USA > Kansas > A history of Methodism in northwest Kansas > Part 14
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One day Mr. Claflin conceived the plan of purchas- ing a tract of land south of the city and laying it out in city lots and selling them at $100.00 each, without regard to location, payments were to be made of 10 per cent a month till paid for and when seven pay- ments had been made, those buying were to be sum- moned to meet, to select by lot the particular lots they would have, and each one was to accept the lots that he drew and be satisfied with them. Mr. Claflin se- cured an option on the land at a certain price provided it was taken within a specified time and then went to his office in North Salina on Santa Fe Avenue, and wrote out subscription lists for every pastor in the Conference after consulting with Mrs. See about the
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matter and they both approved the plan. Mr. Claflin desired A. N. See as secretary, to send to each pastor in the Conference, subscription lists with instructions to rush them, as there was only a week to work in, before the plan closed. He agreed to do it though he had no hopes of success. He instructed the pastors to send the papers to him, with what subscriptions they could get, so that he could get them by the night of July 7th, for the trustees would positively meet the 8th, at Solomon City, if not prevented by sickness or some other unavoidable cause, and that the matter must be decided at that time or the plan would fail. The trustees and friends went to work at Salina with strong faith in the enterprise and had good success, but could not secure enough to meet the demand with- out outside help. This was sent in very freely for the time, but when the trustees took the train at Salina for their meeting there was lacking quite a consid- erable sum to make the plan sure. The people of Salina did not stop but worked all the harder and finally after the Trustees had opened the meeting and talked over some business matters they received a tele- gram signed by H. H. Sudendorf, C. Eberhardt, F. D. Baker, and C. M. Claflin, stating that the lots were all sold, they assuming the balance unsold and invit- ing the trustees to return and locate the college. It was read to the trustees and there was a shouting time and the board adjourned to meet at Salina as soon as the train would take them there. They were met at the depot with conveyances and taken out Santa Fe to the south end of the townsite and there let down a fence and crossed a potato patch and drove along the side of a corn field and out onto the prairie one- half mile south of the city limits, now Republic Ave- nue, and on the highest part of the ground we located the Kansas Wesleyan University. A Kansas Wesleyan
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University Addition Corporation was formed and the trustees entered nto contract with them. They to have the ground surveyed and plotted and shade trees set on each lot and the building erected according to a plan approved by the trustees and deeded to the trustees entered into contract with them. They to have debt. The trustees on their part to open and main- tain an institution of full college grade perpetually and to furnish a certain amount of endowment within a certain time. I do not believe the trustees then kept part of the contract in full, but Salina has for- given them and helped them out of several tight places and will help them more in the future and the college will help Salina more than it ever has. Notice was sent to all subscribers and notice of monthly payments and when 70 per cent was paid in, the lots were drawn and the members could have sold their lots for the full amount in a very short time and there was enough to put up the University after paying for the land and all expenses. In other words, the trustees bought a farm and sold it to themselves in lots and had money enough to give fifteen acres for a campus and pay for the farm and leave $26,000 for a college administration building and every man's lot was worth all it cost him.
Bishop Vincent, on one of his visits to the college campus, hearing the account of how the money was raised to buy the fifteen acres of land and build a twenty-six thousand dollar Administration building, said, that he had heard of a man lifting himself over the fence by his bootstraps and he thought that the committee in this cause had done it without a doubt.
The name Kansas Wesleyan University was sug- gested by Hon. A. P. Collins, at one time president of the board and adopted the 9th of July, 1885.
