USA > Kansas > Atchison County > History of Atchison County, Kansas > Part 19
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Luther Dickerson raised the first company of soldiers ever organized in the State of Kansas, in May, 1861. The first military order issued in the State was directed to him, signed by John A. Martin, assistant adjutant general.
But while his company was the first organized, it happened that Dicker- son's commission as captain was the second isstted, and was signed by Gov- ernor Charles Robinson, before the State had an official seal. Afterwards. Mr. Dickerson served in the regular volunteer service, as first lieutenant.
He lived on his land, north of town, for many years, and died in Atchison on the thirteenth day of December, 1910.
LUTHER C. CHALLISS.
Luther C. Challiss came to Atchison in 1855 from Boonville, Mo .. where he was engaged as a merchant. He remained here continuously until 1861 as merchant, banker, ferry operator and real estate owner. Luther C. Chal-
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liss' addition, the east line of which is at the alley between Seventh and Eighth streets, was preëmpted by Mr. Challiss in 1857, and was originally com- posed of 198 acres.
As a member of the Territorial council, Mr. Challiss secured the first charter for a railroad west from Atchison, known as the Atchison Pike's Peak railroad, now the Central Branch. He was the first president of the road, and originally owned every dollar of the stock. He also managed the Kicka- poo treaty, which gave the road 150,000 acres of land, and made it prominent in Washington as a specific possibility. The original Government subsidy for this road was every other quarter section of land for ten miles on either side, in a ddition to $16,000 to $48,000 per mile, in Government bonds.
At the same time Mr. Challiss secured a charter for the Atchison-Pike's Peak railroad, he secured a charter for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe rail- road, his original idea being a southern route to the Pacific, and that road has fulfilled all of his early expectations.
Mr. Challiss made a great deal of money in Atchison, and in 1864 drifted to New York and Washington, where he became an operator on the stock exchange. Mr. Challiss' sympathies were with the South, and was generally a bull. As long as the South showed its ability to hold out Mr. Challiss made a great deal of money, and at one time he had on deposit in New York $960,000, but the tide turned against him when the South began to fail, and this fortune was reduced to nothing.
As an operator on Wall street at that time, Mr. Challiss outranked Jim Fisk and Jay Gould, and was the peer of Anthony Morse and the Jeromes. Jay Gould was a very common man at that time, compared to Mr. Challiss, and a very little thing might have made Mr. Challiss one of the great financial leaders in America. An incident in his career in New York was the attempt of Woodhull & Claflin to break him. He made a fight that is still remem- bered, and sent Woodhull and Claflin, Colonel Blood Stephen, Pearl Andrews and George Francis Train to jail, where they remained six months. Finally they left the country as a result of a compromise. Mr. Challiss' lawyers were Roger A. Pryor and Judge Fullerton. Judge Fullerton received a quarter section of land in Atchison county as his fee. Mr. Challiss also brought the famous Pacific Mail suit, which was equally famous.
He returned to Atchison in 1878, looking after the wreck of his former possessions. For three years he edited the Atchison Champion, and bitterly opposed John J. Ingalls for United States senator in 1890.
Mr. Challiss, in his latter years, became a very much abused man, and
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was looked upon as one of the unpopular citizens of the town, but it may be said to his credit that he did much for Atchison, and was largely responsible for making the town the terminus of the Hannibal & St. Joe railroad. He brought Jay Gould, Henry N. Smith and Ben Carver to Atchison, and they agreed to extend the road from St. Joseph to Atchison, in consideration of $75,000.00 in Atchison bonds, which was agreed to. Mr. Challiss had some sort of a deal with Henry N. Smith while they were operating on Wall street, and Challiss claimed that Smith owned him $107,000.00. They finally settled the matter, by Smith agreeing to bring the Hannibal & St. Joseph road here without the $75,000.00 in bonds the people had agreed to give him. The Atchison Champion of May 11, 1872, contained a half column scare head, to the effect that Luther C. Challiss telegraphed from New York that the bridge had been finally secured, and gave the credit of securing the bridge to Chal- liss and James N. Burnes.
Mr. Challiss died a poor man on the sixth day of July, 1895.
GEORGE W. GLICK.
