History of Atchison County, Kansas. Sheffield Ingalls

gave her guests good things to eat, but made of her hotel a favorite stopping place for the traveling public on account of the hospitable way in which she ran it. Uncle Jack Martin succeeded Aunt Betty and for many years thereafter kept up the high standard set by her. Then came Thomas F. Cook, whose kindly welcome made friends for him among the hundreds of visitors that came to Effingham from year to year, and who never left his hotel without a full meal. Mr. Cook was succeeded by Mrs. Frank Pitman, and she in turn was succeeded by Mrs. Davis, who, in 1915, is conducting the hotel at Effingham and maintains the high standard of excellence of food and hospitality set by her predecessors.

      Main Street, Looking West, Effingham, Kansas

      Among the early merchants of Effingham was Hon. Milton R. Benton, who was born in Madison county, Kentucky May 3, 1815. He immigrated to Kansas in 1857; located in Atchison, where he resided until 1867, during which year he moved to his farm in Atchison county, near Effingham. He was the first marshal of the city of Atchison, having been elected in 1858. In 1863 he was elected mayor of the city, and in 1864 was elected a member of the council. He served as a member of the senate in the Territorial council of 1859; in the State legislature in 1864, and for three years as trustee of Center township. Benton township, in which Effingham is located, was named for him. He was educated as a Democrat, but before he cast his first vote identified himself with the anti-slavery movement and became a Free State man in Kansas, but in after years he supported Horace Greeley and became identified with the Democratic party. In addition to farming he was in the real estate business in Effingham.

      Presbyterian Church, Effingham, Kansas

      A. F. Achenbach was one of the early liverymen of Effingham, and also was George P. Allen, who was a dealer in hardware and grain; Ball & Herron, dealers in harness; Joel M. Ketch, hardware merchant; J. E. McCormick, butcher; Alonzo Spencer, grocer; James Nesbitt, lumber dealer, and Simeon Walters, contractor and carpenter.

      P. J. O’Meara was a pioneer merchant of Effingham, and was a native of Ireland, having been born in the county of Tipperary March 27, 1829. He first settled in Miami county, where he received his education, and in 1865 he moved to Atchison and went into the grocery business on Commercial street, between Third and Fourth, later moving to Effingham when the townsite was located, and built one of the first store buildings. He did a large and paying business, and his popularity was shown by the people of Effingham in electing him their first mayor.

      Effingham in 1915 had two hardware stores, one drug store, four general stores, two banks, two garages, two barber shops, one cream station, one clothing store, three restaurants, one hotel, one livery, and two elevators. Effingham is also a city of churches having one Catholic church, one Presbyterian church, Methodist church, Christian church and Lutheran church. Its citizens are enterprising and progressive, and in 1914 the city council secured a twenty-four hour electric light service over high tension line from Atchison. The elevators are owned by the Farmers’ Mercantile Association, and Snyder, Smith & Company. Tom Tucker and Beckman & Thomas are big live stock shippers, and they ship from ninety-five to one hundred cars of live stock out of Effingham every year, and the elevators ship over one hundred cars of grain every year.

      The present city officials who have been so diligent and faithful in their services to Effingham are as follows:

      J. W. Wallach, mayor; A. J. Sells, city clerk; G. M. Snyder, councilman; I. Ebert, councilman; D. Richter, councilman; James Farrell, councilman; E. J. Kelley, councilman; J. W. Atcheson, marshal; J. A. Harman, city treasurer.

HURON.

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      Huron is located on the Omaha branch of the Missouri Pacific railway, in Lancaster township, seventeen miles northwest of Atchison. The townsite was originally the property of Col. D. R. Anthony, of Leavenworth. Mr. Anthony donated the railroad company twenty acres of land and the right of way for one mile. The surveys were made and the town named and platted on May 18, 1882. Within six weeks after completion of the surveys five dwellings were erected and the business interests of the town were well represented. W. D. Starr was the first postmaster, and by the end of the first year there were over fifty dwellings in the town, and among the first buildings to be erected were the Presbyterian and Baptist churches. Colonel Anthony donated lots upon which to build the churches. J. D. Carpenter opened the first hotel in Huron. Mr. Carpenter came to Kansas in 1874 and located on a farm near Huron, and when the town was organized he moved there and opened his hotel. W. G. Rucker was one of the early lumber dealers of Huron. He came from Corning, where he was engaged in the general merchandise business, and moved to Huron when the town was platted. Capt. George W. Stabler, for many years a resident of Huron, was one of the prominent politicians and characters of the county. He was born at Stablersville, Baltimore county, Maryland, in 1839, where his ancestors had lived for over 200 years. He moved to Kansas in 1858, settling in Lancaster township. He enlisted as a private in Company D, Second Kansas infantry, in 1861, for 100 days, and at the expiration of that time he re-enlisted in the Second Kansas cavalry; was made sergeant and was mustered out in 1865 and returned to his farm, subsequently moving to Huron. In 1866 he was elected to the legislature, and in 1871 and 1872 served as deputy United States marshal. He had been justice of the peace, at the time of his death, a few years ago, for over twenty years.

      Old Huron was the original settlement near the present townsite of Huron, and was an important trading point for many years prior to the establishment of the new townsite following the laying of the railroad to Omaha. There were many early settlers of importance in and around Huron, among whom was Capt. Robert White. Captain White came to Kansas in 1857 and bought the squatter rights of Charles Morgan and preëmpted a quarter section of land in Lancaster township, near Huron.

      The birth of the first white child in Atchison county, of which there is any record, occurred in Lancaster township. The child was Miss Frances Miller, who was born May 9, 1855. Her father was the late Daniel Miller, an Ohioan by birth, and lived near DeKalb, Mo., in 1841. In 1854 he looked over northeastern Kansas and settled on Independence creek, twelve miles north of Atchison, early in 1855, near the northeastern corner of Lancaster township. Mr. Miller sold his quarter section in 1858, after he had proven up on it, to Thomas Butcher, a new arrival in Kansas from Brownville, Pa., for $3,000. Mr. Butcher built a flouring mill on this land, which was run by water from Independence creek. Butcher subsequently sold the plant to A. J. Evans, who ran it as a “custom mill” until August, 1865, when it was destroyed by high water, caused by heavy rains.

      Samuel Wymore, for whom Wymore, Nebraska was named, was a resident of Lancaster township, near Huron, in the fifties and early sixties, and ran a sawmill by horse power, about three miles north of Lancaster, in 1858. Mr. Wymore sold his first bill of lumber to Captain Robert White for $100 in gold, and at that time it was more money than Wymore had ever seen at one time, and he was so nervous during the following night that he could not sleep and continually stirred the fire in the stove so that he could count the money from the light that it made. Wymore was uneducated. He could neither read nor write, and he was said to have been worth over $150,000 before 1875.

      Isaac E. Kelly, a young man from Pennsylvania, taught one of the first schools in Lancaster township, in one of the settlers’ preëmption cabin, near Eden postoffice in 1860. He went to war in 1861 and marched with Sherman to the Sea.

      The first mowing machine in Atchison county was brought to Lancaster township, two miles west of where Huron now is, by Joel Hiatt, in 1859, who sold it to Capt. Robert White, who cut hay with it several seasons. The machine was a Ball, and a crude affair. The first reaper to harvest grain in the county was owned by the late M. J. Cloyes, who also lived in Lancaster township, not many miles from Huron. Mr. Cloyes bought the reaper in the early sixties. The grain was raked off by a man lashed to a post on a platform four or five feet to the rear of the cycle. This reaper was a Buckeye machine, and was sold by J. E. Wagner, the hardware merchant of Atchison.