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There was another scheme started to raise an en- dowment on the same plan, east of the College grounds, and Dr. Lockwood was to engineer the matter and press the sales at $100.00 per lot and all over expenses to become an endowment fund. Brother Lockwood be- gan to be fearful that it was a sort of gambling and wrote about it, and the trustees urged him to go on as every man would get the worth of his money. Bishop Ninde was consulted about the matter and he said it was all right and urged the working of it, but was delayed and finally an agent was appointed that could make more in selling other lots and the College did not make half out of it that could have been made, if the first plan had been worked and the sale of the lots kept out of the hands of an agent. Through the assistance of T. H. Davis, A. M. Claflin and C. Eber- hardt the trustees did make quite a sum in the trans- actions, though they had to pay the agent double that they ought to have paid and not getting half the serv- ice they should have had. Instead of selling the lots at $100.00 each and taking chances as to location, a valuation was placed on each lot and each person chose his lot at that price.
CHAPTER VI.
WOMAN'S WORK.
THE WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
I have in mind this country in. the sixties, as I saw it. When we were willing to drive the redman into eternal darkness to gain for ourselves the homes we desired. There were then but few log huts in all this Northwest, and in what is now the center for Meth- odist education there were four cabins, and one of them was a hotel.
I went with my father and brother to a farm six miles from Salina. Many times the few families con- gregated together to protect themselves against the redman. This was then the redman's country and we were crowding him from his possession. They came within twelve miles of us the time they captured the white woman and killed so many. They killed all of Mrs. Alterdice's children before her eyes, except her babe, which they took with them three days' journey, and then killed it, as it hindered their progress.
The people in the East were very sympathetic and thoughtful for the few inhabitants here, and after we got car service, they sent in a car load of second-hand garments to be used by those who were in need. Later they sent in car loads of wheat for seed, that the farmers might sow and reap a harvest. So you see this was at one time a missionary field and we were the needy ones.
Then, as now, there were faithful men and women looking to the comfort and well-being of those less favored. Men of God came to us and preached Christ in our homes and later in the school houses.
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The first school house built in the country, outside of Salina, was near my father's home. I boarded the teacher in our dugout. I think there has been scarcely a year up to the present time when help has not come to some of our ministerial brethren through some mis- sionary organization.
The organization of the Woman's Home Mission- ary Society was in 1880, and so far as I can learn, the first seed sowing in our Conference was in 1888, when Mrs. Mary Griffith made a tour through this country and reported at the next annual meeting that most of it was missionary ground. She reported having organ- ized some auxiliaries, but did not say where. She said that our Conference sent one box to an Indian mission, but that the need was so great in our own field we de- cided to do what we could for those nearest to us. There were many pathetic incidents in the lives of sacrifice and service by the faithful pastors and their wives.
Many homes have been brightened and many bur- dens made lighter by the work of the societies in the great new West. Mrs. Winterburn, who was then a pastor's wife in our Conference, was elected president, and Mrs. Meredith, who is still one of us, had active part in the first annual meeting. Mrs. Griffith says : "During my second visit to Indian Territory I per- suaded some children of our own Sunday School in Salina to give up the use of chewing gum and ciga- rettes and save their money to purchase a cow for the Tulsa Mission, where our missionary and his family were denying themselves the ordinary comforts of life that they might do more for the cause of Christ." The boys and girls became enthused with the missionary spirit and denied themselves many things for the love of Christ and in His name. The missionary had tasted no milk or butter or meat for six weeks at a time. The
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children were very proud of their beautiful white cow and calf, and when the missionary goes to another field, the new one will still have Romana, which will be faithful in welcoming him and doing her part in making his stay a joyous one, for Romana will not be removed from the mission.
In 1890 the same Mrs. Griffith visited our Confer- ence again, and this is what she said: "I have not visited the Northwest Kansas Conference for more than a year, but I organized it and have consented to represent it that I may present a plea for sympathy for our sisters of that part of our country. From let- ters read I learn that the drouth of so many past years has brought such poverty upon the people that the magnificent crops of the past year have not yet enabled them to recover their financial standing. Therefore, the sisters of our Home Missionary Society there have felt it their duty to give all the money raised to help the worthy poor about them and on the frontiers. They have done what they could in giving out supplies also. Those ladies are loyal to our cause and will yet come up with an organization doing much effective work."