George W. Glick, the ninth governor of Kansas, for a number of years United States pension agent for the district comprising Kansas, Missouri, Col- orado, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Indian Territory, came to Atchison in June, 1859, from Fremont, Ohio, where he studied law in the office of Ruth- erford B. Hayes, who afterwards became President of the United States. Mr. Glick came to Atchison on the steamer "Wm. H. Russell," named for and largely owned by William H. Russell, senior member of the celebrated freight- ing firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell. Mr. Glick was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, July 4, 1829, on a farm, and when four years old removed with his father's family to within a mile and a half of Fremont, where he remained until he came to Atchison. He first went to school in the country, near Fre- mont, where he afterwards taught when he was nineteen. Later he attended a Dioclesion school at Fremont, founded by Dr. Dio Lewis, who afterwards became famous and whose name then was Dioclesia Lewis. Later he attended Central College, Ohio, but did not graduate. In 1849 he began the study of law in the office of Bucklin & Hayes, in Fremont, as a result of getting his feet in a threshing machine. It was supposed that he would never be fit for farm work again, but he afterwards recovered. Two years later he was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati, standing an examination with the graduat- ing class of the Cincinnati law school. He practiced eight years in Fremont
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before coming to Atchison, building up a good business, in spite of the fact that he always went out to the farm in haying time and harvested and helped his father. In January, following his arrival in Atchison, he formed a part- nership with A. G. Otis, which continued as long as he practiced law. The firm of Otis & Glick was the strongest in Atchison, as long as it lasted, and B. P. Waggener was a student in their office. In 1872 Mr. Glick became a town farmer, operating a farm of 640 acres four miles west of Atchison, mak- ing a specialty of Short Horn cattle, paying as high as $1,000 for several sin- gle animals. He served nine terms in the Kansas legislature, and was once county commissioner, and once county auditor of Atchison county. While auditor of Atchison county, in 1882, he was elected governor, by 9,000 plur- ality, over Jim P. St. John, who had been elected two years before by about 55,000. In 1884 he was re-nominated as governor by the Democrats, but was defeated by John A. Martin. He first received the nomination for governor nine years after coming to Kansas, but was defeated by the Republicans. He was appointed pension agent in 1885, and again in 1893. He was a Mason, and was one of the original organizers of the Knight Templars and Royal Arch Masons, in Atchison. He was the first president of the Atchison-Ne- braska road, having built it to the county line, in connection with Brown and Bier. Governor Glick sold his farm near Shannon a number of years ago, and during the latter part of his life was inactive in business and professional affairs. He died on the thirteenth day of April, 1911.
DR. W. K. GRIMES.
One of the oldest citizens of Atchison was Dr. W. H. Grimes, who came here from Yellow Spring, Ohio, in 1858. His son, E. B. Grimes, came a year before, and opened a drug store in the building for many years occupied as an office by the Atchison Water Company, across from the Byram Hotel. Dr. W. H. Grimes practiced medicine until the war broke out, when he became a surgeon in the Thirteenth Kansas. Returning to Atchison at the close of the war, he continued the practice of medicine until his death, in 1879.
E. B. Grimes was a quarter-master during the war with a rank of major. At the close of the war he entered the regular army, and built many of the posts in the Department of the Platte, notably Ft. Laramie, Ft. Fetterman and Ft. Douglass. He died at Ft. Leavenworth, in 1882.
Another son, Dr. R. V. Grimes, was a lieutenant in his father's regiment. After the war he became an army surgeon, and was in many of the Indian
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campaigns in the Northwest. He was in Merritt's command when it went to the rescue of General Custer, and was the surgeon in Major Thornburg's command when it was surrounded at the famous fight on Milk river. The command was surrounded five days by the Utes, and was finally rescued by General Merritt. While he lived in Atchison he was employed as a printer on the Champion.
Two other sons of Dr. Grimes, John and Howard Grimes, were mem- bers of Colonel Jennison's Seventh Kansas Jayhawkers.
JOSHUA WHEELER.
Joshua Wheeler was one of the best known, as well as one of the most successful, farmers Atchison county ever had. His papers on questions per- taining to agriculture and the farm, read before the various societies, attracted wide-spread attention. In State affairs, he served the public long and honor- ably, and for over twenty years was a member of the State board of agricul- ture, serving three years as its president. His long connection with the State Agriculture College game him an extended acquaintance over the State, and he was appointed regent for that institution by Governor Harvey in 1871, and re-appointed by Governor Martin in 1888, serving until April, 1894. During several years of that time he was treasurer of the board, and gained an exten- sive knowledge of the college and its history. He served in the State senate during 1863 and 1864 and in the fall of 1885 was elected for another term.
