History of Atchison County, Kansas. Sheffield Ingalls

      As a member of the Territorial council, Mr. Challiss secured the first charter for a railroad west from Atchison, known as the Atchison Pike’s Peak railroad, now the Central Branch. He was the first president of the road, and originally owned every dollar of the stock. He also managed the Kickapoo treaty, which gave the road 150,000 acres of land, and made it prominent in Washington as a specific possibility. The original Government subsidy for this road was every other quarter section of land for ten miles on either side, in addition to $16,000 to $48,000 per mile, in Government bonds.

      At the same time Mr. Challiss secured a charter for the Atchison-Pike’s Peak railroad, he secured a charter for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad, his original idea being a southern route to the Pacific, and that road has fulfilled all of his early expectations.

      Mr. Challiss made a great deal of money in Atchison, and in 1864 drifted to New York and Washington, where he became an operator on the stock exchange. Mr. Challiss’ sympathies were with the South, and was generally a bull. As long as the South showed its ability to hold out Mr. Challiss made a great deal of money, and at one time he had on deposit in New York $960,000, but the tide turned against him when the South began to fail, and this fortune was reduced to nothing.

      As an operator on Wall street at that time, Mr. Challiss outranked Jim Fisk and Jay Gould, and was the peer of Anthony Morse and the Jeromes. Jay Gould was a very common man at that time, compared to Mr. Challiss, and a very little thing might have made Mr. Challiss one of the great financial leaders in America. An incident in his career in New York was the attempt of Woodhull & Claflin to break him. He made a fight that is still remembered, and sent Woodhull and Claflin, Colonel Blood Stephen, Pearl Andrews and George Francis Train to jail, where they remained six months. Finally they left the country as a result of a compromise. Mr. Challiss’ lawyers were Roger A. Pryor and Judge Fullerton. Judge Fullerton received a quarter section of land in Atchison county as his fee. Mr. Challiss also brought the famous Pacific Mail suit, which was equally famous.

      He returned to Atchison in 1878, looking after the wreck of his former possessions. For three years he edited the Atchison Champion, and bitterly opposed John J. Ingalls for United States senator in 1890.

      Mr. Challiss, in his latter years, became a very much abused man, and was looked upon as one of the unpopular citizens of the town, but it may be said to his credit that he did much for Atchison, and was largely responsible for making the town the terminus of the Hannibal & St. Joe railroad. He brought Jay Gould, Henry N. Smith and Ben Carver to Atchison, and they agreed to extend the road from St. Joseph to Atchison, in consideration of $75,000.00 in Atchison bonds, which was agreed to. Mr. Challiss had some sort of a deal with Henry N. Smith while they were operating on Wall street, and Challiss claimed that Smith owned him $107,000.00. They finally settled the matter, by Smith agreeing to bring the Hannibal & St. Joseph road here without the $75,000.00 in bonds the people had agreed to give him. The Atchison Champion of May 11, 1872, contained a half column scare head, to the effect that Luther C. Challiss telegraphed from New York that the bridge had been finally secured, and gave the credit of securing the bridge to Challiss and James N. Burnes.

      Mr. Challiss died a poor man on the sixth day of July, 1895.

GEORGE W. GLICK.

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      George W. Glick, the ninth governor of Kansas, for a number of years United States pension agent for the district comprising Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Indian Territory, came to Atchison in June, 1859, from Fremont, Ohio, where he studied law in the office of Rutherford B. Hayes, who afterwards became President of the United States. Mr. Glick came to Atchison on the steamer “Wm. H. Russell,” named for and largely owned by William H. Russell, senior member of the celebrated freighting firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell. Mr. Glick was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, July 4, 1829, on a farm, and when four years old removed with his father’s family to within a mile and a half of Fremont, where he remained until he came to Atchison. He first went to school in the country, near Fremont, where he afterwards taught when he was nineteen. Later he attended a Dioclesion school at Fremont, founded by Dr. Dio Lewis, who afterwards became famous and whose name then was Dioclesia Lewis. Later he attended Central College, Ohio, but did not graduate. In 1849 he began the study of law in the office of Bucklin & Hayes, in Fremont, as a result of getting his feet in a threshing machine. It was supposed that he would never be fit for farm work again, but he afterwards recovered. Two years later he was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati, standing an examination with the graduating class of the Cincinnati law school. He practiced eight years in Fremont before coming to Atchison, building up a good business, in spite of the fact that he always went out to the farm in haying time and harvested and helped his father. In January, following his arrival in Atchison, he formed a partnership with A. G. Otis, which continued as long as he practiced law. The firm of Otis & Glick was the strongest in Atchison, as long as it lasted, and B. P. Waggener was a student in their office. In 1872 Mr. Glick became a town farmer, operating a farm of 640 acres four miles west of Atchison, making a specialty of Short Horn cattle, paying as high as $1,000 for several single animals. He served nine terms in the Kansas legislature, and was once county commissioner, and once county auditor of Atchison county. While auditor of Atchison county, in 1882, he was elected governor, by 9,000 plurality, over Jim P. St. John, who had been elected two years before by about 55,000. In 1884 he was re-nominated as governor by the Democrats, but was defeated by John A. Martin. He first received the nomination for governor nine years after coming to Kansas, but was defeated by the Republicans. He was appointed pension agent in 1885, and again in 1893. He was a Mason, and was one of the original organizers of the Knight Templars and Royal Arch Masons, in Atchison. He was the first president of the Atchison-Nebraska road, having built it to the county line, in connection with Brown and Bier. Governor Glick sold his farm near Shannon a number of years ago, and during the latter part of his life was inactive in business and professional affairs. He died on the thirteenth day of April, 1911.

DR. W. K. GRIMES.

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      One of the oldest citizens of Atchison was Dr. W. H. Grimes, who came here from Yellow Spring, Ohio, in 1858. His son, E. B. Grimes, came a year before, and opened a drug store in the building for many years occupied as an office by the Atchison Water Company, across from the Byram Hotel. Dr. W. H. Grimes practiced medicine until the war broke out, when he became a surgeon in the Thirteenth Kansas. Returning to Atchison at the close of the war, he continued the practice of medicine until his death, in 1879.

      E. B. Grimes was a quartermaster during the war with a rank of major. At the close of the war he entered the regular army, and built many of the posts in the Department of the Platte, notably Ft. Laramie, Ft. Fetterman and Ft. Douglass. He died at Ft. Leavenworth, in 1882.

      Another son, Dr. R. V. Grimes, was a lieutenant in his father’s regiment. After the war he became an army surgeon, and was in many of the Indian campaigns in the Northwest. He was in Merritt’s command when it went to the rescue of General Custer, and was the surgeon in Major Thornburg’s command when it was surrounded at the famous fight on Milk river. The command was surrounded five days by the Utes, and was finally rescued by General Merritt. While he lived in Atchison he was employed as a printer on the Champion.

      Two other sons of Dr. Grimes, John and Howard Grimes, were members of Colonel Jennison’s Seventh Kansas Jayhawkers.

JOSHUA WHEELER.

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      Joshua Wheeler was one of the best known, as well as one of the most successful, farmers Atchison county ever had. His papers on questions pertaining to agriculture and the farm, read before the various societies, attracted wide-spread attention. In State affairs, he served the public long