AUGUSTA TOWNSHIP — BENTON TOWNSHIP — BLOOMINGTON TOWNSHIP — BRUNO TOWNSHIP — CHELSEA TOWNSHIP — CLAY TOWNSHIP — CLIFFORD TOWNSHIP — DOUGLASS TOWNSHIP.

CLAY TOWNSHIP.

By C. M. Price.

On April 7, 1879, a petition signed by Joseph Blancett and fifty-four others, was presented to the board of county commissioners asking that a township be created out of the territory comprising Congressional township 29, range 6, east, to be called Clay. The petition was granted and an election was ordered held at the Morehead school house on the third day of June, 1879. The following township officers were elected: B. M. Winters, trustee; M. O. Dillon, treasurer; Joe Blancett, clerk; S. J. Ensley and John T. Bailey, justices of the peace; John McQuain and J. McGaffey, constables.

Among the earliest settlers in the township were George Messick, S. J. Ensley, John Valkman, M. O. Dillon, W. H. Ellet, John McQuain, K. Bell and Fred Fenkennel, all now deceased. Others have moved away. The only ones now residing in the township on their original claims are N. F. Frakes and the writer, C. M. Price.

All the land in this township is located in what is known as the "twenty-mile strip" and was subject to settlement under the pre-emption laws of the United States, the settlers paying $1.25 per acre. All kinds of crops, including natural and tame grasses, are grown. The township is well watered and adapted to live stock. Many cattle, horses and mules are handled for the markets.

CLIFFORD TOWNSHIP.

By Col. Bill Avery.

I first landed in Kansas in March, 1860, and settled in Breckenridge, now Lyon county, where I stayed until December of that year, when I returned to Hillsdale county, Michigan, my place of birth; in August, 1862, I enlisted in Company D, Eighteenth Michigan infantry. I returned from the army in July, 1865, and in October of that year, I returned to Kansas and settled on the old Santa Fe trail twenty miles east of Council Grove at 142 creek. When I lost all I had, with stock dying of Texas fever, in April, 1868, I came to Butler county and settled in what is now Clifford township. It was then Towanda township, from northwest corner of Butler county to four miles south of Towanda, and twelve miles wide.

When I landed in what is now Clifford township. I unloaded my goods in the brush on what was afterward named Avery creek, in company with my wife and one son, U. S Avery, 3 1/2 years of age. There were in the territory the following settlers: T. L. Ferrier, his father and family; Walter Gilman, H. H. Wilcox and a man by the name of Carns. In June of this year, we had the Indian scare, when everybody left their homes and all returned but Carns. In the fall of 1868, I. V. and William Davis came and located about three miles northwest of our claim. William Davis is still living there. Of all the settlers who were there when I came none are now living.

In the spring election of 1869, I was elected trustee of Towanda township and I assessed the following persons, commencing on the northwest corner of Towanda township: H. H. Wilcox, Walter Gilman, T. L. Ferrier, — Carns, H. Comstock. John Wentworth, Joseph Adams, Jake Green, Amos Adams, John Adams, Anthony Davis, a Mr. Kelly, on west branch of Whitewater; Mr. Green, Dan Cupp and Sam Fulton, and I stayed all night with two Ralston boys and Lew Hart four miles south of Towanda. The Goodales were on their claims, having just arrived, and were not subject to taxation that year. I presume I have forgotten some names. These are all I can remember now.

On November 15, 1868, H. H. Wilcox, his son and Mr. Dean and I went on a buffalo hunt, and on the eighteenth we were caught in a snow storm which lasted forty-eight hours, and covered the ground to a depth of ten inches, and we camped on the Ninachee river with one dead cottonwood tree for fuel. We succeeded in getting a supply of meat, and finally reached home after our friends had about given up hope for our return.

The first school in Clifford township was taught in a log cabin on the claim of Martin Ashenfelter on section 34, in the summer of 1871, and the teacher was Nettie Maynard, the term being three months. Her compensation was $12 per month and "board around" and, of course, being a sensible girl, she boarded with the best cook most of the time, and all old settlers know who that was. A baby girl was born to us in March, 1871, and died in 1886, aged 16 years.