Joshua Wheeler was born in Buckingham, England, February 12, 1827, and came to America in 1844, locating in New Jersey, where he resided four years before removing to Illinois. In 1857 a colony of seven or eight families of Fulton county, Illinois, farmers, Seventh-Day Baptists, came to Kansas, and located in the southwest portion of Atchison county, covering the entire distance overland. S. P. Griffin and Dennis Sounders preceded the colony in the spring of the same year to look up a location. They went as far to the southwest as Emporia, but found no land equal to that of Atchison county. After locating the land for the colony they went back to Illinois, but did not accompany the colony to Kansas, but came a year or two later. Griffin farmed for nearly twenty years, but afterwards became a Nortonville mer- chant. He was the father of Charles T. Griffin, at one time an attorney in Atchison.
When the colony of Seventh-Day people arrived at the end of their des- tination they found the land in possession of colonists, but they bought them
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out, preempted claims and laid out the now famous Seventh-Day Lane. The land was then an open prairie, occupied only by an occasional hut. It is at this time the admiration of every visitor abounding in well cultivated fields, pastures, groves, orchards, comfortable homes, to which paint is no stranger, large barns, uniformly trimmed hedges, and peopled by as thrifty a class as can be found in the western country. Later on Seventh-Day people came from Iowa, Wisconsin and New York, and joined the Illinois colony on Sev- enth-Day Lane, which is two miles in length. The Seventh-Day Baptists ob- serve their Sabbath from sundown Friday evening to sundown Saturday eve- ning. Their church has a seating capacity of 400, which is always comfort- ably filled, and was built in 1884, prior to which time the Seventh-Day Bap- tists worshiped in their school house.
A. A. Randolph was the first pastor of the church on Seventh-Day Lane. He came here from Pennsylvania in 1863, and died in 1868. S. R. Wheeler, a brother of Joshua Wheeler, was pastor of the church for twelve years.
When the Seventh-Day Baptists built their homes on the Lane smooth wire cost eleven and one-half cents per pound in Atchison, and ordinary flooring, $100.00 per thousand feet. Money was loaned at four per cent. per month. They did all of their trading in Atchison until Nortonville was built.
Joshua Wheeler was not only a successful farmer, but a good business man. He kept a regular set of books, and could always tell exactly what it cost him to produce a bushel of wheat in any of the different years of his farm experience. He could tell also what a bushel of corn, fed to cattle, would produce. In 1877 he sold his wheat for $1.75 per bushel.
He owned a farm of over 300 acres, just at the west end of the Lane, where he died on the fourteenth day of May, 1896.
WILLIAM HETHERINGTON.
William Hetherington, founder of the Exchange National Bank, came to Atchison in 1859, from Pottsville, Penn., where he operated a flouring mill. His three oldest children, Mrs. B. P. Waggener, W. W. Hetherington and C. S. Hetherington, were born in Pottsville. Mrs. W. A. Otis, the young- est daughter, was born in Atchison. William Hetherington himself was born in Milton, Penn., May 10, 1821. He was also married there. When he first came west he stopped in St. Louis, then went to Kansas City, and later to Leavenworth, where he bought a bankrupt stock of goods and hauled them to Atchison in wagons. This was in 1859. The same year he estab-
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lished the Exchange Bank of William Hetherington, absorbing the Kansas Valley Bank, owned by Robert L. Pease, which had been established several years before.
Mr. Hetherington's influence in Atchison was very marked. He was a cultured gentleman of the old school, and was so generally respected, although always a Democrat, he stood very high in the sixties when the sectional bitter- ness was at its height, and did much to maintain peace between the contending factions. He was a very able public speaker. He was never a bitter partisan, and enjoyed the respect of the people to an unusual degree. He was one of the early mayors of Atchison, and had a successful career. He died on the twenty-first day of January, 1890.
WILLIAM C. SMITH.
