Local Historian Receives 2006 Governor’s Humanities Award

August 3, 2006 – St. Joseph, MO – Local historian and author, Joseph K. Houts, Jr., has been selected to receive a 2006 Governor’s Humanities Book Award, conferred by the Missouri Humanities Council.  This award recognizes an individual whose book or publication has increased the understanding and appreciation of Missouri history or culture.  Mr. Houts is receiving the award for his two 2 books (listed below).

Mr. Houts will be presented with his award at a ceremony which will be held on October 25 from 4pm to 6pm at the Governor’s Mansion in Jefferson City, MO.

Joseph Kinyoun Houts, Jr. is a resident of St. Joseph, Missouri.  He is the author of Quantrill’s Thieves, which was published in August 2002, and A Darkness Ablaze.  Mr. Houts is a graduate of Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in May 1975, majoring in History.  In 1978, he graduated from Lewis University College of Law in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, now known as Northern Illinois College of Law, with his Juris Doctor degree.  Houts has been in banking for twenty-seven years and works at Commerce Bank as a Vice President in charge of Community Development.

Besides his passion for writing history, he is very involved in his community, having served twenty-five years on The Salvation Army Advisory Board of Directors and in 2006 became a Life Member of the organization, eleven years as member of the Board of Trustees of the Pony Express National Museum, Pony Express Museum Tuesday Night Talk lecture series, Advisory Board member of the Heartland Foundation emPower Plant, Publications Committee of the Oregon-California Trails Association located in Independence, Missouri, Board member of the Mount Mora Preservation and Restoration Cemetery Association Foundation, Board member of the InterServ Foundation, Co-Founder and member of the Border War Society, Board member of the Buchanan County Conventions and Visitors Bureau, which serves the greater St. Joseph metropolitan area, and Chairman of the St. Joseph Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemoration Committee.

He is married to Noreen Mahoney Houts and has two children, Joseph Kinyoun Houts III, and Katherine Mahoney Houts.

BOOK SUMMARIES:

A Darkness Ablaze sets forth a chilling and detailed account of American Medicine during the Civil War.  The basis of this book is the Medical Diary of the author’s great great grandfather, Dr. John Hendricks Kinyoun, who was the regimental surgeon of the 66th North Carolina Infantry Regiment from September 1863, until April 1865, when his regiment surrendered at Durham Station, North Carolina at the war’s conclusion.  Confederate Surgeon General Samuel Preston Moore required Confederate surgeons to maintain a log of their patients and their afflictions, a revolutionary new medical standard for the times.  The Diary’s publication brings to light a long lost historical treasure concerning early American medical diagnosis and treatment.  It reveals a more personal side to war, as can be seen in the medical care and plight of the men in the 66th.  Houts has also incorporated several of the doctor’s letters home to wife, revealing the inner thoughts of a man caught up in the middle of this great national crisis.  At the war’s conclusion the doctor returned home to Yadkin County, North Carolina to find it in turmoil.  He shortly loaded up his family and moved to Centerview, Missouri, outside Warrensburg, in 1866, and in time became the only doctor within a 40 mile radius.  He even served as the town’s mayor in his later years.

Of special importance, the book explains the evolution of the Confederate Medical Service and how it coped with the ever growing caseload of patients from battle wounds to common illnesses, and deadly diseases.  A combined total of 620,000 Confederate and Union soldiers have been documented as dying during the Civil War, but of shocking surprise, almost two thirds of these fatalities were attributed to disease alone.

Read with horror as Houts explains how the deplorable medical practices and lack of significant scientific knowledge lead to these countless deaths.  It is a riveting tale about medicine in general during this period, and will leave the reader in shock and amazement at the primitive medical standards utilized barely 150 years ago in this country.

Joseph Kinyoun Houts, Jr. is also the author of Quantrill’s Thieves, another amazing account about his family during the Civil War.  This book explains how the Border War conflict between Missouri and Kansas erupted after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.  Many scholars acknowledge this regional conflict as the deciding factor leading to the country’s Civil War in 1861.

The book sets forth guerrilla chieftain William Clarke Quantrill’s muster roll found in Houts’ family papers documenting the outfit’s initial 93 riders, which also contains 3 of the author’s relatives, Mike, Matt and Robert Houx, who lived outside Warrensburg, Missouri.  Houts writes how and why these 93 men became guerrillas and what happened to those surviving the war.  In addition, he narrates an old family story of how his guerrilla ancestors were hunted by his Union forefathers.

It is a gripping book showing how misunderstandings, jealousies and fears can lead to unrelenting and savage bloodshed among a populace once predisposed to peace.  A must read for all, and combined with his new book A Darkness Ablaze, demonstrates the raw pioneer spirit of this remarkable American family and its important roots to in the state of Missouri.