USA > Kansas > Kansas; a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence, Voilume I > Part 7
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The last year of the territorial period was the hardest in the history of the county. It was the year of the great drought. (See Droughts.) During the winter of 1859-60, there was little snow and the hot winds of the following summer swept over the dry, parched earth, burning all vegetation except in occasional valleys and ravines where a partial crop was raised. The population of the county was about 3,000, and with such a scanty crop, the prospect of starvation seemed imminent. Most of the people had come into the county within two years and had not fairly opened their farms. Many of the settlers, with starvation and hardship before them, returned to the east. .
Great dissatisfaction developed over the location of the county seat at Humboldt, and on March 26, 1860, an election was held to decide on a location, Humboldt and Iola being the principal contestants. The re- sult of the election was 562 votes for Humboldt and 331 for Iola, with 78 votes scattered, but the people in the vicinity of Iola and the northern part of the county were not satisfied. The strife was kept up for some years until another election was ordered for May 10, 1865, when Iola received the largest number of votes. When the county seat was located at Iola, the town company donated 100 lots to the county to aid in the construction of public buildings. In 1866 bonds were voted for funds and within a short time a building was secured for county offices and court purposes. In 1877 the present court-house was purchased.
As soon as the news of the outbreak of the Civil war reached Allen county, nearly all the able bodied men hastened to enlist in the army.
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The Iola battalion was formed in 1861; three companies, commanded by Capts. Colman, Flesher, and Killen served in the Ninth Kansas, and two companies; commanded by Capts. W. C. Jones and N. B. Blans- ton, served in the Tenth Kansas volunteer infantry. As the county was. located so near the border of the state there was danger of invasion from Missouri guerrillas and hostile Indians from the Indian Territory. While the Allen county soldiers were with Gen. Lane, a raid was made on the . unprotected settlers of Humboldt, Sept. 8, 1861, by a band of Missouri guerrillas, Cherokee and Osage half-breed Indians. On Oct. 14, 1861, the town was captured and set on fire by Confederate cavalry. The Con- federate officers claimed that this was done in retaliation for the burning of Osceola by Gen. Lane. The land office had just been opened before this and J. C. Burnett, the register, managed to have his sister save $25,- 000 in land warrants, that were in the office at the time. After the burning of Humboldt a military post was established there, but no ac- tions took place until the Price raid in 1864. The militia of the county was organized into a battalion, known as the Allen county battalion, and was composed of six companies, three from Iola and the northern part of the county, two from Humboldt and one from the extreme south- ern part of the county. This organization comprised all the able bodied men in the county between the ages of 16 and 60 years.
The first railroads in Allen county were built in 1870, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas being completed across the southwestern part of the county in the spring, and the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston in the fall of the same year. Bonds were voted by the county to aid in the construction of the railroads. In 1880, bonds having been voted by dif- ferent townships along the line, the Fort Scott & Wichita railroad was. built across the county east and west, through Iola. There are now 96 miles of main line railroads in the county: The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe running almost directly north and south in the western part of the county, and a branch southwest from Colony, Anderson county .. across the extreme northwest corner. The Missouri, Kansas & Texas crosses the eastern part, almost directly north and south, with a branch north from Moran and another running west with its terminus at Iola. Another line of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas enters the county near the center on the west and crosses the southwest corner, while the Mis- souri Pacific crosses from east to west somewhat north of the center,. through Iola.
The first church in the county was that of the United Brethren, begun in 1859 and completed the following year. For some years this. church was used as a union church by all denominations and also as a school house. The Humboldt Herald was the first paper established. It was started Nov. 16, 1864, by Maj. Joseph Bond and two years later the Humboldt Union was established with Orin Thurston as editor.
In Nov., 1871, a tax was voted for the establishment of a county poor farm. Settlement of the county was somewhat retarded for some years by the contention between the settlers on the one hand and the Kansas City, Lawrence & Southern Kansas railroad company over. the title to.
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certain lands. The case was finally settled by Judge David Brewer of the United States circuit court on Sept. 3, 1885, in favor of the settlers. His decision threw open to settlement some 27,000 acres and immediate- ly there was an influx of immigrants.
