To be the oldest settler still living in Kansas City at the turn of the century was quite the honor, and it was an honor that William Mulkey didn’t shy away from.
He arrived when he was four years old in 1828 when Jackson County was only two years old. The countryside was still a complete wilderness, full of forests, virgin land and vast opportunities for the daring pioneers from the South who gambled on a fresh start.
William Mulkey saw it all, he later proclaimed. He was there before most– and well before Kansas City was even a thought. Through his kind eyes and bent stature due to his advanced age, Kansas Citians reveled in the memories that this old pioneer would recall from his rocking chair at his homestead at 13th and Summit.
William Mulkey’s Early Life
William Mulkey was born in 1824 in Ashe County, N.C., the second oldest of four children born to his mother, Nancy Johnson Mulkey (1792-1870) and her first husband. Surprisingly, the name of William’s father remains a mystery, but it may have been John…