William Elsey Connelley

“ Alexander Carraway Spilman, living at McPherson at the age of eighty, is one of the few survivors of the true pioneer epoch of Kansas. The range of his experience seems remarkable even for a man of his age. He was in Kansas as a witness and newspaper correspondent of the factional turbulence of territorial days. He is a civil engineer by profession and was a member of the United States surveying party which surveyed Kansas west of the sixth principal meridian in 1858. It is probable that he is the only living pioneer or the oldest settler west of that meridian in Kansas. ”

“ Fresh from university, with energy and courage and eager for the big things of life, Captain Spilman arrived in the Territory of Kansas in September, 1857. He was a young man without capital, with a technical education, but with little experience. ”