VII. TOWNS, PAST AND PRESENT…

VII. TOWNS, PAST AND PRESENT

SUMNER, ITS RISE AND FALL—OCENA—LANCASTER—FORT WILLIAM—ARRINGTON— MUSCOTAH—EFFINGHAM—HURON—OLD MARTINSBURG—BUNKER HILL—LOCUST GROVE— HELENA—CAYUGA—KENNEKUK—KAPIOMA—MASHENAH—ST. NICHOLAS—CONCORD— PARNELL—SHANNON—ELMWOOD—CUMMINGSVILLE—EDEN POSTOFFICE—POTTER—MOUNT PLEASANT—LEWIS’ POINT—FARLEY’S FERRY.

One of the most interesting subjects for the local historian is the rise and fall of town companies and towns, within the confines of Atchison county. Perhaps no county in the State, or for that matter, no county in the United States, has been immune from the visitations of town boomers. It is difficult in this enterprising age, with all the knowledge that we now have at hand, to understand how it was possible for anybody, though he was ever so enthusiastic, to conceive the idea that there was any future for many of the “towns” that were born in Atchison county in the early days. Yet, it is found that there was in the breasts of many promoters a feeling that Atchison county offered unlimited possibilities for the establishment and growth of towns and cities. One need only search the records on file in the office of the register of deeds in this county to discover numerous certified plats of towns which were born to blush unseen and waste their fragrance on the desert air. In some instances the records are quite complete and authentic, and contain much information with reference to the origin, growth and final decay of these nascent municipalities. In other cases nothing has come down to posterity, save the merest fragmentary data, of which the plat, containing the name of the town and of its organizer, its location and the number of blocks, streets and alleys, constitute the major part.

Reference has heretofore been made to the founding and the organization of the city of Atchison, which became and now remains the county seat of Atchison county. The city played such an important part in the early history of the county that its story has been woven into the general fabric of this history, and therefore further reference to the city of Atchison will not be made in this chapter.

SUMNER.

Perhaps the most important, although not the oldest, town established in Atchison county outside of the city of Atchison was Sumner. A peculiar aroma of legendary glory still clings to this old town, which was located three miles below Atchison, on the Missouri river.

Its founder was John P. Wheeler, a young man who came to the Territory when about twenty-one years of age, and who has been described as “a red-headed, blue-eyed, consumptive, slim, freckled enthusiast from Massachusetts.”

Atchison at this time was a strong pro-slavery town, and no abolitionist was a welcome settler in her midst. For this reason Sumner sprang into existence. It was a dream of its founder to make Sumner an important forwarding point, one of its claims being the fact that it was the most westerly of any of the Missouri river towns in Kansas.

In 1856 the site was surveyed and platted, and the name “Sumner” given the new town, in honor of George Sumner, one of the original stockholders, and not for his brother, the Hon. Charles Sumner, United States senator, of Massachusetts, as many people suppose.

To bring Sumner before the public Mr. Wheeler engaged an artist named Albert Conant to come out and make a drawing of it, and this was later taken to Cincinnati, and a colored lithograph made from it, which was widely circulated. From copies of this lithograph still extant it must be admitted that the artist did not slight the town in any particular.

In the fall of 1857 the Sumner Town Company began the erection of a large brick hotel. Samuel Hollister had the contract, his bid being $16,000. The brick used in the construction were made on the ground, and the lumber used in the construction work came by steamboat from Pittsburgh, Pa. The hotel was completed in the summer of 1858, and at last accounts the town company still owed Mr. Hollister $3,000. Some years later the brick used in the hotel were gathered and cleaned and hauled to Atchison and used for the construction of a building owned by the late John J. Ingalls, located at 108–110 South Fourth street.

In the fall of 1857 Cone Brothers (John P. and D. D.) brought a printing outfit to Kansas, and were induced to locate in Sumner, where they shortly begun the publication of The Sumner Gazette, the first issue of which appeared on September 12. During the political canvass that fall they also issued a daily. The Gazette was issued until 1861 when it suspended, its publishers believing that it was the only paper in Kansas that outlived the town in which it started.

Among those engaged in business in Sumner on October 1, 1857, the Daily Gazette shows the following:

John P. Wheeler, attorney and counsellor at law, commissioner of deeds, dealer in real estate, etc.

Kahn & Fassler, general store, on Front street, between Washington avenue and Chestnut street.

Mayer & Rohrmann, carpenters and builders.

Barnard & Wheeler, proprietors of the Sumner Brick Yard.

Wm. M. Reed, contractor, Atchison and Sumner.

John Armor, steam saw mill, in the city.

Butcher & Brothers, general store on Front street, between Washington avenue and Olive street.

Allen Green, painter and glazier.

S. J. Bennett, boot and shoe store, corner of Washington avenue and Fourth street.

Arthur M. Claflin, general land agent, forwarding and commission agent.

J. P. Wheeler and A. M. Claflin, lumber, office with the Sumner Company.

H. S. Baker, proprietor of Baker’s Hotel, corner of Front and Olive streets, near steamboat landing.

A. Barber, general merchandise, Front street, between Washington avenue and Olive street.

Lietzenburger & Co., blacksmiths, wagon makers, etc., Cedar street, between Third and Fourth streets.

D. Newcomb. M. D., office in postoffice building, corner of Third street and Washington avenue. Mr. Newcomb also dealt in lime, and on September 24, received a large and select stock of hardware, stoves, etc.

When the Territorial legislature of 1858 met, a bill was introduced, incorporating the Sumner Company, Cyrus F. Currier, Samuel F. Harsh, J. W. Morris, Isaac G. Losse and John P. Wheeler, their associates and successors, constituting the company. The act also provided that the corporation should have the power to purchase and hold, and enter by preëmption and otherwise, any quantity of land where the town of Sumner is now located, not to exceed one thousand acres, etc.

A ferry at Sumner was also incorporated by the legislature of 1858, J. W. Morris, Cyrus F. Currier and Samuel Harsh being the incorporators. This boat plied between Atchison and Sumner and the Missouri side.

In 1858 Samuel Hollister built a steam sawmill, adding a gristmill later.

By the end of 1858 Sumner had outstripped its rival, Atchison, in population, and steps were taken looking towards the incorporation of the town. Early in the beginning of the legislature of 1859, articles of incorporation were passed and received the approval of Governor Samuel Medary on February 9. These articles of incorporation were later amended by an act passed by the first State legislature, which was approved June 3, 1861.

The decline of Sumner began with the drought which started in the fall of 1859 and prevailed through the year 1860. In June, 1860, a cyclone struck the town and either blew down or damaged nearly every building, this calamity being followed in September by a visitation of grasshoppers, all of which were potent factors in wiping Sumner off the map. Some of the houses which could be moved were taken to Atchison, and some to farms in the immediate vicinity.

One of the most interesting accounts that appeared about Sumner was written by H. Clay Park, an old citizen of Atchison, who for many years was editor and part owner of the Atchison Patriot. It would not be just either to Mr. Park or to Sumner, were this account not perpetuated in this volume, and it, therefore, appears in full as follows:

“THE RISE AND FALL OF SUMNER.

“Three miles south of Atchison, Kansas, is the site of a dead city, whose streets once were filled with the clamor of busy traffic and echoed to the tread of thousands of oxen and mules that in the pioneer days of the Great West transported the products of the East across the Great American Desert to the Rocky mountains. It was a city in which for a few years twenty-five hundred men and women and children lived and labored and loved, in which many lofty aspirations were born, and in which several young men began careers that became historical.

“This city was located on what the early French voyagers called the ‘Grand Detour’ of the Missouri river. No more rugged and picturesque site for a city or one more inaccessible and with more unpropitious environments could have been selected. It was literally built in and on the everlasting hills, covered with a primeval forest so dense that the shadows chased the sunbeams away. It sprang into existence so suddenly and imperceptibly it might almost have been considered a creation of the magician’s wand. It was named Sumner in honor of the great Massachusetts senator. Its official motto was ‘Pro lege et grege’ (For the law and the people). This would, in the light of subsequent events, have been more suggestive: ‘I shall fall, like a bright exhalation in the evening.’

“Sumner’s first citizens came mostly from Massachusetts, and were imbued with the spirit of creed and cant, self-reliance and fanaticism that could have been born only on Plymouth Rock. They had come to the frontier to make Kansas a free State and to build a city, within whose walls all previous conditions of slavery should be disregarded and where all men born should be regarded equal. The time—1856—was auspicious. Kansas was both a great political and military battlefield, upon which the question of the institution of slavery was to be settled for all time.

“The growth of Sumner was phenomenal. A lithograph printed in 1857 shows streets of stately buildings, imposing seats of learning, church spires that pierced the clouds, elegant hotels and theaters, the river full of floating palaces, its levee lined with bales and barrels of merchandise, and the white smoke from numerous factories hanging over the city like a banner of peace and prosperity. To one who in that day approached Sumner from the east and saw it across the river, which like a burnished mirror, reflected its glories, it did indeed present an imposing aspect.

“One day the steamboat Duncan S. Carter landed at Sumner. On its hurricane deck was John J. Ingalls, then only twenty-four years old. As his eye swept the horizon his prophetic soul uttered these words: ‘Behold the home of the future senator from Kansas.’ Here the young college graduate, who since that day became the senator from Kansas, lived and dreamed until Sumner’s star had set and Atchison’s sun had risen, and then he moved to Atchison, bringing with him Sumner’s official seal and the key to his hotel.

“Here lived that afterwards brilliant author and journalist, Albert D. Richardson, whose tragic death some years ago in the counting room of the New York Tribune is well remembered. His ‘Beyond the Mississippi’ is to this day the most fascinating account ever written of the boundless West.

“Here lived the nine-year-old Minnie Hauk, who was one day to become a renowned prima donna and charm two continents with her voice, and who was to wed the Count Wartegg. Minnie was born in poverty and cradled in adversity. Her mother was a poor washerwoman in Sumner.

“Here lived John E. Remsburg, the now noted author, lecturer and free- thinker. Mr. Remsburg has probably delivered more lectures in the last thirty years than any man in America. He is now the leader of the Free- Thought Federation of America.

“Here Walter A. Wood, the big manufacturer of agricultural implements, lived and made and mended wagons. Here Lovejoy, ‘the Yankee preacher,’ preached and prayed. Here lived ‘Brother’ and ‘Sister’ Newcomb, from whom has descended a long line of zealous and eminent Methodists. Here was born Paul Hull, the well known Chicago journalist.

“And Sumner was the city that the Rev. Pardee Butler lifted up his hands and blessed and prophesied would grow and wax fat when the ‘upper landing’ would sleep in a dishonored and forgotten grave, as he floated by it on his raft, clad in tar and feathers. The ‘upper landing’ was the opprobrious title conferred by Sumner upon Atchison. The two towns were bitter enemies. Sumner was ‘abolitionist;’ Atchison was ‘border ruffian.’ In Atchison the ‘nigger’ was a slave; in Sumner he was a fetich. It was in Atchison that the ‘abolition preacher,’ Pardee Butler, was tarred and feathered and set adrift on a raft in the river. He survived the tortures of his coat of degradation and the ‘chuck-holes’ of the Missouri river and lived to become a prohibition fanatic and a Democratic Presidential elector.

“Jonathan Lang, alias ‘Shang,’ the hero of Senator Ingalls’ ‘Catfish Aristocracy,’ and the ‘last mayor of Sumner,’ lived and died in Sumner. When all his lovely companions had faded and gone ‘Shang’ still pined on the stem. The senator’s description of this type of a vanished race is unique:

“‘To the most minute observer his age was a question of the gravest doubt. He might have been thirty; he might have been a century, with no violation of the probabilities. His hair was a sandy sorrel, something like a Rembrandt interior, and strayed around his freckled scalp like the top layer of a hayrick in a tornado. His eyes were two ulcers, half filled with pale blue starch. A thin, sharp nose projected above a lipless mouth that seemed always upon the point of breaking into the most grievous lamentations, and never opened save to take whiskey and tobacco in and let oaths and saliva out. A long, slender neck, yellow and wrinkled after the manner of a lizard’s belly, bore this dome of thought upon its summit, itself projecting from a miscellaneous assortment of gent’s furnishing goods, which covered a frame of unearthly longitude and unspeakable emaciation. Thorns and thongs supplied the place of buttons upon the costume of this Brummel of the bottom, coarsely patched beyond recognition of the original fabric. The coat had been constructed for a giant, the pants for a pigmy. They were too long in the waist and too short in the leg, and flapped loosely around his shrunk shanks high above the point where his fearful feet were partially concealed by mismated shoes that permitted his great toes to peer from their gaping integuments, like the heads of two snakes of a novel species and uncommon fetor. This princely phenomenon was topped with a hat which had neither band nor brim nor crown:

“‘If that could shape be called which shape has none.

“‘His voice was high, shrill and querulous, and his manner an odd mixture of fawning servility and apprehensive effrontery at the sight of a “damned Yankee abolitionist,” whom he hated and feared next to a negro who was not a slave.’

“The only error in the senator’s description of ‘Shang’ is that ‘Shang’ was ‘abolitionist’ himself, and ‘fit to free the nigger.’

‘Shang’ continued to live in Sumner until every house, save his miserable hut, had vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision. He claimed and was proud of the title, ‘the last mayor of Sumner.’ He died a few years ago, and a little later lightning struck his cabin and it was devoured by flames. And thus passed away the last relic of Sumner.

“In the flood tide of Sumner’s prosperity, 1856 to 1859—for before that it was nothing, after that nothing—it had ambition to become the county seat of the newly organized county of Atchison. J. P. Wheeler, president of the Sumner Town Company, was a member of the lower house of the Territorial legislature, and he ‘logrolled’ a bill through that body conferring upon Sumner the title of county seat, but the Atchison ‘gang’ finally succeeded in getting the bill killed in the senate. Subsequently, October, 1858, there was an election to settle the vexed question of a county seat. Atchison won; Sumner lost.

“About this time Atchison secured its first railroad. The smoke from the locomotive engines drifted to Sumner and enveloped it like a pall. The decadence was at hand, and Sumner’s race to extinction and oblivion was rapid. One day there was an exodus of citizens; the houses were torn down and the timbers thereof carted away, and foundation stones were dug up and carried hence. Successive summers’ rains and winters’ snows furrowed streets and alleys beyond recognition and filled foundation excavations to the level, and ere long a tangled mass of briers and brambles hid away the last vestige of the once busy, ambitious city. The forest, again unvexed by ax or saw, asserted his dominion once more, and today, beneath the shadow cast by mighty oaks and sighing cottonwoods, Sumner lies dead and forgotten.”

In the above article, reference is made by Mr. Park to Jonathan Lang, and it is important in this connection to print herewith an excerpt from the Atchison Daily Globe, December, 1915, relating to this interesting character, which follows:

“The reunion of the Thirteenth Kansas infantry at Hiawatha Tuesday recalls that the late Jonathan G. Lang, self-styled ‘Mayor of Old Sumner,’ and hero of John J. Ingalls’ ‘Catfish Aristocracy,’ was a soldier in this regiment, and was the butt of many jokes on the part of his comrades in camp as he was in the days of civil life at old Sumner. Thomas J. Payne, a sergeant in the Thirteenth, now living in California, relates an amusing story of ‘Old Shang,’ as Lang was generally called by his comrades: When the regiment was mustered into service on September 28, 1862, and the newly assigned officers were reviewing their troops at Camp Stanton, in Atchison, the tall, gaunt form of Lang (for he was nearly seven feet tall and very angular) towered above the rest of the men like the stately cottonwood above the hazel-brush. Riding up and down the lines, and scanning the troops with critical eye to see that there was no breech of ranks or decorum, the gaze of Colonel Bowen could not help but fall upon the lofty and lanky form of Lang, rising several heads above any of his comrades. The colonel paused, and pointing his finger at the grenadier form in the ranks, shouted in thunderous tones, ‘Get down off that stump.’ A ripple of suppressed laughter immediately passed along the lines, and when Colonel Bowen saw his mistake he promptly revoked his order with a hearty chuckle and rode on towards the end of the column. And not until twenty years later, when all that was mortal of old Lang—his nearly seven feet of skin and bones—was laid way to moulder with the ruins of old Sumner, did he finally ‘get down off of that stump.’ He rests at the entrance of the Sumner cemetery and his grave is marked with one of those small, regulation slabs such as are furnished by the Government for the graves of dead soldiers and bears this simple inscription: ‘J. G. Lang, Co. K. 13th Kansas Infantry.’ There are two other members of the Thirteenth Kansas buried at Sumner. They are, John Scott, of Company D, and Albred Brown, of Company F.”

Another article relating to Old Sumner, which is entertaining and instructive, was written by E. W. Howe, and is taken from the Historical Edition of the Atchison Daily Globe, issued July 16, 1894:

“The founder of Sumner was John P. Wheeler, a red-headed, blue-eyed, consumptive, slim, freckled enthusiast from Massachusetts. He was a surveyor by profession, and also founded the town of Hiawatha. He was one of the adventurers who came to Kansas as a result of the excitement of 1855–’56, and was only twenty-one years old when he came West. Most of the men who had much to do with early Kansas history were young.

“The town was not named for Charles Sumner, as is generally supposed, but for his brother, George Sumner, one of the original stockholders. At that time Atchison was controlled by Southern sympathizers—P. T. Abell, the Stringfellows, the McVeys, A. J. Westbrook and others—and abolitionists were not welcome in the town. It was believed that a city would be built within a few miles of this point, as it was favorable for overland freighting, being farther West than any other point on the Missouri river. On the old French maps Atchison was known as the ‘Grand Detour,’ meaning the great bend in the river to the westward.

“Being a violent abolitionist, John P. Wheeler determined to establish a town where abolitionists would be welcome, and Sumner was the result. The town was laid out in 1856, and the next year Wheeler had a lithograph made, which he took East for use in booming his town.

“Among others captured by means of this lithograph was John J. Ingalls. Wheeler and Ingalls were both acquainted with a Boston man of means named Samuel A. Walker. Wheeler wanted Walker to invest in Sumner, and as Walker knew that Ingalls was anxious to go West, he asked him to stop at Sumner and report upon it as a point for the investment of Boston money.

“Mr. Ingalls arrived in Sumner on the 4th of October, 1858, on the steamer Duncan S. Carter, which left St. Louis four days before. The town then contained about two thousand people, five hundred more than Atchison; but Sumner was already declining, and Mr. Ingalls did not advise his friend, Walker, to invest.

“A hotel building costing $16,000.00, had been built by Samuel Hollister. A famous steamboat cook had charge of the kitchen in the old days, and the stages running between Jefferson City and St. Joe stopped there every day for dinner. Jefferson City was then the end of the railroad—the Pacific Railroad of Missouri, now the Missouri Pacific— which runs through the deserted site of Sumner, and directly over the foundation of the wagon factory built by Levi A. Woods. This wagon factory was one of the results of Wheeler’s audacious lithograph, and few wagons were actually manufactured. The factory was heavily insured, and burned.

“Albert R. Richardson was a citizen of Sumner, when Mr. Ingalls arrived there; also James Hauk, the father of Minnie Hauk, who has since become famous as a singer in grand opera. James Hauk was a carpenter, whose wife operated a boarding house. Minnie Hauk waited on the table, and was noted among the boarders as a smart little girl with a long yellow braid down her back, who could play the piano pretty well. The next year Hauk made a house boat and floated down the river to New Orleans.

“When John J. Ingalls went to Sumner, a young man of twenty-four, he took great interest in such characters as Archie Boler and Jonathan Grander Lang. Lang was a jug fisherman in the river, melon raiser, truck patch farmer and town drunkard. Ingalls says that Lang was really a bright fellow. He had been a dragoon in the Mexican War, and his stories of experiences in the West were intensely interesting. Ingalls used to go out in Lang’s boat when he was jugging for catfish and spend hours listening to his talk. Finally Ingalls wrote his ‘Catfish Aristocracy,’ and Lang recognized himself as the hero. He was very indignant and threatened to sue Ingalls, having been advised by some jackleg lawyer that the article was libelous. Lang lived on a piece of land belonging to Ingalls at the time, and Ingalls told the writer of this the other day that it was actually true that he settled with Lang for a sack of flour and a side of bacon. Lang served in the Civil war, and long after its close, when his old friend was president of the United States Senate, he secured him a pension and a lot of back pay. But this he squandered in marrying. His pension money was a curse to him, for it only served to put a lot of wolves on his trail.

“When the war broke out the Atchison men who objected to abolitionists settling in their town were driven out of the country, and this attracted a good many of the citizens of Sumner. But its death blow came in June, 1860, when nearly every house in the place was either blown down or badly damaged by a tornado. This was the first and only tornado in the history of this immediate section.”

Reference is made in both of these articles to John J. Ingalls, who arrived in Sumner from Boston, Mass., October 4, 1858. Mr. Ingalls was a graduate of Williams College a short time before, and at the time he decided to go West he was a student in a law office in Boston, where his attention was first called to Sumner by an elaborate lithograph of the town displayed by Mr. Wheeler, the promoter. The impressions of Mr. Ingalls upon his arrival in Sumner are, therefore, pertinent and convey some idea of the shock he received when he landed at the Sumner levee. In a letter which he subsequently wrote describing the event, he said:

“That chromatic triumph of lithographed mendacity, supplemented by the loquacious embellishments of a lively adventurer who has been laying out town sites and staking off corner lots for some years past in Tophet, exhibited a scene in which the attractions of art, nature, science, commerce and religion were artistically blended. Innumerable drays were transporting from a fleet of gorgeous steamboats vast cargoes of foreign and domestic merchandise over Russ pavements to colossal warehouses of brick and stone. Dense, wide streets of elegant residences rose with gentle ascent from the stores of the tranquil stream. Numerous parks, decorated with rare trees, shrubbery and fountains were surrounded with the mansions of the great and the temples of their devotion. The adjacent eminences were crowned with costly piles which wealth, directed by intelligence and controlled by taste, had erected for the education of the rising generation of Sumnerites. The only shadow upon the enchanting landscape fell from the clouds of smoke that poured from the towering shafts of her acres of manufactories, while the whole circumference of the undulating prairie was white with endless, sinuous trains of wagons, slowly moving toward the mysterious region of the Farther West.”

