH. The Rev. Winfield Scott was here a few days of this and last week and preached several interesting sermons. He woke our people up to the importance of building a church at once. A building committee has been selected, the site chosen, the work commenced. The structure is to be of stone, 24 x 40 on the ground, 16-1/2 feet walls. Over $500 of the money necessary for the building has been pledged, and the stone is already being delivered on the ground."

Walnut Valley Times, May 26, 1871 - This is a portion of an article that relates to Winfield. "The Baptist Society had a festival recently to raise a little money towards building a church. A cake to be given to the prettiest girl, brought to the treasury $158, and the total contributions of the evening reached upwards of $300."

Winfield - First Baptist Church

Will Robinson, in 1924, wrote his book "Footprints". He said The Baptists had a little stone church on the west side of North Millington Street, a few lots north of the present Episcopal Building. (lot 19, block 127) It was bought by Mr. Caton and remodeled into a very nice residence.

Courier, January 6, 1883. The Baptist Church, Rev. J. Cairns, pastor, has a membership of 210. Scholars attending Sabbath school, 250. The church has just completed a very large and elegant house of worship, being built of stone 60 x 70 feet in size, divided as follows: Main room 40 x 60, 3 good sized class rooms, Octagon lecture room, with sliding doors between same and main room, with stone tower 50 feet high, all nicely finished and furnished. Seating capacity, 750. Cost of building $12,000; furniture, $2,000. Rev. Cairns deserves much credit for the energy and perseverance displayed by him in securing the erection of such an edifice.

Winfield Courier, September 20, 1883.

The bell for the Baptist Church arrived this week and was placed in the belfry Wednesday morning. It weighs fifteen hundred and forty-five pounds, cost four hundred dollars, and its tone is loud and clear.

Winfield Courier, November 24, 1995. 

In the fall of 1870, the Rev. Winfield Scott of Leavenworth, a Baptist and former chaplain in the Army, came to this area for the purpose of hunting wild game.

Because he had previously been a pastor of Prof. And Mrs. Hickock and W. W. Andrews, some of the early settlers, he was invited to preach.

At the close of services on Sunday, Nov. 27, 1870, The First Baptist Church of Winfield was organized with eleven members.

Among the early settlers who helped found First Baptist Church of Winfield are names that remain familiar today: Andrews, Bliss and Manning along with others.

By the spring of 1872, the church building was completed at the cost of $2,260.25 on lots donated by the town company.

The first building was located on the west side of Millington Street between Seventh and Eighth.

The church soon outgrew the building. In January 1880, plans were made and work started on a new building. The cornerstone of the new building was laid in 1880 and work was completed in 1882. Before the new building was completed, it was necessary to abandon the old one and conduct services in the town opera house.

In June 1927, groundbreaking ceremonies were held to build a needed educational building.

In March 1958, construction began on additional educational space that was needed, and the sanctuary remodeled.

More than 100 years ago First Baptist Church was instrumental in assisting with the formation of the Second Baptist Church.

In July 1862, Winfield Scott recruited 98 men from Farmer Village and the surrounding area. They became Company C, 126th Regiment. Company C fought many battles during the Civil War and Scott was wounded several times. In 1864 he was again wounded and left the military. He then went on to become the pastor of Baptist Churches in Leavenworth, Kansas and Denver, Colorado.

The Scotts had four daughters: Minnie, born 1865, Helen, born 1868, Addie born 1877 and Florence, born in 1880. Addie died as a small child in 1878.

In 1881, Scott applied to the Secretary of the Army to become an Army Chaplain and was confirmed on July 27, 1882. Chaplain Scott's first post was in Fort Canby, Washington Territory. He then went to Ft. Stevens, Oregon and then to Angel Island in San Francisco.

In mid February of 1888, Winfield Scott was invited to the Salt River Valley in Arizona. Some residents of Phoenix had heard of Scott¹s reputation as a promoter and wanted him to help promote Phoenix and the surrounding area. Scott was impressed with the valley and on July 2, 1888 made a down payment of 50 cents an acre for a section of land in what is now Scottsdale. His brother, George Washington Scott, came at Winfield Scott¹s request to clear the land. He planted 80 acres of barley, 20 acres of vineyards and a 7-acre orchard.

Scott was then transferred to Ft. Huachucha, Arizona Territory in February of 1889. In 1892 after 10 years as an Army Chaplain, Winfield Scott took a leave of absence from the military and went to his farm in Scottsdale. His Civil War wounds bothered him greatly and in 1893 he finally retired.

The Scotts welcomed many people to live on their property whether they were ill, down on their luck or just looking for a fresh start. Many lived in tents in the orchard. During this time Scott became active in Arizona politics while promoting farming in the community.

