Story of a Bank, Town and Railroad

                                                                 PART I.
                                                       WINFIELD BANK.
This story started in 1869 with settlement of the future county of Sumner in the state of Kansas by John Degolia and A. Cadou, who started a ranch on Slate creek. (The county was named in honor of the Hon. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Many of his friends objected to applying the name of so great a man to what they deemed a worthless strip of territory.)
Sumner County was one of the southern tier in Kansas. Crossed east of the center by the 6th principal meridian, it was but a short distance east of a line dividing Kansas into halves. The county was bounded on the north by Sedgwick County, on the east by Cowley County, on the south by the Indian Territory, and on the west by Harper and Kingman Counties. Sumner City, a few miles from Wellington, was laid out on the southeast quarter of Section 25 and northeast quarter of section 36, township 31, south range 2 west.
On September 2, 1870, the Emporia News had the following item.
“A new town, called Sumner, has just been laid out in Sumner County. The proprietors are J. M. Steele, C. S. Roe, and J. H. Liggett, of Wichita; J. Jay Buck and E. W. Cunningham, of Emporia; James C. Fuller, Addison Richards, and Mr. Millington, of Fort Scott; Col. J. C. McMullen, of Clarksville, Tennessee; and Maj. Woodsmall, of Gosport, Indiana. This town is situated in the geographical center of Sumner County, on Slate Creek, and about thirty miles south from Wichita. A stock of goods is already on the ground. A full and complete newspaper outfit is already secured, and it is the intention of the proprietors to have a hotel up and a saw mill in operation soon. This place is immediately on the Texas cattle trail, and may soon be a brisk town. The finest wood and water claims are there to be had. We look for the organization of Sumner County at the next session of the Legislature.”
Opposition to Sumner City becoming the county seat started on December 26, 1870, when Chas. A. Phillips, J. J. Albert, Wm. J. Uhler, and E. H. Nugent, all of Wichita, camped four miles southeast of Wellington and met with Captain A. J. Angell, D. P. U. S. Engineer, in charge of surveying a portion of the Osage Reserve in Sumner and Cowley counties known as the “thirty mile strip.” Overtures were made to Angell to assist in making the town of Meridian, located on section 32, township 32, range 1 east, the county seat of Sumner County. Angell accepted, and on January 15, 1871, Meridian was located on Section 32, township 32, range 1 east. A bogus census was made by John C. Nugent, and showed the county to have 651 inhabitants. Armed with this document, Angell started for the capital, where he arrived on February 7, 1871. J. M. Steele was already in the city in the interest of Sumner City, but Angell secured an interview with Gov. Harvey, and before Steele knew of his presence, had secured the appointment of Meridian.

Three Wichita men (William J. Uhler, Hon. J. Alber, and John S. McMahon) favored making Wellington the county seat. They were nominated and made commissioners. In June 1871 they ordered that inasmuch as Meridian had failed to provide buildings at Meridian, the county business would be transacted at Wellington until a permanent seat was chosen by ballot. In August 1871 Sumner County was divided into three election precincts and an election for county seat and officers ordered for September 26, 1871. The contesting towns were Wellington, Sumner City, Meridian, and Belle Plaine. The total number of votes cast was 805. The county business was still transacted at Meridian, where a temporary county building had been erected. There was no choice for county seat and pending the second election, which was to be held in November 1871, the citizens of Wellington took a wagon and went to Meridian to take possession of the county records. As they came to the place, they saw a party from Oxford on the same mission just coming over the hill. Wellington secured the books without trouble but a hand to hand fight occurred over the persons of the commissioners. In the end the Wellington party secured two of them, minus some of their clothes. The November election failed to settle the matter and another was held in January 1872, the vote of which was never canvassed on account of the sudden resignation of one of the commissioners. Another election was held in March in which Wellington received the highest number of votes and Oxford the second highest. A vote then took place in April 1872  which resulted in favor of Wellington. A petition was presented in January 1873 for relocation. It was denied and no further effort was made to change the seat of justice.”
Some of the proprietors of “Sumner,” mentioned in the September 2, 1870, article of the Emporia News, became involved with the cities of Winfield and Arkansas City in Cowley County: D. A. Millington and James C. Fuller of Fort Scott; Col. J. C. McMullen of Clarksville, Tennessee; and J. Jay Buck and E. W. Cunningham of Emporia.
Daniel Azro Millington was born in Hubbardton, Vermont, May 17, 1823, about the middle of the last term of President James Monroe. His father was a Whig, a warm advocate of a protective tariff, and a farmer. From 1837 to 1842 when Daniel was 10 to 14 years old, he became aware of the situation of those times in Vermont. Farmers had large orchards with plenty of first-class fruit. They were forced to sell their best graft apples at 12½ to 18¼ cents a bushel when they could sell at all. They made apple cider and could only get about $1.00 per barrel. Potatoes sold at 10 to 12½ cents per bushel. Corn was worth 20 cents and wheat 50 cents per bushel. Maple sugar was sold at 6¼ cents a pound. Pork was worth $6 to $7 per barrel and fine wool 25 cents per pound. Farmers did not get cash: it was barter and trade. They could buy English made calicoes at 25 to 30 cents per yard, with some as high as 50 cents. Other foreign goods sold at similar prices. Farmers were forced to pay these exorbitant prices for goods they could not produce at home. Women spun and wove, making nearly all the cloth used by the family. Strong and active young men hired out to farmers for $100 a year. The farmers had no pianos, organs, or other musical instruments; they had no carpets, paintings, papering, or ornamentation of any kind; and they had no carriages or buggies. A farmer whose aggregate property was worth $1,000 was considered wealthy.

In September 1884 Millington recalled his youth, stating that he remembered the political campaign of 1840 when W. H. Harrison, the Whig candidate who opposed the Democratic candidate, Martin Van Buren, running for a second term, was sung into the presidential chair. Songs were heard night and morning: “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” “Van, Van is a used up man,” “The log cabin candidate,” etc. Millington commented: “It was no wonder that the people in the rural districts wanted the protective tariff which the Whigs promised them in place of the “tariff for revenue only.” The Whigs won and enacted the protective tariff of 1842. A great change took place. Manufacturing of all kinds was established; the demand for wool, cotton, flour, meal, potatoes, apples, pork, beef, etc., was met with cash. Young men and women were paid well for their labor. Farmers began to get ahead. Carpets, pianos, paintings, libraries, fine furniture, new houses, and other evidences of prosperity under the protective tariff made it possible for Millington and other young men to head “west to grow up with the country” in the new regions beyond the lakes. Millington, who had received an education in the common and higher schools of Vermont, became proficient in mathematics and the sciences. He taught in the common schools five winters. In 1844, at the age of twenty-one, he moved to Illinois and located in Will County, where he married Miss Mary A. Smith on May 16, 1848. They had four daughters.
Millington wrote in his diary, “Having come to the conclusion that I could not make money fast enough in Illinois, I concluded to start for the famous land of gold, California. I made preparation for the journey and started on Monday morning, March 4, 1850, on horseback.” Millington went west by way of St. Louis, St. Joseph, and Salt Lake City, reaching Sacramento, California, on July 19, 1850. Meeting some success in gold mining, he boarded a steamship on September 1, to return home. He disembarked from it on September 19, and alternated between walking and riding on a mule as he crossed the isthmus of Panama. On September 25, he boarded another steamship in the Atlantic. After he returned to his family he entered into the lumber business at Joliet, Illinois. In 1856 the Millington family moved to Iowa City, Iowa, where D. A. Millington went into the general mercantile business. In the fall of 1862, Millington and his family moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he made money during the war. In January 1866 the family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where D. A. Millington met with heavy losses. They moved to Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1868, where he continued in the mercantile business, until he and his friend, J. C. Fuller, after becoming proprietors of the town of Sumner, left for the future town of Winfield, Cowley County, Kansas, where they became members of the town company in August 1870 with E. C. Manning, J. M. Alexander, T. H. Baker, and others in August 1870. The town site of Winfield, the first entry made of lands in Cowley County, was entered at the United States land office on July 10, 1871. After completion of the government survey, Millington surveyed and platted Winfield. He soon became a prominent member of the Republican party in Winfield.
Clara M. Millington, born in 1850, was the oldest daughter of D. A. Millington. She married Dr. C. L. Flint, a dentist at Fort Scott, Kansas. After her father moved to Winfield, Dr. and Mrs. Flint moved with their child, Bertie, to Winfield. Dr. Flint died in June 1872.
Millington was kept busy handling Town Company business and later took on the job of Justice of the Peace. The Winfield Courier on May 22, 1873, gave a glimpse of his work.

