USA > Kansas > Smith County > History of Smith County, Kansas to 1960 > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17
136
announced that ha would issue no first grade certificates, although many had baen teaching in the East on such certificates previous to coming to Smith County. School was held in what is now Banner township in a dugout until the stone school house was built in 1881 by stone mason David Weltmer and neighbors. It still stands and was used until 1947. When the Weltmer children attended there were seventy-five pupila, sitting three in a seat, and only one teacher. Eighteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren of David Weltmer, besides his own six children graduated from this stone school house. 24
In 1875, Twelve Mile also had school in a dugout with Ellen Taylor of Crystal Plains as the teacher. She received $8 a month and board. She piled what books they had on the table at night and put a heavy stone on them to keep the pack rats from carrying them off.
In 1876 it was reported that there were 77 organized districts in the county. In the 1879-1880 Biennial Report of the State Board of Agriculture gave 106 schoolhouses in the county, 61 log, 23 frame, 6 brick, and 16 atons, so progress was being made in quality as well as quantity as there also was listed 4,835 school population for the same years. Average salary given was mala, $21.15, female, $18.56 per month.
Harlan's first school building was a small one-room stone building which was soon replaced with a four-room frame structure, but the upper two rooms remained unfinished for some time. This community also had the unique posi- tion of having a college. Thers is much disagreement among sources on the be- ginning of Gould College. In 1881, a meeting was called, open to all citizens of the community, and $3,000 was subscribed for the building. A. L. Bailey
24 Personal letter to the author from Mrs. Mabel Hinshaw, granddaughter of David Weltmer, homesteader in 1872.
137
donated six to eight acres of land for the campus for the privilege of naming the college. David Weltmer and Mrs. Margaret Beauchamp were mentioned as pro- ponents of the project. Fred Newell, who did some study on the history of schools in Smith County in 1940, said that Isaac Williams, minister and Elder of the United Brethren Church of Harlan was one of the chief backers, as was W. S. Bradford of Mansfield, Ohio, who helped survey the townsite. Andreas' History of Kansas said it was organized under the patronage of the United Brethren Church with the Rev. A. W. Bishop, A.M., who had taught at Avalon College in Missouri, as president. The charter reads ae follows:
We, the undersigned citizens of the state of Kansas, hereby associate ourselves together as a corporation to be called Gould College Association for the purpose of establishing and maintaining an Educational Literary, Scientific and Collegiate school to be located at Harlan, County of Smith and state of Kansas. Said school to be under the control of a Board of seven trustees to be elected from year to year by West Kansas Annual Conference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. The term of the existence of this association shall be perpetual. The trustees for the first year are A.L. Baily of Harlan, Kansas; J. W. Williams, Harlan; C. W. KcKes, Elmira, Kansas; A. S. Poulson, Salem; J. Knight, Salem; J. H. Bonebrake, Lecomp- ton, Kansas; J. J. Burch, Cawker City, Kansas. It is date 25 day of October A.D. 1880.25
The Gould College building was erected in 1861-1882 from native limestone from the hills near Harlan. It was about fifty by sixty feet, two stories high, with a shingle roof topped by a flat deck about ten feet square, support- ing a cupola housing a bell. This bell still rings (1960) from the tower of a church building erected in Harlan in 1905. The first floor of the interior was divided into three main rooms, the chapel or assembly room occupying all the east half of the building with two rooms on the west wide. A hallway with stairs to the second floor led to a girls' dormitory. Some of the rules for Gould College sound amusing eighty years later, but reflected the social
25 "Corporations Charters, Secretary of State", Book 11, October 25, 1880, Archives, Kansas State Historical Society.
138
customs of the day. For instance:
1. All students shall use no profane or unbecoming language; shall abstain from all games of chance, the carrying of arms, and the use of intoxicating liquors; they shall be kind and obliging to each other, and show due respect to their teachers.
2. Students shall not engage in loud talking, running, jumping, or scuffling in the halls of the college, nor practice loafing about stores, the depot or other places of resort.