OCENA.

Ocena was laid out in Atchison county in 1855, and for a time it gave promise of becoming an important place. Ocena was located on the northeast bank of Stranger creek, on what is known as the McBride farm, in the south half of the northeast quarter of section 22, township 6, range 19, about a mile north of the present site of Pardee. The first postoffice in Center township, and one of the first in Atchison county, was established at Ocena with William Crosby as postmaster in August, 1855. In 1856, T. C. McBride was appointed postmaster, and served until the office was removed to Pardee in 1858, when S. G. Moore was appointed postmaster.

T. C. McBride was one of the early settlers of Center township, having arrived there in March, 1856, and settled on the land on which the town of Ocena was built. He was one of the early merchants of the place, having a small store, in which he kept the postoffice. The mail was carried from Atchison to Ocena by stage. McBride was a Tennesseean, born in 1826. In the fall of 1857, in a grove on the McBride farm, the first church service in that section was held. It was of the Methodist Episcopal denomination.

Ocena was the first important stopping place west of Atchison. The old Squatter Sovereign, of Atchison, in its issue of December 5, 1857, contained the following advertisement of the town: “The truth plainly told will show that Ocena is already a city. The surface of the earth was so moulded by the plastic hand of the Creator that a few points in the wide expanse of Nature were destined to eclipse all others. Ocena is one of those points. Located as it is, on the northeast bank of Stranger creek, in the county of Atchison, where roads leading from Doniphan and St. Joe to Lecompton are intersected by roads leading from Atchison to Grasshopper Falls and Osawkee; and also being upon the great thoroughfare running up and down the valley of the Stranger, it offers more inducements for a large and prosperous inland town than any other place in Kansas Territory. All persons anxious to thrive and desirous of obtaining a home on reasonable terms will do well to settle in Ocena. For further particulars in reference to the town apply to Isaac S. Hascall, president, or M. C. Finney, secretary.”

Freedom’s Champion, in its issue of July 3, 1858, says of the town: “Ocena, besides having the most musical name, is one of the most beautiful places in Kansas. A postoffice has been established there and several new buildings are being erected. It is destined to be a thriving little place.”

Ocena was killed by Pardee, a town which was started a short distance to the south of it, but neither amounted to much from a municipal and business standpoint. Pardee is now only a country village. It was first platted as a town by James Brewer, in the string of 1857, and was named in honor of Pardee Butler, of border warfare fame. In the winter of 1856 Mr. Butler preached his first sermon in Pardee, the services being held in the school house, which had been completed during the previous fall, and opened by James Brewer in December. Caleb May, the first settler in Center township, was the first president of the Pardee Town Company. Pardee Butler was afterwards president; Milo Carleton, secretary; Wm. J. May, treasurer; S. G. Moore, A. Elliott and W. Wakefield, trustees. Mr. Moore opened the first store in Pardee in 1858, and became the first postmaster as aforestated. Mr. Carleton put a wind gristmill in operation at Pardee at an early day, but it was destroyed by a storm.

LANCASTER.

Lancaster is one of the oldest towns in the county. In the issue of October 16, 1858, of Freedom’s Champion, the following advertisement with reference to Lancaster appears:

“LANCASTER.

“Lancaster City is the name of a new town just springing into existence. It is located 10 miles direct west of our city (Atchison) Atchison county, K. T., on the east half of Section 32, Township 5, Range 19, the great military road to Fts. Kearney, Laramie, Bridge, and to Santa Fe, Utah, Washington Territory, Gadson Purchase, California, New Mexico, etc., passes through the town site. Also roads leading from Nebraska City, St. Joseph, Doniphan, and to Grasshopper Falls, Topeka, Lecompton and Lawrence.

“A more beautiful situation for a large and prosperous city could not be found in the Territory, or the Great West. Its site is rolling and dry, climate healthy and salubrious as heart could wish for. The surrounding country cannot be surpassed for its magnificent undulating prairies, being one of the most fertile agricultural regions in the whole country.

“Excellent coal, building stone and timber, within two, and two and a half miles. This town has been under way but little over two months, and notwithstanding the hard times, quite a number of buildings are already erected, among which will be found a large and commodious hotel, a good store, blacksmith and carpenter shops, post office, etc., etc. Arrangements are made for the erection of several more dwelling houses, also for the erection during this month, of a Union church, (the first in the county) and with liberty heretofore unequalled in Kansas, Mr. J. W. Smith, the President of the Company, authorizes us to say that he will give good lots gratis to mechanics, laborers, and others, who will apply for them soon, or who will erect improvements on them in six months, worth $200 or more. This, we think, a good chance for men who want a comfortable home in the best section of our country. The company now offer to sell lots or shares at reasonable rates, and are prepared to make warrantee deeds for the same, having purchased the site and obtained the title for the same of the Government of the United States on the 26th day of June, 1858. Persons wishing to live in an interior town, will do well to visit Lancaster before investing elsewhere.”

While this little town did not prove to be all that its promoters expected of it, it continued as a good trading point for many years, and in 1916 remains one of the prosperous communities of the county. In addition to the one bank which it supports, reference to which has already been made, Lancaster, in 1915, has seven stores, a two-room public school, three churches, one elevator, one lumber yard, a good hotel and a garage. In 1915 its enterprising citizens built an electric high tensioned line connecting with the Effingham line out of Atchison, to supply the town with electric lights, and its citizens are now enjoying all the benefits of electricity.

About 80,000 bushels of grain, and an average of seventy-five cars of live stock are shipped out of Lancaster annually. Its merchants are enterprising and prosperous, and many comfortable and commodious homes have been built in this little town. It is located in one of the finest agricultural sections of the county, and the surrounding country is in a state of high cultivation, and peopled by prosperous and thrifty farmers.

PORT WILLIAM.

In the Squatter Sovereign of March 11, 1856, published at Atchison, appeared the following advertisement of Port William:

“This new and beautiful town site is situated on the Missouri river, in Kansas Territory, three or four miles above the town of Iatan, in the heart of the most densely populated part of Kansas; surrounded by the finest soil and timber in that Territory, with a permanent landing, commanding a view of the river for several miles above and below. The principal part of said town is located on a bed of stone coal of the best quality. Arrangements are being made to have said stone coal bed opened and wrought by a joint stock company early in the spring, at which time there will be a sale of lots. There is now in course of erection a good steam saw mill, which will be in successful operation in a few weeks; also, a large and commodious tavern is in process of erection, which will be opened for the accommodation of the public in a short time. Persons wishing to procure lots immediately will have opportunity of so doing by calling on Henry Bradley or Jonathan Hartman, both of whom are authorized agents to sell and dispose of lots, and one or both may at all times be found on the premises ready to accommodate purchasers upon the most liberal terms. H. B. Wallace, Amos Rees, Henry Debard, H. C. Bradley, H. B. Herndon, James G. Spratt, W. C. Remington, James W. Bradley, P. J. Collins, trustees.”

Of the above named trustees Judge James G. Spratt, W. C. Remington and Henry Debard were prominent citizens of Platte county, Missouri, and members of the town company that incorporated Port William in 1855. James M. and Henry Bradley and H. B. Herndon were also members of this company. Henry Debard was a Kentuckian, born in Clark county, November 24, 1801, and came to Platte county at an early day, later removing to Kansas. He was a prominent Mason, and took an active part in Masonic work in Missouri for many years. He was a cabinet maker, but did not work much at his trade. He died in Platte City, October 5, 1875.

Amos Rees was born at Winchester, Va., December 2, 1800, and came to Missouri at an early age, locating in Platte county, March 1, 1845. For many years he was a prominent attorney of that county. He moved to Kansas in 1855, and died, December 29, 1885. Dr. H. B. Wallace, who was interested in Port William, was a physician at Platte City, and a member of the town board in 1858. He invested largely in St. Jose, and the war reduced him almost to poverty. He died, February 24, 1863. Judge Paxton, in his “Annals of Platte County,” simply mentions him as having married the “beautiful and accomplished Ann E. Owen.”

J. Butler Chapman arrived in Kansas in the spring of 1854, made a trip over the territory, and then published a small volume, entitled “History of Kansas and Emigrant’s Guide.” He refers to Port William as “Williamsport, a prospective town a short distance above Kickapoo.” “The bluffs,” he continues, “are high and precipitous, and the land broken until you reach the high rolling prairie back some three miles. The whole country is settled on with a view of preëmption.”

A company known as the Port William Sharp’s Rifles, numbering eighty- one, rank and file, was formed at Port William, in October, 1856. The commissioned officers elected were James Adkins, captain; Henry C. Bradley, first lieutenant; James M. Bradley, second lieutenant; S. Bowman, third lieutenant. The company was enrolled, or was intended to be enrolled, in the first regiment, first brigade, northern division of the Kansas militia, and applied for arms and commissions. The Port William Town Company was incorporated by an act of the Territorial legislature in 1855 and the town company was composed of William C. Remington, James G. Spratt, Henry Debard, James M. Bradley, Henry Bradley, Horace B. Herndon and William B. Almond.

General William B. Almond, one of the incorporators of Pt. William, was a noted man in the West in the early days. He was a Virginian, who came to Platte county, Missouri, when the Platte Purchase was opened, and settled near the Buchanan county line. At a very early period he had been connected with the American Fur Company, and as a mountaineer had many adventures. During the thirties he was a brigadier general of the State militia in Missouri. He was one of the foremost “Forty-niners” to California, leading a company to the land of gold, among whom was Ben Holladay, afterwards famous as the originator of the “pony express” and other Western enterprises. While in California General Almond distinguished himself as a Territorial judge in San Francisco. Returning to Platte county in 1851 he was elected circuit judge, was a candidate for lieutenant governor, and filled other offices and places of distinction and prominence. He was also connected with mercantile, milling and other enterprises. He lived for some time in Topeka and Leavenworth, and died at the latter place in 1860.

Judge James G. Spratt, another of the promoters of old Port William, was also a man of some prominence. He came to the West from Smith county, Virginia, where he was born, 1826, and, like General Almond, settled in Platte county at a very early day. In 1843 he was appointed a justice of the peace in Platte county, and was afterwards deputy county clerk, probate judge and held other positions. For some time he was engaged in the practice of law, and was in partnership with Hon. Joseph E. Merryman, in Platte City. In 1864 he went to Montana where he became a mine speculator. He died November 13, 1881, and his remains were brought back to Platte for burial. W. H. Spratt, a brother of Judge Spratt, was at one time sheriff of Platte county.

William C. Remington was another pioneer of Platte, like General Almond and Judge Spratt, a Virginian by birth, who came west at a very early day. He was one of the early assessors of Platte county, and subsequently was elected circuit clerk. He was one of the trustees of the Platte City Town Company when it was incorporated in 1843. He was also a member of the company that laid off the town of St. Mary’s at the mouth of Bee creek in 1857, but no lots were ever sold. Mr. Remington was one of the early merchants of Platte City, one of the proprietors of the Platte City Weekly Atlas, and was interested in various other enterprises. His handsome brick residence in Platte City was among those burned by federal orders in July, 1864. He died December 20, 1864, in Omaha, where he was operating a hotel.

Of Henry Debard, another member of the Port William Town Company, the writer has not yet found any record. The Bradleys lived in Platte county, opposite Port William for many years, moved over to the Kansas side early in 1854, and with Squire Horace B. Herndon started the old town. The Bradleys opened a general store and James M. Bradley was appointed postmaster when the postoffice was established in April, 1855. Squire Herndon was one of the earliest justices of the peace in Kansas, and had much business in his court in the early days, as Port William was one of the roughest of the border towns.

Port William was located eight miles below Atchison. It is one of the most interesting localities from a historical standpoint in Atchison county and northeastern Kansas. It is one of the oldest settlements in Kansas, and for a time in the early days was one of the promising villages of the territory. In fact, it was of enough importance, not in size, but as a prospective populace, to be mentioned by travelers of that time, as one of the principal towns of Kansas. Father Pierre Jean de Smet, the Jesuit missionary, in a letter written February 26, 1859, says: “A great number of towns and villages have sprung up as if by enchantment in the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The principal towns of Kansas are Wyandotte, Delaware, Douglas, Marysville, Iola, Atchison, Ft. Scott, Pawnee, Lecompton, Neosho, Richmond, Tecumseh, Lawrence, Port William, Doniphan, Paola, Alexandria, Indianola, Easton, Leavenworth and others.” The history of old Doniphan, Sumner and Kickapoo has long been well established, but that of Port William has been neglected and has remained obscure. Port William never was much of a town, as were its rivals, Doniphan, Sumner and Kickapoo, but it was proposedly in the race for municipal supremacy in the pioneer days, and though its star may never have attained the ascendency, its story is at least worthy of preservation in the archives of Atchison county history.

Port William was started in 1856 by Henry and James M. Bradley, John T. and Albred Bailey, and Jonathan Hartman. The two Bradleys and John T. Bailey composed the town company. The Bradleys conducted a general store, and a postoffice was established in April, 1855, with Henry Bradley as first postmaster. This was the first postoffice in Walnut township. Jonathan Hartman owned and operated a sawmill, the first in Atchison county, in 1854, and made the first lumber ever sawed in the county. There were several saloons, and later a blacksmith shop, a carpenter shop and other small industries were started. It has been surmised by someone that Port Williams, as it is sometimes called, was named for a Missouri river steamboat captain named Williams, as steamboats often tied up at the place in the early days. There are others who believe it was so-called for the late “Uncle Frank” Williams, one of the fathers of the colored settlement which was started in that vicinity at a later day. The correct name of the place, however, is Port William, instead of Port Williams, and it is known that it was so named more than fifty years ago, or nearly twenty years before “Uncle Frank” Williams settled there. The correct origin of the name is probably given by the late W. J. Bailey, of Atchison, who was one of the very first settlers of that vicinity. He said that in 1854 a man named William Johnson came across from the settlement about Iatan, Mo., and took up the claim on which Port William was afterwards built. It was a likely claim and Johnson soon had trouble on his hands in holding the property. Several men tried to chase him off with guns, but Johnson managed to make such a good defense as to repel them. He stayed in his cabin a week, not daring to come out for fear of being shot. He won out and held the claim. The other fellows then referred to his cabin as Fort William (that was his first name). Soon after Jake Yunt, from Missouri, established a hand ferryboat, and by and by steamboats began to land there. Then the name was changed to Port William, and this is the proper name of the place, although on the Missouri Pacific station board now standing there it is marked “Port Williams.”

There are but few men who came to Atchison county earlier than W. J. Bailey, of Atchison. He crossed the river from Platte county on June 12, 1854, and settled at Port William, and, with the exception of a few years’ residence in Colorado, has lived in this county ever since. Luther Dickerson, who was generally known as the “oldest inhabitant,” came here the same month that Mr. Bailey did. When Mr. Bailey first arrived at Port William he built a one room cabin on his claim near that place, and to do so was obliged to drag logs with one horse a distance of a mile and a half. In 1855 he brought his cattle over. He said the grass all over this county was ankle deep and afforded fine pasturage. There was no town at Atchison then, but Challiss Bros. conducted a store on the river bank, and George Million operated a hand ferryboat. Mr. Bailey worked for Million three years.

“Those were happy times,” said Mr. Bailey, “we met around among neighboring cabins and had parties. When we had a fiddle we danced.” For several years Mr. Bailey was with a freighting crew between Ft. Leavenworth and Ft. Kearney, most of the time as a wagon-master. They generally drove twenty-six wagons with six yoke of oxen to each wagon and hauled Government supplies. Once they were surrounded by Indians and were in imminent danger of being annihilated, when General Harney with a company of troops came to their rescue and chased the red-skins to Ash Hollow, near Ft. Kearney, where a bloody skirmish took place and the Indians were routed. Speaking of old Port William, Mr. Bailey said: “Although laid out as an investment, the town was a failure. The little creek flowed through the center of the town, dividing the stores and saloons from the sawmill, blacksmith shop and carpenter shop. No city government encased the stream with cement tiling, and the best bridge the town ever afforded was built by felling a cottonwood tree across the stream.” Port William had its “town bullies” and fights were of frequent occurrence. Mr. Bailey said that the “town bullies” were Dan McLoud, Bill Pates and Bob Gibson. “It was common,” he said, “for farmers to go to Port William every Saturday afternoon to witness the fights and drunks.” On one occasion a man was badly shot up and another jumped into the river and swam across. Mr. Bailey said the first election there contained 250 ballots, although only sixty people voted. There were two ballot boxes, one controlled by the pro-slavery and the other by the Free State people. Eight or ten men stood around the balloting places with guns, and people voted five or six times, though under different names.

The “village blacksmith” of old Port William, and one of the early justices of the peace of Walnut township, was Thomas J. Payne, later living at Canyon City, Colo. Mr. Payne settled at Port William, March 18, 1855, and was one of the pioneer blacksmiths of Kansas. He operated blacksmith shops at three of the old towns of Atchison county, Port William, Sumner and Mt. Pleasant. He was appointed a justice of the peace by Governor Shannon, in 1856. The office of “county squire” was of more importance in those stirring times than it is now. Mr. Payne’s son, Charles Sumner Payne, was the first child born at old Sumner. His birth occurred September 25, 1857. He was named by the town company, who made out and presented to him a deed for a lot in the once thriving city. Another son was born at Sumner on the day that John Brown was hanged, and was named for the great abolitionist. A third son was named for Jim Lane. Thomas J. Payne enlisted as a private in Company F, Thirteenth Kansas infantry, at Atchison, August 20, 1862, and was later promoted to orderly sergeant. He was discharged at Ft. Smith, Ark., October 29, 1864. Then he was immediately appointed by the secretary of war first lieutenant of Company B, First Regiment of Kansas infantry, colored. He took part in many engagements, and was mustered out in August, 1865. He was born in Georgetown, Ohio, the town in which General Grant was born. There are few men in Kansas who have served as a justice of the peace longer than Mr. Payne. He held the office in Atchison county for a number of years, at Robinson, Kan., for eighteen years, and later at Horton, Kan., for several years.

The old Horace B. Herndon farm at Port William, now owned and occupied by Frank Bluma, Sr., was known as the “Old Indian farm,” in the early days. According to W. J. Bailey it was so-called because an Indian known as “Kickapoo John” located on it previous to the settlement of Kansas by the whites and was still living there with numerous other Indians when Mr. Bailey first came to that locality. Mr. Bailey said that the butts of tepee poles could be seen sticking in the ground on the site of Port William for some time afterwards. In 1854 Horace B. Herndon preëmpted the “Old Indian farm,” built a cabin thereon at the southwest corner of the field near the creek, and put an old negro slave in it to hold the claim for him. The old darkey died and was buried in the family burying ground on the farm about 1855. He was probably the first colored man who ever lived and died in what afterwards became famous as the “Port William colored settlement.” This was about twenty years before this community became generally settled by colored people. The old Herndon family residence, one of the landmarks of this region, is still standing and is occupied by Frank Bluma and family. There is evidence that the “old Indian farm” was occupied by Indians long before “Kickapoo John’s” time for the old field is strewn with various fragments representing the stone age and prehistoric times. Mr. Herndon died a number of years ago. He was another of the early justices of the peace of Walnut township and was generally known as “Squire” Herndon. He was also a public administrator for Atchison county, and was one of the most prominent citizens of the southern part of the county for many years. He was the father of Mrs. Henry King and James Herndon, residents of Round Prairie. Mrs. King, then Miss Virginia Herndon, was the “belle” of the old town of Port William, and was a social favorite throughout this section of the county.

Another early settler of Port William was Henry Luth, the veteran carpenter, who moved from Atchison to Leavenworth. Mr. Luth lived in Port William for several years in the early fifties, removing to Atchison in 1857. He built many of the first houses in this section of the country. A large walnut cupboard and other furniture in Mr. Luth’s home he made from walnut timber cut at Port William and sawed into lumber at the old Hartman sawmill at that place. Mr. Luth had a little shop at Port William in which he made furniture. Henry Hausner, Atchison’s well known commission merchant, took a claim at Port William in 1855, but was cheated out of it. Andy Brown, for many years an Atchison flagman, was an early settler of Port William. With Thomas Taylor, now living at Perry, Kan., he crossed the river to Kansas on Jake Yunt’s ferry just above Port William in 1854. Mr. Brown’s father had taken a claim at Port William and Taylor one adjoining it. The latter helped Samuel Dickson build his cabin shanty on the site of Atchison in the fall of 1854.

Ex-Sheriff Fred Hartman, of this county, now deceased, lived at Port William in the early days. His father, Jonathan Hartman, in 1854, put into operation at that place one of the very first sawmills in the Territory. It furnished lumber for many of the first houses in this section. The lumber was sawed from the fine timber which grew along Little Walnut creek. Fred Hartman said that in 1856 Bob Gibson brought his famous “Kickapoo Rangers” to Port William for the purpose of lynching his father, Jonathan Hartman, on account of his most avowed Free Soil principles. They stayed around a while, and as Mr. Hartman did not seem to be the least bit intimidated, they finally left and never molested him again. It was during this time that Pardee Butler was placed on a raft at Atchison and set adrift in the river. He landed just above Port William, and went at once to Mr. Hartman’s for assistance. Not deeming it safe for Mr. Butler to remain in Port William, Mr. Hartman took him out to the home of Jasper Oliphant, about two miles west of the village, where he stayed at night and finally reached his home in safety. Jasper Oliphant was another of the earliest settlers of this locality. He was assassinated some years ago by Bob Scruggs, a desperate character, who at the same time shot and killed John Groff, another prominent Walnut township citizen, and Scruggs was captured and hanged to a tree near Oak Mills. The tragic deaths of two such substantial citizens as Mr. Oliphant and Mr. Groff produced a profound sensation throughout Walnut township. In the spring of 1857 Jonathan Hartman sold his sawmill and moved to a farm near the present site of Parnell, where he died. Fred Hartman served during the war in the Thirteenth Kansas with Thomas J. Payne, mentioned elsewhere.

