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Chase County Kansas Historical Sketches

1863 - 2003 





O.H. Drinkwater Founded Cedar Point

Article from Cottonwood Valley News Cedar Point, Kansas, October 10, 1912

It was at 10:00 a.m. on the 11 day of April, 1855, that, O.H. Drinkwater, accompanied by his brother, after staying all night at the American Hotel, then the only hotel in the village of Kansas City, drove an ox team across the line into Kansas.

He headed westward and on the afternoon of April 15, stopped at a sod shanty on the south bank of the river, at a point where Kansas avenue now crosses the river, and where his father, who had preceeded him was hatching. The next day he commenced cutting Cottonwood logs down on the "san- dy bottoms" and these logs were used in the construction of a saw mill that was built by the Emigrant Aid Society and which was the first substantial building in the city of Topeka.

His father took a claim two and a half miles from Kansas Avenue down on Shunganunga creek, and they also rented 80 acres of broke land a few miles west of Topeka from a Pottowatomie Indian Chief named Abram Burnett. After the corn crop was laid by that spring, he took the ox team, "Moo- ley and Dave" and started freighting between Kansas City and Topeka. He hauled many goods for Allen and Gordon, at that time the only merchants in Topeka, getting $1. per hundred pounds for same.

Sometime during that fall, 1855, he hauled from Kansas City, the first printing press ever brought to Topeka. The press was brought there by E.C.K. Garver who started a paper called the Kansas Freeman. This paper was issued in the upper room of a little frame building at the corner of fifth street and Kansas Avenue across the street from where the post office building now stands.

During a severe snow storm, on the 8th day of December 1856, he buried a sister, at a lonely spot which is now the center of Kansas avenue directly in front of the Copeland hotel. He at one time traded the land on which the State Capital now stands, for a cow. In 1857 he was elected a member of the Free State Legislature, and served at the last session of that body.

In 1857 he came to Chase county and took a piece of land at the mouth of a creek which he named Cedar. He secured the establishment of a post office on this farm and had it named Cedar Point, and was the first postmaster. He afterward laid out the town of Cedar Point, and when the city was incorporated this summer he was instrumental in getting that done and in establishing the boundaries of the city, and was the unanimous choice of its citizens for the first Mayor but as he did not reside inside the corporation was not eligible to the office.

In 1867, in company with J.L. Crawford, he commenced the erection of a mill at this place. He bought out Crawford in 1868 and completed the mill alone. The water wheel used in the mill he had shipped to Topeka, then the nearest railroad point, and hauled it from there to Cedar Point on wagon. In 1869, L.C. Smith and P.P. Schriver each purchased a one third interest in the mill and in 1870 Drinkwater and Schriver bought out Smith and the business was conducted under this name until 1891. Mr. Drinkwater sold his interest to M. Gulliford with the understanding that he should plan for and install for him the new roller system, which he did.

He was a delegate to the National convention at Cincinnati that nominated Abraham Lincoln for President, and in 1896 was a delegate to the national convention that nominated W.J. Bryan. He was one of the old Peoples Party. He was elected to the legislature and has also held the offices of postmaster, Justice of the peace, Probate Judge, County Commissioner, and other offices of public trust and was probably the oldest Notary Public in the state, having received his first commission from the first Governor of Kansas and having held one continuously ever since.
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At the opening of the war he was commissioned a Captain in the Fifth Regiment Kansas Home Brigade, and served until near the close of the war when he was compelled to return home because of illness. He was a member of the Masonic Lodge, the G.A.R. and Sons of the American Revolution.

Written by Mrs. Alice Vansickle

(Mr. Drinkwater's daughter, Mrs. Alice Vansickle still resides in the home on the hill at Cedar Point).

Chase County Centennial, 1872 - 1972




Chase County Submitted Historical Sketches
compiled and abstracted from the Chase County Courant, Chase County Leader, other sources and newspapers
by Lorna Marvin.
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