3. Students shall not ride for pleasure on the Sabbath, and ladies shall not ride with gentlemen at anytime without previous permission from the Ladies' Principal.26
In the year 1882, there were four members of the faculty: A. W. Bishop, (Greek, Language, Mathematics); Miss E. C. Bishop, (Latin, German, French); V. M. Noble, (Music); and W. A. Ray, (Tutor of Common Branches). There was an enrollment of seventy-two students, forty-three men and twenty-six women. In 1884, there were five regular faculty members: V. M. Noble, president; G. W. Shannon, mathematics and language; Miss Newell, music; Miss May Wabster, science and grammar; Todd Reed, penmanship, band, and business. The term of school was nine months divided into three sessions with a tuition fee of $15.00 for each session. From fifty to one hundred students were enrolled each session. Most of the courses ran over a two-year period and were de- signed for those wanting to go into teaching, banking, or business.
A. L. Bailey reportedly named the college for Jay Gould, owner of the branch lins of the Union Pacific which was built up the Solomon Valley in 1879. It was hoped that he would endow the college, but the Gould interests sold out to the Missouri Pacific lines, and without more substantial backing than student fees and gratuities from friende the college was doomed to failure.
26 Mrs. Margaret A. Nelson, "Rules for Gould College," presented to the Kansas Historical Society, October 30, 1942.
139
However, it operated for a period of ten years, 1881-1891. The building waa used for all religious services for sixteen years after the college closed or until 1905, when the new church was built and the college building torn dom. 27
C. U. Nichols, when county superintendent, published the first "Annual Report, Course of Study and Nomal Announcement" for Smith County in 1895. Ita specified purpose was to "provide plain, practical and progressive out- line to unify the work of the teachers throughout the county" and to simplify classification and regulate promotion and graduation. He asked that each teacher follow it as conditions permitted. Some of the interesting provisions were: A pupil was to finish the first reader by the end of the second year, be able to pronounce all the worde at sight, spell 90 per cent of them, and read with ease. The third and fourth year pupils studied reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, and language. The seventh to ninth years added goog- raphy, history, and physiology. The instructions under the course of study for physiology were: "Complete and review a higher work in this subject. The outline of the work is here left to the judgment of the teacher; ' Judge ye wall'." An added admonition was "Do not make a hobby of anything!"
This report also gave a program for the Normal School or Institute that all teachers were expected to attend for one month in July and August. It listed 145 school districts and 4,974 pupils enrolled, 175 teachers in the
27 General information on Gould College not previously cited: A. T. Andreas, op. cit., p. 910; Fred Howell, "History and Development of Education in Smith County, Kansas," unpublished manuscript loaned the author by Mro. Margaret Nelaon; Oscar Crouse, unpublished manuscript written for the author for this work; Marilyn J. George, unpublished manuscript loaned at Kansas State University.
140
county in 1895. 28
There ie no definite record when the first high school districts were organized in Smith County. The first onee were apparently the outgrowth of the elementary schoole in Smith Center, Lebanon, and Kensington, with more advanced work gradually added. There is a record that Smith Center had no graduating claes in 1899 due to the additions to the course of study, offer- ing four years of high school work and qualifying the student for entrance into the state colleges. This brought "boarding students" into town from all over the county for a four year high school. The high school moved into a separate building of its own in 1918 for the first time.
Smith Center organized the first four year high school in 1898 and the members of the first graduating clase with four years work completed were: Emma Detwiler (Smith), Ida Allborn (Montgomery), Abbie Wentworth (Gift), Gertrude Cannon (Miller), Floss Barger (Brandt), Mattie Curry (Moorman), Althea Gift (Lattin), Bertha Cary (Fay), Alice Walker (McVicker), Charles Ashbaugh, Eleie Detwiler (Neleon), and Welter Cary. They graduated in 1900.