The wagon road leading from Port William westward to the “old military road,” bears the unique distinction of crossing the same creek fourteen times in a distance of less than three miles. It is not believed that there is another creek in Atchison county that is crossed an equal number of times by one road. Little Walnut creek, which empties into the Missouri river at Port William, has its source near the Leavenworth county line. It flows northward through a heavily timbered country, and is one of the prettiest little streams in Atchison county. It was formerly called Bragg’s creek, after “Jimmy” Braggs, an early-day Missouri Pacific section foreman, who lived on its banks. Braggs afterward moved to Holton, where he died and the name of the creek was changed to Little Walnut, after its neighbor, Walnut creek, which empties into the river at Dalby, about two miles above.

ARRINGTON.

Arrington is located on the Union Pacific railroad in the southwest part of the county. This town was platted August 20, 1884, and its original promoters were R. A. Van Winkle, D. S. Henecke. John Ballinger, D. D. High, D. A. Benjamin, J. M. Roberson, Michael Baker, J. S. Hopkins, Ira Tabor and George W. Drake. Its streets are numbered one to four, and its cross streets are called Fountain avenue, Delaware street and Forest avenue. Arrington has three general stores, one elevator and a bank. During good crop years, as high as 125 cars of grain and live stock are shipped from its station, and its stores do a good business, rendering fine service to the surrounding territory.

At one time prior to 1890 medicinal springs were located at Arrington and it was quite a resort during the summer months for people living in northeastern Kansas. The town has a good hotel, and in addition to its merchandise establishments it supports a physician and several churches.

For many years a mill was conducted on the Delaware river upon which Arrington is located, operated by water power. This mill was built by John Reider in 1867, who also operated it both as a sawmill and as a grain mill. In 1874 W. H. Stockton joined Mr. Reider, and these two men built a two-story frame mill, but they operated it only one day, as it was mysteriously burned the following night. Shortly thereafter Mr. Reider, undismayed and undiscouraged, associated with himself Albert Ingler, and remembering his previous disastrous experience with fire, Mr. Reider built a stone mill. This firm conducted a successful business for a number of years, drawing patronage for a distance of sixty miles, but in 1879, Mr. Ingler met an untimely death, by drowning as he was crossing the river, a few feet below where the Arrington bridge stands. Mr. Reider sold his interest to D. S. Heneks, who ran the mill until 1906, when John W. Young became its owner. He subsequently turned it over to George W. Stone, since which time it has been in possession of various owners, and in 1916 is owned by Burt McCulley. It has not been operated since 1908, and stands in ruins.

A history of Arrington would be incomplete without the mention of the name of Ransom A. Van Winkle, who was the first settler in Kapioma township, and the founder of the town. Captain Van Winkle was born November 25, 1818, in Wayne county, Kentucky. He was a Hollander by descent, and at one time his great-grandfather, Michael Van Winkle, owned an interest in 13,000 acres of land within twelve miles of New York City, which was sold just prior to the Revolutionary war, for twenty-five cents an acre. Van Winkle received the rudiments of his education in a Kentucky log school house, but was for two years a cadet at West Point and received a good education. He was married twice and had a varied experience in business, at one time owning a large interest in coal lands in Kentucky. He removed to St. Joseph, Mo., in 1849, and in September, 1855, came to Kansas and built the first claim cabin on the Grasshopper, or what is now the Delaware river, above Valley Falls, in Kapioma township. He also built the first steam sawmill, sawed the first lumber, and built the first frame house, and taught the first school in Kapioma township, and was the first postmaster at Arrington. He always took an active part in politics in the county and was a stanch Republican. He was a prominent Free State man in the early struggle in Kansas and contributed liberally to the cause and worked hard in its behalf. He was a justice of the peace in Papioma township for fourteen years; postmaster five years; trustee of Kapioma township eight years; a member of the legislature in 1861 and 1862 and county commissioner of Atchison county for six years. He was patriarchal in appearance and was a conspicuous figure for many years in Republican conventions in Atchison county.

MUSCOTAH.

The name of “Muscotah” is of Indian origin, but when, why and by whom it was applied to a town, seems to be a question. “Andreas’ History of Kansas,” in a brief historical mention of the town of Muscotah, says: “The name Muscotah, written in Indian style, Musco-tah, signifies “Beautiful Prairie,” or “Prairie on Fire.” Andreas does not give any authority for this statement, but on page 1343 in a biographical sketch of William D. Barnett, one of the earliest settlers of Muscotah, he says that Mr. Barnett did not name the town, but that it was named by Paschal Pensoneau, the old Kickapoo trader and interpreter. Mr. Kessler was a blacksmith among the Kickapoos at early day.

Maj. C. B. Keith was one of the founders of Muscotah, and an early agent for the Kickapoo Indians. In a letter under date of December 8, 1908, Mrs. Keith, the widow of Major Keith, wrote that Muscotah was named by her husband and her two brothers, William P. and John C. Badger. She corroborates Andreas in his statement that the name signifies “Beautiful Prairie,” or “Prairie on Fire,” and says that Muscotah should be accented on the last syllable. She further says that Paschal Pensoneau may have suggested the name, and incidentally adds: “He was interpreter for my brother, William P. Badger, who was Indian agent under President Buchanan, and later for my husband under Lincoln. He was a good friend for both of my brothers and Major Keith, and accompanied my husband to Washington with the head chiefs when they made their treaty. The original Muscotah was on a fine site and justified the name.”

There is a town in the old Kickapoo country, in Illinois, named Mascoutah, and believing it to be synonymous with the Atchison county name, though slightly different in orthography and pronunciation, Milo Custer, of Heyworth, Ill., the well known authority on the Kickapoos, wrote: “As to the meaning of the names Muscotah and Mascoutah, they are synonymous with the old Algonquin word, Masko-teh, meaning ‘prairies.’ The Kickapoo word for prairies was one among others that I failed to get when I visited the tribe in Kansas in October, 1906. However, I am of the opinion that the word was originally derived from Ma-shi O-shkoo- teh, meaning ‘Big Fire,’ and that it referred to the great prairie fires which swept over the country. In fact I have seen the opinion advanced by some other authority, but cannot now recall the name.” When the Kickapoos lived in Illinois there was a band called the Mas-cou-tins, which Maj. H. W. Beckwith, the highest authority on the Illinois tribes, says was the Indian name for “Indians of the Prairie.” Hence it is evident that the name Muscotah is at least a derivation of the word “prairie,” whether a “beautiful prairie” or “prairie of fire.”

The plat of the Muscotah Town Company was filed by W. P. Badger, one of its proprietors, June 5, 1857, and the town is located in section 34, township 5, range 17, on the Central Branch railroad, near the western edge of the county. Its streets run from one to thirteen, and its cross streets are named Pawpaw, Elm, Vine, Walnut, Mulberry, Hickory and Oak. Following the construction of the Central Branch railroad William Osborn filed another plat of the town, and several amendments have since been made to it. Muscotah has always been an important trading point, and one of the prosperous towns of the county. In 1916 there were three general stores, one hardware store, two banks, two elevators, one lumber yard, two cream stations, two barber shops, one harness shop, two drug stores, two restaurants, a hotel, private boarding house, two garages and blacksmith shops. The town also has four practicing physicians, including an osteopath, and one dentist. The first general store was established by Nels Brown in 1868, and a year later Watson & Guy put in a general hardware store. Hagerman & Roach conducted a grain business in 1865, and the first elevator was built in 1874. Several serious fires have destroyed much property in Muscotah, the largest being known as the Watson fire, which occurred in 1883, destroying much property. The first mayor of the town was Dr. William P. Badger, who was elected in 1882. Albert Harrington was the first postmaster, in 1866. The first physician to locate in the present limits of Muscotah was Dr. L. N. Plummer, who came there in 1869. In 1868 a Dr. Heath located a few miles out from Muscotah, but never lived in the town. Dr. S. M. Riggs came in 1872 and he and Dr. Plummer are both active physicians in the practice in 1916, together with Dr. O. O. Barter and Dr. F. A. Bermen. Years before Muscotah was established there was a small settlement nearby where there were a few houses and a postoffice located about where the Robert Russell farm is. John Keeley, an enterprising early settler, built a flouring mill on the Grasshopper river, now known as the Delaware, in 1869. Mr. Keeley did considerable business with the farmers in the surrounding territory, but business finally fell off and the mill was washed away by high water in 1895.

Muscotah is an important shipping point, and the annual shipment of grain amounts to $150,000 to $200,000. Much live stock is also shipped from Muscotah, and during the year 1915 fifty-two cars of cattle, hogs and horses were shipped to the Kansas City and St. Joseph markets.

Muscotah is also a city of churches and schools. The Congregational church was established in 1866. The pastor of this church in 1916 is Rev. Fred Gray, who preaches to a congregation of about 150. When this church was organized its members worshiped in the home of Robert Russell, which was at that time in the depot, and the church edifice which is now occupied was built in 1914.

The Methodist Episcopal church was established about 1876; it now has a membership of 120, and its pastor is Rev. Rollo J. Fisher.

The Advent Christian church was organized in 1889, and its first pastor was Rev. Marshall McCollough.

Mission Hall is maintained by unattached and unorganized Christians. It holds meeting several times a week, including two services on Sunday.

The public school system of Muscotah includes an accredited high school, in which two four-year courses are offered, together with a general and college preparatory course. R. E. Devor is superintendent of schools, and the officers of the school board are: J. F. Thompson, president; W. D. Roach, treasurer; R. A. Allison, secretary. The first school house within the present limits of the town was built in 1870, but was subsequently destroyed by fire when another school was built in 1885. A six room school was erected, and it was also destroyed by fire in January, 1916. A movement is now under way to build a new, handsome, modern school building, to accommodate twelve grades, together with manual training, domestic science and a gymnasium.

Muscotah is supplied with electricity by high tension line from Atchison, and in 1916 it has forty-two street lamps and fifty-five private consumers.

In addition to being a town of churches and schools, Muscotah also has several active lodges. The Masonic lodge was organized December 20, 1871, by E. D. Hillyer, of Grasshopper Falls, on a dispensation issued by the grand lodge; the charter was issued October 17, 1872, and the officers installed November 16, 1872. The first officers were: Ben F. Freeland, William N. Kline, Thomas H. Phillips, B. G. Merrill, D. M. Stillman, W. Bullock and I. C. Archer.

Purity Council No. 293, Knights and Ladies of Security, was chartered July 6, 1895, with John Edward Lewis, president. It had ten charter members and in 1916 there was a membership of seventy, with George W. Rork, president, and Mrs. Carl Rork, secretary.

Modern Woodmen was chartered in August, 1898. The present officers are W. F. Murray, V. H. Little and G. W. Harris. There are also active lodges of the Mystic Workers, Eastern Star and Royal Neighbors.

Muscotah’s new combination grade and high school, which will take the place of the one destroyed by fire, will cost approximately $20,000, and will be a fire-proof structure of brick and concrete. When completed it will be one of the best school buildings of its kind in any town the size of Muscotah in the State. The present city officials of Muscotah are: William Buckles, mayor; R. A. Hillyer, J. G. Burbank, W. D. Roach, R. H. Trial and R. A. Allison, councilmen; H. M. Turner, city clerk; E. M. Hicks, police judge, and S. B. Liggatt, marshal.

EFFINGHAM.

Effingham, the seat of Atchison county high school, is an incorporated town, located sixteen miles west of Atchison, on the Central Branch railroad, and was first platted by William Osborne April 4, 1868, who built the first hundred miles of the Central Branch railroad, and is located on a part of the southwest quarter of section 15 and the northwest quarter of section 22, township 6, range 18. The original plat contained only eight blocks and was subsequently cancelled. February 6, 1871, Major W. F. Downs, land commissioner of the Central Branch railroad, filed another plat in which one block was dedicated as a public park and the streets numbered from one to ten, with cross streets as follows: Elizabeth, Seabury, Howard, George, William, and John. At the opening of the Central Branch railroad Effingham enjoyed quite a boom and it has remained one of the finest towns in northeastern Kansas ever since.

There was a settlement around Effingham for a number of years prior to the location of the townsite, and it was quite a trading point. Effingham is located on a broad sweep of prairie land, but there is very little of romance or legend connected with the town. There is one thing, however, for which it has always been noted, and to this extent Effingham occupies an unique place in the towns, not only of Atchison county, but of Kansas, namely: It has never been without a good hotel. The original hotel was known far and wide throughout the country and was conducted by Aunt Betty Benton, a famous cook, who not only gave her guests good things to eat, but made of her hotel a favorite stopping place for the traveling public on account of the hospitable way in which she ran it. Uncle Jack Martin succeeded Aunt Betty and for many years thereafter kept up the high standard set by her. Then came Thomas F. Cook, whose kindly welcome made friends for him among the hundreds of visitors that came to Effingham from year to year, and who never left his hotel without a full meal. Mr. Cook was succeeded by Mrs. Frank Pitman, and she in turn was succeeded by Mrs. Davis, who, in 1915, is conducting the hotel at Effingham and maintains the high standard of excellence of food and hospitality set by her predecessors.

Among the early merchants of Effingham was Hon. Milton R. Benton, who was born in Madison county, Kentucky May 3, 1815. He immigrated to Kansas in 1857; located in Atchison, where he resided until 1867, during which year he moved to his farm in Atchison county, near Effingham. He was the first marshal of the city of Atchison, having been elected in 1858. In 1863 he was elected mayor of the city, and in 1864 was elected a member of the council. He served as a member of the senate in the Territorial council of 1859; in the State legislature in 1864, and for three years as trustee of Center township. Benton township, in which Effingham is located, was named for him. He was educated as a Democrat, but before he cast his first vote identified himself with the anti- slavery movement and became a Free State man in Kansas, but in after years he supported Horace Greeley and became identified with the Democratic party. In addition to farming he was in the real estate business in Effingham.

A. F. Achenbach was one of the early liverymen of Effingham, and also was George P. Allen, who was a dealer in hardware and grain; Ball & Herron, dealers in harness; Joel M. Ketch, hardware merchant; J. E. McCormick, butcher; Alonzo Spencer, grocer; James Nesbitt, lumber dealer, and Simeon Walters, contractor and carpenter.

P. J. O’Meara was a pioneer merchant of Effingham, and was a native of Ireland, having been born in the county of Tipperary March 27, 1829. He first settled in Miami county, where he received his education, and in 1865 he moved to Atchison and went into the grocery business on Commercial street, between Third and Fourth, later moving to Effingham when the townsite was located, and built one of the first store buildings. He did a large and paying business, and his popularity was shown by the people of Effingham in electing him their first mayor.

Effingham in 1915 had two hardware stores, one drug store, four general stores, two banks, two garages, two barber shops, one cream station, one clothing store, three restaurants, one hotel, one livery, and two elevators. Effingham is also a city of churches having one Catholic church, one Presbyterian church, Methodist church, Christian church and Lutheran church. Its citizens are enterprising and progressive, and in 1914 the city council secured a twenty-four hour electric light service over high tension line from Atchison. The elevators are owned by the Farmers’ Mercantile Association, and Snyder, Smith & Company. Tom Tucker and Beckman & Thomas are big live stock shippers, and they ship from ninety-five to one hundred cars of live stock out of Effingham every year, and the elevators ship over one hundred cars of grain every year.

The present city officials who have been so diligent and faithful in their services to Effingham are as follows:

J. W. Wallach, mayor; A. J. Sells, city clerk; G. M. Snyder, councilman; I. Ebert, councilman; D. Richter, councilman; James Farrell, councilman; E. J. Kelley, councilman; J. W. Atcheson, marshal; J. A. Harman, city treasurer.

HURON.

Huron is located on the Omaha branch of the Missouri Pacific railway, in Lancaster township, seventeen miles northwest of Atchison. The townsite was originally the property of Col. D. R. Anthony, of Leavenworth. Mr. Anthony donated the railroad company twenty acres of land and the right of way for one mile. The surveys were made and the town named and platted on May 18, 1882. Within six weeks after completion of the surveys five dwellings were erected and the business interests of the town were well represented. W. D. Starr was the first postmaster, and by the end of the first year there were over fifty dwellings in the town, and among the first buildings to be erected were the Presbyterian and Baptist churches. Colonel Anthony donated lots upon which to build the churches. J. D. Carpenter opened the first hotel in Huron. Mr. Carpenter came to Kansas in 1874 and located on a farm near Huron, and when the town was organized he moved there and opened his hotel. W. G. Rucker was one of the early lumber dealers of Huron. He came from Corning, where he was engaged in the general merchandise business, and moved to Huron when the town was platted. Capt. George W. Stabler, for many years a resident of Huron, was one of the prominent politicians and characters of the county. He was born at Stablersville, Baltimore county, Maryland, in 1839, where his ancestors had lived for over 200 years. He moved to Kansas in 1858, settling in Lancaster township. He enlisted as a private in Company D, Second Kansas infantry, in 1861, for 100 days, and at the expiration of that time he re-enlisted in the Second Kansas cavalry; was made sergeant and was mustered out in 1865 and returned to his farm, subsequently moving to Huron. In 1866 he was elected to the legislature, and in 1871 and 1872 served as deputy United States marshal. He had been justice of the peace, at the time of his death, a few years ago, for over twenty years.

Old Huron was the original settlement near the present townsite of Huron, and was an important trading point for many years prior to the establishment of the new townsite following the laying of the railroad to Omaha. There were many early settlers of importance in and around Huron, among whom was Capt. Robert White. Captain White came to Kansas in 1857 and bought the squatter rights of Charles Morgan and preëmpted a quarter section of land in Lancaster township, near Huron.

The birth of the first white child in Atchison county, of which there is any record, occurred in Lancaster township. The child was Miss Frances Miller, who was born May 9, 1855. Her father was the late Daniel Miller, an Ohioan by birth, and lived near DeKalb, Mo., in 1841. In 1854 he looked over northeastern Kansas and settled on Independence creek, twelve miles north of Atchison, early in 1855, near the northeastern corner of Lancaster township. Mr. Miller sold his quarter section in 1858, after he had proven up on it, to Thomas Butcher, a new arrival in Kansas from Brownville, Pa., for $3,000. Mr. Butcher built a flouring mill on this land, which was run by water from Independence creek. Butcher subsequently sold the plant to A. J. Evans, who ran it as a “custom mill” until August, 1865, when it was destroyed by high water, caused by heavy rains.

Samuel Wymore, for whom Wymore, Nebraska was named, was a resident of Lancaster township, near Huron, in the fifties and early sixties, and ran a sawmill by horse power, about three miles north of Lancaster, in 1858. Mr. Wymore sold his first bill of lumber to Captain Robert White for $100 in gold, and at that time it was more money than Wymore had ever seen at one time, and he was so nervous during the following night that he could not sleep and continually stirred the fire in the stove so that he could count the money from the light that it made. Wymore was uneducated. He could neither read nor write, and he was said to have been worth over $150,000 before 1875.

Isaac E. Kelly, a young man from Pennsylvania, taught one of the first schools in Lancaster township, in one of the settlers’ preëmption cabin, near Eden postoffice in 1860. He went to war in 1861 and marched with Sherman to the Sea.

The first mowing machine in Atchison county was brought to Lancaster township, two miles west of where Huron now is, by Joel Hiatt, in 1859, who sold it to Capt. Robert White, who cut hay with it several seasons. The machine was a Ball, and a crude affair. The first reaper to harvest grain in the county was owned by the late M. J. Cloyes, who also lived in Lancaster township, not many miles from Huron. Mr. Cloyes bought the reaper in the early sixties. The grain was raked off by a man lashed to a post on a platform four or five feet to the rear of the cycle. This reaper was a Buckeye machine, and was sold by J. E. Wagner, the hardware merchant of Atchison.

The forty acre tract of land upon which the home of Edward Perdue stands, a few miles east of Huron, was traded for a mowing machine by the owner in 1865.

Bethel church, located southwest of Huron, is supposed to be the oldest church in the county, outside of Atchison. It was built by the Methodist Episcopal church (South), about 1870, and is still in use in 1915.

Thus it will be seen that Huron is located in the midst of a very interesting part of Atchison county, and while the town did not reach the proportions that its original promoters had hoped for it, it is one of the good towns of the county. The following are the business houses in Huron in 1915:

J. M. Delany—General merchandise. E. P. Perry—General merchandise. W. E. English—Hardware, implements and furniture. H. T. Harrison—Grocer. Dr. Wiley Jones—Drug store. John L. Snavly—Restaurant and postmaster. Mrs. Alta Wilson—Hotel. C. E. Mathew—Lumber. Loren Horton—Meat market. A. F. Allen—Grain, coal, live stock and automobile supplies. Baker-Corwell—Grain company. A. Morehead—Barber. W. Hildman—Blacksmith. Riley & Son—Livery barn.

Over 200,000 bushels of grain are shipped from Huron annually and the average shipment of live stock amounts to about forty cars.

OLD MARTINSBURG.