The first Sunday school was a union school organized at the same place in the same year. Morton Eddy was superintendent and Mrs. Avery was clerk, and she secured the first Sunday school papers through an uncle. Randall Farrote, a Christian minister at Newville, Ind.

There was a rush of new settlers during 1870, 1871, 1872 and 1873, and in 1873 we cut loose from Towanda and organized the township of Clifford out of township 23, range 4. W. H. Avery circulated the petition for said organization and selected the name of a friend, John A. Clifford, the father of Sam Clifford, of El Dorado, and presented the petition to the proper authorities.

The first township election was held in the house of John A. Clifford on April 1, 1873. At the election the following were elected: E. Y.

Ketchem, trustee; J. A. Clifford, treasurer; Z. M. Ketchem, clerk; J. J. Long and W. C. Derby, justices of the peace; William Bain and W. G. Hess, constables.

The year 1874 was and will be long known as "grasshopper year." The clouds of hoppers came like a snow storm and the sun was blotted out. Our little garden was north of the house, and we were at the west door of our little cabin watching the hoppers come and wondering what they would do, when my wife said: "They are getting my onions." I wondered how she knew and she said: "One of them hit me on the nose and I smelled his breath." Sure enough, she was right, and we found holes in the ground where the onions had been and that was all. The only thing they left was the prairie grass, and we put up lots of hay and the good people in the East sent us food and clothing.

The first school district was No. 21 organized in 1871, and the first stone school house in Butler county was built by Avery & Jackson in district 21, on the southeast corner of the southwest quarter of 14-23-4. This was in 187I and 1872.

We at that time tried to farm and raise the same things we were used to in the east. Had we known of the merits of alfalfa, kaffir and the sorghums, life would have been much more satisfactory to the homes.

CLIFFORD TOWNSHIP (Continued.)

By Elva Commons Nonkin, of Shady Land Farm—It is not my purpose in this short sketch to attempt a chronological history of Clifford and her people, but to try and trace some of the reasons for Clifford and her people appearing so seldom on the criminal docket of Butler county and so rarely on the list of the county commissioners' proceedings which relate to aid given to paupers.

The educational development of the community lay very close to the heart of the early settlers and Blue Mound was early recognized as one of the foremost districts in the county, having the reputation of turning out more teachers than any other district in the county. This was made possible largely by the efforts of the Averys, Ashenfelters, Austins, Lobdells, Hopkins and Harper families. District 47, Brown, was also noted for the length of its terms and the high class of teachers hired. The leading spirits in this were the Baxters, Commons, Smiths, Waggys, Johnsons, Crows, Goddings and Tuttle families, while the Leydigs, Superhaughs, McCroskeys, Jennings, Huletts, Shrivers and Liggets kept up a high standard in district 71, the third organized in the township.

Among those who developed the live stock industry most extensively during the early days were J. A. Clifford, H. H. Wilcox, Robert Hopkins and C. F. Bruner. Later their places in this industry were taken by H. Lathrop & Sons, the Liggett families, T. A. Enright, J. A. Day, H. S. Lincoln, the Gefeller Bros., V. H. Smith and L. P. Nonkin.

Perhaps no person has made a more permanent impression on the community than has Mrs. A. M. McCroskey. She lived for many years on the farm now occupied by Mrs. H. G. Liggett, but finally moved to Lawrence, where her son Ward and daughter Orrell graduated from the State university. From there she went to San Francisco, where she makes a home for her son Cyrus and daughter Anna, who are in business there, and although she is now past seventy, she is in the thick of municipal politics, on the side of woman suffrage and prohibition. While here her husband died, and she took charge of the farm, doing nearly all kinds of farm work. She was a member of the school board, a Sunday school superintendent, taught a few terms of school, took active part in organizing many social gatherings, helped young teachers secure schools and was a general neighborhood arbiter, but never during this time neglecting her family or failing to keep up her general reading. Another woman who lived in the township only four years, but made a lasting impression on the lives of the young with whom she came in contact, was Mrs. Maria G. Spear. With her husband, they settled on the farm now the home of L. P. Nonkin. Having no children and being of a social disposition and very fond of the young, she soon became identified with the best things in the community life, having had better opportunity in her early life than most of her neighbors and also of a high moral character, her influence for good cannot be over-estimated. J. M. Linn, who lived in the Blue Mound district about fifteen years, developed the musical talent of his neighborhood. In winter he sometimes had six different singing schools, teaching every night in the week, and on Sunday he led the music at the Sabbath school and church. Although a modest, retiring man, yet he soon became the leader in the church activities, was an excellent public school teacher and a social leader in his community. His death in 1898, at the age of 48, was mourned sincerely by those whose lives he had touched.