29
Harlan was once more in the van in establishing the firet Rural High School in Smith County. For thie, the land wae donated in the east part of town by James F. Nichole, one of Gould College'e alunni who had continued his education at Emporia, and spent his life as a teacher. The Rural High School was in operation forty years, July 11, 1916 to the end of the 1946-1947 term, when the building was continued in use by the grade school. Other Rural High Schools organized in the county were Athol, August 25, 1919, Cedar, April 25, 1921, Gaylord, April 25, 1921. Only Gaylord had a rural high school in the
28 Copy available at the Kansas Historical Library.
29 Mrs. Hattie Baker, op. cit.
141
Tahle 9. County Superintendente in Smith County, 1872-196) .*
Dato
1872-1874
Edmund Hall
1875-1876
K. C. ELLis
1877-1678
Krs. Fora Horse
1879-1880
J. W. Pearce
1881-1884
D. H. Foming
1885-1887
Hre. Millard
1888-1889
V. M. Moble
1890
Kice Livermore
1891-1894
J. W. Mais
1895-1899
C. U. Nichole
1900-1902
A. H. Poppea
1903-1907
Ed Brookans
1907-1913
John Haney
1913-1917
Milos Elson
1917-1923
William McMallen
1923-1925
Rese Miller
1925-1929
Orval Tracy
1929-1933
Lloyd Simmonds
1933-1935
Malter Moore
1935-1945
W. E. Loo
1945-1949
Gertrude M. Mocka
1949-1961
Floyd Kugler
. Tamae Educational Directorios, Kansas Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1872-1960.
R-13
20
R-8
R-3
i
R -?
Jt
U-10
U-13
R-9
. 81
U-8
U-11
U-12
Jt. R-18 (S-P)
15
4
RA
140
461
U-15
U-9
R-1
Jt; RH-4 (S-O)
- R-6
-
"Jt. R-21
R-2
(S-P)
(S-O) ;
RH-3 (S-0)
Jt. B-23 (S-0)
R-5
Jt. R-19
Jt. R-15
1
Figure 14. School Districts in Smith County, 1959-1960.
Ii tri.t No.
Name
District ! ..
Start
. I. Cre." 15
Pleasint View
t. Popa
20
Pleasant "Till Corvallis
R-6
Parefunt Tution (riole
140
Åthol
R-7 P-8
Wonder
T-7
Independence
R-9
Lone Stur
1-8
De wey
R-10
Cora
Jt. L-10
Lebanon Beaver Will
R-14
Reamsville
R-15
Liberty
U-12
White Eagle
R-16
Delluire
U-13
Thornburg
Jt. R-13
Kensington
U-15
JC. 2-21
Gaylord
Jt. RII-4
Rising Sun Gaylord
Jt. R-23
Harlan
Pleasant Dale
R-13
Pleasant View
81
Highland
Twelve Mile
16
Swith Center
Jt. R-
-
R-10
U-7
R-14
R-15
R-16
Jt. U-10 (S-J)
143
county in 1960, and Kensington, Lebanon, and Smith Center each maintained a high school.
In 1940 there were 133 school districte in the county with 109 in opera- tion. Under the consolidation program, the number had been reduced in 1959- 1960 to thirty-two operating districts, nineteen of them one-teschar districte (see Fig. 14). Statistics show that Smith Countians are far better than the national average in education which speaks well for their school system. The 1950 census showed for years of school completed for the 5,470 adults twenty- five years or older in the county, only ten, or less than .2 per cent of the total had no schooling; 2,265 had completed grade school; 1,425 had completed high school; 235 had three years of college; and 120 had college degrees.