Martinsburg was laid out near the present site of Potter in the early days. It is not generally known, even among the old settlers, that there was such a place. George Remsburg said that this was due probably to the fact that Martinsburg was born dead. It was conceived in the town craze of early territorial times, but it came a still-born infant and its promoters succeeded in viewing it only long enough for it to give a feeble gasp and fall back dead again. Though this proposed municipal enterprise of pioneer days did not materialize, it was, nevertheless, an interesting and important fact of local history, hitherto unrecorded, that such a town was actually staked off and laid out in Atchison county at a very early period. The only old-timers who remembered it were James B. Low, of Colorado Springs, formerly of Mount Pleasant, “Uncle Joe” Potter, and W. J. (Jack) Bailey. All three settled in the southern part of Atchison county in 1854. Mr. Low settled with his parents in Walnut township in the fall of that year, and says that Martinsburg was laid out that fall. It was situated in what is known as the Mercer bottom, on land belonging to Felix Corpstein and Fred Poss, in the west half of section 24, a little northeast of the present site of Potter, or immediately adjoining it. What is known as the Mercer spring, one of the finest in this section, was included in the town site. Mr. Low and his brother went out to look at the place in the fall of 1854 and decided to spend the winter there. It consisted at that time of a few huts and a small store, and never amounted to any more than a village, if it could be called that, although Mr. Low says the town site originally comprised about 100 acres, and a few lots were actually sold. The store was a small frame building, erected by one Alex Hayes, who had previously taken a claim on Plum creek, near Kickapoo. Mr. Low thinks this was the first frame building in Atchison county. Hayes carried a small stock of goods. This was long before the town of Mt. Pleasant, in the same vicinity, was ever dreamed of, and even before Tom Fortune opened a store there. It seems that the chief promoters of Martinsburg were two brothers named Martin; hence the name. Not much is known concerning them, or what became of them. “Uncle Joe” Potter says that one of them came to his house on one occasion when he and his brother, Marion Potter, were making rails. Martin stood around a while and finally insinuated that they were foolish for working so hard, and in a confidential way, “just the same as told them,” as Mr. Potter expressed it, that they could make lots of money and make it easy stealing horses, whereupon Marion Potter promptly ordered him off of the place, and told him never to return. James Low’s father bought the town site of Martinsburg in the fall of 1855 and moved onto it in the spring of 1856, converting it into a farm. Thus perished Martinsburg. Even the name did not survive in the memory of the settlers, and it was only by accident that it was recently recalled after a lapse of fifty-four years. At an early day the locality became known as Mercer’s Bottom, after Joe Mercer, one of the earliest settlers, and it is known by that name today. It is not known what became of Mercer. James Low says the last time he saw him was in Denver, in 1859. Mercer was a queer character. It is told of him that he lived in a little cabin and subsisted principally on mussels, which he found in Stranger creek. Alex Hayes, the Martinsburg storekeeper, has also been lost trace of, but Dick King says there was an oldtimer named Alexander Hayes, who died many years ago and was buried in the Sapp graveyard at Oak Mills. The town site of Martinsburg was a favorite camping place for soldiers and emigrants passing over the old Military road in the early days on account of the fine spring, the large meadows and the protection of the hills around it. To catch this tide of emigration was, in all probability, the object of those pioneer town projectors in selecting this site.

BUNKER HILL.

There appears to be no data available which enables the historian to determine exactly where this town was located, but a prospectus publication March 18, 1858, in Freedom’s Champion, states that it was on Independence creek, within ten miles of Atchison and twenty-five miles of St. Joseph. Its chief promoter was Dr. Charles F. Kob, of Atchison. Dr. Kob was a German physician and surgeon, who located in Atchison at an early date. He had been a surgeon in the army, and a member of the Massachusetts and Connecticut medical societies. He lived and practiced medicine in Boston for some time. About the only advantage for Bunker Hill, set forth in the prospectus, was that coal was found around the place, but Bunker Hill never seemed to have any coal in her bunkers. She failed to flourish and no Bunker Hill monument perpetuates her memory.

LOCUST GROVE.

Locust Grove was never laid out as a town site. It was a stopping place on the old stage route to Topeka, and the postoffice from Mount Pleasant was moved there in 1862.

HELENA.

Helena was located and named in this county, and the plat thereof was filed March 18, 1857, by James L. Byers, one of the proprietors of the town company, and was located on the north half of section 28, township 5, range 18, on the Little Grasshopper river, in Grasshopper township, at the crossing of the old Military road, five miles north of the present site of Effingham. The town appears on an old township map of eastern Kansas, published by Whitman & Searl, of Lawrence, in 1856. It shows it to have been on the east branch of Grasshopper river, about fifteen miles west of Atchison, and north of the Ft. Laramie and California roads.

CAYUGA.

Cayuga was laid out by a New York colony in 1856, and was named for Cayuga, N. Y. It was also in Grasshopper township, on the old Military road, one and one-half miles from Lancaster township line on part of the east half of section 18, township 5, range 18. It was surveyed by Dr. A. C. Tabor, and the plat was filed October 9, 1857, by George L. Willson. Provision was made in the town site for a public park and a young ladies’ seminary. It was claimed that it had at one time 400 inhabitants. Among the members of the town company were Messrs. Smooks, Fuller, Higby, Atherton, Ontis, Meeker, William Adams, Chase and Dr. Taylor. The land on which the town was located was “junked” as a claim by a Mrs. Place, and thereafter the town gradually went out of existence. It is said to have had a good two-story hotel and a number of business houses.

KENNEKUK.

In the plat which Royal Baldwin, president of the town company, filed April 6, 1859, the name of this town is given as Kennekuck. It was located on the southeast quarter and the southwest fractional quarter of section 3, township 5, range 17. Its streets were sixty feet wide, except Broadway, which was 100 feet wide, and Market street, which was eighty feet wide. One block was donated for a market house, and another block for a park, for religious and educational purposes. The streets were numbered from 1 to 10 and the cross streets were named as follows: Elm, Linn, Cedar, Poplar, Broadway, Market, Walnut, Weld, Perry and Baldwin. The town site was vacated by the board of county commissioners December 15, 1871. Kennekuk was a station on the Overland stage route, twenty-four miles west and north of Atchison. During the overland stage days Thomas Perry ran an eating station there, and Mrs. Perry, who was a grand cook, always had a smoking hot dinner ready with the best of coffee, for the occupants of the stage coaches. In the early days dances were held in the Perry home, and Hon. D. W. Wilder, the author of the celebrated “Annals of Kansas,” used to trip the light fantastic toe there, and it is said that he courted the girl who afterwards became his wife, in the Perry home.

Frank A. Root, who was an express messenger on the overland stage, says, in his book, that Kennekuk was the first “home” station out from Atchison, and the drivers were changed there. In 1863 it was a little town of perhaps a dozen houses with one store and a blacksmith shop. The Kickapoo Indian Agency was one of the most prominent buildings there, and was located near the old road in the northwestern part of the town. The town was laid out by William H. Wheeler, a surveyor and speculator, and was named for the Kickapoo chieftain, John Kennekuk. George Remsburg says that the town was platted in June, 1854, but the dedication on the original plat in the court house would indicate that it was platted on the date first mentioned in this sketch.

Hon. A. J. White, the son of Capt. Robert White, and at one time a member of the legislature from this county, and one of the leading farmers of the county, claims that Royal Baldwin was the first white settler in Kennekuk, and that he was appointed Indian agent for the Kickapoos there by President Pierce before Kansas was opened for settlement. Mr. Remsburg also says that many noted travelers stopped at Kennekuk, including Mark Twain.

KAPIOMA.

According to Captain Elberhant, of Golden, Colo., the Kickapoo Indians once had a village on the Grasshopper river in Atchison county, called Kapioma, after the chief of the band, and it is from this source that Kapioma township took its name. Captain Berthoud says that Father Duerinck, a native of Belgium, who was probably the first Jesuit priest in Atchison county, gave the pronunciation of the name of his Atchison county station as Kah-pi-oma, accent on the syllable “Kah.”

In an affidavit of H. H. Skiles, volume 69, page 63, in the records of the office of the register of deeds of Atchison county, Kansas, the following appears:

“This affiant further states that there was in 1857 and 1858 a company formed, called and known as the Kapioma City Company, and the individuals composing that company were B. Gray, S. C. Russell, W. W. Weston, H. H. Skiles and W. Y. Roberts, who united themselves together for the purpose of laying out, locating and establishing a town called Kapioma, on what was then known as Grasshopper creek, just north of its confluence with Straight creek, in the western borders of Atchison county, Kansas. The entire purpose and scheme in laying out and establishing a town fell through and was wholly and totally abandoned by all and every person connected with it without prejudice to any one, and the title to the land intended by the company to become town property reverted to the original owner. The law required to establish a town was never complied with.”

MASHENAH.

Mashenah, apparently, was to be a rival town of Kennekuk. The cold and quiet records now on file in the court house would convey the idea that Royal Baldwin must have fallen out with the original promoters of Kennekuk and decided to establish a town of his own, so, accordingly, he filed a plat of this town September 21, 1857, showing it to be located in the northeast quarter and the northwest quarter of section 2, township 5, range 17. One block was set aside for a college and another for a park. Its streets were numbered 1 to 21, and the cross streets were named as follows: Oak, Pine, Plum, Vine, Elm, Linn and Cedar.

ST. NICHOLAS.

The only record that can be found of this town is that Thomas Poteet filed a plat thereof April 20. 1858, showing it to be located in the southwest corner of section 6, township 7, range 20.

CONCORD.

This is another town about which there is little information available. The plat was filed June 20, 1857, by James R. Whitehead and shows it to have been located in the west half of section 1, township 5, range 17. The streets were numbered from 1 to 18, and the cross streets were named Buchanan, Emily, Mary, Carolina, Jefferson, St. Joseph, Ellwood, Able, Alexander, and there were two public squares, called North and South.

PARNELL.

The plat of Parnell was filed December 24, 1883, by J. C. Hotham, and shows the town site to be located in the southwest corner of the southeast quarter of section 20, township 6, range 20. It is located on both the Santa Fe and the Missouri Pacific railroads. The station was named for a hero of the Civil war, James L. Parnell, a private soldier in Company F, Thirteenth Kansas volunteer infantry, who was killed during the skirmish at Haare Head, Ark., August 4, 1864. Parnell was the original settler on the site of Parnell and was one of the first citizens of Atchison county to respond under President Lincoln’s call of July, 1862. He enlisted in the Thirteenth Kansas. Ex-Sheriff Frank Hartin was a comrade of Parnell in Company F and married into the Parnell family.

SHANNON.

Shannon was platted by G. W. Sutliff February 22, 1883. and is located in the northwest corner of the northeast quarter of section 1. township 6, range 19, about eight miles west of Atchison, on the Parallel road. The town consists of one store building, in which the postoffice is located, and a few residences, together with railroad station and a small elevator.

ELMWOOD.

Elmwood was platted by Anna Hoke and J. S. Hoke April 12, 1873, and was located on the south half of the northeast quarter of section 2, township 6, range 20. This was a “paper” town, and the only record now available of it is the plat on file in the court house at Atchison.

CUMMINGSVILLE.

Cummingsville was platted by William Cummings December 16, 1872, and was located on the north half of the southwest quarter of section 1, township 7, range 19, on the line of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway, southwest of Atchison, in Center township, and took its name from the founder of the town. The original plat provided for two streets, Market and Main, but on September 21, 1883, Samuel C. King filed a plat, creating an addition to Cummingsville, composed of four blocks. The first settler on the townsite was Robert Kennish, who located there in November, 1872, and was appointed postmaster when the postoffice was established the following fall. Mr. Kennish opened the first store in Cummingsville in December, 1872, and he for many years was station agent there, one of the oldest in the service of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway. He was a much beloved character. He died a few years ago at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Nelson W. Cox, who lives in Cummingsville with her invalid husband, Nels Cox, who for eight years served Atchison county in the capacity of clerk of the court. In April, 1873, C. D. Harrison and family located in Cummingsville, and their child, Lorenzo, was the first child born on the townsite, and his was also the first death, Lorenzo having died March 25, 1875. In the winter of 1880–81, R. C. Ripple taught the first school, and the Methodist church (South) was built in 1880. Cummingsville now is a town of over 100 residences, and in addition to its bank, it has several good stores, a cream station and an elevator. Much grain and live stock is shipped out of Cummingsville annually.

EDEN P. O.

Eden was located about eight miles northwest of Atchison, and Charles Servoss was appointed the first postmaster there in 1858. The postoffice was located on a farm adjoining the Johnson Wymore farm on the south. Servoss resigned as postmaster in 1863 and removed to Detroit, Mich. He was succeeded by H. C. Lee, who kept the office on a farm adjoining the Wymore farm on the west. Mr. Lee was a grandfather of Miss Kate Platt and Mrs. S. F. Harburger, formerly of Atchison, and the father of Mrs. Flora B. Hiatt. Mr. Lee held the office until 1872, when Francis Schletzbaum, Sr., was named as postmaster, and removed the office to his farm, which adjoined the old Wymore farm on the north. The postoffice remained there until it was discontinued upon the establishment of free rural delivery service in 1900.

POTTER.

Potter is pleasantly situated on a slight rise or knoll in the beautiful valley of Stranger creek, and near the southeast corner of Mt. Pleasant township. From the first it has been the principal station on the Santa Fe railroad, between Atchison and Leavenworth, being situated about midway between the two cities. It is an attractive little town, with well graded streets and good cement sidewalks, and a number of attractive residences. While it is one of the younger towns of the county, it has made strides that make it compare favorably with some of its older sisters, in volume of business at least, if not in population.

Potter, as the home of the white man, dates back further than any community in the county. Elsewhere in this history will be found an account of Paschal Pensoneau, the old French trader, who established himself on Stranger creek, near the present townsite, during the early forties.

The building of Potter is the third and the most successful attempt to establish a town in that vicinity. The first attempt was at Mount Pleasant. This was one of the first towns started in Kansas, and here was located the first postoffice in Atchison county. It prospered for a time and was a candidate for the county seat. It gradually declined, and since the establishment of Potter, has been little more than a memory. In the early days, some say before Mt. Pleasant was started, a town was laid out near the big Mercer spring, just northeast of the present site of Potter, and called Martinsburg. It was extensively boomed, but outside of a small store and a few huts, it never advanced beyond the paper stage.

Early in 1886 the Leavenworth, Northern & Southern railway, now a branch of the Santa Fe, and known as the “Pollywog,” was built and a station located where Potter now stands. A town was platted and called Bennett Springs, after James Gordon Bennett, the well known eastern journalist. The mineral springs on the Masterson farm near the townsite were attracting considerable attention at the time, and it was thought that a popular resort could be built up there. The medicinal properties of the water were discovered by Dr. Rice, a local physician, and subsequently analyzed by experts, who confirmed Dr. Rice’s conclusions, and a number of people claimed to have used the waters in liver, kidney and other complaints with good results. Henry C. Squires, afterwards a Potter banker, conceived the idea of establishing a health resort here, and named it in honor of James Gordon Bennett, who, it was thought, would use his influence towards getting eastern capital interested in the project. The expected financial backing was not forthcoming, however, and the proposed development of the springs was never made.

In the meantime the railroad people had christened the town Potter, in honor of Hon. Joseph Potter, owner of the quarter section on which the town was laid out, and, while the name of the town still appears on the tax rolls as Bennett Springs, the original name having never been legally changed, the town is now generally known as Potter. Joseph Potter was the original settler, having preëmpted the land on which the town stands, in 1854, and the first sales of lots in Potter were deeded to their purchaser thirty-two years later direct from the Government preëmption owner. The taking up of the land, filing, etc., cost Mr. Potter about $220 for 160 acres, and when it was divided up into town lots it brought him $200 an acre. Mr. Potter entered part of this land with a land warrant given him for services in the Mexican war.

The first lots in the town were sold to the late James Stalons, for many years a justice of the peace, preacher of the Gospel and prominent citizen of the county. The first house on the townsite was built by Thomas J. Potter in 1882, four years before the town was laid out. The house is still standing. The first business house in the town was erected by Charles Klein, who operated a store there until his death. A year or two after Potter was started the postoffice was removed from Mt. Pleasant to the place, and James B. Weir was the first postmaster. The first hotel was operated by Mrs. Elvira Pierce. Dr. Barnes had the first drug store, and was also the first physician; Frank Blodgett, the first hardware store, and B. F. Shaw & Company, the first furniture store. The first barber was Thomas Seever; the first blacksmith, Lou Chilson; the first butcher, John Yost; the first carpenter, P. H. Fleer; the first painters, George Brown and Grant Cass; the first stone masons, S. B. Morrow and Frank Maxwell; the first shoemaker, Patrick Murphy; the first stock buyer, Henry Show; the first school teacher, Albert Limbaugh; the first railroad agent, C. L. Cherrie; the first lumber dealer, David Hudson; the first harness maker, Harry Rickets; the first rural mail carrier, Frank White. Frank Mayfield operated the first livery stable; the first elevator was built by James Hawley; the first church building was that of the Methodists. The first Methodist preacher was Rev. John W. Faubian, and the first Christian preacher, Rev. T. W. Cottingham. The first telephone exchange was operated by Charles and George Sprong. The first lodge was Echo Lodge, No. 103, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The first bank was the Potter State Bank. Potter has had three newspapers, the first, the Potter Press, was established by E. E. Campbell, in 1898. In 1900 Mr. and Mrs. Eppie Barber started the Potter Leaf. Three years later Charles B. Remsburg bought the Leaf’s circulation and launched the Potter Kansan, which is now owned and published by his father, J. E. Remsburg.

Potter is one of the most flourishing towns of its size in Kansas. Though its population is less than 200, it boasts of two banks, the aggregate resources of which amount to nearly a quarter million dollars. There probably is not another town of its size in the State that has two banks. The town has two good elevators which during the years 1912, 1913 and 1914 handled on an average of 140,000 bushels of grain a year. These elevators are operated by Fred Ode & Sons and James Robinson. The railroad station at Potter does a business that amounts to something like $40,000 annually. The shipping of live stock is an important industry here. The principal buyers are Tinsley, Potter, and Timple Bros. Much fruit is grown around Potter, and as high as $20,000 has been paid out for apples during one shipping season.

Potter has a rural high school, the first of its kind established in the State, and an $8,000 school building.

The town has two general stores, those of W. A. Hodge and P. P. Knoch; a hardware store, operated by B. F. Shaw; a grocery store, by Thomas J. Potter; a furniture store, by Frank Beard; a drug store, by G. E. Coulter; a hotel, by Mrs. G. F. Pope; two blacksmith shops, by R. E. Brown and G. F. Pope; a livery stable, by H. G. Hawley; two barber shops, by George Brown and Frank Blankenship; a cement tile factory, by Grisham & Maxwell; a millinery store, by Mrs. T. J. Maxwell; a telephone exchange, by E. C. Yoakum; a newspaper, The Potter Weekly Kansan, by J. E. Remsburg; two physicians, Dr. G. W. Redmon and Dr. S. M. Myers. Dr. A. E. Ricks, of Atchison, has a branch dental office here; the Lambert Lumber Company, of Leavenworth, has a commodious and well stocked yard here, with Samuel Parker as manager. There are two churches, Methodist and Christian, two public halls, and one lodge hall. L. M. Jewell conducts an insurance, real estate and loan business. There is also a garage, and other business enterprises in the town.

MOUNT PLEASANT.

In 1854 Thomas L. Fortune, Jr., a Virginian, settled on the “old Military road” and opened one of the very earliest stores in Atchison county, around this store springing up the village of Mount Pleasant. A postoffice was established here in 1855, and Mr. Fortune was appointed postmaster. Being an inventive genius, he finally gave up his store business and devoted his energies towards perfecting and building a road-wagon, to which reference has heretofore been made, and which he thought would revolutionize the freighting business across the plains.

The townsite of Mount Pleasant was surveyed in 1857 by John P. Wheeler, agent for the Town Company.

Michael Wilkins and James Laird were the very first settlers in the township, being followed shortly afterwards by Levi Bowles, Jacob Grindstaff, Andrew J. Peebler, Martin Jones, Chris Horn, P. R. King, W. C. Findley, A. S. Speck and Amos Hamon.

The first hotel in the town was opened by Henry Payne, who operated it many years.

T. J. Payne and Philo W. Hull were the next parties to engage in business, Mr. Payne leaving when the new town of Sumner was started, and locating there.

The next to engage in business was P. R. King, who established a general store about 1858. He remained at Mount Pleasant until after the county seat question had been settled, when he removed to Atchison.

In the fall of 1858 a district school was opened. In 1860 the Cumberland Presbyterians erected a church building, having held religious services at the homes of the members prior to this time. Rev. A. A. Moore was their first pastor.

On May 1, 1862, the Church of Christ was organized by Elder W. S. Jackson, with seventeen members, services being held in the school house.

Mount Pleasant Lodge, No. 158, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of Mount Pleasant, was organized in the fall of 1868 by the following charter members: William J. Young, X. Klein, M. R. Benton, John Hawley. S. K. McCreary, Joseph Howell and Albert Hawley. Their first meeting was held October 20, 1868, with the following as first officers: William Young, worshipful master; X. Klein, senior warden; A. Hawley, junior warden; S. K. McCreary, secretary; M. R. Benton, treasurer.

In August, 1862, the name of the postoffice was changed to Locust Grove.

LEWIS’ POINT.

In pre-territorial times and in the steamboat days, Kansas had many geographical names that are not now to be found on the map. Some of them, where permanent settlements have sprung up, have been perpetuated, but the majority of them do not live even in the memory of the oldest inhabitants. One of the latter is “Lewis’ Point,” near the present site of Oak Mills. Old “Cap.” Lewis is long since dead, his name almost forgotten, and the rapacious Missouri river and “Mansell’s Slide” are now about to devour the “Point.” with which his name was coupled in our early geography. While “Lewis’ Point” was never a place of any prominence, and not even the site of a village or settlement, yet it was a geographical name that was known to every steamboat man running on this section of the river, and is worthy of preservation in our local history. “Lewis’ Point” was at the projection of land lying immediately above Oak Mills, on the Missouri river. It took its name from the fact that Calvin Lewis, an old riverman, settled at this point at an early day, and it became a frequent stopping place for steamboats to take on wood. In those days there was a splendid wood supply in that vicinity. Lewis’ house stood near the site of the old Champton, or William Moody, house, which was destroyed by fire about a year ago.