Another who was a leading personality in the seventies and eighties was Mrs. S. D. Drake. Of a commanding presence, and with the voice of a prima donna, she always willingly sang and trained others to sing for church and social gatherings, and when she removed to her former home in Boston we felt that we would never have good singing in Clifford again.

Dr. I. V. Davis was an important factor in every enterprise for the upbuilding of the community, and in his capacity as physician he came very close to the hearts of the people. In 1870, John Boersma, a Hollander, with his family, homesteaded the farm now occupied by his son-in-law, Samuel Merwin. Although in the direst poverty for several years, they kept up courage, practiced extreme self-denial and all worked untiringly. They lived in a one-roomed sod house for many years. It was always kept scrupulously clean and orderly and no one entered it but was impressed by the innate worth of its occupants. It was a long time before he could buy a team, but with his spade and hoe he worked

wonders, and in later years, after he had prospered and had built a good house and barn, the farm, with its beautiful well-trimmed hedges and trees and orderly premises was the "show place" of the neighborhood. Of later years, the farm home of Adam Fawley deserves this title. The handsome, commodious, well-painted buildings and the beautiful lawn and well-cared for lots, fields and fences, set an example for the neighborhood. C. C. Page was for many years a potent factor in local politics, church and educational activities. His death occurred in the autumn of 1915, at his home in Peabody, Kan., where he had resided since leaving Clifford township. No history of Clifford township would be complete without the mention of Mrs. Hattie E. Meeks, a scholarly woman of high ideals, who, having no close family ties, gave her whole time and talent to the pupils entrusted to her care. Her work for many years in the Blue Mound and Brown schools could hardly be excelled.

While these to whom I have referred have seemed to be natural leaders, yet there have been many other noble men and women in Clifford township to whom we of a later generation owe a debt of thanks for the examples they have set for us and for the hardships they have endured that we, their children, might have the advantages the had been denied.

DOUGLASS TOWNSHIP.

By J. M. Satterthwaite.

Probably the first settlers to claim land in the township were the Dunn brothers, Birney and Samuel, the latter part of the year 1867. (Samuel was killed by Indians, May 17, 1869.) Their claims were upon the Walnut river at the south side of the township, and at the southern border of the land the Osage Indians were then ceding to the government for settlement. About the same time, a man named Hugh Williams opened a frontier trading post in a cabin near a ford of the Walnut, a little north of the claims of the Dunn boys. Just what lines he carried is not known at this date, but his stock must have been the frontier staples: Flour, bacon, gun powder, tobacco and whiskey.

In February, 1868, John W. Graves took a claim on "the island," nearly a mile north of the present city of Douglass. He still owns the original claim and long since added to it a hundred or two acres of the best land in the Walnut valley. The same year D. W. Boutwell, John Stanley, John Long and Samuel Shaff took claims along the Walnut river. G. D. Prindle, George Fox, John T. Martin, Neal Wilkie, William Hilton, Ed Wilford, T. I. Kirkpatrick, Capt. Joseph Douglass and others came and made settlement. Captain Douglass took the claim, the northeast quarter of section 20, township 29, range 4, east, upon which he founded the city of Douglass, to which he gave his name, and after which the township was named.

Captain Douglass built the first house upon the townsite. It was

constructed of hewn logs and stood near the present business center of the city.