A Bloody “Mill” was fought one day last week between two of our most prominent attorneys, while conducting a “case” before his Honor, D. A. Millington. First, the lie was given—then the d__n lie, and so on ad infinitum. That style of fight was dropped, and books were gently handed from one to the other. Tiring of books, as many do, they took not to their heels, but to their fists. The “big un” let fly his left “manly,” when it was handsomely stopped, and the “little un” handed him one on the left peeper. This seemed to demoralize the “giant” some, but he came up smilingly for round No. 2. This round was something like the first, except that it put a “head” on the fight. Unfortu­nately we were not present, and of course have to draw a little on our imagination, however, it is in the main correct.
Millington served as the Winfield Township Clerk in 1873. He was also selected by the Agricultural Society to serve as a Superintendent at their Fair in September 1873. It was noted in the December 26, 1873, issue of the Winfield Courier that Millington and his family were fond of social gatherings. At the Millington residence about fifteen couples made the double parlor floor ring with the heel and toe, where Mrs. Millington and her four charming daughters made everyone feel welcome.
In March 1874 D. A. Millington was admitted to the bar in Cowley County. By March 27, 1874, Millington became a co-partner of L. J. Webb in a new law firm. He resigned his office of Justice of the Peace in April 1874. In August he was elected as a member of the school board. In September Webb & Millington moved into the Fuller Bank and Millington became one of the founders of a literary and scientific association, having in view the establishment of a Library and Reading Room in Winfield, employment of public lecturers, encouragement of literature, and otherwise promoting moral and intellectual improvement.
In December 1874 Millington became president of the board of directors of the Winfield Institute, which replaced the literary and scientific association. The Institute began seeking donations of books in good condition on history, theology, science, travel, fiction, and miscellaneous literature with which to start a library as well as leading publications, periodicals, and magazines for a reading room.
In January 1875 Millington received a letter from Captain Shannon, of Augusta, Butler County, warning him that an attempt was being made to divide Butler County on the twenty mile strip, taking six miles off the north end of Cowley, in order to form a new county. A remonstrance was circulated by Millington against any attempt to change the boundary lines of Cowley County; within a very short time over 300 signatures were gathered opposing any change, resulting in a meeting on the same day wherein a resolution was passed to fight such a move in Topeka. The movement for a new county quickly stopped.
In April 1875 D. A. Millington was elected Mayor of Winfield.
By June 1875 the Winfield Institute Library was open every Wednesday from 2 to 5 p.m. It was located at the law office of Mr. Millington, President of the Institute, who also acted as the Librarian. In November 1875 Mayor Millington attended to business at the bank started by Fuller and him, now known as the Winfield Bank, during Fuller’s absence.
In October 1875 Mayor Millington became involved with others in Butler and Cowley County in trying to get a railroad from the north. His interest in railroads continued for years.
On Wednesday evening, November 24, 1875, Mr. Millington’s oldest daughter, Clara M. Flint, was married to Allen B. Lemmon, Principal of the Winfield city schools, at the home of D. A. Millington. Attendants were Mr. J. E. Saint and Miss Ada Millington.
D. A. Millington was appointed U. S. Commissioner in January 1876 vice L. B. Kellogg, who had resigned. At the April 3, 1876, city election, D. A. Millington beat out his Democratic opponent, H. S. Silver, by one vote and was again elected as Mayor of Winfield. His son-in-law, A. B. Lemmon was elected as a councilman.

In June 1876 Ada Millington became a school teacher and was put in charge of the Primary Department of the Winfield schools. Ada was married on Wednesday evening, October 4, 1876, at her father’s residence by Rev. J. E. Platter to Mr. J. E. Saint (generally referred to as “Ex” Saint).
At the July 1876 Centennial Celebration held in Winfield, Kate Millington, two years younger than Ada, rode a black horse richly caparisoned with both gold and silver, in a black riding suit trimmed in the same manner, representing the state of Nevada. On August 16, 1876, Professor A. B. Lemmon was made the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Kansas. Mrs. A. B. Lemmon left Winfield in late December 1876 to join her husband in Topeka, accompanied by her sister, Miss Kate Millington.
In July 1877 D. A. Millington enjoyed a lawn social held on his grounds. His life began to change completely when E. C. Manning stepped down as the editor of the Winfield Courier on August 23, 1877. On that date the Courier Company (D. A. Millington, James Kelly, and A. B. Lemmon) took charge of the newspaper. On September 20, 1877, James Kelly had departed and Millington and Lemmon became the editors.
In November 1878 I. L. Millington, a brother of D. A. Millington, had settled in Winfield. He and his partner, John Buell, fitted up the building lately occupied by the post office, turning it into the Winfield Seed Store, from which they bought corn, oats, and other produce from the local farmers. Later I. L. Millington, often referred to as “Roy” Millington, became assistant postmaster in Winfield.
On February 1, 1879, D. A. Millington received his commission and assumed the office of postmaster at Winfield.
The Citizens’ Bank and the Winfield Bank consolidated in April 10, 1879, under the head of the Winfield Bank. D. A. Millington became secretary of the bank. The Winfield Courier occupied the basement of the bank.
In April 1879 D. A. Millington became sole editor and publisher of the Winfield Courier when A. B. Lemmon sold his interest in the newspaper. In July 1879 D. A. Millington began a three-week junketing excursion on the railroad to the mountains of Colorado. This was the first of many such trips by editor Millington. When he first stopped at Topeka, his son-in-law, A. B. Lemmon asked him who was going on the trip with him. Mr. Millington responded: “M. L. Robinson and J. C. Fuller.” Lemmon rejoined: “Correct. Never think of going to Colorado with less than two bankers with you.” Mart L. Robinson was the nephew of M. L. Read, who started Read’s Bank in Winfield in August 1872. This bank became very competitive in a short time under the hands of M. L. Robinson, cashier, Read’s Bank.