It is not generally known that a steamboat was ever built on Atchison county soil, much less that Oak Mills was ever the scene of the ship builder’s craft, outside of the construction of Indian canoes and the modern skiffs built by Dick King or some other later-day river man. Yet, it is a fact that Calvin Lewis once built and launched at “Lewis’ Point” a small stern-wheel steamboat, and operated it on the river for several years. In 1855 the first territorial legislature of Kansas passed an act authorizing Lewis to operate a ferry at “Lewis’ Point.”

FARLEY’S FERRY.

The same legislature that gave permission to Lewis to operate a ferry at “Lewis’ Point,” granted the same privilege to Nimrod Farley, to maintain a ferry across the Missouri river, opposite Iatan, Mo. Farley was a well known character in the Missouri bottoms in the vicinity of Iatan, Cow Island, and Oak Mills, in the early days. He lived near Iatan, but it seems that he owned land on the Kansas side, near Oak Mills, which offered a landing for his ferry. He was a brother of Josiah Farley, who laid out the town of Farley, in Platte county, in 1850. George McAdow later became proprietor of Farley’s Ferry and operated it until it was destroyed by Jayhawkers, shortly before the war.

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VIII. THE CIVIL WAR

THE ISSUE BETWEEN EARLY SETTLERS—INFLUX OF FREE STATE AND PRO-SLAVERY PARTISANS—EARLY VOLUNTEERING—MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS—THREATENED INVASION FROM MISSOURI—POLITICAL SOCIETIES—JAYHAWKERS—CLEVELAND’S GANG—LYNCHINGS—ATCHISON COUNTY TROOPS IN THE WAR—PRICE’S ATTEMPTED INVASION.

The six years intervening between 1854 and 1860 constitute a momentous period in the history of Atchison county. No new community was ever organized under more unpromising circumstances. It was not merely land hunger and lust for personal gain that were the impelling motives which brought men to Kansas in that day. Neither gold, nor gas, nor oil, nor precious gems lured men here. Kansas was then, as it is now, an agricultural paradise, and such an environment has ordinarily but little charm for the daring adventurer and the seeker after sudden riches, who toil not and spin less. It is true that a large number of peaceful, plodding home-seekers—the tillers of the soil—the hewers of wood and the haulers of water, immigrated to Kansas to take up land and build permanent homes, but they were in the minority prior to 1860. The tremendous issue of human slavery was the all absorbing fact, and the long struggle here wrought a complete revolution in the political thought of the whole country. Men came to Kansas for the most part for political rather than for business or agricultural reasons. The settlement of Kansas was an inspired political movement of partisans. There was little room for neutrals, and those who were “too proud to fight” went elsewhere. There was little consideration on the part of the early settlers of Kansas, of any questions except slavery and anti- slavery. They came in large numbers from the South and from the North, and met here upon the frontier in a final test of strength. The Free Soilers won, but only after bitter contests in which passion, prejudice and bloody partisanship ran riot, and Atchison county played a most conspicuous part in this great battle. The Nation and the world looked on as the battle lines surged forward and backward. And while they fought here in a last desperate struggle for supremacy, these courageous men and women on both sides founded their towns, built their court houses, their primary schools and their churches with an abiding faith in the hearts of each of them that victory would finally crown their efforts. Atchison county made progress in spite of the fact that her leaders were wrong. We gave promise here of being the metropolis of Kansas, for we had many geographical and commercial advantages over other struggling communities of the Territory. But before the well laid plans of our citizens matured, before projects for the development of steam transportation to bring us nearer the outside world could be concluded the mighty conflict which ended in four bloody years of civil war, broke upon the Nation, and Kansas within three months after being admitted as a State enrolled itself on the side of the Union. Atchison county sprang to arms almost a thousand strong, and may it ever be said to its everlasting glory that few, if any, counties in the State had a more patriotic record. One hundred and thirty-one Atchison county men enlisted in the First Kansas regiment; twenty-five in the Seventh; eighty-five in the Eighth; eighty-six in the Tenth; 260 in the Thirteenth; 100 in the First Kansas (colored); twenty-five in the First Nebraska; 105 in the Thirteenth Missouri; thirty in the Fifteenth Kansas; forty in the Ninth, and fifty in the Sixteenth, or a total of 937 men, which, together with the scattering of men in other regiments in adjoining States, brought the total number of soldiers engaged during the Civil war to 1,000. The population of Atchison county at that time was 7,747, and the voting population 1,133, which shows that the total number of voters was but slightly larger than the total number of volunteers. At that time Atchison, by reason of its location, was subject to incursions from Confederate troops and Jayhawkers from Missouri, which called for the organization at different periods of the war, of home guard companies, which are not included in the foregoing statement. At the outset of the war Atchison had three militia companies, A, B and C, and a fourth, known as the All Hazard company, the origin of whose name is thus explained. At the city election in the spring of 1861 the issue was union or dis-union. The Republicans and Union Democrats united in supporting G. H. Fairchild for mayor. He was a Union Democrat who on various occasions announced his unwavering friendship of the Union and for the maintenance of the constitution and laws “at all hazards,” and when this company enlisted for the war Mayor Fairchild was its captain and it became Company K of the First Kansas. It participated in the battle of Wilson’s Creek, August 10, 1861, which was the first action in which a Kansas regiment was under fire.

In 1861 there were constant threats of invasion from Missouri rebel organizations in Buchanan and Platte counties, and in that year another home guard company was organized with the following officers: Charles Holbert, captain; J. G. Bechtold, first lieutenant; Clem Rhor, second lieutenant; W. Becker, third lieutenant; John Schupp, ensign. During the following year the danger of invasion became still more threatening and 650 men in sixteen companies came to Atchison to protect the town from destruction. The Atchison county companies were commanded by Captains Holbert, Hays, Batsett, Evans and Vanwinkle. It was due to the thoroughness with which the people of Atchison organized themselves against invasion that they were spared from being completely annihilated. On the fifteenth day of September, 1861, another company for home guard service was mustered in at Ft. Leavenworth. J. M. Graham was captain; J. G. Bechtold, first lieutenant; R. N. Bryant, second lieutenant. This company subsequently became Company E of the First Kansas Regiment Home Guards, numbering fifty men, and were ordered back to Atchison for duty, where they were stationed until all danger of invasion had passed, after which the company became a part of the Eighth Kansas. The victories of the Union forces in 1862 were frequent, and as a result many rebel sympathizers came to Atchison for safety, where they became very troublesome. In order to counteract the growing evil over the activities of these men, Mayor Fairchild issued a proclamation in which he warned them that they must not expect to be protected in any manner by the city laws as long as they held to the views which they expounded at even favorable opportunity. “It would be absurd to suppose,” the proclamation said, “that a patriotic community could treat otherwise than its enemies, persons who are in sympathy with base men who have brought upon our country untold misery, almost unlimited taxation and almost inconceivable pecuniary suffering. As a representative of a loyal people I will not encourage men to return among us who have circulated reports that they were refugees from the loyal States on account of their secession doctrines, nor will I give protection to men who unmistakably at heart belong to the Confederacy.” This proclamation met with such favor that a mass meeting of Union men in Atchison county was held at Price’s Hall March 15, 1862. The whole county was well represented and stirring addresses were delivered by Colonel Edge, of Doniphan county, Tom Murphy, the genial proprietor of the Massasoit House, Rev. W. S. Wenz, Lieutenant Price, E. Chesebrough, Mayor Fairchild, Caleb May, and others, after which resolutions denouncing the southern sympathizers and notifying them not to return were unanimously adopted. During the latter part of the same year a call for aid to assist the Atchison county troops met with immediate response and within a few days, commencing August 20, 1862, almost $4,000 was subscribed by the citizens of Atchison. Seven hundred and forty-five dollars came from Mt. Pleasant township. Among the leading contributors were Theodore Bartholow, E. Chesebrough, G. W. Fairchild, J. W. Russell, W. L. Challiss, Dr. William Irwin, G. W. Howe, Bela M. Hughes, William Hetherington, Otis & Glick, Henry Deisbach, J. E. Wagner, Rice McCubbin, McCausland & Brown, Tom Murphy, W. A. Cochrane, Samuel C. Pomeroy, Stebbins & Company, E. Butcher, and William C. Smith, each of whom subscribed the sum of $50 or over. Atchison also made a notable contribution when Quantrell invaded Lawrence, sending $4,000 to assist the people of that city. In 1863 depredations of the Jayhawkers became very annoying, and a vigilance committee was organized and all good, peaceful and loyal citizens were called upon to band themselves together for the protection of their lives, homes and property. Those who joined the vigilance committee took an oath to support the Government of the United States and Kansas, and to do all in their power to put down the rebellion, and also to keep secret all proceedings of the organization. This committee did very effective work in bringing to punishment violators of law and also in keeping the lawless bands of Jayhawkers and other thieves out of Atchison county.

The following “circular” has been unearthed by the author, and while it bears no date it apparently contained the constitution, by-laws, ritual and oath of these societies.

“CIRCULAR TO OFFICERS.

“Be extremely careful in the selection of your members. Admit no one who is not of good standing in the community, and whom you have not good reason to believe to be firm and uncompromising in his devotion to the Union, and to be relied upon to assist in any emergency in maintaining the laws and good order in the community. This is of the first and highest importance to the order, and if any member shows symptoms of defection, watch him closely.

“In all cases, deal kindly with your opponents, and strive by gentle means to win them over to a change of sentiment. Many good men may thus be brought within our circle who would otherwise be lost to us.

“The first club established in your county seat will be called the County Club, to which all clubs in the county will report, and by those officers all such clubs will be established. It is important that we be frequently advised as to our strength in the State; and for this purpose each subordinate club will report weekly to the county club the number of members enrolled therein; and the County Club will report monthly to the Ex. Com. at —— the number of clubs and number of members in the county. These reports should be carefully sealed and addressed ——.

“The officers of County Clubs will be supplied with a printed constitution and ritual, and they will furnish officers of subordinate clubs copies of the same, with a strict injunction to secrecy.

“All correspondence must be secret as possible; and in order that this may be accomplished the monthly reports may consist only of the place, date, number of clubs in the county and number of members. No signature must be attached. These reports will be summed up and published by the Ex. Com.

“Strict secrecy as to the working of the organization is enjoined and promptness and vigor in its extension is very important. We must work now and work rapidly. No time is to be lost; our opponents are working vigorously and secretly, but it is not too late to counteract their machinations and utterly overthrow them. Work! Work! Work!

“CONSTITUTION.

“OBJECT.

“The object shall be to preserve and maintain the Union and the constitution of the United States and of the State of Kansas, and to defend Kansas against invasion, insurrection, civil commotion and to protect Union men against assassination, arson, robbery, prescription and all other wrongs inflicted by the enemies of the Government of the United States and of this State upon loyal persons.

“OFFICERS.

“The officers shall consist of Pr., V. P., R. S., T., M., and S., who shall hold their office for three months.

“DUTIES OF OFFICERS.

“The duties of officers shall be the same as in similar organizations and all business shall be conducted in the usual parliamentary form.

“ADMISSION OF MEMBERS.

“Persons may become members who are eighteen years of age and upwards, and are citizens of the United States.

“INITIATION.

“All initiations shall take place in and with the authority of the officers of the club who may delegate suitable persons to initiate members from time to time as occasion requires outside of any regular meeting of the club. Branch clubs may be formed by proper application to this club when the president may appoint suitable persons to establish the same.

“WITHDRAWALS.

“Any member may withdraw from this club by giving written notice of the same to the R. S. at any regular meeting; but the obligations of such member shall remain the same as before.

“AMENDMENTS.

“This constitution may be altered or amended by giving one week’s notice thereof, by a vote of two-thirds of the executive committee of the State. Each county club may make by-laws for its own organization, not conflicting with this constitution.

“RITUAL.

“Eternal God! Supreme Ruler, Governor and Architect of the Universe! We humbly beseech Thee to protect the people of the United States in general and especially the members of this organization. Wilt thou be pleased to direct and prosper all our consultations to the advancement of Thy glory, the good of Thy country, the safety, honor and welfare of Thy people, and may all things be ordered and settled by the Legislature and Executive branches of our Government upon the best and surest foundation, so that peace and happiness, truth and justice may be established among us for all generations. Wilt Thou be pleased to guide and direct us as Thou didst our Fathers in the Revolution. With the strength of Thine almighty arm Thou didst uphold and sustain them through all their trials, and at last didst crown them with victory. May charity, and brotherly love cement us; may we be united with our principles founded upon the teachings of Thy Holy Word and may Thy Good Spirit guide, strengthen and comfort us, now and forever, Amen.

“All candidates for membership to this club will be required to answer the following questions to be propounded by the marshal before initiation:

“1. Are you opposed to secession or dis-union?

“2. Do you acknowledge that your first and highest allegiance is due to the Government of the United States of America?

“3. Are you willing to take such an oath of allegiance to the United States of America?

“4. Are you willing to pledge yourself to resist to the extent of your power, all attempts to subvert or overthrow the constitution of the United States, or the constitution of the State of Kansas?

“Should the candidates answer affirmatively, the marshal, after repeating to the president, will conduct them into the club room and present them to the president, who shall then address the candidates as follows:

“Gentlemen:—We rejoice that you have thus voluntarily come forward to unite yourselves with us. The cause we advocate is that of our country; banded together for the purpose of perpetuating the liberties for which our fathers fought, we have sworn to uphold and protect them.

“It is a strange and sad necessity which impels American citizens to band themselves together to sustain the constitution and the Union; but the Government under which we live is threatened with destruction. Washington enjoined upon us that ‘the unity of the Government which constitutes us one people is a main pillar in the edifice of our real independence; the support of our tranquility at home, our peace abroad— of our safety, of our prosperity, of that very liberty which we so highly prize.’ He charges that we should ‘properly estimate the immense value of our national Union to our collective and individual happiness; that we should cherish a cordial, habitual and immovable attachment to it; accustoming ourselves to think and speak of it as the palladium of our political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned.’

“He tells us again that ‘to the efficiency and permanency of the Union, a Government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict between the parts, is an adequate substitute.’

“It is to sustain this Government we are banded together, and for this purpose you are now required to take a solemn obligation.

“Place your left hand on the National Flag and raise your right hand toward Heaven; repeating after me:

“We and each of us do solemnly swear in the presence of God and these witnesses to support, protect and defend the constitution and Government of the United States and of the State of Kansas against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to maintain and defend the Government of the United States and the flag thereof, and aid in maintaining the laws of the United States in this State and to defend the State of Kansas against invasion from any State or States and from any other rebellion, invasion, insurrection to the best of our ability without any mental reservation or evasion—So help us God.

“The members will respond.

“To this we pledge ourselves.

“We do severally solemnly swear and affirm that we will protect, aid and defend each member of all Union clubs, and will never make known in any way or manner, to any person or persons, not members of Union clubs, any of the signs, passwords, proceedings, purposes, debates or plans of this or any other club under this organization, except when engaged in admitting new members into this organization.

“The president will then deliver the following address to the candidates:

“‘The oath which you have now taken of your own free will and accord cannot rest lightly upon your conscience, neither can it be violated without leaving the stain of perjury upon your soul. Our country is now in “disorder” and “confusion;” the fires of commotion and contest are now raging in our midst, war has come to us but we cannot, we must not, we dare not omit to do that which in our judgment the safety of the Union requires, not regardless of consequences, we must yet meet consequences; seeing the hazard that surrounds the discharge of public duty, it must yet be discharged. Let us then, cheerfully shun no responsibility justly devolving upon us here or elsewhere in attempting to maintain the Union. Let us cheerfully partake its fortune and its fate. Let us be ready to perform our appropriate part, whenever and wherever the occasion may call us, and to take our chances among those upon whom the blows may fall first and fall thickest.

“‘Above all remember the words of our own immortal Clay: “If Kentucky tomorrow unfurls the banner of resistance, I never will fight under that banner. I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole Union. A subordinate one to my own State.”

“‘Be faithful, then, to your country, for your interests are indissolubly connected with hers; be faithful to these, your brethren, for your life and theirs may be involved in this contest; be faithful to posterity for the blessings you have enjoyed in this Government are but held in trust for thee.’

“Response by all the members—We Will!

“The president will then present the constitution and oath to the candidates for their signature.”

Charles Metz, a notorious Jayhawker, whose personal appearance and characteristics are best described in an essay entitled, “The Last of the Jayhawkers,” contributed to the old Kansas Magazine, by John J. Ingalls. “Conspicuous among the irregular heroes who thus sprang to arms in 1861,” says Ingalls, “and ostensibly their leader, was an Ohio stage driver by the name of Charles Metz, who having graduated with honor from the penitentiary of Missouri, assumed for prudential reasons the more euphonious and distinguished appellation of ‘Cleveland.’ He was a picturesque brigand. Had he worn a slashed doublet and trunk hose of black velvet he would have been the ideal of an Italian bandit. Young, erect and tall, he was sparely built and arrayed himself like a gentleman in the costume of the day. His appearance was that of a student. His visage was thin, his complexion olive tinted and colorless, as if ‘sicklied over with a pale cast of thought.’ Black piercing eyes, finely cut features, dark hair and beard correctly trimmed, completed a tout ensemble that was strangely at variance with the aspect of the score of dissolute and dirty desperadoes that formed his command. These were generally degraded ruffians of the worst type, whose highest idea of elegance in personal appearance was to have their mustaches a villainous, metallic black, irrespective of the consideration whether its native hue was red or brown. * * * *

“The vicinity of the fort with its troops rendered Leavenworth undesirable as a base of operations. St. Joseph was also heavily garrisoned, and they accordingly selected Atchison as the point from which to move on the enemy’s works. Atchison at that time contained about 2,500 inhabitants. Its business was transacted upon one street and extended west about four blocks from the river. Its position upon the extreme curve of the ‘Grand Detour of the Missouri, affording unrivaled facilities to the interior in the event of pursuit. Having been principally settled by Southerners it still afforded much legitimate gain for our bird of prey, and its loyal population having already largely enlisted, the city was incapable of organized resistance to the depredations of the marauders.

“They established their headquarters at the saloon of a German named Ernest Renner, where they held their councils of war and whence they started upon their forays. The winter was favorable to their designs, as the river closed early, enabling them to cross upon the ice. Cleveland proclaimed himself marshal of Kansas, and announced his determination to run the country. He invited the cordial co-operation of all good citizens to assist him in sustaining the government and punishing its foes. Ignorant of his resources and of his purposes, the people were at first inclined to welcome their strange guests as a protection from the dangers to which they were exposed, but it soon became apparent that the doctors were worse than the disease. They took possession of the town, defied the municipal authorities, and committed such intolerable excesses that their expulsion was a matter of public safety. Their incursions into Missouri were so frequent and audacious that a company of infantry was sent from Weston and stationed at Winthrop to effect their capture, but to no purpose. * * * * If a man had an enemy in any part of the country whom he wished to injure, he reported him to Cleveland as a rebel, and the next night he was robbed of all he possessed and considered fortunate if he escaped without personal violence. * * * * A small detachment of cavalry was sent from the fort to take them, but just as they had dismounted in front of the saloon and were hitching their horses, Cleveland appeared at the door with a cocked navy in each hand and told them that he would shoot the first man who moved a finger. Calling two or three of his followers he disarmed the dragoons, took their horses and equipments and sent them back on foot to reflect upon the vicissitudes of military affairs. Early in 1862 the condition became desperate and the city authorities, in connection with the commander at Winthrop, concerted a scheme which brought matters to a crisis. Cleveland and about a dozen of his gang were absent in Missouri on a scout. The time of their return was known, and Marshal Charles Holbert had his force stationed in the shadow of an old warehouse near the bank of the river. It was a brilliant moonlight night in mid-winter. The freebooters emerged from the forest and crossed upon the ice. They were freshly mounted and each one had a spare horse. Accompanying them were two sleighs loaded with negroes, harness and miscellaneous plunder. As they ascended the steep shore of the levee, unconscious of danger, they were all taken prisoners except Cleveland, who turned suddenly, spurred his horse down the embankment and escaped. The captives were taken to Weston, where they soon afterward enlisted in the Federal army. The next day Cleveland rode into town, captured the city marshal on the street and declared his intention to hold him as a hostage for the safety of his men. He compelled the marshal to walk by the side of his horse a short distance, when finding a crowd gathering for his capture, he struck him a blow on the head with his pistol and fled.”

Cleveland continued his exploits for a number of months after this, but was finally captured in one of the southern counties where he was attempting to let himself down the side of a ravine. He was shot by a soldier from above, and the ball entered his arm and passed through his body. He was buried in St. Joseph. Mo., and a marble head stone over his grave bears the following inscription, placed there by his widow: “One hero less on earth, one angel more in heaven.”