William C. Smith, one of the early mayors of Atchison, came to Kansas in 1858 from Illinois, settling near Valley Falls. Two years later he traded his farm to Sam Dickson for a stock of goods in Atchison and removed to this city. The firm of William C. Smith & Son continued sixteen years. The son was Henry T. Smith, who still resides in Atchison (1915). Another son is William R. Smith, who is at present the attorney for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, at Topeka, for a number of years was a justice of the supreme court of Kansas. His oldest daughter married P. L. Hub- bard, who afterwards became district judge of Atchison county, and another daughter married H. C. Solomon, for many years a leading attorney of Atchi- son. Mr. Smith died in 1884. He was mayor two terms; member of the legislature, council and the board of education. Although Mr. Smith came to Kansas from Illinois, he was born at Columbus, Ohio, in 1817.
JOHN M. PRICE.
John M. Price arrived in Atchison with his wife on the first of Septem- ber, 1858, the day the Massasoit House was formally opened for the public. They came here from Platte City, Mo., to visit some old friends from Ken- tucky, who had moved to Kansas, and after they arrived concluded to remain. The Prices originally came from Irvine, Ky. Mr. Price studied law in Irvine; was admitted and elected county attorney before coming to Atchison. He was a Union man, in spite of the fact that he came from Kentucky, and was very active in a business and professional way during the early days of his
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residence in this county, and for many years thereafter. He constructed more large and substantial buildings in Atchison than any other individual who ever lived here. He built the house for a residence, now occupied by Mt. St. Scholastica Academy, an opera house and many blocks of business buildings and residences. He was a member of the legislature several times ; was prom- inently mentioned as a candidate for United States senator. Mr. Price died on the twentieth day of October, 1898.
SAMUEL C. KING.
Samuel C. King came to Atchison March 27, 1857. His brothers, Ed. and John, together with a sister and his widowed mother, arrived here the year before, coming here with Dr. W. L. Challiss, in the steam ferry, "Ida," · from Brownsville, Penn., where that boat was built. The King family came originally from England, within thirty-five miles of Liverpool, where the children were born, and where the father died. Ed. King was the first pilot of the ferry boat, "Ida," when it began making trips to Atchison. The three sons and the mother took up claims in Mt. Pleasant township. While living there three old neighbors came out and Samuel C. King went out with them to look for claims. They were told that there was plenty of vacant land near Monrovia, but Mr. King advised them that it was too far out in the wilderness, and they went elsewhere. ( Monrovia is fourteen miles from Atchison). While the other members of the family were getting their start Samuel C. King clerked in George T. Challiss' store, receiving $25.00 per month, and boarded himself. He afterwards went to work for Mike Finney, steamboat wharf master, and was practically the first express agent in Atchison. Later he went out to his farm and split rails to fence it, and afterwards clerked for Bowman & Blair for $25.00 per month and board. He enlisted in the navy in June, 1861, enlisting as a landsman on the man of war, "Augusta." He served on this ship through all the exciting scenes of the navy during the war, and was at the battle of Point Royal. He assisted in capturing eight British ships, which tried to run the blockade, and his part of the prize money amounted to over $7,000.00. He was at the bombardment of Ft. Sumpter, and at the tak- ing of Tyble Island, off Savannah, Ga. He spent eleven months at sea, work- ing for the "Alabama," and rounded Cape Hatteras. He saw the burning of Charleston, and finally learning that his mother was fatally ill, he came home. He was elected county treasurer of Atchison county. Mr. King remained a prosperous capitalist and real estate operator, until his death on the twenty- third day of January, 1910.
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CLEM ROHR.
Clem Rohr came originally from Buffalo, N. Y., where he was born in 1835. He learned the trade of harness maker there, and afterwards worked at his trade at Chicago, Detroit and Moline, Ill. In Davenport, Iowa, he heard Jim Lane make a speech about Kansas. This speech caused Rohr to go to Leavenworth in 1856, and while living in that town and employed as mail carrier he ran into the famous battle of Hickory Point. He slept in Hickory Point the night after the fight and helped fix up the wounded. He walked to Atchison in 1857 from Leavenworth, with Nick Greiner, for many years a prosperous German farmer, south of Atchison, and started a harness shop, which he conducted in the same place on the south side of Commercial street, between Fourth and Fifth streets, for over forty years.
The first telegram that came to Atchison announcing that Kansas had been admitted was sent to Clem Rohr, and was signed by S. C. Pomeroy. He served as mayor of Atchison. Early in the sixties when the home guard was organized in Atchison Clem Rohr was made captain. His father was one of Napoleon Bonaparte's body-guard, and was with that great soldier at Austerlitz in the Russian campaign, and at the battle of Waterloo. Mr. Rohr always claimed that Julius Newman, who had a farm near the Soldiers' Home, made the first filing in the Lecompton land office.