Millington told about his trip to Pike’s Peak with M. L. Robin­son. “We started from Colorado Springs before six o’clock in the morning and rode in a buggy six miles, up to Manitou Springs at the entrance of the canon at the foot of the trail. Here we mounted hardy and sure-footed ponies and entered upon the trail at about seven o’clock. Our route was steep uphill, winding around mountain peaks and precipices, up a stupendous gorge or canon; past numerous water falls—many of them covered by enormous granite rocks which had tumbled down from thousands of feet above; winding along in a narrow mule path in the steep sides of fine debris, which had tumbled down from the heights above; hugging overhanging rocks to keep from falling into the stupen­dous chasm below; crossing over the gorge back and forth to avoid impassible precipices; and finally at the end of four and a half miles, and having risen 3,000 feet, we emerged from the canon into a wider valley, in which there was much vegetation, and which was crowded with splendid quaking aspen trees and many firs; along which valley we passed westward toward the peak, still rising rapidly and winding between lofty peaks. Following this valley a mile and a half we turned to the left, directly south, and went up along the backbone of a very steep ridge for two miles, which brought us up to the Lake House, a log hotel on the margin of a beautiful lake lying in an ancient crater at an elevation of 9,700 feet.
“From this point we went west and southwest, climbing diagonally up the steep side of a spur or ridge, running down southwest from the peak. A mile and a half of the steepest kind of climbing brought us around the point of the ridge. A storm was raging above us, and we rode into it, winding up the west slope of the peak. The storm was rain, snow, and hail with the sharp reports of lightning and thunder reverberating among the crags around us. One discharge splintered a granite rock to pieces but two or three hundred feet from us. But we were well wrapped and comfortable and kept climbing and winding up spirally from the west side of the peak around the north and east sides to the south side, where we emerged above the storm, and still climbing up toward the north, arrived at the signal station on the very summit, having risen above the lake nearly 5,000 feet, about 2,000 up to the storm, 2,000 through the storm, and 1,000 above it.
“We arrived at the summit at about a quarter past three o’clock in the afternoon. The storm was still raging below us. Far down the sides of the peak, all around from 1,000 to 5,000 feet below us, rolled the dark clouds, the lightning flashed incessantly, and the thunder crashed and reverberated; but we looked over the storm down to the east and saw the city of Colorado Springs, eighteen miles distant, lying apparently immediately below us, and many other objects stretching away in the distance. But the storm though still far below us was widening toward the east and soon shut off our vision from the lower world. Sometimes a little fraction of the cloud would roll up from below on one side of the top and plunge down on the other side, but otherwise it was fair on the top.
“The situation forcibly reminded us of the lines of the poet:
’As some tall cliff uprears his awful form,
 Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm,
 Though ’round his breast the falling clouds are spread,
 Eternal sunshine settles on his head.’
“At four o’clock p.m. we commenced our descent. Before we had proceeded a mile down the trail we found ourselves entering the upper side of the storm, and by the time we had descended another mile, we found ourselves surrounded by a war of the elements which cannot be described. The rain, snow, and hail were in themselves terrible, but the lightning and thunder were too frightful to contemplate. The air was filled with rapid flashes, and reports sharp, loud, and incessant, crashed and reverberated among the crags about us. We heard the splintered and exploded rocks rattling and jingling all about us, but could not see them for the darkness and density of the storm.

“My companion, M. L. Robinson, got down from his pony and by the light of the lurid flashes, I thought he looked rather pale. There were several strangers on their ponies along, and not only men but ponies seemed almost paralyzed by fright. There was one woman, strong and courageous as she went up, now entirely demor­alized. She and her husband had dismounted when we overtook them coming down. He was standing pale and speechless by the side of the trail. She was on her knees, her face deformed by her fears and distress, large tears rolling down her face, moaning, pray­ing, begging for life. She prayed and promised the Lord that if he would save her from this terrible danger, she would never go to Pike’s Peak again the longest day she ever lived. M. L. tried to soothe and quiet her, but he might as well have attempted to quiet the storm that was crashing around us. We told them that that was no place to stop, to get on their ponies and ride down out of the storm. We proceeded to follow our own advice and were soon below the worst of the storm; and when we reached the Lake House, the storm was all above us toward the top of the peak. We arrived at Manitou from the top of the peak in four hours. It had taken us eight hours to go up. We arrived at Colorado Springs at nine o’clock p.m.”
D. A. Millington and Mart L. Robinson confronted each other at a later date.
On April 17, 1880, the Arkansas Valley Press Association held a meeting at Winfield, which called for a great deal of attention to details by the Winfield people, who assisted D. A. Millington and others in playing host to a large number of visitors from different parts of the state. Nearly 100 members of the press were in attendance. After the meeting adjourned, the guests were shown around the city by the citizens, in carriages. In the evening a grand ball was given by the citizens at Manning’s Hall, after which a banquet was served at the Central Hotel, which was a superb affair, the elite of the city being present, and speeches, toasts, and responses by leading citizens were the order of the evening.
One of those who attended gave a report. “Some fifteen or twenty came in on the Santa Fe and were duly taken in and done for; given complementaries to the De Grasse concert and tickets to bed. Saturday morning, bright and early, they were taken out to see the many improve­ments, and, of course, the Cowley County stone quarry, court­house, water mills, cemetery, churches, palatial residences and cottage homes, fine hotels and sidewalks, and last but not least, the two breweries. Oh, ye gods! But was not that fruit for the indigent editor?
The evening was spent very pleasantly in dancing and social converse at the opera house. Promptly at 12 o’clock the music ceased, and the friends were invited to the Central Hotel where three forty-foot tables were groaning under a weight of good things and decked with evergreens and flowers. At 3:40 a.m., the party were safely seated in the cars, their faces turned in the direction of home, everyone wishing they could stay in Winfield forever, etc.”
Another reported: “After a pleasant ride across to Winfield through as beautiful country as there is to be found in Kansas, we landed in the bright, enterprising, and handsome county town of Cowley. Omnibuses and carriages were in attendance, and all the editors and their friends were soon most hospitably cared for. The programme of the citizens’ committee provided a theat­rical entertainment for those who arrived on Friday. Carriage drives, boat rides on the small steamer any hour on Saturday, and after the adjournment of the editorial convention, a ball at Manning’s splendid opera house followed by a banquet.”
Ed. P. Greer became a member of the Courier Company on May 1, 1880, with a third interest. He continued to run the local and business department; D. A. Millington continued as editor in chief of the Winfield Courier.

