Allen County
KSGenWeb
Allen County, one of the 33 counties established by the first territorial
legislature, was named in honor of William Allen, United States senator from
Ohio. It is located in the southeastern part of the state, in the second tier of
counties west of Missouri and about 50 miles north of the state line. In extent
it is 21 miles from north to south and 24 miles from east to west, containing
504 square miles. It is bounded on the north by Anderson, east by Bourbon, south
by Neosho and west by Woodson county. The county was organized at the time of
its creation, Charles Passmore being appointed probate judge; B. W. Cowden and
Barnett Owen county commissioners, and William Godfrey sheriff. These officers
were to hold their offices until the general election in 1857, and were
empowered to appoint the county clerk and treasurer to complete the county
organization.
The first white inhabitants located in the county during
the early part of the year 1855. Duncan & Scott's History of Allen County (p.
9), says: "There is some dispute as to who made the first permanent settlement,
but the weight of the testimony seems to award that honorable distinction to D.
H. Parsons, who, with a companion, B. W. Cowden, arrived on the Neosho river
near the mouth of Elm creek in March, 1855."
During the spring and summer
settlement progressed rapidly. The greater number of settlers located along the
Neosho river, among them being W. C. Keith, Henry Bennett, Elias Copelin, James
Barber, Barnett Owen, A. W. G. Brown, Thomas Day and Giles Starr. Along the
banks of Morton creek the early settlers were Hiram Smith, Michael Kisner,
Augustus Todd, A. C. Smith, Dr. Stockton, George Hall, Anderson Wray, Jesse
Morris and Thomas Norris. Although many of the early settlers were pro-slavery
men, but few slaves were brought into the county. The freestate men showed such
open antagonism toward slaveholders, that the slaves were soon given their
freedom or taken from the county by their masters. A party of pro-slavery men
from Fort Scott founded a town company and laid out a town in Allen county,
south of the mouth of Elm creek and on the east bank of the Neosho river, about
a mile and a half southwest of the present site of Iola. The company was
incorporated by the bogus legislature as the Cofachique Town Association, with
Daniel Woodson, Charles Passmore, James S. Barbee, William Baker, Samuel A.
Williams and Joseph C. Anderson as incorporators. The first postoffice was
established at Cofachique in the spring of 1855 with Aaron Case as postmaster,
but no regular mail service was opened until July I, 1857, the mail up to that
time being brought in from Fort Scott by private carrier paid by the citizens.
In Feb., 1856, M. W. Post and Joseph Ludley, who were engaged in the survey
of the standard parallels, finished with the fifth parallel through Allen county
and concluded to locate near Cofachique. The next summer Mr. Ludley brought a
sawmill from Westport, Mo., and set up in the timber near the town. This mill
was run by horse power and was the first manufacturing concern of any kind in
the county.
In the second territorial legislature, elected in Oct., 1856,
Allen county was represented in the council by Blake Little and in the house by
B. Brantley and W. W. Spratt.
In 1858 the town of Iola was started and
the greater part of the town of Cofachique was moved to Iola, while the old site
of Cofachique became farm land. Several reasons may he given for the failure of
the town. Being on hilly ground it was difficult of access and the water supply
was limited; it had been built by pro-slavery men and during the political
troubles a feeling of enmity had grown up against the town, hence it was not
long before it was depopulated. Humboldt, in the southwest part of the county
and Geneva in the northwest part were founded by free-state men and both became
flourishing communities. Up to this time settlement had been exclusively
confined to the timbered valleys of the larger streams, but the new settlers
began opening farms upon the prairies and the population became generally
distributed over the county, especially the western half.
A census of
Kansas was taken in April, 1857, in preparation for an apportionment of
delegates to the Lecompton constitutional convention. By this census Bourbon,
Dorn, McGee and Allen counties had a population of 2,622, of whom 645 were legal
voters. This gave the district which these counties comprised four delegates in
the convention, and at the election held in June, 1857, H. T. Wilson, Blake
Little, Miles Greenwood and G. P. H. Hamilton were elected.
In the
legislative apportionment of July, 1857, eighteen counties, including Allen were
allowed two members in the council and nineteen counties, including Allen, were
allowed three representatives. The election was called for Oct. 5, 1857, and
under the assurance of the governor that it should he free and fair, the
free-state men determined to muster their strength for the first time at the
ballot box. At the election Samuel J. Stewart was elected a representative for
the district and was the first citizen from Allen county to occupy a seat in the
territorial legislature.