Music and Booke
S. M. Travis, who had ten years services as head musician on a U. S. dastroyer, came to Smith County in April 1872 with his two brothers, and in October of that year organized the first band in the county. The ten- member band ordered their instrumenta from Chicago at the cost of $22.00 apiace, $200 for the instruments and $20 freight to Russell, Kansas, the nearest railway station at the time. Emery Travis went to Ruesell to get the instrumente with a wagon and ox team, the trip taking him a week. The members of the band and instruments played were:
S. M. Travia, Cornet, leader and director Dan Travis, Cornat L. T. (Trube) Reese, Alto wa. Roll, Alto Emery Travis, Cornet
Andrew J. Allen, Bass Drum
Tom J. Burrow, Bass
Ním. Garretson, Tenor
Hank Batchelor, Tuba
là. Hodson, Tanor
The first Smith Centar band played for a big celebration when the town won the location of the county seat in 1873. A platform of rough cottonwood boards was
144
erected for a dance that night. The Kelley-Harlan orchestra that was later the first to play the song, "Home on the Range", played for the dance. Set- tlers from all over the county attended the celebration. 30
In the year 1880, the band wae reorganized with only eight membere thie time, and just one, L. T. Reese, who played in the original band. The other members were R. D. Pritchard, cornet and leader; W. H. Nelson, cornst; Will D. Jenkins, alto; Vern Webb, alto; Scotty Elliot, alto; Ed Edson, tuba; Ed C. Stevens, bass drums; and Reese, alto. W. H. Nelson wae publisher of the Pioneer for several years and city postmaster at one time. Will D. Jenkins bought and moved the first paper to Smith Center and was in newspaper work in the county for yeare. Ed Stevens came to Smith County with his folks in 1872 and settled on a homestead north of town; later he was a merchant in Smith Center for yeare. Vern Webb came with hie parents and sister, Flora (later Mre. L. T. Reeee) in a prairie echooner in November 1877.31
In the early 1900'e a band known as "Smith Center Ladies Band" was organized with l'ardis Stone ae leader. Thie group of twelve young ladies, in their white shirtwaiste, black skirts, and eoft white felt hate, played at the county fairs and other entertainments for several yeare. It included Mabel and Blanche Boughman, Sadie, Nan, and Lina Owene, Mrs. George Hendricks, Myrtle Jarvis, Kitty and Anna Harwood, Flora Bryan, and Ruth and Mabel Bowen. Hendrick's Military Band, advertised as the "Leading Band in Northweet Kansae," was composed of twenty-eight membere and director, Georgs llendricks. In the late 80's it furnished music for many occasione. 32
30 Urs. Hattie Baker collection, op. cit.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
145
Lebanon had an outstanding military band about 1906 that traveled to distant points to furnish music at events to which they had been invited. They had fancy uniforms and a brightly colored coach pulled by four horses for their excursions. Some of the sixteen members were Charlie Leonard, Bill Leonard, Charlie Adams, Will Weldon, Foss Tygart, Cliff Fogle, Jim Waldon, Albert Myers, George Jackson, and Bill Branton.
Music has always been appreciated in Smith County and each high school has trained instrumental and vocal groupe. Municipal bands, vocal groups, and dance orchestras have also developed. It would appear not unusual that the state eong of Kansas should also have originated there.
Public libraries have a certain aurk of intellect and culture for a com- munity and Smith County is to be commended on at least two groups who have very strenuously worked to organize libraries in their home towns. The Lebanon Library was organized November 7, 1900 and joined the State Federa- tion of Women's Clubs, March 15, 1911. The charter members were Jennie and Mary Adams, Mary Arbuthnot, Maude and May Dykes, Ethel Felton, Sadie Lewis, Emma Moore, Sarah Peters, Lizzie Nichols, Lenora Skillin, Ida Tygart, and Bertha Winegar. They began the campaign with a waffle supper and bazaar that netted $100, then began a general solicitation for books. Mre. H. A. Lykes took a special library course to catalog the books. Mrs. John Weddle, presi- dent for four yeare, was responsible for securing much of the funds. Chicken pie suppers, bazaars, home talent plays, anything to make money was used, and in 1905 they were able to erect a building 24 by 40 feet. In 1925 the city voted to accept the library and levy a tax for its support. The ladies were able to turn over a free public library with 1,923 books, ground and building as their contribution to the betterment of their town and community. Some
146
of the librarians were Mrs. Ethel Felton; Mrs. Nell Housel, thirty-three years service; Mrs. Thelma Dilley; Mrs. Ula Lockis, five years assistant and twenty-four years librarian. In 1958 there were 8,581 books besidss other materials. The money donated by the friends of C. J. Arbuthnot, long- time Lebanon druggist, was used to buy a new bookcass to be used for Kansas books and materials. The will of M. M.Grabosch in 1958 left to the library 250 books and eighty acres of land, the revenus to be used for the library. This expressed the appreciation the people had for what thirtsen civic-minded women began in 1900.
