Atchison, Kansas

“ During all of this time the Free State settlers of Atchison were very quiet and undemonstrative. They were not strong in number and aside from a few virile souls like Pardee Butler, they held their tongues and kept their own counsel. They were treated with scant courtesy and consideration by their pro-slavery neighbors, and it can be said to their credit that no set of men ever displayed greater self-restraint or suffered more for the cause of peace than the Free State settlers of this county. ”

“ THOMAS O. PLUMMER. There is some distinction in being a pioneer in the State of Kansas, and there is certainly considerable distinction coming to the man who can justly lay claim to being the first white child born of pioneer parents in a component part of a great county like Atchison. Thomas O. Plummer, prosperous farmer and stockman of Grasshopper township, Atchison county, is the first white child born within the borders of his township, and has lived all of his fifty-nine years within the borders of the township. ”

“ Atchison county has always been particularly proud of the high order of talent that has graced its bench and bar. From the very earliest days of its history, the legal profession has been well represented here. Men who have reached a high order of distinction in the profession have had their beginning at the bar of this county. In fact, this county has been somewhat unique in this respect, for there is perhaps no other county in Kansas that has furnished a greater number of distinguished representatives of this noble profession, who have shed their luster upon the fair name of the State. ”

“ The first permanent white settler of what is now Atchison county was a Frenchman, Paschal Pensoneau, who, about 1839, married a Kickapoo Indian woman and about 1844 settled on the bank of Stranger creek, near the present site of Potter, where he established a trading-house and opened the first farm in Atchison county on land which had been allotted him by the Government for services in the Black Hawk and Mexican wars. ”

“ Pleasant township, Atchison county, and he is one of the oldest of Kansas pioneers in point of years of residence in the State. Coming to this county when he was ten years of age with his parents he has lived to see Kansas become prosperous and the vast prairie transformed by the hand of man into a truly good place to live. He, himself, has risen in the course of time to become one of the wealthy farmers of the county, and despite his three score and ten years of age he still oversees the work on his large farm of 320 acres. ”

“ ALFRED JONATHAN HARWI. In writing the history of a city and county such as Atchison, the reviewer very naturally finds that among the large number of men who have had much to do with the upbuilding of the community, and who can be counted among the really successful men of the period covered, there are few who stand out preëminently among their fellows, and whose individuality looms far above the average, and who are noted not only for their individual accomplishments on their own behalf, but who have performed deeds which have endeared their memory to posterity for generations to come. ”

“ The country, too, south of the Kansas river above Lecompton, is also as near Atchison as any other Missouri river town. The roads to Atchison in every direction are very fine, and always in good repair for wagon and other modes of travel. The country opposite Atchison is not excelled by any section of Missouri, it being portions of Buchanan and Platte counties, in a high state of cultivation, and at a considerable distance from any important town in Missouri, making grain, fruit, provisions and all kinds of marketing easily procured at fair prices ”

“ He is ably assisted by his son, W. R. Washer, who is also otherwise prominently identified with the commercial and shipping interests of the county.
Atchison also is a fine retail center, and draws trade from the surrounding territory for a distance of from fifty to seventy-five miles. It has fine dry goods stores, which carry the latest merchandise; good shoe stores, millinery shops, grocery and hardware stores and shops of all kinds, all of which are run by enterprising merchants. Atchison is a good town in which to live; a city of beautiful homes; fine paved and well lighted streets ”

“ Atchison county, K. T., on the east half of Section 32, Township 5, Range 19, the great military road 96to Fts. Kearney, Laramie, Bridge, and to Santa Fe, Utah, Washington Territory, Gadson Purchase, California, New Mexico, etc., passes through the town site. Also roads leading from Nebraska City, St. Joseph, Doniphan, and to Grasshopper Falls, Topeka, Lecompton and Lawrence.
“A more beautiful situation for a large and prosperous city could not be found in the Territory, or the Great West. Its site is rolling and dry, climate healthy and salubrious as heart could wish for. ”

“ No institution in this State occupies a more beautiful and sightly location. It is situated at an elevation of 275 feet above the Missouri river, and overlooking the winding course of that stream for miles, with the city of 324Atchison at its feet and with the view north and west unobstructed for miles, it is the wonder and admiration of all who behold it. ”

“ Burbank is of the type of business men who are making Atchison the commercial and center that it is. He is a member of Washington Lodge, No. 5, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
H. C. HANSEN. The story of a young man who has been successful in his chosen field through sheer force and energy and aptitude is always interesting. Consequently, it is fitting that the biography of one of the most successful life insurance men of northeast Kansas have a proper place in the pages of the history of Atchison county. ”

“ Scholastica is practically as old as Atchison itself, the first sisters having come here in 1863. Few who gaze upon the massive and commodious array of buildings, surrounded as they now are by well-kept lawns, spacious meadow and woodland, stop to think of its humble beginning and the many trials which beset the early foundation. But the first sisters were in time to feel the effects of the Civil war and the hardships attendant upon the same. ”

“ In looking backward over the half century, and more, which has elapsed since the Kansas Territory was thrown open to settlement, it is found that there are quite a number of men and women who are deserving of more than mere casual mention in the history of Atchison county. ”