Immigration continued during the year 1858. The
Carlyle colony from Indiana selected 320 acres of land in the northwest part of
the county, north of Deer creek, for a town site, but found many difficulties in
the way of making a prosperous town and abandoned the project. Later the site
was cut up into farms. In the course of time a postoffice was established, a
store followed and Carlyle became a thriving village in the center of a splendid
farming district. About the time that the Carlyle colony arrived another town
was projected, called Florence, located north of Deer creek and east of Carlyle.
It was expected that in time a railroad would be built, but it was not and the
town was a failure.
Upon the organization of the county in 1855,
Cofachique was designated as the county seat, and as it was centrally located no
strife was stirred up until Humboldt was located in 1859 by the free-state men
who went before the state legislature early in 1858 and secured an act locating
the county seat there. The first meeting of the county board at Humboldt, of
which there is a record, was on Feb. 8, 1859, but little business was
transacted, and they adjourned to meet at Cofachique, where, on Feb. 14, the
board organized the new township of Geneva and appointed judges of election to
ratify or reject the Leavenworth constitution. Apparently little interest was
taken in the election, as only 138 votes were cast, 134 for and 4 against the
constitution.
In the summer of 1858 the second mail route was established
from Lawrence to Humboldt, via Garnett and Hyatt in Anderson county, Carlyle and
Cofachique in Allen county. The service began July 1, and a few days before that
time a trail was marked from Hyatt to Carlyle. Zach Squires was the first mail
carrier and for some time his weekly trips were made on mule back. Later the
service was made tri-weekly, the mule gave way to a two-horse wagon, later to a
two-horse stage, and finally to an overland coach, which was kept on the route
until the railroad was built in 1871.
During the year 1859 political
matters engaged the attention of the people. On June 7, an election was held for
delegates to the Wyandotte constitutional convention (q. v.). When this
constitution was submitted to the people on Oct. 4, the vote in Allen county
stood 244 for and 159 against, and on the homestead clause, which was submitted
separately, 201 for and 152 against. The territorial legislature of 1859 adopted
a new plan of county organization, providing for three commissioners and a
probate judge with restricted powers. On March 26, 1860, a special election was
held for the new officers. J. G. Richard was elected probate judge; George
Zimmerman, N. T. Winans and D. B. Stewart county commissioners.
The last
year of the territorial period was the hardest in the history of the county. It
was the year of the great drought. (See Droughts.) During the winter of 1859-60,
there was little snow and the hot winds of the following summer swept over the
dry, parched earth, burning all vegetation except in occasional valleys and
ravines where a partial crop was raised. The population of the county was about
3,000, and with such a scanty crop, the prospect of starvation seemed imminent.
Most of the people had come into the county within two years and had not fairly
opened their farms. Many of the settlers, with starvation and hardship before
them, returned to the east.
Great dissatisfaction developed over the
location of the county seat at Humboldt, and on March 26, 1860, an election was
held to decide on a location, Humboldt and Iola being the principal contestants.
The result of the election was 562 votes for Humboldt and 331 for Iola, with 78
votes scattered, but the people in the vicinity of Iola and the northern part of
the county were not satisfied. The strife was kept up for some years until
another election was ordered for May 10, 1865, when Iola received the largest
number of votes. When the county seat was located at Iola, the town company
donated 100 lots to the county to aid in the construction of public buildings.
In 1866 bonds were voted for funds and within a short time a building was
secured for county offices and court purposes. In 1877 the present court-house
was purchased.
As soon as the news of the outbreak of the Civil war
reached Allen county, nearly all the able bodied men hastened to enlist in the
army. The Iola battalion was formed in 1861; three companies, commanded by
Capts. Colman, Flesher, and Killen served in the Ninth Kansas, and two
companies, commanded by Capts. W. C. Jones and N. B. Blanston, served in the
Tenth Kansas volunteer infantry. As the county was located so near the border of
the state there was danger of invasion from Missouri guerrillas and hostile
Indians from the Indian Territory. While the Allen county soldiers were with
Gen. Lane, a raid was made on the unprotected settlers of Humboldt, Sept. 8,
1861, by a band of Missouri guerrillas, Cherokee and Osage half-breed Indians.
On Oct. 14, 1861, the town was captured and set on fire by Confederate cavalry.
The Confederate officers claimed that this was done in retaliation for the
burning of Osceola by Gen. Lane. The land office had just been opened before
this and J. C. Burnett, the register, managed to have his sister save $25,000 in
land warrants, that were in the office at the time. After the burning of
Humboldt a military post was established there, but no actions took place until
the Price raid in 1864. The militia of the county was organized into a
battalion, known as the Allen county battalion, and was composed of six
companies, three from Iola and the northern part of the county, two from
Humboldt and one from the extreme southern part of the county. This organization
comprised all the able bodied men in the county between the ages of 16 and 60
years.