Ed Greer was the son of Samuel W. Greer, who died of consumption, aged 57, on Sept. 30, 1882, of consumption, survived by his widow, four sons, and two daughters. Born in Pennsylvania on June 2, 1826, Sam Greer moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa, where he married Clotilda Hilton in October 1855. A year later Mr. and Mrs. Greer moved to Leavenworth, Kansas. In October 1858 Sam Greer was elected as the first superintendent of common schools in Kansas. On April 14, 1861, Mr. Greer was in Washington City, where he entered the Army as a private in the “Frontier Guard,” led by General James H. Lane, recently elected as a United States Senator from Kansas. On April 19, 1861, the anniversary of the battle of Lexington, the Sixth Massachusetts regiment was attacked by a rebel mob in Baltimore, the railway tracks were torn up, and all rail and telegraph communication between Washington and the north was cut off. The capital was filled with secessionists everywhere at a time when there were few troops there. Major David Hunter (then on Gen. Scott’s staff) called upon Gen. Lane at the Williard Hotel, informing him of the serious apprehensions of an attempt to seize President Abraham Lincoln and overturn the government. The “Frontier Guard,” composed of Greer and 179 other men from Kansas and other states, marched from Williard’s Hotel to the East Room of the White House. In a few minutes case after case of Enfield rifles with sword bayonet, ammunition, etc., were placed in the blue, red, and green rooms, and the work of arming commenced.
Hon. D. H. Bailey, late consul-general to China, a member of the “Frontier Guard,” told the Troy Chief in late November 1882 about the activities of the “Guard” during the time they protected the President. Bailey recalled that Senator Pomeroy, who was large of girth, had trouble in getting a belt long enough to wear; the men stacked their arms in the east room and then laid down with their heads to the wall, touching elbows. Mr. Bailey was a sentinel at the north door of the east room. At about 1:00 a.m., he heard a rap on the door, which then opened. President Lincoln and Simon Cameron, the Secretary of War, walked in. Silence reigned! Not a word was spoken. He observed that President Lincoln was wrapped in his own thoughts and saw a sad, weary look pass across his face. The spell was broken by Gen. Lane coming forward. A short conversation was held by these three men, and the president and secretary withdrew. The next morning the company retired from the White House; marching again in the afternoon to the east room, where the president made a short, felicitous address, and the company was formally recognized as being in military service for a temporary emergency.
On May 3, 1861, the “Guard” filed into the east room for the last time. Gen. Lane in a short speech told them that the crisis was over with the arrival of large bodies of troops in Washington and requested that the men be discharged. Mr. Lincoln thanked the company for its exceptional services in rallying to his support in an hour of great peril. The men were soon discharged. Sam Greer became a recruiting officer of Company I, 15th Vol. Cav., at Ft. Leavenworth. He was elected as Captain and commissioned by Governor Carney. He served until mustered out in October 1865. In January 1871 the Greer family moved to Winfield.

In October 1872 Captain S. W. Greer became the Winfield agent for the Gothic School Desks made by the Western Publishing and School Furnishing Company, St. Louis. His store was located on east Main Street, one door south of Capt. Davis’ Livery Stable. He later had a co-partner, W. M. Boyer, until Feb. 1, 1873, when the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent and Greer took on a new partner, A. B. Close, of Independence. Greer and Close, located on east Main Street, one door south of Capt. Davis’ Livery Stable, handled text books approved by the State Supt. of Public Instruction, household and school furniture, charts, globes, maps, books, and stationery as well as coffins and undertaking. They later moved one door north of their old stand. By December 1873 Greer & Close were no longer in business.
On May 1, 1880, Ed. P. Greer, local and business editor of the Winfield Courier, became a member of the Courier Co., holding a third interest.
On May 17, 1880, W. P. Campbell, Judge of the 13th Judicial District, issued an attachment for contempt of court against W. M. Allison, of the Telegram, and D. A. Millington and Ed. P. Greer, of the Courier. A fine of $200 each was assessed against Messrs. Allison and Millington and $1 against Mr. Greer, parties to stand committed until paid. A stay of execution, without bond, for ten days was granted to allow the defendants to make a case for the Supreme Court. The alleged contempt was the publication of certain articles relating to a criminal case concerning a Winfield lawyer, Chas. H. Payson, tried during the past week, by E. S. Torrance, Cowley County Attorney, who had decided to run against Judge Campbell in the upcoming election. Judge Campbell began to try the case himself by questioning a witness in an offensive manner in an attempt to show that Torrance was inadequate. Slowly Judge Campbell began to realize that he had created a “fire storm” against him as Kansas newspapers began to judge events leading up to the contempt charges against the Winfield editors. On June 24, 1880, the Winfield Courier made the announcement that Judge Campbell was no longer a candidate for re-election to the office of Judge of the 13th judicial district. (Torrance was easily elected to this position.)
On September 23, 1880, the Winfield Courier announced that the Supreme Court had reversed the decision of Judge Campbell and the Winfield editors were discharged.
In May 1882 Mr. Millington was employed by Mr. Edwards, the atlas man of Wichita, to write a County history for the forthcoming atlas of Cowley County. In that same month D. A. Millington, considered the first engineer and surveyor in Winfield, was appointed by Mayor M. G. Troup as City Engineer for the ensuing year. He was again appointed to this position in May1883 by Dr. George Emerson, Mayor of Winfield.
D. A. Millington’s sister, Mrs. Elvira M. Buell, wife of S. W. Buell of Winfield, aged 61, died in Winfield on Wednesday morning, June 21, 1882. Mr. Millington commented.
“The subject of this notice was born in Hubbardton, Vermont, Dec. 26, 1820. She was a very bright scholar and received an excellent education in the schools of her native town and in the Brandon Seminary. In 1841 she married Ira Manley of Hubbardton, by whom her only child, Annette J., now Mrs. A. J. Lundy, of this city, was born. After the death of Mr. Manley she married in 1885 Rev. W. E. Reiley of Galesburg, Illinois, and some years subsequent to his death she married in 1864 Mr. Buell at Fairbury, Illinois. She lived in Vermont, Illinois, Iowa, and came to this place in 1875.

“Up to the age of 40 she was a very vigorous woman both physically and mentally, and her ambition to accomplish much for herself, her family, her friends, and the world led her to make such strenuous and persistent exertions that she overtaxed her powers, and in 1861 was stricken down with paralysis from which she only partially recovered after trying every remedy at whatever expense for the next 12 years. In 1872 she was again prostrated with paralysis, since which time for 9 years she has never been able to support her weight and has endured untold suffering and pain and years of almost helplessness. One cannot realize this terrible disaster to one of her self-reliant, hopeful, imperious nature, which at one fell blow cut off all her hopes and ambitions of life, her helpfulness and joys, and consigned her to long years of racking pains and dependence. But even then she did what she could.
“She was a noble woman, of generous impulses, high mental attainments, and intense aspirations, and few could have lived and suffered so much with so much fortitude and even cheerfulness. But she is gone and her sorrows are ended at last. Let us hope that in the world to which she is gone, her high aspirations may be realized without suffering and pain.
“In this connection it is but just to Mr. Buell to say that through all these long years he has been true as steel, sacrificing the best years of his life, impairing his health and strength, in watchful and laborious care, day and night, in sickness and health, to make her life less cheerless and more comfortable. His many and almost thankless trials have been bravely borne, and he is entitled to the respect of all who appreciate noble self-sacrifice.”
D. A. Millington and Mart L. Robinson confronted each other over the following issue: Prohibition or Liquor!
Daniel A. Millington was for prohibition and wrote many editorials espousing sobriety. Mart L. Robinson, cashier, Read’s Bank, was for re-opening the liquor stores in Winfield.
A petition, signed by Winfield citizens, was made on January 23, 1883, and delivered to Senator W. P. Hackney at Topeka soon afterwards.
“Inasmuch as the Prohibition Amendment, as enforced, has always resulted in injury to the material development of our town—it having signally failed to accomplish the object sought, the suppression of the sale and use of intoxicating drinks—we would respectfully urge upon you the necessity of so providing for the enforcement of the law that its application shall be uniform throughout the State. If this is impossible, don’t sacrifice our town on the altar of inordinate devotion to an impracticable principle.”
In the February 8, 1883, issue of the Winfield Courier, the petition was discussed.
Another Crank. When the COURIER of last week came out with the petition to Senator Hackney, his answer and our remarks, some few of our anti-prohibition friends were red hot, particularly those few who were specially hit. Our friend, Robinson, was the hottest of them, and after the call of the meeting for the following Monday evening of all citizens, irrespective of their opinions on the prohibition question, to consider the petition to Hackney, he spent about four days on the street, trying to infuse his anger into other citizens, particularly to show those who signed the petition and were not hit that they were hit; and in organizing a crowd to attend the meeting and defeat prohibition resolutions. A plan was adopted and was carried out in the meeting of Monday as far as the noise and howling was concerned.
On last Monday evening, at an early hour, the Opera House was packed full of people. Every seat and every foot of standing room was filled. There were not less than eight hundred, and possibly one thousand, present.
Judge Tipton, not one of the callers of the meeting, pushed himself into the position of temporary chairman, and nominated Rev. J. E. Platter as Chairman, who was elected. Mr. Platter refused to be silenced in that way, and nominated Hon. T. R. Bryan for Chairman, who was elected and took the chair.