From a small library of thres hundred books, managed by a club of women to a fres reading library of 8,000 books is the story at Smith Center. Mrs. Minnis Slagls of Smith Center presented a paper at the State Library Associa- tion in 1905 telling how to organize a library in a small town. The idea originated in a reading club in 1897. The Woman's Harmony Library Club was organized to conduct a public library for the use of Smith Center and vicinity. A charter for ninety-nine years was received from the state April 28, 1897. They asked the superintendent of schools, lawyers, doctors, ministers, and some other qualifisd persons to make book lists; from these 360 volumes were ordered. Each member donated a chair and other furniture. Three rows of cigar boxes, eight boxes in a row were used for library cards. Reading cards were sold for ons dollar a year. Members held food sales to raise money to- ward a building fund, then a talent of twenty-five cents was given each member who was to return it in three months with any profit and tell how it was mads. A minstrel show was so successful it had to bs held two nights to accommodate the crowds. Upstairs office rooms were used first, then the club purchased a brick building on Main Street and hustled to raiss the money to mest the $50.00
147
payments each month. A few years later L. N. Dundae, real estate business man, offered to trade a four room home and four lots for the brick building. It stood where the Community Hall that houses the library now stande (1960). February 1, 1922 the Library Club deeded to the city of Smith Center the lots and building with the provision that the new building would house the library and provide a librarian at the expense of the city. In 1928 there were ap- proximately 5,000 bound volumes on the shelves. Miss Rose Hadden, a long time teacher in the county, was firet city librarian. The fortieth anniver- sary of the library was observed by a tea with club women from the entire county in attendance on April 15, 1937. The highlight of the program was a review of the book, Sod and Stubble, written by Dr. John Ise. The review was excellently prepared by Mrs. R. A. Samuelson. The book was very appropriate because it was a story of pioneer days of the Ise family who lived just over the line in Osborne County. The charter members who began this worthy pro- ject were not available but the presidents through the years until the club was disbanded in 1922 were Mesdames W. H. Nelson, E. E. Dugan, B. W. Slagle, A. Haberly, B. T. Baker, W. E. Fleming, John Detwiler, L. T. Reese, Verne Barger, H. C. Smith, Ray Henderson, R. K. Sergent, Fred Uhl, Clenn Stoops, J.G. McDowell, E. S. Rice, J. D. Flaxbeard, Charles Uhl, and Frank Timmins.33
Infamoue People and Incidente
Cattle Kate, alias Kate Maxwell, whose real name was Ella Watson, once lived in Pawnee Township, Smith County. The true facts of her later life and the incidente leading to her hanging at Sweet Water, Wyoming, July 20, 1889,
33 Ibid .; Mre. Minnie Slagle, "Organizing a Library," Topeka Daily Capital clipping, 1905.
148
have never been known, but that she did not deserve the death meted out to her is the opinion of Judge C. Clyde Myere who has done a great deal of re- search on the subject. Clyde Nyere, oldest of the Myers children, started to Salem school in 1893. Also in school at the time were the sisters and brothers of Ella Watson. Ils said they esemed nice enough, that they must have been in the early teens at the time. Their father was a solemn-faced man who wore long brown whiskere. Myers wae too young to understand at the time, but he remem- bered there were whispers of something mysterious about the family -- appar- ently the fact that the older sister had "gone bad." (ller father gave her age se twenty-eight when hanged.) Her parente were called good folks, good neigh- bore, and good citizens.