The general surface of the county is level, the soil is fertile and highly productive. The valleys average a mile and a half in width and the timber belts about a mile. The principal varieties of trees native to the county are black walnut, hickory, cottonwood, oak, hackberry and elm. The main water course is the Neosho river, which flows through the western part of the county from north to south. Its tributaries are Indian, Martin's, Deer, Elm, and other small creeks. The Little Osage flows through the northeast and the Marmaton river through the south- eastern part of the county.
The chief agricultural products are corn, wheat, oats, Kafir corn and potatoes, and the county is one of the leaders in the production of flax and broom corn. Live stock raising is an important industry, and many fine orchards afford good profits to their owners.
Natural gas is the most important mineral resource. There are sev- eral large wells, but the field is particularly well developed near Iola in the west and La Harpe in the north central part, and valuable oil wells exist near Humboldt. There are vast quantities of raw material for Portland cement, which is manufactured and sent to all parts of the United States. An almost inexhaustable supply of shale has been found for making high grade brick and tile, which are manufactured and shipped out of the state. A good quality of limestone is also found. The county is divided into the following townships: Carlyle, Cottage Grove, Deer Creek, Elm, Elsmore, Geneva, Humboldt, Iola, Logan, Marmaton, Osage and Salem.
According to the U. S. census for 1910 the population of the county was 27,640, a gain of 8,133 during the preceding decade. The report of the State Board of Agriculture for the same year gives the total value of farm products as $1,362,654.60, corn leading with 1,123,290 bushels, valued at $550,412.10.
Allendale, a little hamlet of Allen county, is situated about 5 or 6 miles northeast of Iola, the county seat, from which place it receives mail by rural delivery. It is about equally distant from Carlyle on the Santa Fe and La Harpe on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroads, which places are the nearest railway stations.
Allis, Samuel, Jr., an early missionary to the Indians west of the Missouri river, was born at Conway, Franklin county, Mass., Sept. 28, 1805. He learned the trade of harness maker and worked at various places in his early manhood, finally reaching Ithaca, N. Y., where he united with the Presbyterian church, though his parents were Congre- gationalists. In the spring of 1834 he left Ithaca in company with Rev. John Dunbar (q. v.) as a missionary to the Nez Perces. Upon arriving at St. Louis he found that the company of traders with which he had intended to journey to the Indian country had already left that city.
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Not caring to undertake the trip alone, he spent some time at Fort Leavenworth, and then accompanied Mr. Dunbar to the agency of the Omahas, Otoes and Pawnees at Bellevue, Neb. Soon after arriving there Mr. Dunbar went as a missionary to the Grand Pawnees and Mr. Allis to the Pawnee Loups, with whom he remained until 1846. Among his other labors was the establishment of the Pawnee school at Council Point on the Platte river. For several years he was the interpreter for the United States in the negotiation of treaties and in this capacity aided in the acquisition of the Indian lands in Nebraska and Kansas. In 1851 he went to St. Mary's, Iowa, where he lived on a farm for two years. He then returned to Nebraska and there passed the remainder of his life. As a member of the Nebraska Historical Society he made valuable con- tributions to the Indian history of that state and Kansas.
Allison, a village of Decatur county, is located in the township of the same name, on the north fork of the Solomon river, about 25 miles southeast of Oberlin, the county seat, and 8 miles from Dresden, which is the nearest railroad station. It has a money order postoffice, some local trade, and in 1910 reported a population of 25.
Alma, the judicial seat and principal city of Wabaunsee county, is located a little northwest of the center of the county on Mill creek and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R. R., and is the terminus of a di- vision of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. R. which connects with the main line at Burlingame. The first house in Alma was built in the fall of 1867 and the following December the town was made the county seat. In 1868 a hotel and school house were erected, and after the ad- vent of the railroads the growth was more rapid. Mill creek furnishes water power for operating a flour mill and some other concerns. Being located in the heart of a rich agricultural and stock raising region, Alma is a shipping point of considerable importance. It has a bank with a paid up capital of $50,000, an international money order postoffice with four rural delivery routes emanating from it, excellent express, tele- graph and telephone facilities, an electric lighting plant, two weekly newspapers-the Enterprise and the Signal-and a monthly publication called the Emblem, devoted to the interests of a fraternal organization. The city has a modern high school building, erected at a cost of $16,000, and both the Lutherans and Catholics have parochial schools. The mer- cantile establishments of Alma rank favorably with those in other cities of its size. Good building and cement stone are found in the vicinity. The altitude of Alma is 1,055 feet. In 1910 the population was 1,010.