As the direct result of the operations of Cleveland and his gang, the spirit of lawlessness grew and the people finally “took the law into their own hands.” Perhaps the best account of the lynchings that followed was given by Hon. Mont. Cochran March 17, 1902, at the time a Congressman from Missouri, but formerly a leading citizen and county attorney of Atchison. Mr. Cochran said:

“The thieves who fell victims to Judge Lynch, while not known as Cleveland’s gang, operated extensively throughout the period of lawlessness in which no effort whatever was made to bring the outlaws to justice. After the Cleveland gang had been effectively broken up, these depredatory scoundrels continued their operations. Their last crime, and the one for which they were gibbeted, was the attempted robbery of an old man named Kelsey. He had received at Ft. Leavenworth $1,500 on a Government contract, and, upon returning home by the way of Atchison, he deposited it in Hetherington’s bank. The thieves went to his house at night and demanded the money. Of course, he could not produce it. They tortured the old man and his wife alternately for hours, and when after the departure of the thieves, the neighbors were called in, Kelsey and his wife were nearer dead than alive. The next morning hundreds of their neighbors, armed to the teeth, swarmed into Atchison. In Third street, north of Commercial, was a little log building, which had been the home of an early settler, in which was a gunsmith’s shop. Three or four of the farmers went there to have their fire arms put in order. When they came out one of them had a revolver in his hand. Two fellows standing by, seeing the farmers approaching, dived into an alley and started westward at lightning speed. The farmers pursued and at the house of a notorious character, known as Aunt Betsey, the fugitives were run to cover. The house was surrounded and they were captured. One of them was Sterling, the fiddler and pianist of the bagnio. Other arrests followed until five were in durance. Then ensued probably the most extraordinary proceeding known to the annals of Judge Lynch. The mob took possession of the jail and the court house and for a week held them. The prisoners were tried one by one. Sterling was convicted and executed. An elm tree, standing on the banks of White Clay creek, in the southwest quarter of the town, was admirably suited to the purpose. When the wagon, bearing Sterling to his doom reached the ground the whole town was in attendance. A range of hills to the south swarmed with women. Asa Barnes, a prominent farmer, a man of iron resolution and unswerving honesty, was the leader of the mob. With clinched teeth and blanched face he ordered Sterling to take his place on the seat of the wagon, and, while the desperado was as game as a peacock, he promptly obeyed. Standing on the wagon seat Sterling took off his hat, banged it down and placing his foot on it, shook his clenched hand at the sea of upturned faces, and with a volley of imprecations, said: ‘I am the best d—d man that ever walked the earth and if you will drop me down and give me a gun, I will fight any ten of you.’ Sandy Corbin, a great bluffer, who bore but little better reputation than the man with the noose on his neck, pretended that he wanted to fight Sterling single-handed. Nobody else paid any attention to Sterling’s ravings, and in a twinkling he was swung into eternity. The next day two others, a man named Brewer, a soldier at home on a furlough, and a young fellow known as Pony, met the same fate. There was much sympathy for Pony. He was a drunkard and all his delinquencies were attributed to this weakness. Just as they were ready to swing him up, two or three members of the mob told him that if he would give information as to others implicated, but who had not been arrested, they would save him. His reply was: ‘I went into this thing as a man and I will die as a man.’ There was a stir among those nearest the wagon and it was discovered that an effort was being made to save the boy from death. The traces were cut and the horses led away. The effort failed. Fifty men seized the wagon and dragged it away. The fourth to suffer the vengeance of the mob was an old gray-haired man named Moody. At the trial he strongly protested his innocence, and promised, if given a respite of twenty-four hours, he would prove an alibi. This was granted, but the witnesses were not forthcoming and the next day the old man was put to death. A priest visited him in jail, which was constantly surrounded day and night, and when he came out after administering the rights of the church to the doomed man, it was remarked by those who saw him that the priest was as pale as a ghost. The report gained currency that when asked if Moody was innocent, he refused to answer yea or nay, and, although it had not then developed that Moody could not produce the witnesses he promised, the conduct of the priest was taken as proof that Moody was guilty. During the week in which these extraordinary proceedings took place, the mob was in undisputed control of the court house and jail. Judge Lynch was perched upon the wool sack and a jury of twelve men, who had qualified under oath, in the usual form, occupied the jury box. Not the slightest effort at concealment was made by those who led or those who followed. In my judgment no other course was left open to the community.

“Not less than 500 men were driven out of Kansas on the charge of disloyalty in 1861 and 1862, with the approval of men of excellent character, by thugs and scoundrels, who made no concealment of the fact that they lived by horse stealing and house breaking. From the beginning of the Civil war until peace was declared, the Kansas border from the Nebraska State line to the Indian Territory, was a scene of lawlessness and disorder. In the earlier years of the war, thieves regularly organized into companies, with captains whose authority was recognized by the rank and file, with headquarters in the towns and cities of eastern Kansas, masqueraded as saviors of the Union, and upon the pretense that they were serving the cause, thrived amazingly by pillaging the farm houses and barns of neighboring counties in Missouri. Atchison was the headquarters of the Cleveland gang—the most active and the boldest of the banditti. The gang did not hesitate to cross over to Missouri and steal horses, and returning to Atchison sell them in broad daylight. Usually these raids were made at night, but there was no concealment of the business they were engaged in, nor of the fact that hundreds of the horses sold by them were stolen from farmers of Buchanan, Platte and Clinton counties. In the capacity of saviors of the Union, they took upon themselves the task of driving all persons suspected of sympathy for ‘the lost cause’ out of Kansas. P. T. Abell, J. T. Hereford, Headley & Carr, prominent lawyers, were notified to leave or they would be killed. They departed. Headley, Carr and Hereford served in the Confederate army. Abell lived in exile until after the war was over, and then returned to Atchison. He was one of the founders of the town, and before the war was the partner of Gen. B. F. Stringfellow. Tom Ray, proprietor of an extensive blacksmithing and wagon shop, was banished. In a month or two he returned, but not until after he had halted at Winthrop, a village opposite Atchison and opened up negotiations which resulted in a grant of permission to remain in Atchison long enough to settle up his business and collect considerable sums due from his customers. He registered at the old Massasoit House, but did not tarry long. Maj. R. H. Weightman, an early settler, who left Atchison in 1861, and accepted a colonel’s commission in the Confederate army, had been killed at Wilson’s Creek. While sitting in the Massasoit House barroom, Ray was approached by Sandy Corbin, a somewhat notorious character, who handled most of the horses stolen by Cleveland’s thieves. Corbin mentioned Weightman’s death, expressing satisfaction at his untimely end, and applying all the epithets known to the abandoned, to the dead man. Ray expostulated, and finally warned Corbin to desist or expect a thrashing. Corbin rushed to his room and returned with two revolvers, so adjusted upon his belt that Ray could not help seeing them. Ray, who was a giant in size, seized Corbin, threw him face downward upon a billiard table, and with a blacksmith’s hand as large as a ham, spanked him until he was almost insensible. Then he hurriedly boarded the ferry boat, crossed the river and made his way to Montana, where he lived until his death, twenty years ago.

“Cleveland’s lieutenant, a fellow named Hartman, was the worst of the gang, and was guilty of so many and such flagrant outrages upon the prominent citizens that in sheer desperation, four men, all of whom are now dead, met and drew straws to see who would kill Hartman—(1) Jesse C. Crall, during his life prominent in politics and business; (2) George T. Challiss, for thirty years a deacon in the Baptist church and a prominent wholesale merchant and identified prominently with Atchison affairs; (3) James McEwen, a cattle buyer and butcher; (4) The fourth man was a prominent physician. Each of these had suffered intolerable outrages at the hands of Hartman. He had visited their houses and terrified their wives by notifying them that unless their husbands left Atchison within a specified period they would be mobbed. Even the children of two of the victims of persecution had been abused. They met at the physician’s office, and after a prolonged conference, at which it was agreed that neither would leave until Hartman had been killed, proceeded to draw straws to see which would undertake the work. Crall held the straws, McEwen drew the short straw and the job fell to his lot. Atchison is bisected by two or three brooks, one of which traverses the northwest section of the town and runs into White Clay creek. This ravine has very precipitous banks, and was crossed by several foot bridges. At the east approach of the bridge was a tall elm tree. McEwen took his position under this tree, and awaited the appearance of Hartman, who necessarily passed that way in going home at night. When Hartman was half-way across the bridge, McEwen stepped out, dropped to his knee, leveled a double-barreled shotgun and turned loose. He filled Hartman with buckshot from his head to his heels, but strange to say, the fellow did not die for months afterward. Had either of the others drawn the fatal straw, no doubt Hartman would have been killed in broad daylight, on the streets, but McEwen concluded to give the fellow no chance for his life.”

The First Kansas volunteer cavalry was the first regiment to be raised under the call of President Lincoln May 8, 1861. It was mustered into the service at Ft. Leavenworth June 3, 1861. George W. Deitzler, of Lawrence, was colonel, and the following men from Atchison were officers: George H. Faicheled, captain, Company C; Camille Aguiel, first lieutenant: Rinaldo A. Barker, second lieutenant; James W. Martin, second lieutenant of Company B. Within ten days of the date this regiment was mustered in, they received orders for active service. The regiment joined the army of General Lyon at Grand River, Mo., and on July 10 arrived at Springfield, where the force of General Sigel was gathered. The united forces of the rebels, under Price and McCullouch, was concentrated at Wilson’s Creek, twelve miles from Springfield, and was strongly entrenched there, where the initial engagement of the First Kansas regiment took place. This regiment went into the engagement with 644 men and officers, and lost seventy-seven killed and 333 wounded. The rebel forces were estimated to be 5,300 infantry, fifteen pieces of artillery, and 6,000 horsemen, with a loss of 265 killed, 721 wounded, and 292 missing. The Union forces numbered about 5,000, with a loss of about 1,000. It was one of the fiercest and most determined battles of the Civil war, and both officers and privates in the companies from Atchison displayed great bravery. First Lieut. Camille Aguiel was among the killed, and privates Henry W. Totten and Casper Broggs, together with Corporal William F. Parker, of Atchison, also lost their lives in this engagement.

The Seventh regiment Kansas cavalry was ordered into active service immediately following its organization. Colonel Daniel R. Anthony, of Leavenworth, was a lieutenant-colonel of this regiment, and among the line officers was William S. Morehouse, of Atchison, who was second lieutenant. This regiment saw a great deal of active service in the Civil war, and was first attacked by the rebels November 11, 1861, while encamped in western Missouri, on the Little Blue river. Following a furious battle the regiment lost nine of its force by death and thirty- two wounded. This regiment subsequently participated in an engagement at Little Santa Fe and at Independence. In January, 1862, the Seventh regiment went into camp at Humboldt, Kan., and remained there until it was ordered to Lawrence in the following March, and subsequently was ordered to Corinth, Miss., and from thence to Rienzi, Miss., where it was assigned to the First Cavalry brigade, of which Phillip H. Sheridan was commander, and subsequently saw much service in Tennessee and other points in the South, and participated in the various actions that occurred during General Smith’s expedition to the Tallahatchee, after which the balance of their active service took place in Missouri. It was mustered out at Ft. Leavenworth September 4, 1865.

The Eighth regiment Kansas infantry was perhaps closer to the hearts of the people of Atchison county than any other regiment that participated in the Civil war, for the reason that its lieutenant-colonel was the beloved John A. Martin, editor of the Atchison Champion, and subsequently governor of Kansas. It was originally recruited and intended for home and frontier service. The fear of invasion, both by hostile Indians on the west, and the rebels on the south and east, kept fear alive in the hearts of many residents of Kansas, and for this purpose it was deemed desirable to have a regiment of volunteer soldiers close at hand. As originally organized, this regiment consisted of six infantry and two cavalry companies, but various changes were made during the three months following its organization. It saw active service throughout the South, and participated in many of the important battles of the Civil war, but in none did it play a more conspicuous part than in the great battle of Mission Ridge. The following is from Colonel Martin’s official report of the part taken by the Eighth Kansas in this engagement:

“Shortly after noon, on the twenty-fifth (November), we were ordered to advance on the enemy’s position at the foot of Mission Ridge, and moved out of our works, forming in the second line of the battle. We at once advanced steadily in line through the woods and across the open field in front of the enemy’s entrenchments to the foot of the hill, subjected during the whole time to a heavy artillery fire from the enemy’s batteries, and as soon as we reached the open field, to a destructive musketry fire. Reaching the first line of works we halted to rest our men for a few moments, and then advanced through a terrible storm of artillery and musketry, to the foot of the hill and up it as rapidly as possible. The crest of the ridge at the point where we moved up was formed like a horseshoe. We advanced in the interior, while the enemy’s batteries and infantry on the right and left, as well as in the center, poured upon us a most terrific fire. But the men never faltered or wavered, although from the nature of the ground, regiments were mingled one with another, and company organization could not possibly be preserved. Each man struggled to be first on top, and the officers and men of the regiment, without a single exception, exhibited the highest courage and the most devoted gallantry in this fearful charge.

“The enemy held their ground until we were less than a dozen yards from their breastworks, when they broke in wild confusion and fled in panic down the hill on the opposite side. A portion of our men pursued them for nearly a mile, capturing and hauling back several pieces of artillery and caissons, which the enemy were trying to run off.

“We occupied the summit of Mission Ridge until the night of the twenty- sixth, when we were ordered to return to camp at Chattanooga.

“Our loss was one commissioned officer wounded and three enlisted men killed and thirty-one wounded. The regiment went into the battle with an aggregate force of 217 men and officers.

“Where all behaved with such conspicuous courage, it is difficult to make distinction, but I cannot forebear mentioning my adjutant- lieutenant, Sol. R. Washer. Wounded at Chicakamauga, and not yet recovered from the effects of his wound, and suffering from a severe sprain of the ankle, which prevented his walking, he mounted his horse and rode through the whole battle, always foremost in danger.”

The Eighth infantry remained in camp at Chattanooga until it removed to the relief of Burnside at Knoxville, which city was reached on December 7. About the same time Sherman’s corps arrived. The winter of 1863 was spent in east Tennessee, and in the following February arrived home in Atchison and Ft. Leavenworth. There was great rejoicing and celebration and both officers and soldiers were greeted with waving banners, ringing bells, booming cannon, and there was much feasting and speech making. The regiment was home on a furlough, and early in April the men re- assembled at Leavenworth and on the twelfth of that month was ordered to report back to Chattanooga, where it subsequently saw service in the Cumberland mountains, and throughout the State of Tennessee.

Colonel Martin was mustered out at Pulaski November 17, his term of enlistment having expired, and the following day he left for the North, but the regiment was not mustered out of service until the following January.

The Tenth regiment, Kansas infantry, was made up of the Third and Fourth and a small portion of the Fifth Kansas regiments, and among its officers were Mathew Quigg, captain of Company D; Seth M. Tucker, first lieutenant, and David Whittaker, second lieutenant, all of Atchison. The activities of this regiment were largely confined to operations in Missouri and Arkansas, and afterwards in Tennessee. In December, 1864, it arrived at Clinton, Miss., without tents or blankets, and many of the men without shoes or overcoats. During January it made an expedition into Mississippi, and the latter part of that month marched to Waterloss, Ala., remaining there until February 8, when it embarked for Vicksburg, where it remained until February 19, and subsequently operated around Mobile, and the men of this regiment were employed as skirmishers in the joint advance upon the fortifications around Mobile. It was mustered out at Montgomery, Ala., September 20, 1865, and finally discharged at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan. The regiment was mostly composed of veterans, who understood the life of a soldier, and realized the hardships of military campaigns. They did their duty, whether it was in guarding their own State from invasion, or assaulting the rebels at the siege of Ft. Blakely.

The Thirteenth regiment, Kansas infantry, had more officers in it from Atchison than any of the regiments that participated in the Civil war. It was raised under President Lincoln’s call of July, 1862, and was recruited by Cyrus Leland, Sr., of Troy, Kan., by virtue of authority from James H. Lane, in the counties of Brown, Atchison, Doniphan, Marshall and Nemaha. The regiment was organized September 10, 1862, at Camp Staunton, Atchison, and mustered into the service ten days later. Colonel of this regiment was Thomas M. Bowen, of Marysville, and the major was Caleb A. Woodworth, of Atchison. Among the line officers from Atchison were: Henry Havenkorst, captain of Company B; August Langehemeken, second lieutenant; Henry R. Neal, captain; Robert Manville, second lieutenant; John E. Hayes, captain, Company F; Archimedes S. Speck, first lieutenant; William J. May, second lieutenant; Patrick McNamara, captain, Company K; Daniel C. O’Keefe, first lieutenant; Hugh Dougherty, second lieutenant.

The regiment joined a division of General Blunt soon after the battle of Old Ft. Wayne, and participated in various engagements in Arkansas. At the battle of Prairie Grove, it was one of the first regiments to be engaged, and in every attempt to capture the battery of which this regiment formed the support at this battle, was successfully repulsed, with heavy losses to the rebels. This battle virtually finished the campaign for the winter. It subsequently did garrison and out-post duty in Arkansas, and in the Cherokee Nation. The regiment remained on duty at Ft. Smith, Ark., until March 3, 1865, when it was ordered to Little Rock, Ark., and on June 26 of that year was mustered out of service.

Among the privates of this regiment from Atchison, who were killed, were: James L. Parnell, of Mount Pleasant, and John Collins and Lorenzo Richardson, of Atchison.

Thomas Roe, a fine, stout young man, son of a widowed mother, of Brownsville, Pa., was the only member of Company D, of the Second Kansas cavalry, that lost his life in battle during its nearly four years of service in the Civil war. This company participated in the battles of Cane Hill and Prairie Grove, in Arkansas, and other engagements. Roe came to Kansas with the late Thomas Butcher, for whom he worked until going into the war of the rebellion.

In May, 1861, a company of home guards was organized by Free State men, of Lancaster and Shannon townships, Atchison county, with a few from Brown and Doniphan counties, which gathered every Saturday afternoon for drill, alternating at the homes of Johnson Wymore and Robert White. Robert White, who had received military training during the Mexican war, having served there in 1846–48, did most of the drilling. A. J. Evans was captain; Robert White, first lieutenant; John Bertwell, of Brown county, was second lieutenant.

The pro-slavery people were also organized and drilling at the same time, consisting of South Carolinians, Virginians and Missourians, who were for the Confederacy and slavery.

At a Sunday school meeting on the prairie, held in a vacant settler’s shanty near Eden postoffice, where both sides in the neighborhood worshiped on Sundays, Robert White found out on a Sunday in August, 1861, that a southern organization was to disarm all Free State men the following Tuesday. His nearest neighbor and a good friend, also a southerner, thought White had found this out and came and visited him a good part of Sunday afternoon and staying in the evening until after 10 o’clock before going home, White showing no excitement. Willis went home, seemingly much at ease, but he was watched by his friend White until safely resting at his home, when White went and called another Free State man from his bed who notified half the Free State company and White the other half, causing them to meet early the following Monday, when by the middle of the afternoon of that day every pro-slavery man in that part of the country had his fire arms taken from him, and before Tuesday evening all of them had departed for Missouri.

Most of the members of the Free State company enlisted in the following October as volunteers for three years’ service in the Union army and became known as Company D of Second Kansas cavalry. Robert White, who was commissioned as first lieutenant in Company D, was discharged and sent home to die with a serious case of inflammatory rheumatism, but he recovered so far that in 1863 he raised and drilled a company that became a part of the State militia. He was commissioned captain of this company and led it in the Price raid at the battle of Westport in 1864 as a part of the regiment commanded by Col. L. S. Treat in helping keep Capt. White’s old brigade, commanded by Gen. Sterling Price, of the Mexican war, from getting into Kansas. The late M. J. Cloyes and T. B. Platt, of Atchison, were members of Captain White’s company in the Price raid. Platt was clerk of the company; John English was first lieutenant; W. F. Streeter, second lieutenant, and Francis Schletzbaum was first sergeant.

The Seventeenth regiment, Kansas infantry, was a negro regiment, but with white officers. James M. Williams was colonel, and George J. Martin, of Atchison, was captain of Company B, and William G. White and Luther Dickinson, of Atchison, were first and second lieutenants. This regiment played an honorable part during all the Civil war, and its service was largely confined to operations in Arkansas and Texas. It was mustered out of service at Pine Bluff, Ark., October 1, 1865.

The Second regiment, Kansas colored infantry, was organized in June, 1863, at Ft. Smith, Ark., and among its line officers was First Lieut. John M. Cain, of Atchison. It conducted itself with conspicuous bravery with the army of the frontier, and during the brief occupation of Camden, Ark., by General Steele’s forces, this regiment was employed on picket and forage duty. It showed conspicuous bravery around Poison Springs and Mark’s Mills, and under the able command of Col. Samuel J. Crawford, who subsequently became governor of Kansas, it won for itself an enviable name among the regiments from Kansas, who participated in the Civil war. This regiment was finally discharged from the services at Leavenworth November 27, 1865, after having proved to the Nation the fidelity of the colored soldier.

It was in September, 1864, that General Sterling Price created great consternation by an attempted invasion of Kansas, which ended in his defeat on the border by the Union forces, aided by the Kansas State militia. At the time Price started north in his march through Arkansas and Missouri. Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis commanded the Department of Kansas, which included Nebraska, Colorado and Indian Territory, in addition to Kansas. General Curtis had about 4,500 men, all of whom had been employed in protecting the frontiers of Kansas and Colorado, and the overland mail route. At this time General Curtis was near Ft. Kearney, operating against the Indians. On receipt of word announcing the movements of General Price, General Curtis was recalled and reached Kansas in September. A few days later he received word that 3,000 rebels were marching on Ft. Scott, and advised Governor Carney to call the militia into service. At this time George W. Deitzler was major-general of the State militia; John T. Norton was assistant adjutant-general; R. A. Randlett, assistant quartermaster; Samuel S. Atwood, assistant quartermaster; Charles Chadwick, George T. Robinson, Lewis T. Welmorth, John J. Ingalls, Thomas White, Elijah G. Moore, H. Stein, and John A. Leffkler were all majors. Constant reports of a conflicting nature were spread from day to day, regarding the movements of General Price, but the first point to be attacked was Pilot Knob, the engagement commencing September 27 and lasting all day. General Ewing put up a vigorous defense, with a force of about 1,000 men, while the militia commanders in Kansas made preparations for further resistance to the invasion of Price. Meanwhile General Price continued to make headway, and on the fourth of October an order was issued forbidding the transit of boats below Kansas City. When it was discovered that the rebels under Price had not been seriously checked in their movement westward, further efforts were made by General Curtis to prevail upon Governor Kearney to call out the militia, which the Governor seemed disinclined to do. Finally, on October 9, 1864, Major General Deitzler issued an order for the State militia from Doniphan, Brown, Nemaha and Marshall counties to rendezvous at Atchison, and the militia from other counties were ordered to other points in the State. A few days later Leavenworth was fortified, because of a telegram which was received from General Rosecrans, stating that it was Price’s intention to strike that point first. The militia responded promptly, and the following regiments reported for service at Atchison: The Twelfth regiment, composed of 460 men, under the command of Col. L. S. Treat, and the Eighteenth regiment, composed of 400 men, under the command of Colonel Mathew Quigg. The total number of militia enrolled under the call of the governor was 12,622, of which about 10,000 were south of the Kansas river at the point most exposed to danger. From the eleventh until the sixteenth of the month there was great excitement, as the forces rapidly gathered, to be organized and equipped. On the staff of General Deitzler there were two men from Atchison: A. S. Hughes, an aide, and John J. Ingalls, judge-advocate, with the rank of major.

