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 85of 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.
86In 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 87have the power to purchase and hold, and enter by pre?mption 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 88could 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.
89“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 90for 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.”
91In 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 92of 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 93operated 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 94sites 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 95the 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 96to 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 97been 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 981855, 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 pre?mption.”
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.
99Judge 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 100February 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, 101from 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 102boxes, 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 pre?mpted 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 103became 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 104finally 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 els............