History of Atchison County, Kansas. Sheffield Ingalls

tract of land upon which the home of Edward Perdue stands, a few miles east of Huron, was traded for a mowing machine by the owner in 1865.

      Bethel church, located southwest of Huron, is supposed to be the oldest church in the county, outside of Atchison. It was built by the Methodist Episcopal church (South), about 1870, and is still in use in 1915.

      Thus it will be seen that Huron is located in the midst of a very interesting part of Atchison county, and while the town did not reach the proportions that its original promoters had hoped for it, it is one of the good towns of the county. The following are the business houses in Huron in 1915:

       J. M. Delany—General merchandise.

       E. P. Perry—General merchandise.

       W. E. English—Hardware, implements and furniture.

       H. T. Harrison—Grocer.

       Dr. Wiley Jones—Drug store.

       John L. Snavly—Restaurant and postmaster.

       Mrs. Alta Wilson—Hotel.

       C. E. Mathew—Lumber.

       Loren Horton—Meat market.

       A. F. Allen—Grain, coal, live stock and automobile supplies.

       Baker-Corwell—Grain company.

       A. Morehead—Barber.

       W. Hildman—Blacksmith.

       Riley & Son—Livery barn.

      Over 200,000 bushels of grain are shipped from Huron annually and the average shipment of live stock amounts to about forty cars.

OLD MARTINSBURG.

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      Martinsburg was laid out near the present site of Potter in the early days. It is not generally known, even among the old settlers, that there was such a place. George Remsburg said that this was due probably to the fact that Martinsburg was born dead. It was conceived in the town craze of early territorial times, but it came a still-born infant and its promoters succeeded in viewing it only long enough for it to give a feeble gasp and fall back dead again. Though this proposed municipal enterprise of pioneer days did not materialize, it was, nevertheless, an interesting and important fact of local history, hitherto unrecorded, that such a town was actually staked off and laid out in Atchison county at a very early period. The only old-timers who remembered it were James B. Low, of Colorado Springs, formerly of Mount Pleasant, “Uncle Joe” Potter, and W. J. (Jack) Bailey. All three settled in the southern part of Atchison county in 1854. Mr. Low settled with his parents in Walnut township in the fall of that year, and says that Martinsburg was laid out that fall. It was situated in what is known as the Mercer bottom, on land belonging to Felix Corpstein and Fred Poss, in the west half of section 24, a little northeast of the present site of Potter, or immediately adjoining it. What is known as the Mercer spring, one of the finest in this section, was included in the town site. Mr. Low and his brother went out to look at the place in the fall of 1854 and decided to spend the winter there. It consisted at that time of a few huts and a small store, and never amounted to any more than a village, if it could be called that, although Mr. Low says the town site originally comprised about 100 acres, and a few lots were actually sold. The store was a small frame building, erected by one Alex Hayes, who had previously taken a claim on Plum creek, near Kickapoo. Mr. Low thinks this was the first frame building in Atchison county. Hayes carried a small stock of goods. This was long before the town of Mt. Pleasant, in the same vicinity, was ever dreamed of, and even before Tom Fortune opened a store there. It seems that the chief promoters of Martinsburg were two brothers named Martin; hence the name. Not much is known concerning them, or what became of them. “Uncle Joe” Potter says that one of them came to his house on one occasion when he and his brother, Marion Potter, were making rails. Martin stood around a while and finally insinuated that they were foolish for working so hard, and in a confidential way, “just the same as told them,” as Mr. Potter expressed it, that they could make lots of money and make it easy stealing horses, whereupon Marion Potter promptly ordered him off of the place, and told him never to return. James Low’s father bought the town site of Martinsburg in the fall of 1855 and moved onto it in the spring of 1856, converting it into a farm. Thus perished Martinsburg. Even the name did not survive in the memory of the settlers, and it was only by accident that it was recently recalled after a lapse of fifty-four years. At an early day the locality became known as Mercer’s Bottom, after Joe Mercer, one of the earliest settlers, and it is known by that name today. It is not known what became of Mercer. James Low says the last time he saw him was in Denver, in 1859. Mercer was a queer character. It is told of him that he lived in a little cabin and subsisted principally on mussels, which he found in Stranger creek. Alex Hayes, the Martinsburg storekeeper, has also been lost trace of, but Dick King says there was an oldtimer named Alexander Hayes, who died many years ago and was buried in the Sapp graveyard at Oak Mills. The town site of Martinsburg was a favorite camping place for soldiers and emigrants passing over the old Military road in the early days on account of the fine spring, the large meadows and the protection of the hills around it. To catch this tide of emigration was, in all probability, the object of those pioneer town projectors in selecting this site.

BUNKER HILL.

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      There appears to be no data available which enables the historian to determine exactly where this town was located, but a prospectus publication March 18, 1858, in Freedom’s Champion, states that it was on Independence creek, within ten miles of Atchison and twenty-five miles of St. Joseph. Its chief promoter was Dr. Charles F. Kob, of Atchison. Dr. Kob was a German physician and surgeon, who located in Atchison at an early date. He had been a surgeon in the army, and a member of the Massachusetts and Connecticut medical societies. He lived and practiced medicine in Boston for some time. About the only advantage for Bunker Hill, set forth in the prospectus, was that coal was found around the place, but Bunker Hill never seemed to have any coal in her bunkers. She failed to flourish and no Bunker Hill monument perpetuates her memory.

LOCUST GROVE.

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      Locust Grove was never laid out as a town site. It was a stopping place on the old stage route to Topeka, and the postoffice from Mount Pleasant was moved there in 1862.

HELENA.

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      Helena was located and named in this county, and the plat thereof was filed March 18, 1857, by James L. Byers, one of the proprietors of the town company, and was located on the north half of section 28, township 5, range 18, on the Little Grasshopper river, in Grasshopper township, at the crossing of the old Military road, five miles north of the present site of Effingham. The town appears on an old township map of eastern Kansas, published by Whitman & Searl, of Lawrence, in 1856. It shows it to have been on the east branch of Grasshopper river, about fifteen miles west of Atchison, and north of the Ft. Laramie and California roads.

CAYUGA.

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      Cayuga was laid out by a New York colony in 1856, and was named for Cayuga, N. Y. It was also in Grasshopper township, on the old Military road, one and one-half miles from Lancaster township line on part of the east half of section 18, township 5, range 18. It was surveyed