Almena, an incorporated town of Norton county, is located on Prairie Dog creek in the northeastern portion, at the junction of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroads, 12 miles east of Norton, the county seat. It has a bank, a weekly news- paper, an opera house, good hotels, large grain elevators, an interna- tional money order postoffice with three rural routes, and in 1910 had a population of 702, Being located in the midst of a fine agricultural country, Almena ships large quantities of grain and live stock, and its
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retail stores supply a considerable section of the northeastern part of the county. A fine quality of building stone is found in the immediate vicinity.
Altamont, one of the incorporated towns of Labette county, is lo- cated in Mt. Pleasant township, on the St. Louis & San Francisco R. R., 10 miles northwest of Oswego, the county seat and very near the geo- graphical center of the county. It has banking facilities, a weekly news- paper, express and telegraph offices, and an international money order postoffice with three rural routes. The town was laid out the year the railroad was built (1879), by a company of which I. N. Hamilton was president. The first house was built by Scott Noble, in the fall of that year. A hotel was built the following summer and a general store opened by Jones, Burns & Wright. A number of business enterprises were launched in the next two years. The first church was erected in 1880. A postoffice called Elston was established in this vicinity in 1870. When Altamont was founded the name was changed. The town was incorporated in 1884 and the following officers chosen: Mayor, H. C. Blanchard ; police judge, L. W. Crain ; councilmen, R. B. Gregg, W. M. McCoid, D. Reid, C. S. Newlon, and A. J. Garst ; city clerk, W. F. Ham- man.
Alta Vista, one of the larger towns of Wabaunsee county, is situ- ated in Garfield township, on Mill creek and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R. R., 15 miles southwest of Alma, the county seat. It was settled in 1887, was incorporated as a city of the third class in 1905, and in 1910 reported a population of 499. Alta Vista is one of the busy towns of Kansas. It has two banks, a weekly newspaper, a number of high class mercantile houses, a good public school system, express and telegraph offices, telephone connection, does considerable shipping, and its money order postoffice is the starting point of three rural delivery routes which supply mail to the surrounding country.
Alton, an incorporated town of Osborne county, is located on the Solo- mon river in Sumner township, and is a station on the Missouri Pacific R. R. 13 miles west of Osborne, the county seat. The population in 1910 was 414. Alton has a bank, a public library, a fire department, an opera house, a weekly newspaper, express, telegraph and telephone service, and is the principal shipping point and trading center for the north- western part of the county.
Altoona (formerly Geddesburg), one of the larger incorporated cities of Wilson county, is located on the Missouri Pacific R. R., and on the Verdigris river. II miles east of Fredonia, the county seat. It has two banks, a weekly newspaper, telegraph and express offices, and an in- ternational money order postoffice with three rural routes. The popula- tion in 1910 was 1,462. The town was founded in 1869 by a town com- pany, of which Dr. T. F. C. Todd was president. No town elections were held until the town company ceased to do business. The first business enterprise was a grocery store opened in 1869 by George Shultz and John Hooper. The postoffice was established in April, 1870,
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and J. N. D. Brown appointed postmaster. The Altoona Union, the second paper published in the county, was founded in March, 1870, by Bowser & Brown. A school house was built the next year at a cost of $3,000. A steam saw mill and a flour mill were set up in 1871 on the Verdigris.
The growth of Altoona dates from the entrance of the railroad in 1885-6. At that time it was a town of some 300 inhabitants, and a dozen business houses. The development of the oil and gas fields in the vicinity in the 'gos added greatly to the importance of the city.
Amador, a village of Clifford township, Butler county, is located on a branch of the Whitewater river, about 16 miles northwest of Eldorado, the county seat. Mail is received by the people of Amador from Burns, Marion county, by rural free delivery.
