History of Atchison County, Kansas. Sheffield Ingalls

banks, the aggregate resources of which amount to nearly a quarter million dollars. There probably is not another town of its size in the State that has two banks. The town has two good elevators which during the years 1912, 1913 and 1914 handled on an average of 140,000 bushels of grain a year. These elevators are operated by Fred Ode & Sons and James Robinson. The railroad station at Potter does a business that amounts to something like $40,000 annually. The shipping of live stock is an important industry here. The principal buyers are Tinsley, Potter, and Timple Bros. Much fruit is grown around Potter, and as high as $20,000 has been paid out for apples during one shipping season.

      Potter has a rural high school, the first of its kind established in the State, and an $8,000 school building.

      The town has two general stores, those of W. A. Hodge and P. P. Knoch; a hardware store, operated by B. F. Shaw; a grocery store, by Thomas J. Potter; a furniture store, by Frank Beard; a drug store, by G. E. Coulter; a hotel, by Mrs. G. F. Pope; two blacksmith shops, by R. E. Brown and G. F. Pope; a livery stable, by H. G. Hawley; two barber shops, by George Brown and Frank Blankenship; a cement tile factory, by Grisham & Maxwell; a millinery store, by Mrs. T. J. Maxwell; a telephone exchange, by E. C. Yoakum; a newspaper, The Potter Weekly Kansan, by J. E. Remsburg; two physicians, Dr. G. W. Redmon and Dr. S. M. Myers. Dr. A. E. Ricks, of Atchison, has a branch dental office here; the Lambert Lumber Company, of Leavenworth, has a commodious and well stocked yard here, with Samuel Parker as manager. There are two churches, Methodist and Christian, two public halls, and one lodge hall. L. M. Jewell conducts an insurance, real estate and loan business. There is also a garage, and other business enterprises in the town.

      School House, Potter, Kansas

MOUNT PLEASANT.

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      In 1854 Thomas L. Fortune, Jr., a Virginian, settled on the “old Military road” and opened one of the very earliest stores in Atchison county, around this store springing up the village of Mount Pleasant. A postoffice was established here in 1855, and Mr. Fortune was appointed postmaster. Being an inventive genius, he finally gave up his store business and devoted his energies towards perfecting and building a road-wagon, to which reference has heretofore been made, and which he thought would revolutionize the freighting business across the plains.

      The townsite of Mount Pleasant was surveyed in 1857 by John P. Wheeler, agent for the Town Company.

      Michael Wilkins and James Laird were the very first settlers in the township, being followed shortly afterwards by Levi Bowles, Jacob Grindstaff, Andrew J. Peebler, Martin Jones, Chris Horn, P. R. King, W. C. Findley, A. S. Speck and Amos Hamon.

      The first hotel in the town was opened by Henry Payne, who operated it many years.

      T. J. Payne and Philo W. Hull were the next parties to engage in business, Mr. Payne leaving when the new town of Sumner was started, and locating there.

      The next to engage in business was P. R. King, who established a general store about 1858. He remained at Mount Pleasant until after the county seat question had been settled, when he removed to Atchison.

      In the fall of 1858 a district school was opened. In 1860 the Cumberland Presbyterians erected a church building, having held religious services at the homes of the members prior to this time. Rev. A. A. Moore was their first pastor.

      On May 1, 1862, the Church of Christ was organized by Elder W. S. Jackson, with seventeen members, services being held in the school house.

      Mount Pleasant Lodge, No. 158, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of Mount Pleasant, was organized in the fall of 1868 by the following charter members: William J. Young, X. Klein, M. R. Benton, John Hawley. S. K. McCreary, Joseph Howell and Albert Hawley. Their first meeting was held October 20, 1868, with the following as first officers: William Young, worshipful master; X. Klein, senior warden; A. Hawley, junior warden; S. K. McCreary, secretary; M. R. Benton, treasurer.

      In August, 1862, the name of the postoffice was changed to Locust Grove.

LEWIS’ POINT.

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      In pre-territorial times and in the steamboat days, Kansas had many geographical names that are not now to be found on the map. Some of them, where permanent settlements have sprung up, have been perpetuated, but the majority of them do not live even in the memory of the oldest inhabitants. One of the latter is “Lewis’ Point,” near the present site of Oak Mills. Old “Cap.” Lewis is long since dead, his name almost forgotten, and the rapacious Missouri river and “Mansell’s Slide” are now about to devour the “Point.” with which his name was coupled in our early geography. While “Lewis’ Point” was never a place of any prominence, and not even the site of a village or settlement, yet it was a geographical name that was known to every steamboat man running on this section of the river, and is worthy of preservation in our local history. “Lewis’ Point” was at the projection of land lying immediately above Oak Mills, on the Missouri river. It took its name from the fact that Calvin Lewis, an old riverman, settled at this point at an early day, and it became a frequent stopping place for steamboats to take on wood. In those days there was a splendid wood supply in that vicinity. Lewis’ house stood near the site of the old Champton, or William Moody, house, which was destroyed by fire about a year ago.

      It is not generally known that a steamboat was ever built on Atchison county soil, much less that Oak Mills was ever the scene of the ship builder’s craft, outside of the construction of Indian canoes and the modern skiffs built by Dick King or some other later-day river man. Yet, it is a fact that Calvin Lewis once built and launched at “Lewis’ Point” a small stern-wheel steamboat, and operated it on the river for several years. In 1855 the first territorial legislature of Kansas passed an act authorizing Lewis to operate a ferry at “Lewis’ Point.”

FARLEY’S FERRY.

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      The same legislature that gave permission to Lewis to operate a ferry at “Lewis’ Point,” granted the same privilege to Nimrod Farley, to maintain a ferry across the Missouri river, opposite Iatan, Mo. Farley was a well known character in the Missouri bottoms in the vicinity of Iatan, Cow Island, and Oak Mills, in the early days. He lived near Iatan, but it seems that he owned land on the Kansas side, near Oak Mills, which offered a landing for his ferry. He was a brother of Josiah Farley, who laid out the town of Farley, in Platte county, in 1850. George McAdow later became proprietor of Farley’s Ferry and operated it until it was destroyed by Jayhawkers, shortly before the war.

CHAPTER VIII.

       THE CIVIL WAR.

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      THE ISSUE BETWEEN EARLY SETTLERS—INFLUX OF FREE STATE AND PRO-SLAVERY PARTISANS—EARLY VOLUNTEERING—MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS—THREATENED INVASION FROM MISSOURI—POLITICAL SOCIETIES—JAYHAWKERS—CLEVELAND’S GANG—LYNCHINGS—ATCHISON COUNTY TROOPS IN THE WAR—PRICE’S ATTEMPTED INVASION.

      The six years intervening between 1854 and 1860 constitute a momentous period in the history of Atchison county. No new community was ever organized under more unpromising circumstances. It was not merely land hunger and lust for personal gain that were the impelling motives which brought men to Kansas in that day. Neither gold, nor gas, nor oil, nor precious gems lured men here. Kansas was then, as it is now, an agricultural paradise, and such an environment has ordinarily but little charm for the daring adventurer and