Mr. Rohr died in Atchison on the twenty-third day of May, 1910.
R. H. WEIGHTMAN.
One of the most interesting and romantic early-day characters in Atchi- son county was Maj. R. H. Weightman, an ex-major of the United States army, who was associated with a famous frontier tragedy. Major Weight- man was a violent pro-slavery man and had been reared in the South. Before coming to Kickapoo, where he was connected with the land office, and subse- quently to Atchison, he was the editor of the Herald at Santa Fe, N. M., and also a delegate to Congress from that Territory.
F. X. Aubrey, the other party to the quarrel, was a French Canadian, of great pluck and energy, and had made a reputation on a wager in 1852, riding from Santa Fe to Independence, Mo., in a few hours over eight days. The next year he wagered $1,000 he could go the same distance in less than eight days. His bet was accepted and Aubrey covered the distance in less than five days. Following these rides he engaged in the freighting business over
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the plains and he and Major Weightman became warm personal friends. Aubrey later made a trip to California, taking a herd of sheep, which he sold at a fine profit. It was upon his return from this trip that he and Weightman had their famous quarrel. The fairest account of this incident appeared in the Missouri Republican, September 28. 1854, which was in the form of a com- munication from a correspondent of that paper, and was as follows :
"THE CASE OF MAJOR WEIGHTMAN.
"Mr. Editor: The deplorable event by which F. X. Aubrey lost his life and which deprived the West of one of its most energetic and able pioneers, will not be passed lightly over. The name of Mr. Aubrey had become too closely identified with all that is gallant, preserving, and-in a western sense, at least-brave and chivalrous, that his memory and his sudden death should not awaken painful emotions among all those to whom his name had become a household word; emotions too painful to expect that, under his influence, full justice would be done to both parties concerned. When, therefore, an opportunity is afforded by which the facts, as nearly as we can approach them. may be investigated, it would seem injustice to withhold these facts from the public.
"Though, perhaps, less historically known (if the expression be per- mitted) than Mr. Aubrey, Major Weightman has peculiar claims upon the citizens of Missouri, and especially of St. Louis, for demanding full and im- partial justice in this behalf. Without wishing to anticipate the judgment of your readers, or at all commenting upon the evidence which will be found be- low, your correspondent, in view of the grave charge in which Major Weight- man is involved, and the melancholy importance of the event, deems it his (luty, notwithstanding, here to state what may be known to most of your readers, that Major Weightman, for years, formerly, was a resident of St. Louis, beloved and respected, almost without any exception, by all with whom he came in contact.
"Amongst the many of Missouri's citizens who participated in the late Mexican war, Major, then Captain Weightman, at the head of his Light Artillery Company, won laurels which placed his name foremost among the bravest and most gallant in that war. His fellow soldiers still in our midst will cheerfully bear your correspondent testimony, that Captain Weightman's gallantry as a soldier and officer was only surpassed by his urbanity and true kindliness of feeling as a gentleman; and if the evidence adduced upon his
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preliminary examination before the examining magistrate should sustain Weightman's plan of self-defense in the premises, his former friends here and abroad, and his fellow soldiers, will be glad to learn that the qualities of heart, for which they used most to prize Captain Weightman, in former years, remain untainted even now, when his name has become unfortunately coupled with a most grave and serious charge. May the public judge, and may not the unquestioned enviable renown of Captain Aubrey's name tend to warp calm judgment in pronouncing upon the guilt or innocence of the accused.
"The following evidence, being a synopsis of the process verbatim at the preliminary examination before Judge Davenport, at Santa Fe, have been transmitted to your correspondent from New Mexico by a third person, and, as your correspondent has every reason to believe, may be fully relied on. It is in the main supported by your former notices published in the Republican concerning this same transaction.
"The circumstances are these : Major Weightman, hearing of the arrival of Aubrey, and that he was at the store of the Messrs. Mercure, mer- chants at Santa Fe, crossed the plaza to see him, and was one of the first to take him by the hand and greet him as a friend. When Major Weightman arried at the store of the Messrs. Mercure, several persons had already arrived to pay their respects to Mr. Aubrey.
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