Millington offered a resolution to the effect that this meeting is utterly opposed to the establishment of saloons in this city, and moved its adoption, which was seconded by numberless voices all through the hall.
Robinson jumped up and made a long, loud, and excited speech to show that the resolution was unfair and unjust.
Tipton moved to lay the resolution on the table. A vote was called on Tipton’s motion, and the saloon element set up a tremendous howl of ayes, repeated by comparatively few voices. The nays were general throughout the house. The Chairman could not decided, and a rising vote was taken. About 150 rose to lay on the table, and nearly the whole congregation rose on the vote against the motion. The prolonged howling prevented the Chairman from deciding the motion, and Millington withdrew his resolution temporarily.
Robinson then got the floor and read in a loud tone, very slowly and excitedly, a long speech abusive of Senator Hackney, and stating, substantially, that he drew the petition to Senator Hackney, and knew what it meant; that it simply meant that the prohibition law was not as well enforced in other cities as in Winfield, and that somehow this operated against Winfield; that he was enthusiastically in favor of the “glorious prohibition amendment and law,” and the petition was to urge Senator Hackney to procure the passage of a law that would strictly enforce prohibition everywhere in the State; and that the closing clause, “If this is impossible, don’t sacrifice our town on the altar of inordinate devotion to an impracticable principle, did not mean anything at all, but was only some big words which he had on hand, left over, which he threw in merely to round off the paragraph.
During this tirade of three-quarters of an hour the audience sat quietly and heard him out, except that Mr. B. F. Wood raised the point of order that abuse of Hackney was foreign to the object of the meeting as stated in the call. The Chair ruled the point well taken, but the orator was permitted to proceed.
When he yielded the floor, Millington remarked that, as the originator of the petition meant only prohibition in its strictest sense, there seemed to be no controversy, and he there-fore offered the following resolutions as the sense of the meeting, and moved their adoption after debate, which motion was seconded by hundreds of voices.
We, citizens of Winfield and vicinity, in mass meeting assembled, to express ourselves in relation to the matter of the late petition to Senator Hackney, do hereby declare;
First—That we are utterly opposed to the establishment of saloons in Winfield, or in this county.
Second—That we are opposed to the re-submission of the prohibitory amendment.
Third—That we are earnestly in favor of such legislation as will make the prohibitory law more effective.
Fourth—That we heartily endorse and will stand by Senator W. P. Hackney in his efforts to make the prohibitory law more effective, and honor him for his fearless and manly course on this question.
Fifth—That we request our Senator and Representatives to continue their efforts to strengthen this law and to guard against unfavorable legislation.
Sixth—That the prohibition law has been much better enforced in this city and county than any former law in relation to the sale of intoxicating drinks.

Seventh—That, through the operation of the prohibitory law, drunkenness and the sale and use of intoxicating drinks have very largely decreased in our midst; that our city has become largely more orderly and moral than before it went into operation, and that all legitimate business is more prosperous and flourishing than it could have been in the presence of saloons.
Eighth—That it is our honest conviction that the temperance movement in Kansas has been a blessing to thousands of our citizens.
Rev. J. E. Platter then made a short, concise, and practical speech showing the obvious meaning of the petition as interpreted by almost everybody and expressing his strong and earnest dissent from its evident objects.
Mayor Troup then got the floor and spoke loudly and slowly for about an hour and a quarter with the evident intention of worrying out the temperance people in the congregation and making them leave the hall, but they quietly heard him out. He took an entirely different view of the meaning of the petition from that of the originator. He signed that petition because it meant to him that the prohibitory law is an utter and absolute failure; that the amendment ought to be repealed; that it urged Hackney to vote for the re-submission of the amendment, and for revenue purposes, saloons ought to be re-established in Winfield. He knew that prohibition in Winfield was an utter failure; for there were two of the dirtiest saloons here, where the stench of liquor offended the nostrils of the noble mayor (who is also assistant county attorney and don’t prosecute) and that three awful saloons are known as Express offices, and are bringing in intoxicating drinks by railroad every day.
Mr. T. H. Soward was called out and took the floor. Troup tried to choke him off by interruption and the audience tried to yell Troup down. Soward in a gentlemanly manner got through with his remarks in a few minutes.
Judge Tipton took the floor for the purpose, evidently, of worrying out the temperance people, for he had absolutely nothing to say but rambled on for fifteen minutes with the most wishy-washy and senseless jargon we had ever heard from the lips of a sane man.
Another old crank got up with a nose about three by six and as red as a beet, and howled about Hackney.
It was evident from the first that three-fourths of the audience at least, were in favor of passing the resolutions offered by Millington, and the scheme of Robinson was to prevent a vote being taken on them by howling. This was kept up until the chairman got so disgusted that he pronounced the meeting adjourned, and the crowd began to move toward the door and go out.
Robinson sprang upon a chair and called the meeting to order. Millington sprang upon another chair and called out, swinging a paper in his hand. The audience halted a few moments in quiet, and Millington said in a loud voice: “The question in order before the house is on the passage of the series of resolutions presented by me. All in favor of the passage of these resolutions will say Aye—meeting with a general response of ‘Aye’ by nearly the whole crowd.” Millington then said, “Those opposed will say ‘No.’” A few feeble responses were heard and Millington proclaimed that the resolutions were carried by an overwhelming majority. The crowd then continued to pass out amidst such a noise that nothing could be heard.