As a result of this determined move on the part of Gen. Sterling Price to invade Kansas, there followed in quick succession the battle of Lexington, the battle of Big Blue, and finally the battle of Westport, at which, on October 23, 1864, the forces of Price were finally routed and his campaign and invasion were stopped, but not until it had caused the citizens of Kansas, in addition to the labor and loss of life, not less than half a million dollars.

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IX. NAVIGATION

PIONEER TRANSPORTATION—EARLY FERRIES AND RATES—FAMOUS RIVER BOATS— STEAMBOAT LINES TO ATCHISON—STEAMBOAT REGISTERS.

Slight reference has been made in the early narrative of this history to pioneer transportation facilities, but the subject is one of so much importance and of such immense interest, that a chapter devoted to it is the only way in which it can be adequately treated.

At the time Atchison county was settled, railroad transportation by steam was not a new thing, although it was in its primitive stages. Navigation of the inland waterways had reached rather a high state of development, and the matter of transportation then was just as essential to the purposes of civilization as in this day of the railroad and the automobile, but it was many years before the steam railroads made the steamboat traffic of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers obsolete. The tremendous subsidies granted by the Government in later years for railroad building, however, and the splendid opportunity for piling up wealth in the projection of new railroads and the operation of them, without Governmental restrictions, together with the advantage of speedier transportation facilities, completely overshadowed the steamboat business, and as a result, our great inland waterway system has grown into practical disuse. Shortly after Atchison county was organized, and the city of Atchison laid out, agitation was started for railroad connections with the East. One of the first ordinances passed by the city council in 1858 provided for an election to submit a proposition to take $100,000.00 of stock in railroad. At that time the only means of communication to the outside world Atchison had was by steamboats to St. Louis. It was in October, 1855, that George M. Million, Lewis Burnes, D. D. Burnes, James N. Burnes and Calvin F. Burnes commenced the operation of a ferry across the Missouri river. Their dock on the Kansas side was at the foot of Atchison street. Their charter was secured from the legislature under the terms of which a bond of $1,000.00 was required to insure the faithful performance of their operations. Although there was no public utilities commission in Kansas in 1855, the legislature took upon itself the task of fixing the rates to be charged by the ferry owners, in order that the public would not be robbed. They were as follows:

Two-horse wagon, or wagon and one yoke of oxen (loaded) $1.00 Two-horse wagon, or wagon and one yoke of oxen (unloaded) .75 One additional pair of horses or oxen .25 Loose cattle or oxen, per head .10 Sheep and hogs, per head .05 Man and horse .25 Foot passengers .10 One horse and buggy or other vehicle .50 Two horse buggy or carriage .75

The original promoters operated the ferry but a short time, and early in the following year, they disposed of their interests to Dr. William L. Challiss, and his brother, Luther C. Challiss, and Willis E. Gaylord, and the ferry, under Dr. Challiss, and subsequent owners, continued in operation until 1875, when the present bridge was built.

About the time the first ferry was established in Atchison, a number of Salt Lake freighters selected the town as a starting and outfitting point and from that time until 1866, Atchison was the eastern terminus of many of the leading overland mail and freighting routes. It was the natural location for communication with the West, as it was twelve miles further west in Kansas than any other point on the Missouri river. Freight and passengers were brought to the Atchison levee, at the foot of Commercial street, by a regular line of Packets plying between St. Louis and St. Joseph. It required eight days to make the round trip, and in the very early days, as many or four to six boats landed here in the busy season.

During the winter months traffic on the river was practically suspended, on account of the ice. These boats carried as many as 400 passengers, the fare from St. Louis to St. Joseph ranging from $10.00 to $15.00, which included meals and state rooms. The cooking was said to have been very fine, and the passengers always enjoyed the best that money could buy.

In addition to passengers, these boats carried from 500 to 600 tons of freight, and the rates were as high as $2.50 per cwt. on merchandise that would not cost to exceed fifteen cents per cwt. in these days. The crew consisted of 80 to 100 men, and the value of these boats was estimated to be about $45,000.00 each. The river then, as now, was filled with sandbars and it required the greatest experience to pilot a boat safely to its destination, and as a result, experienced pilots would command monthly salaries ranging from $250.00 to $500.00. Each boat carried two pilots. A. B. Symns, for many years a successful wholesale grocery merchant in Atchison, E. K. Blair, the miller, and George W. Bowman, who also subsequently engaged in the grocery business, were employees on several of the steamboats that landed at Atchison. Stories of gambling and revelries, by day and by night, are not uncommon, and it is said it was not an unusual sight to see as many as ten games of poker going on in the main cabins on every trip, in which real money and not mere chips were used. Among the famous boats on the river in the early days were the “Hesperian,” which burned near Atchison in 1859; the “Converse,” “Kate Kinney,” “Fort Aubrey,” “Morning Star,” “John D. Perry,” “Sioux City,” “Omaha,” “Carrier,” and the “James H. Lucas,” which made the record run from St. Louis to St. Joseph, encompassing the trip in fifty-nine hours and twenty-two minutes, were among the well known boats that docked at the Atchison levee from time to time. The leading wharfmaster of the steamboat days was Mike Finney, who was the father of Atchison’s present mayor (1915). James H. Garside succeeded him and remained in the position until steamboat days had passed. Had the Missouri river been the beneficiary of the bounty of the Government, as the railroads were in that day, it would still be a splendid auxiliary of our transportation system. The Missouri river, so far as Atchison is concerned, is in the same condition it was in when Mark Twain made an early trip on it from St. Louis to St. Joseph. In “Roughing It,” he said:

“We were six days going from St. Louis to St. Joseph, a trip that was so dull and sleepy and eventless, that it has left no more impression on my memory than if its duration had been six minutes instead of that many days. No record is left in my mind now concerning it, but a confused jumble of savage looking snags, which we deliberately walked over with one wheel or the other; and of reefs which we butted and butted and then retired from, and climbed over in some softer place; and of sand bars which we roosted on occasionally and rested, and then got our crutches and sparred over. In fact the boat might as well have gone to St. Joseph by land, for she was walking most of the time anyhow—climbing over reefs and clambering over snags, patiently and laboriously all day long. The captain said she was a bully boat, and all she wanted was more “shear” and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the sagacity not to say so.”

STEAMBOAT LINES TO ATCHISON—1856.

From Squatter Sovereign.

March 11, 1856.

“A. B. Chambers,” James Gormley, Master; D. Jamison, Clerk.

“F. X. Aubrey,” Ambrose Reeder, Captain; Ben V. Glime, Clerk.

“Polar Star,” E. F. Dix, Master; H. M. Glossom, Clerk.

“New Lucy,” Wm. Conley, Master.

“James H. Lucas,” Andrew Wineland, Commander.

March 18, 1856.

“Star of the West,” E. F. Dix, Master.

March 25, 1856.

“J. M. Convers,” Geo. W. Bowman, Captain; G. A. Reicheneker, Clerk.

April 29, 1856.

“Martha Jewett,” D. H. Silver, Captain; W. McCreight, Clerk.

“Sultan,” John H. McCloy, Master; D. C. Sheble, Clerk.

“Edinburg,” Dan Able, Master.

May 27, 1856.

“Morning Star,” Wm. Brierly, Master.

June 24, 1856.

“Emigrant,” Hugh L. White, Master; H. R. McDonald, Clerk.

STEAMBOAT REGISTER.

Reported for the Champion by M. C. Finney, Steamboat Agent.

BOUND UP.

E. M. Ryland, Blunt Monday, 8th. Peerless, Bissell Wednesday, 10th. John H. Dickey, Abel Saturday, 13th. H. H. Russell, Kenny Sunday, 14th. Hesperian, Kerchival Sunday, 14th. F. X. Aubry, Glime Wednesday, 17th. Platte Valley, Postill Wednesday, 17th. Wm. Campbell, Dale Thursday, 18th. White Cloud, O’Neil Friday, 19th. Spread Eagle, Lagrage Friday, 19th. Emma, Friday, 19th.

BOUND DOWN.

E. M. Ryland, Blunt Tuesday, 9th. Peerless, Bissell Friday, 12th. John H. Dickey, Abel Sunday, 14th. W. H. Russell, Kenney Monday, 15th. Hesperian, Kerchival Tuesday, 16th. F. X. Aubry, Glime Wednesday, 17th. Wm. Campbell, Dale Friday, 19th. White Cloud, O’Neil Saturday, 20th.

(From Freedom’s Champion, Atchison, March 20, 1858.)

BOUND UP.

Spread Eagle, Lagrage Friday, 19th. Emma, Yore Friday, 19th. Silver Heels, Nanson Saturday, 20th. Morning Star, Burk Sunday, 21st. Polar Star, McMullin Monday, 22d. Twilight, Shaw Monday, 22d. St. Mary, Devenny Tuesday, 23d. Carrier, Postal Wednesday, 24th. Sovereign, Hutchinson Wednesday, 24th. Omaha, Wineland Thursday, 25th. F. X. Aubry, Glime Thursday, 25th. Minnehaha, Baker Thursday, 25th. John H. Dickey, Abel Friday, 26th. White Cloud, O’Neil Saturday, 27th. Florence, Throckmorton Saturday, 27th. Polar Star, McMullin Sunday, 28th. Hesperian, Lee Sunday, 28th. Star of the West, Ollman Monday, 29th. South Western, Dehaven Monday, 29th. John Warner, Paterson Monday, 29th. Sioux City, Baker Monday, 29th. War Eagle, White Tuesday, 30th. Ben Lewis, Brierly Tuesday, 30th. Thomas E. Tutt, Dozier Tuesday, 30th. J. D. Perry, Davis Wednesday, 31st. Watossa, Richoneker Wednesday, 31st. Alonzo Child, Holland Wednesday, 31st. Wm. Campbell, Dale Wednesday, 31st. Kate Howard, Nonson Wednesday, 31st. Sky Lark, Johnson Thursday, April 1. E. M. Ryland, Blunt Thursday, 1st. Silver Heels, Nanson Friday, 2d. John H. Dickey, Abel Friday, 2d. F. A. Ogden Friday, 2d.

Every boat on the above list except eight have passed down again, making in all, sixty landings at our wharf, in the short space of thirteen days.

(From Freedom’s Champion, Atchison, April 3, 1858.)

ST. LOUIS & ATCHISON UNION LINE.

One of the following Splendid Steamers Will leave

ATCHISON FOR ST. LOUIS DAILY.

Sunday Boats, Peerless and Silver Heels, Alternately. Monday Boats, Hesperian and Morning Star, Alternately. Tuesday Boats, South Webster and A. B. Chambers, Alternately. Wednesday Boats, Ben Lewis and Twilight, Alternately. Thursday Boats, Sovereign. Friday Boats, Kate Howard and Minnehaha, Alternately. For Freight or passage apply to G. W. BOWMAN, Agent, Atchison. N. B. Tickets sold through to all the Eastern and Southern Cities.

OFFICE on the Levee.

(From Freedom’s Champion, Atchison, March 27, 1858.)

* * * * *

Squatter Sovereign, Atchison, Dec. 5, 1857:

Omaha, Andrew Wineland, Master; J. J. Wilcox, clerk.

Freedom’s Champion, Atchison, April 3, 1858:

Ben Lewis, T. H. Brierly, Master; W. G. Barkley, clerk.

Freedom’s Champion, March 12, 1859:

Alonzo Child, D. DeHaven, Master; Stanley Ryland, clerk; H. P. Short, clerk.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

X. OVERLAND FREIGHTING

ATCHISON AS AN OUTFITTING POINT—FREIGHTING COMPANIES—PRINCIPAL ROUTES— STAGE LINES—OVERLAND MAIL ROUTES—BEN HOLLADAY—BUTTERFIELD’S OVERLAND DISPATCH—TIME TO DENVER—TABLES OF TIME AND DISTANCES ON VARIOUS ROUTES—STATISTICAL.

Atchison was chosen as an outfitting point for the Salt Lake freighters, in addition to many other reasons, because we had one of the best steamboat landings on the river, and had the best wagon road in the country leading west. Twenty-four miles west of Atchison this road was intersected by the old overland mail trail from St. Joseph. Leavenworth had laid out a new road west, over which it was planned to run the Pike’s Peak Express stages in the spring of 1859, as well as the mule and ox teams, for Denver and the mountain mining camps. A branch road was also opened to intersect this route from Atchison in the spring of 1859, under the direction of Judge F. G. Adams. The expedition started west from Atchison in the spring of that year, over what is now known and was then known as the Parallel road, then through Muscotah and America City, across into the Big Blue river, near Blue Rapids, and westward through Jewell county. The object of this expedition was to open a shorter route to the mountains than the one opened by the Leavenworth company, and the route proposed did save sixty-five miles distance, and almost twelve hours time. E. D. Boyd, an engineer, measured the entire distance from Atchison to Denver. He also made an accurate report, showing distances and the crossing of streams, and a brief description of the entire route, which was published in the Atchison Champion, in June, 1859. According to that report, the distance from Atchison to Denver was 620 miles. But notwithstanding the advantage of this new road, it was abandoned immediately and never traveled by ox or mule trains out of Atchison, for the reason that the old military road by Fort Kearney and along the Platte river enjoyed Government protection from the Indians, and was settled at intervals almost the entire distance.

During the period of overland freighting on the plains, more trains left Atchison than any other point on the river. The leading firms engaged in the freighting business were, Stevens & Porter; Dennison & Brown; Hockaday-Burr & Company; J. S. Galbraith: George W. Howe; Brown Brothers; E. K. Blair; I. N. Bringman; Roper & Nesbitt; Harrison Brothers; Henry Reisner; J. C. Peters; P. K. Purcell; R. E. Wilson; Will Addoms; George I. Stebbins; John C. Bird; William Home; Amos Howell; Owen Degan, and a number of others.

The cost of shipping merchandise to Denver was very high, as everything was carried by the pound, rather than by the hundred pounds rate. Flour, bacon, molasses, whiskey, furniture and trunks were carried at pound rates. The rates per pound on merchandise shipped by ox or mule wagons from Atchison to Denver prior to 1860, were as follows:

Flour 9 cents Tobacco 12½ cents Sugar 13½ cents Bacon 15 cents Dry goods 15 cents Crackers 17 cents Whiskey 18 cents Groceries 19½ cents Trunks 25 cents Furniture 31 cents

It has been said by those who witnessed the tremendous overland traffic of the late fifties and the early sixties, that those of this generation can form no conception of the enormous amount of traffic overland there was in those days. Trains were being constantly outfitted not only at Atchison, but at other points along the river. Twenty-one days was about the time required for a span of horses or mules to make the trip to Denver and keep the stock in good condition. It required five weeks for ox trains to make the same distance, and to Salt Lake, horses and mules were about six weeks making the trip, and ox trains were on the road from sixty-five to seventy days. It was the ox upon which mankind depended in those days to carry on the commerce of the plains. They were the surest and safest for hauling a large part of the freight destined for the towns and camps west of the Missouri river. Next in importance to the ox, was the mule, because they were tough and reliable, and could endure fatigue.

The year of 1859 was a big year in the history of Atchison, for in that year the percentage of the growth of the town was greater than any other year in its history. The fact that it was the best point on the Missouri river for the overland staging and freighting outfits, brought it in greater commercial prominence. At that time, Irwin & McGraw were prominent contractors, who were supplying the various military posts on the frontier. The mere fact that these Government trains were started from Atchison, gave the town wonderful prestige.

It was nothing unusual to see two or three steamboats lying at the levee, discharging freight, and as many more in sight either going up the river from St. Louis, or down the river from St. Joe. It was not uncommon for a boat to be loaded at Pittsburgh, Pa., or Cincinnati, Ohio, going down the Ohio river and up the Mississippi and Missouri to Atchison; it was not an unusual sight to see a whole boat load of wagons and ox yokes, mining machinery, boilers and other material necessary for the immense trade of the West.

The greater part of the traffic out of Atchison to the West was over the Military road, along the south bank of the Platte, and along this road teams of six to eight yoke of cattle, hauling heavily loaded wagons, and strings of four or six horse or mule teams, formed almost an endless procession.

The liveliest period of overland trade extended from 1859 to 1866, during which time there was on the plains and in the mountains an estimated floating population of 250,000. The greater majority of the people on the plains produced but few of the necessities of life, and consequently they had to be supplied from the Missouri river. During the closing year of the Civil war, the travel was immense, most of the emigration going into the gold mining camps of the Northwest.

While there was considerable freighting out of Atchison to the West following the opening of the Territory, overland staging did not reach its height until 1861. The era of overland staging from the Missouri river to the Pacific coast lasted altogether about eight years. The first great overland staging enterprise started in 1858, on what is known as the Southern or Butterfield route. This route ran from St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn., intersecting at Ft. Smith, Ark. After being in operation for nearly three years, the route was succeeded by a daily line on the Central route, which ran from the Missouri river five years, first starting at St. Joseph, Mo., July 1, 1861, and then from Atchison in September of that year. On the Central route, the through staging came to a close after the completion of the Union Pacific railroad from Omaha across the continent. Originally the stage enterprise was known as the Overland Mail Company—the Southern or Butterfield line. After it was transferred north and ran in connection with the stages to Denver, it was known as the Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Company. After passing into the hands of Ben Holladay, it became the Overland Stage Line, and finally the name was changed to the Holladay Overland Mail Express Company. In 1866, the line had been consolidated with the Butterfield Overland Dispatch, a stage company which was organized in 1865, with headquarters in Atchison.

Atchison’s importance as an overland staging terminus was fixed by reason of an order of the United States Postoffice Department. Before the final change, making Atchison headquarters and starting point for the mail, the road from Atchison westward intersected the road from St. Joseph at Kennekuk. The distance from Atchison to Kennekuk was twenty- four miles, while it was about thirty-five miles from St. Joseph, and consequently there was a saving of about nine miles in favor of Atchison. This was an important item, in carrying the mails, and resulted in the order of the Postoffice Department making Atchison the starting point. The distance by the overland stage line from Atchison to Placerville was 1,913 miles, and following the abandonment of the Butterfield or Southern route, it became the longest and the most important stage line in America. There were 153 stations between Atchison and Placerville, located about twelve and one-half miles apart. The local fare was $225.00, or about twelve cents per mile, and as high as $2,000.00 a day was frequently taken in at the Atchison office for passenger fare alone. The fare between Atchison and Denver was $75.00, or a little over eight cents per mile, and to Salt Lake City, $150.00. Local fares ran as high as fifteen cents per mile. Each passenger was allowed twenty-five pounds of baggage. All in excess of that was charged at the rate of $1.00 per pound. During the war, the fare to Denver was increased from seventy-five dollars to $100.00, and before the close of the war, it had reached $175.00 or nearly twenty-seven cents per mile.

It required about 2,750 horses and mules to run the stage line between Atchison and Placerville. It required, in addition to the regular supply of horses to operate the stages, some additional animals for emergencies, and it was estimated that the total cost of the horses on this stage line was about one-half million dollars. The harness was the finest that could be made, and cost about $150.00 for a complete set of four, or about $55,000.00 for the whole line. The feeding of the stock was one of the big items of expense, and there were annually consumed at each station from forty to eighty tons of hay, at a cost of $15 to $40 per ton. Each animal was apportioned an average of twelve quarts of corn every day, which cost from two to ten cents a pound. In the Salt Lake and California divisions, oats and barley, grown in Utah, were substituted for corn, but which cost about the same.

There were about 100 Concord coaches which, in the early sixties cost about $1,000.00 each. The company owned about one-half of the stations, in addition to thousands of dollars’ worth of miscellaneous property, at different places along the route. There were superintendents, general and local attorneys, paymasters and division agents, all of whom drew big salaries. Among the stage company’s agents in the late fifties and early sixties were Hugo Richards and Paul Coburn, at Atchison; Robert L. Pease, of Atchison, was also for a time agent at Denver.

The mail was carried from Atchison west by Forts Kearney, Laramie and Bridges, once a week. The schedule time from the river to Salt Lake City was about eighteen days, and the distance was about 1,200 to 1,300 miles.

In 1861 a daily overland mail was established out of Atchison, and with the exception of a few weeks in 1862, 1864 and 1865, on account of Indian troubles, the overland was in operation and ran stages daily out of Atchison for about five years. It was the greatest stage line in the world, carrying mail, passengers and express. It was also regarded as the safest and the fastest way to cross the plains, and the mountain ranges. It was equipped with the latest modern four and six horse and mule Concord coaches, and the meals at the eating stations along the route were first-class, and cost from fifty cents to $2.00 each.

When Atchison was selected as the starting place for the overland mail, it was not certain how long it would remain the eastern terminus of the mail route. The Civil war was at its height, and the rebels were doing much damage to the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad, which had been constructed in 1859. They tore up the track, burned the bridges, destroyed the culverts, fired into the trains, and placed obstructions along the roadbed, frequently delaying the mail from two to six days. As a result of this condition of affairs, it was feared that Atchison would lose the overland mail, and the Government would change the starting point to some town further north, but because of the advantageous geographical position of Atchison, it was decided that it would be disastrous to make a change, so the Government placed a large number of troops along the entire line of the Hannibal & St. Joe, to insure the safety of the mails, and Atchison continued to be the point of departure for the overland mail, until 1866.