Application was made to form a school district on July 13, 1896. The first one room school was built soon after. In September 1909, a new brick school building opened. It was dedicated on February 26, 1910. This building now houses the Scottsdale Historical Museum.

Winfield Scott died in a hospital in Phoenix on October 19 from complications from his old Civil War wounds. Mrs. Scott lived until 1933. They are buried in San Diego.

Chaplain Winfield Scott spent half a century in service to his God, his country and his fellowman. He built churches, organized congregations, served as a soldier, was confirmed as an Army Chaplain and became an educator and active politician. But most of all we will remember him as the founding father of Scottsdale, Arizona.

WINFIELD COURIER.

EARLY HISTORY.

A Letter From Winfield Scott, D. D.

Winfield Courier, Thursday, April 15, 1886

It was during the latter part of December, 1870, that I visited Walnut Valley. A few months before this a Leavenworth man had gone there. Among my friends were the families of Messrs. Andrews, Hickok, and Rev. O. W. Tousey. They sent me an invitation to visit them, telling me of the new country and of the name of the new town after myself, and that they expected it would be the county seat. I had known of many prophetic towns of euphonious and high sounding names that never existed except in imagination, or in a glowing letter of an enthusiastic squatter, or worse than that, only on a highly embellished and carefully platted card board, that I was not especially influenced by the town or the promise to immortalize my name, but I did want to see what was then known as the great “southwest” that was booming from the rushing tide of immigrants all going thither. I knew of the warm welcome, too, I should receive from the large hearted old friends then on the ground. Accompanied by my old college chum, Prof. D. H. Robinson, of the State University, we went to Emporia by car and took a team and drove to Eureka, where we were joined by my brother, S. Scott, now of Clay Center. From there we went west to Butler County, through El Dorado, Augusta, and Douglass, all rival towns, each full of prophecy and prophets, of their own success and the other failures.

Augusta was named after Mrs. Augusta James, the wife of Mr. C. N. James, my parishioner. I spent a day or two at Augusta, preaching evenings. I remember well the afternoon when we forded a stream, passed through a strip of timber, and drove over the gently sloping ridge, when we had the first view of the town of Winfield. The Main street was laid out and enough stores and houses rudely built, with foundations of other buildings laid to define where the intended main street was to be. The record I made in writing to an eastern journal was this: “On the center of a beautiful plateau of land, in the very heart of the valley, is rising a splendid town. Four months ago two or three houses marked the place where it was to be. Today there are twenty-seven buildings, twenty more are rising, and about thirty more lots have been secured.” I met there, besides the friends mentioned, D. A. Millington, an enterprising businessman, whom I had known in Leavenworth, and he believed in the town, and met me with cordiality and championed with liberality and enthusiasm my proposition to raise money for a Baptist church in Winfield. I preached every evening while there and hunted deer in the day time. The first day I killed three, just across the creek west of the town site. I borrowed and used a rickety old shotgun, with stock tied up with strings to hold things together. My luck as a hunter all came the first day, and that, too, in the forenoon.

The record of the Sabbath service is as follows: I preached in a store not completed. The front end of the building being out, we had for the congregation a wide open door. My pulpit was the end of a work bench with my overcoat doubled up for a desk. The seats were 2 x 8 scantling resting on nail kegs and boxes, and yet the entire room 20 x 36 was full morning and evening with an appreciative audience. We had a good choir and an organ. At the close of the morning sermon, a church was organized with twelve members. During the evening and the next day a subscription of $400 was secured, which was increased to about $700, sufficient to enclose a stone building 24 x 40 with 14 ft. walls of your stone quarry. This is the record: “I have never seen in the west as pure white magnitia [magnesia] limestone as these quarries afford. It can be laid in the wall for $2.25 per perch, thus furnishing durable and very cheap building material for the poor as well as the rich. It seems a little unique to think of a very poor man living in a magnificent limestone house roofed, shingled, finished, and furnished throughout with the best quality of grained black walnut, all this because it was so cheap—the difference between the dwellings of the poor and the rich being in the cut of the stone and the carve of the wood.” In returning home I volunteered to drive somebody’s team for them and made the trip alone. From a point north of Chelsea, I struck out across the Flint hills to go to headquarters of the east branch of Fall river, traveling by compass. This is the record. “For the first time in Kansas, I laid out upon the prairie, supperless and alone. With oats and hay for the horses, a robe blanket with God’s moon and stars in the heavens over me, and the precious spirit of Jesus in the heart, a happy night was spent while joy came in the morning. I know now why Abraham in journeying, rejoiced in setting by his altar and I can see how happy spirits can be inspired to make heaven resound with hallelujah.”

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