Robinson sprang upon the stage and swung his arm, yelling something at the top of his voice about coming to order, but he could not be heard and the audience continued to pour out.
The writer remained until nearly all the audience had passed out and the lights were turned down. Nothing more was done and he left.
This meeting demonstrates that the people of this city are overwhelmingly in favor of all the above resolutions, and particularly enthusiastic in their endorsement of Senator Hackney.
In November 1884 Ed. P. Greer won the election for Representative of the 66th District. He departed for Topeka in January 1885 to take up his duties in the State Legislature. For some time D. A. Millington did most of the work on the Winfield Courier. On April 7, 1885, the Winfield Daily Courier, a six-column paper, full of local and foreign news, was started by the Courier Company: D. A. Millington, editor, and Frank H. Greer, local editor. It soon became apparent that Mr. Millington favored state, national, and international news. His keenest interest was in the railroads and their governing agencies.
Mr. Millington took great joy in telling about a new stove that his wife and others had acquired in the April 23, 1885, issue of the Winfield Courier. He forgot to mention that he was connected in an official capacity with the Winfield Gas Company.
“There are at least four happy women in Winfield: Mrs. Dr. Emerson, Mrs. J. C. Fuller, Mrs. Col. Whiting, and Mrs. Millington. The latter we know most about. She makes a fire to cook a meal of victuals with as little work and trouble as it takes to light a gas light, much less than it takes to light a lamp. She changes her cook stove fire to little or much by a mere turn of the wrist, cooks everything nicely and as quickly as is desirable, with no trouble and little work, bakes, boils, broils, fries, stews, and fricassees with equal facility, does not have to handle wood, kindlings, coal, coal oil, or gasoline; but her fire is always ready and always goes out instantly with a slight turn, when she is through with it. She has no fear of explosions or conflagrations, but is perfectly secure, and cooks with half the work required for wood stoves, coal stoves, oil stoves, or gasoline stoves. Besides her fuel is as cheap as any other and no bother to get.
“She has a gas cooking stove and her fuel is supplied by the gas company. We believe the other ladies mentioned are equally happy in the same way. Several other ladies of this city are going to join the procession to unalloyed domestic bliss.
“Since our wife got her gas stove, four days ago, she has not scolded a single scold, nor asked us for a single dollar. She has found no fault with our clothes or our doings, and she even smiles when we come late to dinner. Who would not have a gas cooking stove?”
After the election of Grover Cleveland, Democrat, as President, D. A. Millington, a Republican, realized that his position as Winfield postmaster would soon be changed. In July 1885 he resigned voluntarily with a message carried by Attorney J. Wade McDonald to Washington seeking the appointment of George C. Rembaugh, a Democrat, as Postmaster.
In August 1885 Millington resigned his position as the city engineer of Winfield.
The wedding of Jessie, the last remaining Millington daughter, prompted a large article in the Thursday, October 15, 1885, issue of the Winfield Courier.

Thursday night was the occasion of one of the most brilliant weddings in the history of the city, that of Mr. Ezra H. Nixon and Miss Jessie Millington, which took place at the pleasant, commodious home of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. D. A. Millington. The wide acquaintance and popularity of the contracting parties, with the fact that the bride was the last child of a happy home, made the marriage anticipated with warm interest. The parents had planned a celebration fitting to the departure in marriage of the last and youngest member of their household—the one who was the greatest pride and joy to their ripened years.
Thirteen children and grandchildren were present, including Mr. and Mrs. A. B. Lemmon, of Newton, with their children, Masters Bertie Flint, Allen B., Jr., and Fred and little Miss Mary; Mr. and Mrs. J. Ex Saint, of Acoma Grant, New Mexico, with their little daughters, Irene and Louise; Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Wilson, of this city, and Master Roy. Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Millington, of McCune, Kansas, were also among the relatives present.
At an early hour the large double parlors, sitting room, and hall were filled almost to overflowing by friends.
At 8:30 the chatter of merry voices was ceased for a few moments and the bridal pair appeared, amid the sweet strains of Mendelssohn’s wedding march, by Miss Nettie R. McCoy. The bride was on the arm of her father and the groom accompanied by the bride’s mother. The bride looked beautiful in an exquisite costume of white Egyptian lace, with white satin slips. The groom was tastefully attired in conventional black. The ceremony, pronounced by Rev. H. D. Gans, was beautiful and impressive. The heartiest congratulations ensued and gaiety unrestrained again took possession of all. At the proper hour a banquet of choice delicacies was served and hugely enjoyed. The banquet over, an hour was spent in jovial converse, when the happy participants in a wedding most auspicious departed with renewed congratulations and wishes for a long, happy, and prosperous life for the bridal pair.
The voyage of Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Nixon certainly starts with a bright sky. The bride has grown to womanhood in Winfield, taking on, with a sweet disposition and ever active ambition, those accomplishments which most lastingly adorn. She will be greatly missed in the social circle in which she has taken such an active part for years, and especially will she be missed from the home of which she has been the principal life and light. Mr. Nixon is well known in this city, being one of its oldest residents and possessed of many sterling qualities. The happy pair leave in a few days for Medicine Lodge, where the groom is established in business, and where they will reside. The bridal tokens were numerous, valuable, and handsome—the admiration of all who saw the array last night.
D. A. Millington died May 6, 1891, of heart failure at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. W. P. Hackney, Winfield, Kansas. He was survived by his wife, Mary, of the home, and his four daughters: Mrs. A. B. (Clara) Lemmon, of Santa Rosa, California; Mrs. J. E. (Ada) Saint, of Albuquerque, New Mexico; Mrs. W. J. (Kate) Wilson, of Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Mrs. Ezra (Jessie) Nixon, of Medicine Lodge, Kansas.
Allen B. Lemmon, aged 71, died at his home in Santa Rosa, California, on May 11, 1919, where he had been an invalid for the past four years. The Lemmon family moved from Newton, Kansas, where Lemmon was proprietor of the Newton Republican, to Santa Rosa, where he held many positions of great responsibility and up until the failure of his health was a power in the affairs of the state. He was survived by his widow, Clara, and four children.

W. J. Wilson, of Hammond, New York, located in Winfield in March 1878, where he became a clerk in E. P. Kinne’s office. By August 1878 he had become a clerk in the Citizens’ Bank. In February 1879 Wilson became acquainted with Kate Millington when they were members of the Winfield Amateur Dramatic Association and participated in a play, “The Streets of New York,” depicting the sufferings of the poor.
In May 1879 Deputy Treasurer W. J. Wilson ran the finances of Cowley County during the absence of Cowley County Treasurer T. R. Bryan. Wilson became treasurer of the Winfield Dramatic Club, organized in September 1882. In January 1883 Wilson became a stockholder of the Winfield Bank. He was elected as Secretary of the board of directors and held this job for several years.
Wilson and Kate Millington became members of the Ivanhoe Club in February 1883.
Wilson served as Deputy Treasurer under James B. Harden. In 1883 he made strides in that department: In March he purchased $2,000 worth of the old Winfield Township bonds, at a saving of about $50 and the fiscal agency fees. He then effected the purchase of $7,000 of the bonds issued in aid of the Santa Fe road at $1.02. This drained the county treasury of all its surplus cash and retired that much of the interest bearing debt. By May he completed a new index of tax sales in Winfield, assisting those in examining titles to town lots. By October he had completed a chart setting forth all the tax collections and disbursements, including delinquent taxes.
On Thursday evening, November 22, 1883, Willard J. Wilson and Miss Kate Millington were married at the residence of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. D. A. Millington, by the Rev. H. D. Gans. The wedding was a quiet one and as Will had given his friends no “official notification” of his serious intentions, their surprise on the day following was complete.
Mrs. D. A. Millington and Mrs. Kate Wilson became directors of the Ladies Library Association in July 1884. In October 1884 Will J. Wilson retired as Deputy County Treasurer. He was elected Journal Clerk of the Kansas Senate in January 1885. In April 1885 he became a loan and insurance agent in an office over the post office. In July 1885 Mr. and Mrs. Wilson became the parents of a boy and Wilson was made chairman of the County Republican Central Committee. In December 1885 Will Wilson and J. C. Fuller moved into their elegant new office in the Winfield Bank addition.
At the time of Mr. Millington’s death, Mrs. W. J. Wilson was making arrangements to join her husband, who occupied a position in a bank at Albuquerque, New Mexico.
J. E. Saint (often referred to as J. Ex. Saint) departed from his home in Illinois for Winfield in 1873. Saint and Ada Millington were the attendants at the wedding of A. B. Lemmon and D. A. Millington’s oldest child, Clara M. Flint, on November 24, 1875. Saint was a salesman for the C. A. Bliss store. In June 1876 Saint was given the position of miller-in-chief at the Bliss flour mill, known as the “Winfield City Mills.” In August 1876 Miss Emma Saint, sister of J. E., moved to Winfield and after attending the Normal Institute, became the Second Grade teacher in the Winfield schools, handling 65 students. On October 4, 1876, Mr. J. Ex. Saint and Miss Ada Millington were married at the residence of D. A. Millington by Rev. J. E. Platter. Their first child, Jessie Saint, was born in September 1877. They moved into their new residence in 1878.
Saint’s sister, Emma, married John Moffitt, owner of a lumber yard in Winfield, on April 1, 1879, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Saint. Rev. J. E. Platter officiated. This was the second marriage for John Moffitt, who lost his wife Lydia, daughter of Mr. S. S. Holloway.