I find nothing farther in regard to our work until 1896, and then Mrs. Belle Armstrong of Mankato was president. I do not know who the corresponding secre- tary was at that time. Mrs. Nash, whose husband was at that time in active work in our Conference, was corresponding secretary for 1897. So far as I can learn, she made no report of the condition of the home missionary work during her term of service.
In 1898 some of our women, who possibly were not as wise as serpents, but were as harmless as doves, besought me to take the place of corresponding secre- tary, as my husband was then Presiding Elder of the Ellsworth district, and we were settled in Salina.
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I will give my first report sent in the summer I was elected. "It is with gratitude to God, the Giver of every perfect gift, that I make this, my first re- port for the Northwest Kansas Conference. We have at Mankato, Kansas, an auxiliary, the first organized in the Conference. The membership of our Salina Auxiliary is increasing, and they are doing good work for the Master. We have organized since Conference an auxiliary at Plainville, with twelve members; one at Lincoln Center, with ten members. The Beloit, Ellsworth and Salina districts are organized, and as we learn more of the work, we hope we may be more efficient. Our Conference anniversary at Minneapolis was well attended and good interest in the work was manifested.
I am not able to report the number of Home Mis- sion papers taken in the Conference, but am certain it is small compared to what it ought to be. We are trusting in God for wisdom, and hope we may, by the grace of God, push on the work with increasing energy."
I will also give my report of 1899, showing a gain of five auxiliaries. "Our cause is looking up, and we feel encouraged. We are held back from doing some things, because of expenses, that I believe would be of profit to us. My heart is in the work, and I would like to do more if I could. We have in our Conference seven auxiliaries, with one hundred and seventeen members, sixteen honorary members among the min- isters, and seventeen copies of Home Missions are taken."
In the past fifteen years our Conference Women's Home Missionary interests have been vascilating, and there has been no steady holding of the reins, and go- ing on to victory, as was our heart's desire. But I am glad to report our forty-seven auxiliaries are alive and
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every one of them is trying to learn to do more ef- ficient work.
In our convention in Russell I reported forty-eight societies, and that included all of the young people's work. Not so now, and I will leave the young people's work for Mrs. Blanding to report. She has very kindly consented to work in the interest of the young people until Conference, and then we want to elect her to this important place.
We have missed our dear Miss Benedict for the past year. She was with us seven years and was loved by all and was an inspiration to the inmates of the homes wherever she went. Her heart is still with us in interest. In a letter received only a few days ago she asked to be remembered to all of the dear workers of the Northwest Kansas Conference.
We have with us to take her place Miss Mattie Gaines as Conference worker, who will be just as much to us, and, if we co-operate with her, will accomplish for us great things for Christ. We believe she will reach the young people, and the time is at hand when we must find young women who will be willing to take responsibility and bear burdens for Christ's sake.
These are not positions of honor or pleasure to which we call you, but of constant prayerful service, that you may thus add many stars to your crown. Our districts are well organized and each officer is filling her place well. I have rejoiced in their efficiency. Since Conference I have not been well and had to de- pend on them almost wholly.
Dear sisters, my heart and prayers are for you, and I love you; and I trust that we will each pray much for divine guidance and strive to do better work than ever before. We are in the habit of paying our pledges in full. Last year some of the auxiliaries failed us in coming up to what we expected, but the Lord led others
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to do a little more, so that none suffered because of our neglect.
In 1913 we made a gain of two hundred and forty- two dollars on the year previous. This year we have sown seed in many fields and have scattered one thous- and three hundred fifty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents. Our general fund was something over one hun- dred dollars above our pledge.
Our Japanese girl, Ikuyo Mendori, is cared for by the Luray Auxiliary. She will be seventeen next May, and is now in the eighth grade.