The stage coaches used by the overland line were built in Concord, N. H. They carried nine passengers inside, and one or two could ride on the box by the driver. Some of the stages were built with an extra seat above and in the rear of the driver, so that three additional persons could ride there, making fourteen, with the driver. Sometimes an extra man would be crowded on the box, making as many as fifteen persons, who could ride on the Concord coach without very much inconvenience.

This chapter on overland staging would be unfinished, unless some reference was made to Ben Holladay, who played such an important part in the overland staging days of this country. Ben Holladay had a remarkable career. In his early days, when he resided in Weston, Mo., he drove a stage himself. He was a genuine westerner, having run a saloon and tavern in Weston as early as 1838 and 1839. He went overland to California in 1849, and took a train to Salt Lake City with $70,000 worth of goods. He spent some time in Utah, where he made considerable money.

Besides operating the Overland Stage for over five years, Holladay had other important interests in the West. Among his enterprises was a fleet of passenger steamers, plying between San Francisco and Portland, Ore. At the height of his career he was a millionaire, and few men in the country accumulated wealth more rapidly. He spent his money freely, and squandered vast sums when he was making it. After he had accumulated a fortune, he went to New York to live, and built a most pretentious residence a few miles out of New York, on the Hudson river, which he called Ophir Farm. After he was awarded some good mail contracts by the Government, he built a mansion in Washington, which he furnished superbly, and collected a large classical library, with handsomely bound volumes, and also was a patron of art, collecting fine oil paintings of celebrated masters in Europe and America. He also made a collection of fine bronzes and statuary, and paid $6,000.00 each for two bronze lions.

It was in 1860 that he came into possession of the Central Overland California Mail Line, but subsequent trouble with the Indians damaged his property to the extent of a half million dollars. His stage stations were burned, and his stock stolen, and stage coaches destroyed. Finally, in 1888, being broken in health and in debt, his Washington home, with its contents, was sold under the hammer.

He came into possession of practically all the big overland routes by purchase and foreclosure of mortgages, and he made his vast fortune in mail contracts from the Government. He remained at the head of the overland line for about five years, taking possession of it in December, 1861, and disposing of it, including the stations, rolling stock and animals, in the latter part of 1866, to Wells Fargo & Company.

Mr. Holladay died in August, 1877, in Portland, Ore., a poor man.

BUTTERFIELD’S OVERLAND DISPATCH.

One of the interesting promoters in overland staging days was D. A. Butterfield. He came to Atchison from Denver in 1864, and engaged in the commission business in a large stone warehouse near the Massasoit House, and, in addition to his commission business, he was agent for a line of packets plying between St. Louis and Atchison. Shortly after his arrival in Atchison he began the development of an overland stage line, which subsequently reached very large proportions. His ambition was to be at the head of an overland stage line, and, having selected what was known as the Smoky Hill route along the Kansas and Smoky Hill rivers, which was fifty miles shorter than any other route to Denver, he proceeded with the further development of his plans. He was a smart, capable, ambitious and aggressive fellow, with vim, and was in touch with a number of men of large means in New York, whom he soon interested in his enterprise. Early in 1865 the following advertisement appeared in the Atchison Daily Free Press, announcing Mr. Butterfield’s project:

“BUTTERFIELD’S OVERLAND DISPATCH.

“To all points in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Montana Territory. Principal office, Atchison, Kansas. New York Office No. 1 Vesey St. Astor House.

“Through bills of lading given from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, and Burlington, Iowa.

“D. A. Butterfield, Proprietor, Atchison, Kansas.

“A. W. Spalding, General Agent, New York.”

Butterfield’s consuming desire was to control the big end of the transportation business across the plains. He maintained an expensive office in New York City and called his line “The Butterfield Overland Dispatch.” Conspicuous signs were displayed over the doors of his office in the Astor House, showing caravans of great covered wagons drawn by mules and oxen, which signs attracted the attention of all. During his promotion of this new stage line Butterfield lived in great style and elegance in Atchison, in a house, the remains of which still stand (1915) at the southwest corner of Fifth and S streets. He entertained lavishly, and “champagne flowed like water” at his home when he gave a party.

The direct route out of Atchison to Denver, chosen by Butterfield, was in a southwesterly direction to Valley Falls, thence across the plains to a point on the old Fort Riley military road a few miles northeast of Topeka. The Butterfield line was first operated with mules and oxen, but as the road grew more prosperous, four horse stages were substituted. “Dave” Butterfield, as he was known, was determined to make Ben Holladay a pigmy in the overland stage business. Although it was known to many that there was more wind behind his enterprise than real money, yet in spite of the fact that his efforts in the staging world were more or less looked upon as a promotion scheme, he interested considerable capital, including the United States, American and the Adams Express companies. He was a great believer in publicity and spent large sums in newspaper advertising, but it required much money to properly equip and operate a stage line, and Butterfield did not have enough. In consequence of his lack of capital, his original company failed, but was subsequently reorganized in June, 1865. Butterfield, undaunted, went east again and raised more money, and before his return, he capitalized a new company with $3,000,000.00, with one-half paid in. Branch offices were opened in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Atchison, Leavenworth, Denver and Salt Lake City. John A. Kinney, a pioneer business man of Atchison, who had been connected with Butterfield from the beginning, continued in charge of the Atchison office under the reorganization, with a salary of $2,500 per year. Shortly after the new company was organized, Butterfield inserted another advertisement in the Free Press, as follows:

“BUTTERFIELD’S OVERLAND DISPATCH.

“To all points in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, Montana and the state of Nevada.

“Contracts can be made with this Company through their Agents to transport freight from all the eastern cities to all localities in the Territories, the rate to include railroad and overland carriage and all commissions upon the Missouri River. The Company owns its own transportation and gives a through bill of lading which protects shipper from extreme East to the Far West.

“EXPRESS DEPARTMENT.

“About August, 1865 the Company will have a line of express coaches running daily between Atchison, Kansas and Denver, Colorado; and about September 1st, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and as soon in the Spring as possible, a tri-weekly between Denver and Salt Lake City over which merchandise will be carried at fair express rates.

“TIME TO DENVER—EIGHT (8) DAYS.

“INSTRUCTIONS: Mark goods for cattle and mule trains: ‘But’d Ov’d Desp’h.’ Mark goods for express: B. O. D. Express, Atchison.”

Some changes were afterwards made in the location of the route, but it left as before, in a southwesterly direction to Valley Falls. The business of the new company was very large from the start and grew rapidly. Steamboats discharged great quantities of freight at the Atchison levee for shipment by Butterfield’s line. A large amount also came from St. Joseph by railroad. In one day during July, 1865, nineteen car loads of freight consigned to the Butterfield line at Atchison were received for transportation across the plains. In the following month a train was loaded with 600,000 pounds of merchandise for Salt Lake City. One of the early stages that left Atchison on this line made the run to Junction City, which was 119 miles, in less than twenty-four hours, or at the rate of five and one-half miles an hour, including all stops, but the reorganized Butterfield line was not long in operation before it met with many obstacles. The fact that the Smoky Hill route selected by Butterfield was not guarded by Government troops of soldiers, as the Fort Kearney route was, caused the Indians to make many raids upon the overland trains. A number of severe encounters with Indians were had from time to time, until it became necessary to operate the stages with a mounted guard in advance. It finally became so dangerous that it was difficult to secure messengers and drivers to operate the line. This condition became so serious that the “Overland Dispatch,” which in the meanwhile was becoming more financially embarrassed from day to day, was finally obliged to retire from the field. During the short time that it lasted, it was widely known throughout the western country, and in the East it was known in most of the leading cities. While this company, to some extent, cut down the receipts of the Holladay line, traffic across the plains had become so dull in the sixties that there was not much profit in it for anybody. In March, 1866, Holladay took over the Butterfield line and the following announcement appeared in the newspapers:

“NOTICE.

“To the Employees of the Overland Dispatch Company.

“The Overland Stage Line and the Overland Dispatch Company have become one property under the name of the Holladay Overland Mail & Express Company.

“The new Company guarantees payment to the employees of the late Overland Dispatch Company. An agent is now en route from New York to pay them.

“David Street, Gen’l Agt., “Holladay Mail & Express Co.

“Atchison, Kansas, March 17, 1866.”

The business that Butterfield had worked up was continued by the new company, but Butterfield was hopelessly down and out. While in the midst of what appeared to be a prosperous freight business with many tons of ponderous mining machinery in transit across the plains to the mining camps of Colorado, the mining bubble broke, and great difficulty was experienced in collecting freight bills that were accumulating on machinery that was being transported across the plains, so it was unloaded upon the plains and there it was left to rust out. In less than eighteen months from the first organization of the Overland Dispatch, Butterfield was a financial wreck, and the consolidation of his company with the Holladay line was the only action that could be taken to conserve the property which the Butterfield line had acquired. Butterfield subsequently left Atchison and located in Mississippi, where he organized a railroad, which also proved a failure. He left Mississippi for Arkansas and built and operated a horse car line in Hot Springs. He finally got into a quarrel with one of his employees, who struck him with a neck yoke, from the effects of which he died.

OTHER ROUTES.

Atchison was an important point for stage routes as early as 1859. There was a line of hacks which ran daily from Atchison to Leavenworth, and another to Lawrence, and still another by Oskaloosa and Valley Falls across the Kansas river to Lecompton, Big Springs, Tecumseh and Topeka. To reach Lawrence from Atchison in those days, passengers were compelled to go by Leavenworth, until a line was opened by Mount Pleasant and Oskaloosa, reducing the distance to forty-five miles, and the fare to $4.50. There was a line north to Doniphan, Troy, Highland and Iowa Point. A line was also operated by Doniphan to Geary City, Troy and St. Joseph, and still another ran by Hiawatha to Falls City, Neb. The most important route, which had its headquarters at that time in Atchison, was a four mule line. The Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express, which with its speedy Concord stages, crossed the plains twice a week. This was the Holladay line. The Kansas Stage Company operated a line to Leavenworth, which made stops at Sumner and Kickapoo. A daily line, operated by the Kansas Stage Company, ran to Junction City by way of Mount Pleasant, Winchester, Osawkie, Mt. Florence, Indianola, Topeka, Silver Lake, St. Marys, Louisville, Ogden and Ft. Riley. The distance over this route was 120 miles and the fare was $10.00. There was also a two-horse stage line carrying the mail from Atchison to Louisville, Kan. Louisville was one of the most important towns in Pottawatomie county, and in 1859 was an important station on the route of the Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express. The mail line as then operated ran through Monrovia, Arrington, Holton and other points to its destination in the West. J. H. Thompson, who was an old man then, was the contractor for carrying the mail and was well known along the whole route, being familiarly known as “Uncle Johnny” Thompson. His stage left Atchison every Saturday morning at 8 o’clock and arrived from Louisville on Friday evening at 6. The fare from Atchison to Louisville was $8.00.

“ST. JOSEPH, ATCHISON AND LECOMPTON STAGE LINE.

“Passing through Geary City, Doniphan, Atchison, Manchester, Hickory Point, and Oscaloosa, connecting at Lecompton with lines to Topeka, Grasshopper Falls, Fort Riley, Lawrence, Kansas City, and the Railroad at St. Joseph for the East.

“Offices—Massasoit House, Atchison. K. T., and Planter’s House, St. Joseph, Mo.”

(From Freedom’s Champion, Atchison, February 12, 1859.)

LAST DAYS OF THE STAGING BUSINESS.

The people of Atchison in the sixties little realized the advantages the town gained by being the starting point for the California mail. They became used to it, the same as we have this day been accustomed to the daily arrival and departure of trains, but it was a gloomy day for Atchison when “the overland” finally pulled out of the town for good, after having run its stages out of the city almost daily for five years. The advance of the Union Pacific railroad from Omaha west along the Platte to Ft. Kearney, and the completion of the Kansas Pacific railway was the cause of the abandonment of Atchison by the “overland” as a point of departure for the mail. The company for many weeks before its final departure had been taking both stock and coaches off of the eastern division from the Missouri river to Rock creek, and other steps in preparation for moving the point of departure further west were taken. It was a little after 11 o’clock in the morning of December 19, 1866, that the long train of Concord stages, express coaches, hacks and other rolling stock started from their stables and yards on Second street to leave Atchison forever. The procession went west out of Atchison along Commercial street. Alex Benham and David Street, both faithful employees of “The Overland,” were in charge of the procession and they rode out of town in a Concord buggy. Other employees followed in buggies and coaches, and then the canvas covered stages, followed by over forty teams and loose horses, slowly moved out of town, headed for Fort Riley and Junction City.

ROUTE FROM ATCHISON via the SMOKY HILL FORK ROUTE.

From Atchison to Miles Total Remarks Mormon Grove 3½ Junction of the Great Military Road. Monrovia 8½ 12 Provisions, entertainment and grass. Mouth of Bill’s 13 25 On the Grasshopper, wood and grass. Creek Ter. Road from 15 40 Wood, water and grass. Nebraska Soldier Creek 10 50 Wood and grass. Lost Creek 15 65 Wood and grass. Louisville 10 75 Wood and grass. Manhattan City 12 87 Water, wood and grass. Fort Riley 15 102 Water, wood and grass. Salina 52 154 Wood, water and grass. Pawnee Trail- 130 284 Grass and buffalo chips. Smoky Hill Pawnee Fork 35 319 Grass and buffalo chips. Arkansas Crossing 35 354 Wood, water and grass. Bent’s Fort 150 504 Wood, water and grass. Bent’s Old Fort 40 544 Water and grass. Huerfano 40 584 Water and grass. Fontaine qui 15 599 Wood, water and grass. Bouille Crossing of same 18 617 Wood, water and grass. Jim’s Camp 15 632 Water and grass. Brush Corral 12 644 Wood, water and grass. Head of Cherry 26 670 Wood, water and grass. Creek Crossing of Same 35 705 From this point to the mines there is heavy timber, and grass and water in abundance. Mines 6 711

From Freedom’s Champion, February 12, 1859.

ROUTE FROM ATCHISON via The Great Military Road to Salt Lake, and Col. Fremont’s Route in 1841.

From Atchison to Miles Total Remarks Marmon Grove 3½ Junction of the Great Military Road. Lancaster 5½ 9 Provisions and grass. Huron (Cross. 4 13 Provisions and grass. First Salt Lake Grasshopper) Mail Station. Kennekuk, do main 10 23 Provisions, timber, and grass. do Capioma (Walnut 17 40 Provisions, timber, and grass. Creek) Richmond (head of 15 55 Salt Lake Mail Station and provisions. Nemaha) Marysville 40 95 Water and Grass. Small Creek on 10 105 Luxuriant grass. Prairie Small Creek 10 115 Water and grass. Small Creek 7 122 Wood and grass. Wyth Creek 7 129 Wood and grass. Big Sandy Creek 13 142 Wood and luxuriant grass. Dry Sandy Creek 17 159 Heavy timber. Little Blue River 12 171 Wood and grass. Road leaves 44 215 Wood and grass. Little Blue Small Creek 7 222 Wood, grass and buffalo. Platte River 17 239 Salt Lake Mail Station and provisions. Ft. Kearney 10 249 17 Mile point 17 26 Wood, water and grass. Plum Creek 18 284 Wood and grass. Cottonwood Spring 40 324 Wood and grass. Fremont’s Springs 40 364 Luxuriant grass. O’Fallon’s Bluffs 5 369 Wood, water and grass. Crossing South 40 409 Wood, water, and grass. Platte Ft. St. Vrain 200 609 Provisions, and from this to the mines the route is well timbered and watered. Cherry Creek 40 649

From Freedom’s Champion, February 12, 1859.

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TABLE OF DISTANCES

—From—

ATCHISON TO THE GOLD MINES,

via the

First Standard Parallel Route to the Republican Fork of the Kansas River, thence following the Trail of Colonel Fremont on his Explorations in 1843, to Cherry Creek and the Mines.

* * * * *

Compiled from Colonel Fremont’s Surveys, and the most reliable information derived from the traders across the Great Plains.

From Atchison to Miles Total Remarks Lancaster 9 Settlement, provisions and grass. Muscotah, on 11 20 Settlement, provisions and grass. Grasshopper Eureka 11 31 Settlement, provisions and grass. Ontario, on Elk 10 41 Settlement, provisions and grass. Creek America, on 9 50 Settlement, provisions and grass. Soldiers Creek Vermillion City 25 75 Settlement, entertainment and provisions. Crossing of Big 3 78 Blue Little Blue creek 17 95 Heavy timber and grass. Head of Blue 23 118 Timber and grass. creek Republican Fork 12 130 Wood, water and grass. Republican Fork 2 132 Colonel Fremont describes this section as crossing “affording an excellent road, it being generally over high and level prairies, with numerous streams which are well timbered with ash, elm, and very heavy oak, and abounding in herds of buffalo, elk and antelope.” Branch of 38 170 Solomon’s Fork Leaves Solomon’s 75 245 Fork Branch of 15 260 Republican Fork Following up Rep. 190 450 Heavy timber and grass on course. to its head Beaver Creek 23 473 Wood, grass and buffalo. Bijou Creek 22 495 Wood, grass and buffalo. Kioway Creek 15 510 The route from this point to the mines runs thro’ a country well timbered and watered, with luxuriant grass and plenty of wild game. Cherry Creek and 25 535 Mines

From Freedom’s Champion, February 12, 1859.

Freedom’s Champion: October 30, 1858.

A TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF TRAINS

Which have left Atchison this season, for Salt Lake City and other Points on the Plains, Together with the Number of Men, Cattle, Mules, Horses and wagons engaged in transporting, and the Amount of the Freight Shipped:

Owners. Residence. Freighters. Radford, Cabot & Co. St. Louis P. M. Chateau & Co. John M. Hockady & Co. Mail Contractors First Supply Train Dyer, Mason & Co. Independence W. H. Dyer & Co. S. G. Mason & Co. Independence E. C. Chiles Radford, Cabot & Co. St. Louis J. B. Doyle John M. Hockady & Co. Mail Contractors Second Supply Train C. C. Branham Weston C. C. Branham C. A. Perry & Co. Weston C. A. Perry & Co. R. H. Dyer & Co. Fort Kearney R. H. Dyer & Co. F. J. Marshall Marysville F. J. Marshall Irvin & Young Independence Irvin & Young Livingston, Kinkead & Co. New York Irvin & Young J. M. Guthrie & Co. Weston, Mo. S. M. Guthrie & Co. Curtas Clayton Leavenworth C. C. Branham Reynald & McDonald Fort Laramie Reynald & McDonald C. Martin Green River C. Martin Livingston, Kinkead & Co. New York Hord & Smith Hord & Smith Independence Hord & Smith Bisonette & Lazinette Deer Creek Bisonette & Lazinette Ballord & Moralle Marysville J. S. Watson R. H. Dyer & Co. Fort Kearney R. H. Dyer & Co. John M. Hockady & Co. Independence Third Supply Train Geo. Chorpoening California A. J. Schell Hockady, Burr & Co. Salt Lake City Hockady, Burr & Co.

Owners. Residence. Destination. Radford, Cabot & Co. Kansas City Salt Lake City John M. Hockady & Co. Independence S. L. M. Stations Dyer, Mason & Co. Independence Salt Lake City S. G. Mason & Co. Independence Salt Lake City Radford, Cabot & Co. New Mexico Salt Lake City John M. Hockady & Co. Independence S. L. M. Stations C. C. Branham Weston Salt Lake City C. A. Perry & Co. Weston Salt Lake City R. H. Dyer & Co. Fort Kearney Fort Kearney F. J. Marshall Marysville Palmetto Irvin & Young Independence Salt Lake City Livingston, Kinkead & Co. Independence Salt Lake City J. M. Guthrie & Co. Weston Salt Lake City Curtas Clayton Weston Salt Lake City Reynald & McDonald Fort Laramie Fort Laramie C. Martin Green River Green River Livingston, Kinkead & Co. Independence Salt Lake City Hord & Smith Independence Do and Way Points Bisonette & Lazinette Deer Creek Labonto Ballord & Moralle Marysville Marysville R. H. Dyer & Co. Fort Kearney John M. Hockady & Co. S. L. M. Stations Geo. Chorpoening Pennsylvania Cal. & S. L. Stat’s Hockady, Burr & Co. Utah Salt Lake City

Owners. Wagons. Men. Oxen. Horses. Mules. Lbs. Mdse. Radford, Cabot & Co. 32 40 480 8 12 181,587 John M. Hockady & Co. 10 20 80 23,000 Dyer, Mason & Co. 60 70 720 5 21 315,000 S. G. Mason & Co. 27 35 350 3 6 149,000 Radford, Cabot & Co. 38 43 460 13 198,500 John M. Hockady & Co. 10 18 85 21,000 C. C. Branham 28 36 380 12 6 145,500 C. A. Perry & Co. 91 123 1,080 7 18 500,501 R. H. Dyer & Co. 38 70 456 4 7 212,800 F. J. Marshall 20 25 280 1 3 120,000 Irvin & Young 32 40 384 1 7 160,000 Livingston, Kinkead & Co. 52 59 624 2 12 234,017 J. M. Guthrie & Co. 50 60 700 3 8 252,000 Curtas Clayton 12 25 380 1 12 66,000 Reynald & McDonald 9 15 163 2 6 49,000 C. Martin 7 12 84 6 1 35,000 Livingston, Kinkead & Co. 40 50 5 325 159,400 Hord & Smith 10 15 2 85 37,400 Bisonette & Lazinette 13 20 156 6 67,600 Ballord & Moralle 9 13 108 3 45,000 R. H. Dyer & Co. 13 20 158 2 68,100 John M. Hockady & Co. 57 60 6 312 204,000 Geo. Chorpoening 12 20 80 21,000 Hockady, Burr & Co. 105 225 1,000 50 200 465,500 ——— ————— ————— ——— ————— ————————— 776 1,114 7,963 142 1,286 3,730,905

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