A second child, Irene Saint, was born in June 1879 to Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Saint. In late November 1879 Saint journeyed to New Mexico, as a salesman for Harter & Horning. He sold over 18 car loads of flour and had to refuse orders for 20 more as the mill could not furnish that amount. Saint continued his work as a salesman. In February 1880 he joined his father-in-law at Trinidad, Colorado, and went with him on an editorial excursion to Las Vegas and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Saint returned to Winfield in March 1880. For a time he became a temporary reporter for the Winfield Courier. In June 1880 he became a salesman for Ridenour, Baker & Co., of Kansas City, in Colorado and New Mexico.
In July 1880 Mrs. Ada Saint, her sister, Kate Millington, and the two Saint girls left for Las Vegas, stopping at Trinidad, Colorado, where J. E. Saint joined them. Mrs. Saint later wrote about their experience in reaching New Mexico. Due to a washout, the train was stopped and backed up to Raton, New Mexico, remaining there until repairs were made on the twenty-mile gap in the railroad. The train went to Tipton, a board with the name on it and a telegraph box. The train went back to Raton, where the family put up at a hotel. Next day the train went to Tipton again, where orders to stop were received. The train then backed up to Wagon Mound, where the family  found there was no supper prepared. The train moved forward about one mile when it came to a bridge over a creek bed, perfectly dry when crossed less than an hour before, but which turned into a river that submerged the bridge and track. An hour later the water subsided and the train moved over the bridge safely. Tipton was reached again, where the train stopped overnight. After receiving a report that a washout had taken place a mile or two back during a heavy rain, the engineer went back with his engine to examine the track. He encountered another washout and was trapped between his engine and train. The track was finally repaired and the train returned to Wagon Mound. The family devoured every edible they could find during the next two days. The train, consisting of two common cars and two sleepers, was ordered back to Springer. Mrs. Saint commented: “Nearly all the men on the two common cars and some on the sleepers were out in town and got on a big drunk and came noisily back to the train toward morning. Monday night the town was out of beer, but there was a freight car on the track loaded with kegs of beer. The crowd selected a number of men who pretended to be tramps and broke into the beer car; and then there was another big drunk. There were two or three who belonged to our sleeper. The conductor refused to let them come into the car in that condition; but they drew their pistols and secured their entrance. They made an awful racket and I was nearly scared to death.”
On the next evening the train was ordered forward to Moro Canon, where the passengers were transferred. Mrs. Saint related: “We arrived at the canon about dark and had to walk a quarter of a mile and cross the river on a foot bridge. The walking was good. Ex carried Irene over and the porter carried Jessie. It took a long time to get the baggage all transferred, as it had to be carried by men across the foot bridge; but at last it was over, and we arrived here at Las Vegas at two o’clock in the night. Here the train not being expected, all was quiet and we started to walk to the nearest hotel; but meeting a carriage, we took possession, went to the old town, and put up at the Summer House. On the whole I have enjoyed all this very much. The railroad employees have been very kind and helpful.”

In late September 1880 J. E. Saint sent a basket of grapes from Socorro; his wife and children arrived in Winfield a week later. Mr. Saint was expected to arrive in time to vote. By mid November 1880 J. E. Saint was hard at work traveling. He returned to Winfield in January 1881 shortly before the birth of a third girl, Louise, having sold 625,000 lbs. of Kansas flour and a proportionate amount of mixed groceries. He soon departed for Raton, New Mexico. Mrs. Ada Saint was frightened when a fire occurred at her residence in April 1881 after a servant threw out ashes too close to the house. Her brother-in-law, John Moffitt, assisted by three men passing by, extinguished the flames. In late June 1881 the Saint family moved to Las Vegas, New Mexico, accompanied by Kate Millington. They returned in December 1881 to spend Christmas with the “old folks.” Saint resigned his position with Ridenour, Baker & Co., of Kansas City, and enjoyed the holidays. In January 1882 Saint was rehired, receiving $3,000 and his expenses for another year, and soon departed for Las Vegas. His family followed in February 1882. A telegram summoned Mrs. Millington to the Saint residence in late April when Jessie Saint became ill; Mrs. Millington arrived one day before Jessie died. Mrs. Saint, with Irene and Louise, returned with her mother to Winfield in May 1882, remaining there for some time.
In May 1883 Ed. P. Greer joined with W. M. Allison, editor of the Wellingtonian, and other Kansas editors in making a train excursion while D. A. Millington handled the Winfield Courier. On the return trip he visited J. E. Saint at Albuquerque, New Mexico, noting that Saint’s mercantile business of $200,000 a year was fast outrunning all his competitors. Greer commented: “It was a good deal like getting home when the train rolled into the depot and found a hundred carriages manned by two hundred Kansas fellows waiting to meet the excursionists. Everyone had friends there and in a few minutes were whirled away, leaving the Pullman coaches deserted, for the first time during the trip. We had hardly touched the platform before we were seized by Ex-Saint, taken to a carriage, and, together with W. M. Allison and wife, conveyed to his residence, where a splendid dinner was awaiting us. After eight days out, part of the time subsisting on the Mexican diet of red pepper and olive oil, it was like dropping into paradise as we feasted on strawberries and cream and all the delicacies provided. And last, but not least, were bright little golden haired Irene and Louise, the former questioning sorrowfully, “Why didn’t ’ou bwing my gwanpa?” Our short stay with Mr. and Mrs. Saint was one of the pleasantest events of the trip. After dinner we were conducted through the wholesale and retail establishment of J. E. Saint & Co. It is a big institution and the firm does business on a scale that would lay most of our brag Kansas stores way in the shade. In the hour we were there, the senior member of the firm purchased two car loads of goods from a St. Louis drummer, loaded a lot of truck for shipment to Arizona, took in two car loads of potatoes, and had ten men buying and selling when we left. It takes life, energy, and business ability to keep at the head of the procession in Albuquerque, and Ex seems to have a surplus of all.” Allison stated: “Mr. Saint is engaged in the wholesale grocery business and has a large thriving trade. They carry a large stock and cash every pound of their goods every twenty days. They have been engaged in the business only some nine months and yet their sales had amounted to something like $180,000.”
On April 17, 1884, the Winfield Courier printed an item taken from the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Journal, April 10, 1884, about J. E. Saint and his junior partner, Cleland.