Evalyne Lahn, our Chinese girl, is cared for by Salina at an expense of seventy dollars a year. St. Frances is caring for a girl in Aiken Home, Olive Hill, Kentucky, at an expense of fifty dollars. The auxiliary and Queen Esther girls at Sylvan Grove are caring for a girl in Rebecca McClesky Home. I am hoping some one will take Vontrice Peters, who is in Ritter Home, Athens, Tennessee. Then there is one in Ben- nett Home to provide for, and I am also very anxious to make our pledge for Adeline Smith Home fifty dol- lars instead of twenty-five. There are many smaller pledges that will be spoken of later that I hope will be taken by the auxiliaries during the conventions.
Dear friends, I fear that I have taken too much of your time, but the work is great, and the more we know of it, the greater our interest and zeal, but, doing our best, we can only reach a few among the millions that are ignorant pertaining to things in this life and know nothing of the Christ. Do you know there are two hundred and thirty-seven thousand came to us in one year who could not read or write a word. And that there are six hundred thousand dark rooms in New York where one ray of God's sunlight can not enter, and these places are crowded with a mass of humanity that have souls to be saved or lost. And do
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you know there are ten thousand children starve to death in New York every year. Think of the money that is squandered. There is one monument in the South erected to a race horse at a cost of ten thousand dollars, and in the shadow of it a log house where in- nocent ones are trying to get an education.
The money that is spent in New York and other cities by the so-called aristocrats on pet cats and poodle dogs, I believe, would have kept the ten thousand chil- dren happy for several years.
Let us look into one hall in New York where a very brilliant millionaire social and ball was being held. When two little dogs were trampled upon and injured, one not so bad, but it was nursed back to health and playfulness. But not so with the other. It died, and many were those who mourned and sym- pathized with the bereaved ones. A very costly coffin was secured and his dear form was tenderly wrapped in costly raiment. A hearse was secured, a preacher employed to pass eulogies on the departed one, and all arrangements were made regardless of expense. And they wended their way to a fashionable cemetery, but when there, the authorities refused admission, and per- haps this dog was finally buried as many other dogs are, but their memory will always live in the minds of those who have nothing higher or more noble to live for, in a land where bodies are perishing and souls are dying, just for a little bit of love and care.
God pity such creatures that have no higher motive in life than to fritter their time away and accomplish nothing for God or the good of humanity. These con- ditions are deplorable, but are here for us to face ; and we will have to give an account in judgment for our part in helping to solve these problems.
I am glad it is our privilege to be a part of the great army of the Woman's Home Missionary Society
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that now numbers 139,864 auxiliary members and 39,551 young people. There is a gain over last year of 10,800. We are preparing workers from our schools to go into the foreign field.
We have five from Thayer Home in Africa ; several have gone from McClesky Home at different times to the foreign field. Some have gone to India and Japan, and some are now in training to take up work in India. Our Queen Esther girls this last year have supported forty-eight missionaries. We are not all required to go, but we who stay at home must be faithful to the trust committed to our hands.
May the Lord bless us in caring for those that are coming to our shores, and may we never betray their confidence in us. May we remember ever that the King's business demands haste, and do with our might what our hands find to do. Our God who seeth in secret will reward us openly.
THE WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
The history of Kansas Methodism has been the history of missionary spirit and activity. In March, 1883, the first session of the Northwest Kansas Con- ference was held in Beloit, and in November of the same year the Topeka branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society was organized in Topeka, Kansas, and included all the work of the organization in the then new middle West. It has since grown to embrace all the auxiliaries in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas and Sweden, and of this great Topeka branch the North- west Kansas Conference has always been a part. Three times during its history the Conference has had the honor of entertaining the branch meetings, twice in Salina and once in Concordia.
At the organization of the branch Mrs. A. N. See was elected Conference secretary for the Northwest
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Kansas Conference and served very acceptably in this capacity for one year, being succeeded in office in November, 1884, by Mrs. F. D. Baker.