Ae nearly as the story can be pieced together, Ella had gone to Red Cloud, Nebraska, where she had teamed up with Jim Averill. No more ie known of them until they became known se homesteadare in the middle of the cattle kingdom at Sweet Water, Wyoming. The situation at this time in Wyoming was not friendly to homeeteaders. Kate and Averill were warned to leave, but there never were any rustling charges filed against them in the courts by any of the ranchers led by A. J. Bothwell. However, on July 20, 1889 they were hanged by seven ranchere. Charges were never proven against the ranchere as all the witnesses either died or disappeared mysteriously. Mr. Myers, after extensive research in Wyoming, thought many of the wild stories told about Cattle Kate and Jim Averill were started after the hangings to justify the crime. They apparently were victims of the cattleman-homesteader frontier. 34
34 Judge C. Clyde Myere, "Cattle Kate", an unpublished original manuscript with notee of sources, loaned the author for this work, March 1960. Ella Watson, alias Cattle Kate, is featured in several publiched booke come of which are Powder River, Maxwell Burt, Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1938; Calamity Jane and Other Lady Wildcats, D. Aikman, Henry Holt and Co., 1927; Wyoming, Frontier Style, Velma Linford, Old West Publishing Co., Denver; Banditti of the Plains, A. S. Mercer, University of Oklahoma Prees, Norman, 1954.
149
Another group of famous outlaws that had a connection with Smith County was the James-Younger gang who hid out in Oek Township, section 19, and pos- sibly White Rock Township, sections 14 and 15, at times between 1878 and 1882. Walter Herndon, who lived there said there were re-occurring reports that two members of Quantrell's gang lived in the area. Both the James and Younger brothers were known members of Quantrell's border fighters, but in those days questions were not asked about the neighbors. Riley A. Holmes homesteaded the site of Old Lebanon. Before that he had been neighbors to the James family in Missouri and they and the Youngers stayed at his place. This ap- parently was a hide-out between crimes far from home, away from railroads and roads. Jesse James was later shot in the back, Frank was pardoned and lived out his life on a farm between St. Joseph and Kansas City; some of the Younger brothere were shot, others went to prison. Smith County residents had no di- rect quarrel with them.35
Another man they did have a quarrel with in 1903 was Tom Madison (or Madson) who committed a triple murder in Lebanon, one of the most gruesome and notorious murders in Kansas. Madison, a farmhand in the employ of Filmer Spurrier, became infatuated with Mrs. Eda Williamson who lived with her thirteen-year-old daughter and mother, Mrs. Eliza Payne, 57. When his atten- tions were epurned, he entered the house where they were asleep and, armed with the shank of a cultivator, beat them in the head and face until they were unrecognizable. Madison had returned to the Spurrier home about two a.m. it
35 Ray Myers, article in Lebanon Times, February 18, 1960, also personal letter, map, and note to the author giving definite locations. This story was given Warren lierndon, who with his wife and family reside on the site of old Lebanon. His father, Walter Herndon, homesteaded there in 1878, and told his son the outlaws' horses were kept in the pasture across from his place. Mre. Josie Cox told Ray Myers, reporter who wrote the article, that she lived neigh- bors to the James family southeast of St. Joseph (Missouri) and had heard that they were in the area, but would not positively confirm it.
150
was known, but was gone in the morning, leaving behind a blood stained hat and blood on the tank where he had washed. A posse started out when the triple murder was found, but lost track of Madison in a cornfield near Red Cloud af- ter tracing him to places where he had forced residents to feed him and let him change clothes. About two weeks later his body was found in a draw on a farm seven miles north of Red Cloud. A half empty box of rat poison and a gun were beside his body and he had a bullet hole in his head. Apparently he was a suicide. de. 36 Logan Township was a rather dangerous place in which to live in 1903 to judge by the incidents that fall. A farmer, John Anshuts, was shot by a highwayman while returning home one Sunday evening. He was robbed of $25.00, but the robber thought he had more money. He died the following Sunday. The robber was never found. 37
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.