In very early days, Joshua Olmstead and family located on a claim a mile and a half below the present city and started a saw mill. He then put a dam across the Walnut river and built a grist mill. John W. Dunn, a brother of Birney and Samuel, bought the mill and for many years it was successfully operated, farmers coming many miles with the grain to be ground.

In the earlier organization of the county the territory now comprising the township of Douglass was a part of Walnut township, which then comprised the south sixteen miles, clear across the county from east to west.

January 6, 1873, the county commissioners organized a municipal township, six miles by twelve miles in extent, comprising township 29.

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HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING DOUGLASS, KANS.

range 3, and township 29, range 4. The first officers elected were: J. R. Gardner, trustee; John T. Martin, treasurer; C. B. Scott, clerk; S. A. Goodspeed and J. W. Alger, justices of the peace; F. S. Fleck and Thomas Long, constables. Not long afterward township 29, range 4, was taken from Douglass and Richland township organized.

The town of Douglass was organized as a city of the third class in 1879. The first mayor was C. B. Lowe; E. D. Stratford, city clerk, and F. W. Rash, city attorney.

In the years 1868, 1869 and early 1870 mail was brought from El Dorado by private subscription, John Long making weekly trips to that point, bringing to the settlers such mail as might come to them. In

1870 a regular stage line from Emporia was instituted and a postoffice established. C. H. Lamb was the first postmaster. He was succeeded by C. Calhoun, he by his partner, Dave Young, and he by Rev. J. B. Ives.

The first paper published at Douglass was The Douglass "Enterprise," founded by D. O. McCray in 1879. After a year he moved the paper to Burden. Then The Douglass "Index" was started in 1880 by J. B. Ives, with his nephew, a Mr. Cole, as editor.

Mr. Ives, with the help of several editors, continued the publication until the winter of 1883, when he sold it to J. M. Satterthwaite, who founded The Douglass "Tribune" in its stead and continues its publication until this date.

The first school taught in the township was a subscription school taught by Miss Agnes Stine, who soon became Mrs. George Fox, and still lives upon the Fox homestead two and a half miles north of the city. Mr. Fox died several years ago. Her early successors in educational work were S. L. Shotwell, afterward county superintendent and the organizer of much of the educational work in the county, and Mrs. Alma Wilkie, then Miss Henderson. Then Prof. J. W. Shively took up the work. For years he was the leading educator of the county.

In the year 1881 a branch ofthe[sic] Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad was extended from El Dorado to Douglass, which was the terminus of the road for about six years before the line was extended to Winfield.

Up to the year 1870 the Texas cattle trail crossed the Walnut river a mile north of the present city of Douglass. This Texas cattle trail was a great thoroughfare, over which vast herds were driven from the ranges in Texas, through the Indian Territory, to shipping points in Kansas. With the herds and along this trail reckless, venturesome men traveled, many of them too dishonest and reckless for the regions of settled society. Their doings in those wild days, just after the close of the Civil war and border troubles, in which men were educated to reckless deeds of violence, have furnished instances for many a true, tragic and thrilling story of frontier life. This trail, passing through the Indian reservations, first touched the country open to white settlement, and presumably under civil law, at the point where it struck the territory now in Douglass township. Naturally Douglass was the rendezvous of many wild and reckless characters. Horse thieves and cattle rustlers came and went, and some took claims and made their stations near here.

On the afternoon of May 17, 1869, Samuel Dunn and a boy companion named Henderson were slain by a band of Osage Indians. The killing occurred on the prairie near the timber that skirted the Walnut river. Dunn and Henderson had been hunting and looking over the land. Henderson's folks were looking for a desirable claim on which to settle. Returning from their wandering, they stopped to rest upon a log that had been washed up on the prairie bottom on the west side

of the Walnut and east side of Eight-Mile creek. As they were seated upon the log a band of Osages came riding up from the southwest, dashing down upon them. Dunn and Henderson ran for the timber, but were overtaken by the Indians and both killed and scalped. The savages not only scalped Dunn, but they cut off his head and three of his fingers. It is said that some of the Osages had a grudge against Birney Dunn, Samuel's brother, and when they made the attack supposed they were killing Birney.