The first railroads in Allen county were built in 1870, the
Missouri, Kansas & Texas being completed across the southwestern part of the
county in the spring, and the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston in the fall of
the same year. Bonds were voted by the county to aid in the construction of the
railroads. In 1880, bonds having been voted by different townships along the
line, the Fort Scott & Wichita railroad was built across the county east and
west, through Iola. There are now 96 miles of main line railroads in the county:
The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe running almost directly north and south in the
western part of the county, and a branch southwest from Colony, Anderson county,
across the extreme northwest corner. The Missouri, Kansas & Texas crosses the
eastern part, almost directly north and south, with a branch north from Moran
and another running west with its terminus at Iola. Another line of the
Missouri, Kansas & Texas enters the county near the center on the west and
crosses the southwest corner, while the Missouri Pacific crosses from east to
west somewhat north of the center, through Iola.
The first church in the
county was that of the United Brethren, begun in 1859 and completed the
following year. For some years this church was used as a union church by all
denominations and also as a school house. The Humboldt Herald was the first
paper established. It was started Nov. 16, 1864, by Maj. Joseph Bond and two
years later the Humholdt Union was established with Orin Thurston as editor.
In Nov., 1871, a tax was voted for the establishment of a county poor farm.
Settlement of the county was somewhat retarded for some years by the contention
between the settlers on the one hand and the Kansas City, Lawrence & Southern
Kansas railroad company over the title to certain lands. The case was finally
settled by Judge David Brewer of the United States circuit court on Sept. 3,
1885, in favor of the settlers. His decision threw open to settlement some
27,000 acres and immediately there was an influx of immigrants.
The
general surface of the county is level, the soil is fertile and highly
productive. The valleys average a mile and a half in width and the timber belts
about a mile. The principal varieties of trees native to the county are black
walnut, hickory, cottonwood, oak, hackberry and elm. The main water course is
the Neosho river, which flows through the western part of the county from north
to south. Its tributaries are Indian, Martin's, Deer, Elm, and other small
creeks. The Little Osage flows through the northeast and the Marmaton river
through the southeastern part of the county.
The chief agricultural
products are corn, wheat, oats, Kaflr corn and potatoes, and the county is one
of the leaders in the production of flax and broom corn. Live stock raising is
an important industry, and many fine orchards afford good profits to their
owners.
Natural gas is the most important mineral resource. There are
several large wells, but the field is particularly well developed near Iola in
the west and La Harpe in the north central part, and valuable oil wells exist
near Humboldt. There are vast quantities of raw material for Portland cement,
which is manufactured and sent to all parts of the United States. An almost
inexhaustable supply of shale has been found for making high grade brick and
tile, which are manufactured and shipped out of the state. A good quality of
limestone is also found. The county is divided into the following townships:
Carlyle, Cottage Grove, Deer Creek, Elm, Elsmore, Geneva, Humboldt, Iola, Logan,
Marmaton, Osage and Salem.
According to the U. S. census for 1910 the
population of the county was 27,640, a gain of 8,133 during the preceding
decade. The report of the State Board of Agriculture for the same year gives the
total value of farm products as $1,362,654.60, corn leading with 1,123,290
bushels, valued at $550,412.10.
Pages 59-64 from volume I of Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912. 3 v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W. Blackmar. Transcribed May 2002 by Carolyn Ward.
Baunbolt, Claus
Clark, Ella
Campbell, Robert
Donus, Wm
Hocket
Hesencamp, Mary
Henderson, D.B.
Hartrodes, Sarah
Herington, Alice
Hymer, Leonard
McGee, Jennie 2
McGlushan, P A
Stanly, Calvin
Shull,
Elias
Smith, A.C.
Williams, N A
Wises, Ida
Williams, N.H.
Source: Neosho Valley Register, Iola, Allen County, Kansas, Saturday December
19, 1874
Adkins, Wm
Brown, Henry
Collins, James
Decker,
George R
Hall, Mary T
Hankins, David II
Kelly, Willie
Neely, T C
Peek, Miss Caroline
Seabourn, John M 2
Seabourn, Mary & John
Singer,
Alfred
Sealyer, James E
Taylor, J E
Source: Neosho Valley Register,
Iola, Allen County, Kansas, Saturday January 2, 1875
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