America City, a hamlet of Nemaha county, is located in Red Vermil- lion township on the Red Vermillion river, 20 miles south of Seneca, the county seat, and 6 miles from Havensville, from which place it re- ceives daily mail. An act incorporating this little town was approved by the territorial legislature on Feb. 14, 1867. The corporate limits in- cluded 380 acres of land. A store was opened in 1861 and a Methodist church built. In 1910 it reported a population of 30.
American Settlement Company .- This company, which was organized in Sept., 1854, had its headquarters at No. 226 Broadway, N. Y. The officers were: Theodore Dwight, president; J. E. Snodgrass, vice- president ; G. M. Tracey, secretary ; D. C. Van Norman, treasurer ; George Walter, general superintendent. The preamble to the constitu- tion of the company set forth that "The subscribers hereto, being de- sirous to form a company for the purpose of settling a tract of land in the Territory of Kansas, in order to assist in making it a free state, and to found thereon a city, with a municipal government, and the civil, literary, social, moral and religious privileges of the free states, for the equal benefit of the members, have associated and formed, and do hereby associate and form themselves into a joint stock company, under the name of 'American Settlement Company,' and have adopted the following articles for the government of said company," etc.
Article I provided for a capital stock, to be divided into shares equal to the number of lots in the proposed city, the price of which was at first fixed at $5 a share, subject to an advance when so ordered by the board of directors, and no one was to be allowed to purchase more than six shares.
Article II vested the management in a board of directors, a ma- jority of whom should be residents of New York City. This board was to be self-perpetuating, being given power to fill vacancies, etc.
Article III provided that members of the company and colonists should be persons of good moral character, the aim being to establish a community with a high ideal of citizenship.
Articles IV to XI defined the duties of the officers and dwelt prin- cipally with the routine matters pertaining to such associations.
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Article XII provided that the money received from the sale of shares should be used to secure a tract of land two miles square, on or near the Santa Fe trail, and to defray the expenses of surveying and laying out a municipality to be known as "Council City."
Article XIV stipulated that one lot out of every fifty should be given for school purposes, and the management should have the power to donate other lots for the establishment of institutions "appropriate to an orderly, virtuous, temperate and refined American community."
Immediately after the organization was perfected a committee of seven men-citizens of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio-visited Kansas to select a site for "Council City," and after exploring the terri- tory for several weeks decided upon a tract between Dragoon and Switzler creeks, in what is now Osage county, a short distance south of the present city of Burlingame. About the same time a circular was issued by the company, stating that the object was "to found in Kansas a large and flourishing city, one that would claim the attention and patronage of all interested in the growth and prosperity of that ter- ritory."
Council City was laid out with streets 75 feet wide and avenues 150 in width. The lots were 75 by 150 feet, and there were several tracts ranging from 10 to 50 acres each reserved for parks. A small party of settlers arrived late in Oct., 1854, and a few of the more energetic set to work to make Council City a reality, but the majority were dis- appointed by the prospect. Other settlers came in the spring of 1855. but the metropolis never met the expectations of its projectors, and after a precarious existence of a few months it disappeared from the map.
Americus, an incorporated city of the third class in Lyon county, is a station on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas R. R., 9 miles northwest of Emporia, the county seat. It has a bank, a weekly newspaper, churches of various denominations, good public schools, etc. Its location in the rich valley of the Neosho river gives it a good local trade and makes it an important shipping point. The population in 1910 was 451. Two delivery routes emanates from its money order postoffice and supply mail to the surrounding rural districts, and the town is provided with express and telegraph offices and has telephone connection with Em- poria and other cities.
Ames, a village of Shirley township, Cloud county, is a station on the Missouri Pacific R. R. 12 miles east of Concordia, the county seat. It has a money order postoffice with one rural delivery route, express and telegraph service, some good mercantile houses, and in 1910 re- ported a population of 120.
Amiot, a village of Reeder township, Anderson county, is a station on the Missouri Pacific R. R., 16 miles northwest of Garnett, the county seat, and not far from the Coffey county line. The population in 1910 was 40. Amiot has a money order postoffice, and is a trading and ship- ping point for that section of the county.
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Amy, a money order postoffice of Lane county, is located in Blaine township, on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. R., 7 miles west of Dighton, the county seat, with which it is connected by telephone.