The government called the Osages to account for the murder and two members of the tribe were turned over to the civil authorities for trial. The sheriff of Butler county, James Thomas, of El Dorado, had the Indians in charge and was bringing them to El Dorado from some point at the northeast. Coming up the south fork of the Cottonwood river, the two prisoners disappeared. Some assert that they made their escape. Others claim they were shot and buried. At any rate they never appeared for trial.

The horse thieves that infested the Texas cattle trail were a source of greatest annoyance and loss to the early settlers in the region around Douglass. Settlers among strangers, a long way from old home and former friends, driving teams to wagons in which were loaded their scant household effects and earthly belongings, would suddenly find themselves without horses, the animals having been ridden or driven off in the night, and in some instances boldly taken in the day time. Afoot and amid strangers, in a vast, unfamiliar region, was a woeful condition to be in. Few of the settlers had the cash wherewith to replace the teams so lost. The settlers became enraged and determined upon drastic measures to rid the country of suspected characters. A vigilance committee was organized. On the night following election day, in November, 1870, a force went to the cabin of George and Lewis Booth up the Walnut river, a little more than a mile north of the north line of the township. (The land is now owned by Lonnie Morrison.) George and Lewis Booth were shot and a man named Corbin hanged. The party, returning to Douglass, met a desperate character from Texas, named Jim Smith, at the crossing of Little Walnut on the old stage trail. He was an associate and companion of the Booths and Corbin, and was headed for the Booth cabin. He gave battle and his mount was shot from under him. He got behind a stump and stood off the vigilantes for a time. It is said he hit one or more of them, but it was never generally known who, for the vigilantes protected their doings with pledged secrecy. But Smith was soon surrounded and shot. When the Emporia-Arkansas City stage crossed the creek some little time afterward the driver found Jim Smith's dead body on the trail.

But the end was not yet. These four men who had been executed as horse thieves had friends. Whether these friends were associated with them in horse stealing and dividing the funds received for stolen horses is disputed. But these friends started criminal proceedings against

men charged with having taken part in the killing and some were arrested. Feeling ran high and revenge was threatened. For the purpose of intimidating their opposers, the vigilance committee took action again, and on the night of December 1 four citizens of Douglass, William Quimby, a merchant; Dr. Morris, his son, and Mike Dray, a clerk in Morris' drug store, were taken to the timber a mile and a half below Douglass and hanged. At this act a number of suspicious characters left the neighborhood and horse stealing abated. It was a desperate remedy for a bad state of affairs and left a bad effect upon the community. Some of the men executed may not have deserved their fate. They may have been only warm friends of the men who did.

Joseph W. Douglass, the founder of the city, and after whom the city and township were named, was shot and mortally wounded on the townsite in 1873. He had taken a lively interest in the suppressing of thieving in the community, and on the night of his murder had arrested, without a warrant, a camper he suspected of stealing chickens. The man had chickens in his possession and did not give a plausible account of where or how he obtained them. Douglass marched his prisoner to several places where he had said he purchased the fowls, but the parties denied having sold them to him. The prisoner, evidently fearing the fate of others, shot his captor with a small pistol he had in his possession. Douglass was armed with a larger revolver, but had failed to disarm his prisoner. The man ran and Douglass fired at him several times, but failed to hit him. Douglass lived a day or two after being wounded and requested that no injury be inflicted upon the murderer. He was captured, tried and sent to the penitentiary for ten years.

One event that had great effect upon Douglass and community was the building of a great sugar mill for the manufacture of sugar from sorghum, in the year 1888. Investigators had set up the claim that sugar could be made at much profit from sorghum, and so heartily did the people of Douglass take up with the idea that they promoted a company, built a great mill, and induced the farmers to plant a large acreage of sorghum. When the mill was put in operation at great expense it was found to be unprofitable. Those who had put their money into the scheme lost it all. The city had voted bonds for water works and turned the bonds over to the sugar mill company, under contract of building the water works. The failure of this enterprise carried down with it the Wilkie bank. Mr. Wilkie had been a pioneer banker in both El Dorado and Douglass, having considerable wealth for those times. He had ventured it all to build up the city of Douglass and lost.

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