“ Newcomb loves his home city, its people and prestige and is proud of its standing among the cities of the West. He has had no small part in the upbuilding of Atchison, and it would have been better in the days gone by if the city had more men like him to assist its growth. Ever ready to contribute to any enterprise which might help the growth of the city, his liberality and boosting proclivities became proverbial, and it has oft been a saying of his that Atchison could just as well have been a city of fifty or sixty thousand inhabitants as to be its present size. ”

“ But before the well laid plans of our citizens matured, before projects for the development of steam transportation to bring us nearer the outside world could be concluded the mighty conflict which ended in four bloody years of civil war, broke upon the Nation, and Kansas within three months after being admitted as a State enrolled itself on the side of the Union. Atchison county sprang to arms almost a thousand strong, and may it ever be said to its everlasting glory that few, if any, counties in the State had a more patriotic record. ”

“ His views are looked upon as too extreme by the conservative liberal element of Atchison, but all give him credit for being conscientious and honest. He is a hard-working, industrious citizen, and, while he has made inane active enemies in his reform work, he enjoys the personal satisfaction of seeing many of the reforms he has advocated come to pass. He is an avowed foe of the liquor traffic, and has perhaps done more than any other individual in the community to make his views on that question effective. ”

“ He was independent in politics. The foregoing brief review is thus contributed to the history of Atchison county in order that it be placed on record for all time, and perchance, prove an inspiration for other young men, poor in purse, whose destiny is yet to be worked out, and who probably dream of accumulating wealth or a competence in their generation. ”

“ The oldest citizens of Atchison county are the animals and plants whose fossil remains now lie buried in the solid rocks. These denizens of long ago, by their lives, made it possible for later and better citizens to live and flourish in the happy and contented homes of her best citizens of the present day. Long before man ever saw Atchison county—long before man lived anywhere upon this earth, the seas swarmed with animal life and the dry lands supported a fauna and a flora substantially as great as those of the present time. ”

“ He worked at farm labor in Missouri for some years and in April, 1859, he came to Atchison, Kan. This city did not offer much inducement for the ambitious young man and he was desirous of engaging in the mercantile business. Kennekuk, in the north central part of the county, was then in the heyday of its prosperity and seemed to offer a better location than Atchison. After a few months’ stay in Atchison he went to Kennekuk and opened a general merchandise store with the capital which he had saved while working on the farms in Missouri. ”

“ He has never held office and has 392never been a seeker after political preferment; has never been a party to a law suit, never served on a jury, and has been called only once in his lifetime to the witness stand. He has endeavored at all times to live at peace with all mankind and has succeeded to such an extent that at a ripe old age, this pioneer settler of Atchison county is living in peace and comfort in the home which he created out of a wilderness. ”

“ When Aaron B. Evans was twenty years of age he left home and came direct to Kansas. He had no means wherewith to pay his transportation, and borrowed sufficient money from a neighbor to pay his railroad fare to Atchison. When he arrived at Atchison he had no money with which to pay for a meal or hotel accommodation. He and M. C. Vansell, who accompanied him on the trip, walked from Atchison to Kennekuk, where they stopped at the home of their uncle, M. C. Willis, for a few days. ”

“ Flags and bunting fluttered from poles and windows throughout the city, and a special train of invited guests from the East arrived at Winthrop before noon with flags flying and bands playing. The passenger steamer, “Black Hawk,” loaded to the guards with citizens from Kansas City, reached Atchison early in the morning, and leading citizens also came from Wyandotte, Leavenworth, Lawrence, Topeka and other towns. ”

“ Sharpless managed the Monrovia store, served as postmaster, and performed the duties of station agent for the railroad company. However, he found time to take an interest in politics and became active in the affairs of the Republican party when yet a young man. In 1903 he removed to Effingham, Kan., and engaged in the hardware and implement and grain business with considerable success. He still retains his interest in this business, although now a resident of Atchison. ”

“ After exposing me to every sort of indignity they stripped me to the waist, covered my body with tar and then for the want of feathers applied cotton wool, having appointed a committee of three to certainly hang me the next time I should come to Atchison. They tossed my clothes into the buggy, put me therein, accompanying me to the suburbs of the town and sent me naked upon the prairie. I adjusted my attire about me as best I could and hastened to rejoin my wife and two little sons on the banks of Stranger creek. ”

“ There were thirty-one districts in the county in that year, and the amount of State funds apportioned to Atchison county was $295.30. The school population was 1941, with an enrollment of 1,072, and an average daily attendance of 500. Twenty-nine teachers were employed, twenty-two women and seven men, with an average monthly salary for the men of $25.20 and $16.75 for the women. The total valuation of school houses was $1,050, and the amount of money received from the county was $827.05. ”

“ Those were the true pioneer days, and they had to go to Atchison for their provisions. It was a lonely trip, only one house being between the Wilson cabin and Atchison. But in those days people only bought the barest necessities of life which were all that they could afford. They paid two dollars a bushel for corn meal during the second spring there. Wild game was plentiful and furnished much of the food. Badgers and wolves were numerous and gave danger to the sheep of the pioneers. ”

“ He whose name heads this review is such an individual. As mayor of Atchison, C. D. Walker made a record which will outlive the present generation; as an attorney he has achieved a signal success and ranks high in the legal fraternity of the State of Kansas; as a religious worker he has accomplished much good of a lasting and enduring quality for the community in which he lives. Born of Kansas pioneer parents, his training and education were such as to prepare him for the career which has made him distinguished among his fellow men ”