Ananias Club .- According to an early letter head of the club, the St. Ananias club of Topeka was instituted July 4, 1876. It was organized in the year 1874, by a number of the "good fellows" of the capital city for social purposes, and was incorporated in 1886. The club had four tenets: Honesty, sobriety, chastity and veracity. The motto of the club was "Unadulterated truth." St. Ananias was the patron saint. At the time of organization it had 29 members. Following are the original members and the official titles which they bore: Samuel A. Kingman, perpetual president; Sam Radges, secretary, phenomenal prevaricator ; Floyd P. Baker, distinguished dissimulator; C. N. Beal, efficacious equivicator; A. Bergen, libelous linguist; J. C. Caldwell, eminent ex- pander; George W. Crane, egregious exaggerator; Hiram P. Dillon, felicitous fabricator; Charles M. Foulkes, fearful fictionist; Norris L. Gage, quaint quibbler ; N. S. Goss, oleaginous falsifier ; Cyrus K. Holli- day, illustrious illusionist ; J. B. Johnson, truth torturer ; Henry Keeler, laconic liar ; John T. Morton, nimble narrator; D. A. Moulton, financial fabricator ; Thomas A. Osborn, pungent punster ; H. A. Pierce, diabolical dissembler; George R. Peck, sapient sophist; T. P. Rodgers, immacu- late inventor; Byron Roberts, vivid variationist; H. K. Rowley, me- phistophelian munchausenist; Dr. Silas E. Sheldon, esculapian equivi- cator; Henry Strong, racy romancer; William C. Webb, august ampli- fier ; Daniel W. Wilder, hypothetical hyperbolisy ; Archibald L. Wil- liams, paraphrastic paralogist.
From the time of its organization until its dissolution the club had a membership of 82, which included many distinguished Kansans, of whom in the year 1911 not more than twelve or fifteen were living. It has been said that during the existence of the club its doors were never closed and that at almost any hour of the day or evening a whist game could be found in progress.
The club had but one president and one secretary, and after the death of President Kingman, on Sept. 9, 1904, the organization closed its doors, the records and portraits being turned over to the Kansas State Historical Society. Among the effects was an excellent, life-like portrait in oil, of St. Ananias, with halo over the head, a lyre clasped in his hands, his lips open as if about to sing, and the whole partially sur- rounded with a border of cherry sprigs showing the ruddy fruit, and each spray garnished with a small hatchet.
Andale, an incorporated town of Sedgwick county, is a station on the Missouri Pacific R. R., in Sherman township, 19 miles northwest of Wichita. Andale has a bank, a money order postoffice with one free delivery route which supplies mail to the inhabitants of that section of the county, a Catholic church and school, some good mercantile estab- lishments, express and telegraph facilities, and does considerable ship- ping of grain and other farm products. The population in 1910 was 237.
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Anderson, a little hamlet of Smith county, is located near the head of White Rock creek, about 9 miles northeast of Smith Center, the county seat, from which place mail is received by rural free delivery.
Anderson County was named for Joseph C. Anderson, a member of the first territorial legislature, which erected and organized the county in 1855. It is located in the southeastern part of the state in the second tier of counties west of Missouri, about 50 miles south of the Kansas river and 70 miles north of the southern boundary of the state. It is 24 miles square and has an area of 576 square miles. On the north it is bounded by Franklin county, on the east of Linn, on the south by Allen and on the west by Coffey.
When the first white settlers came to what is now Anderson county in the spring of 1854 they found some of the fields which the Indians had cultivated. They were Valentine Gerth and Francis Meyer, who came from Missouri and settled on the Pottawatomie near the present site of Greeley. These men were without families but planted and cultivated the old Indian fields the first summer. Henry Harmon came with his family and settled near the junction of the branches of the Pottawatomie. During the summer and fall more settlers came, among whom were Henderson Rice. W. D. West, Thomas Totton, Anderson Cassel, J. S. Waitman and Dr. Rufus Gilpatrick. In the winter of 1854-55 quite a number of Germans came to the county and settled along the south branch of the Pottawatomie above Greeley, where they built several cabins and selected valuable timber claims. In the spring of 1855 they returned to St. Louis and on account of the territorial troubles never came back. Their claims were soon taken up by other settlers.
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