To Mrs. Baker belongs the credit of the organiza- tion and development of the Woman's Foreign Mis- sionary work in the Conference. For twenty-eight years she was the Conference secretary, and during this long period put the very best of her efforts into the work she loved so well. For many years all auxil- iary funds were remitted direct to the branch treas- urer, but in 1902 the work had grown to such propor- tions that a Conference treasurer was necessary, and this additional work was given to Mrs. Baker, who for six years was both Conference secretary and treas- urer. For a number of years during this period she was also editor of the Topeka Branch Quarterly of the "Friend." It would be impossible in this brief history of the work to pay proper tribute to this efficient worker. No charge was too small for her to visit if in doing so she could further the cause of missions. No detailed work too exacting if in the doing of it she could stimulate interest in or get another dollar for the foreign field. Three times she was honored by elec- tion as branch delegate to the General Executive, which honor she bore with modest dignity, but never failed to bring crédit to the field she represented. From the earliest struggles in the new Conference to the time of her death, September 16, 1912, she never missed a meeting of the Topeka branch nor a session of the Northwest Kansas Conference. As a fitting tribute of the esteem in which she was held, the aux- iliaries of the Conference are maintaining, as a memo- rial, a scholarship and supporting a Bible woman in the Meerut District, Northwest India Conference, on which her son, Benson Baker, is the district superin- tendent.
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Becaus of the increased duties devolving upon the Conference treasurer, in 1908 Mrs. T. W. Hale of Be- loit was elected to this office, and for eight years she has filled this important position in a most acceptable way. From the few dollars per year that were paid in the early history of the work the contributions have grown until in 1915 the treasurer's report showed re- ceipts amounting to $3,148.80 for the year.
On the death of Mrs. Baker, in 1912, the present Conference secretary, Mrs. U. S. Brown of Norton, was elected, and under her leadership the work has shown steady advancement each year, until now there are forty-eight auxiliaries, with 1,353 members and thirty young people, and children's organizations with 562 members.
Since the organization of the Conference the Wom- an's Foreign Missionary Society has contributed a little more than $34,000 for the evangelization of the foreign fields. One of the most significant features has been the growing interest in special work, until at the present time there are being supported by spe- cial gifts from this Conference one missionary teacher, part support of a missionary evangelist, nineteen Bible women and twenty scholarships. But the greatest gifts have not been measured by dollars; daughters have been given from the homes of the territory until seven girls, the choicest of the land, have gone to the ends of the earth: The Misses Livermore, Perrill, Boddy and Porter are in India, Miss Pider in Japan, Miss Lovejoy in South America, and Miss Vail in Maylasia.
Thus, by the gifts of money, prayers and daugh- ters, the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society workers of the Northwest Kansas Conference have had no small part in sending the gospel message to the nations across the seas.
CHAPTER VII.
HISTORY OF THE CHURCHES ON THE COLBY DISTRICT. ALMENA.
When the class at Almena was organized is not known. It was early a part of the Long Island Circuit, which was organized in 1879. Almena appears in the Conference appointments as the head of a charge in 1888. Colson, Fairview Center and Kinderhook have at different times been attached to the circuit. The Almena class was organized by G. W. Moxley, a local preacher, and was composed of nine members, of whom "Father" Cast and John F. Lisby, with their wives and Mrs. Haskin, are remembered as having been worthy of special mention. At present Calvert is the only church outside of Almena. Here there are nine- teen members and a Sunday School with an enrollment of forty. J. W. Ballard is the class leader at Almena, Mrs. Anna Hays and Mrs. Joseph Farland are stew- ards. J. W. Ballard, Dr. C. E. Sabelins and Samuel Combs are trustees.
Mrs. Neicewanger is Sunday School superintendent, Mrs. Will Young president of the Epworth League, Mrs. Farland president of the Ladies' Aid Society, and Mrs. Elsie Vaight president of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. The superintendent at Calvert is R. J. Towne, and Thomas Beber is class leader. This class was organized in 1910 by Rev. G. Johnson, as- sisted by Rev. T. J. Furbes, a local preacher residing on the charge.
The church was built during the pastorate of Rev. A. C. Henslee in 1897; the parsonage was built in 1907, during the pastorate of L. M. Alexander. The church
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