“One of the most important land transactions, which has ever taken place in the Territory, was concluded yesterday, by which Messrs. Saint & Cleland, of this city, became the lessees of the entire Acoma Indian reservation or grant. This reservation is some eighty miles west of Albuquerque on the line of the Atlantic & Pacific railroad and consists of somewhat over 95,700 acres of as fine grazing land as there is west of the Rockies, watered by the San Jose River and several small lakes. The terms of the lease secured to them the sole right and possession to these lands for a term of thirty years. The lands on either side of the grant being very poorly watered, the leasing of the grant practically secures to them the grazing lands for miles around, which will equal as many acres as the grant proper. The lease also secures to them the sole right to work a three-foot vein of coal on the grant, while being so much nearer the city than any other coal field, will, of itself, be worth thousands of dollars to them. In the transaction, in addition to becoming the lessees of this grant, they secure a full title to eight hundred acres of fine land adjoining the grant, through which the San Jose River also runs.
“This is certainly the biggest transaction, so far as the amount and value of the land is concerned, that has taken place in New Mexico for many a month. The gentlemen who have become the fortunate possessors of this property, have not as yet fully decided on the course that will be pursued regarding it, but they are both live, wide-awake businessmen, and our readers will hear from them later.
“The Journal congratulates Messrs. Saint & Cleland on their good luck in securing these lands. A thirty-years’ lease is almost as good as owning the lands, and if this lease does not make the gentlemen a princely fortune, it will be their own fault.”
In December 1884 J. E. Saint visited Winfield after attending a cattle convention at St. Louis. The Winfield Courier editor commented that Saint was now one of the “cattle kings” of New Mexico, being one of the company controlling by lease a large Indian reservation there, stocked with thousands of head of cattle. “His cattle business, together with the wholesale grocery house in Albuquerque, which he controls, pretty fully occupies his time. While east he negotiated for a sale of his business interests in Albuquerque, however, intending hereafter to devote his exclusive attention to cattle.”
On February 4, 1886, the Winfield Courier had an item. “Joe Ex Saint, whom Winfield men well know, writes from his ranch on the Acoma Land Grant in New Mexico that he has not lost an animal out of the 10,000 head of cattle under his charge this winter.”
Ezra H. Nixon was a younger brother of Jacob Nixon. Jacob Nixon was an early resident of Vernon township. In September 1882 he began receiving a pension of $4.00 each month for a wound he had received on the left side of his head during an engagement at Prairie Grove on December 7, 1862. Jacob Nixon enlisted as a private in Co. I, 19th Iowa Infantry, Aug. 6, 1862, in which regiment he went through the campaign of that year in Arkansas, was promoted sergeant for brave conduct, before he was seriously wounded and honorably discharged. He entered immediately into the service of his State (Iowa), where he served with rank of First Lieutenant and was promoted to the rank of Captain for efficient service in disciplining troops for the field. A Republican, Jacob Nixon was elected Cowley County Register of Deeds in September 1879, taking office in January 1880. Ezra H. Nixon moved to Winfield and became deputy county register, living at first with his brother’s family. During the time that he was the Register of Deeds, Jacob Nixon invented a corn husker, wagon jack, an improvement on sulky plows, and a steam powered traction engine. He refused to sell his patents.

Jessie Millington became a bookkeeper and assistant local editor on the Winfield Courier in January 1882. It was noted in the Courier that both she and Ezra H. Nixon were guests of Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Fuller at a costume party on Friday evening, April 14, 1882, consisting of dancing and other amusements, the guests being served cake, ice cream, etc., at 11:00 p.m.
Jacob Nixon lost the nomination to T. H. Soward for the office of Register of Deeds on September 1, 1883, and moved back to Vernon township, keeping active in the Old Soldiers organization, the Cowley County Horticultural Society, etc.
Ezra H. Nixon went to Kansas City on November 1, 1883, to become the bookkeeper for Jarvis, Conklin & Co. By February 1884 he assisted Kellogg & Matlack of Arkansas City in updating an old set of abstract books purchased from Col. McMullen. (In 1884 the only complete abstract in Cowley County was owned by Curns & Manser.) H. G. Fuller & Co. purchased the abstract book prepared by E. H. Nixon in April 1884. Mr. Nixon then made a new set of abstract books of town lots, completing it in late May 1884. In August 1884 Mr. Nixon advertised his abstract office, located upstairs in the Winfield Bank Building. In March 1885 Ezra H. Nixon and Lou D. Zenor of Winfield entered into the real estate and loan business at Medicine Lodge, Barber County, Kansas.
Ezra H. Nixon and Miss Jessie Millington were married in October 1885 at the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. D. A. Millington. Thirteen children and grandchildren were present, including Mr. and Mrs. A. B. Lemmon, of Newton, with their children, Masters Bertie Flint, Allen B., Jr., and Fred and little Miss Mary; Mr. and Mrs. J. Ex Saint, of Acoma Grant, New Mexico, with their little daughters, Irene and Louise; Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Wilson, of Winfield, and their son, Roy.
The Winfield Courier covered the wedding. “At an early hour the large double parlors, sitting room, and hall were filled almost to overflowing with friends. At 8:30 the chatter of merry voices was ceased for a few moments and the bridal pair appeared, amid the sweet strains of Mendelssohn’s wedding march, by Miss Nettie R. McCoy. The bride was on the arm of her father and the groom accompanied by the bride’s mother. The bride looked beautiful in an exquisite costume of white Egyptian lace, with white satin slips. The groom was tastefully attired in conventional black. The ceremony, pronounced by Rev. H. D. Gans, was beautiful and impressive. The bridal tokens were numerous, valuable, and handsome—the admiration of all who saw the array.”
E. H. Nixon became a candidate for Register of Deeds in Barber County in September 1885.
James C. Fuller, a native of Orleans County, New York, was born in 1835. He was educated at a seminary in Lima, New York, and taught school for three years. In 1855 he went to Iowa and then Chicago; in 1856 he moved to Nebraska. In 1859 he started for Pike’s Peak but instead went to California for six months and then lived in Houston, Texas. Instead of joining the Confederate Army, he went to Baltimore, Maryland, where he engaged in lithograph publishing for four years before going to Fort Scott, Kansas. He married Nannie C. Harrison in August 1873 at Hannibal, Missouri. They had one son, James H. Fuller. Fuller became president of the town company in December 1870. Fuller and Millington built the first bank building in Winfield. The “Winfield Bank, of J. C. Fuller,” a frame structure, was located on Main Street and the southwest corner of Ninth Avenue.

J. Jay Buck, of Emporia, a prominent lawyer at Emporia, Kansas, joined with J. C. McMullen, E. W. Cunningham, and others in becoming a proprietor of “Sumner” in 1870.
Mr. Buck was a close friend of Col. John C. McMullen. Both served with the Wisconsin infantry during the Civil War and both participated at the battle of Jonesboro, where McMullen was wounded. Mr. Buck served as judge-advocate under Gen. L. H. Rousseau, to whom he gave valuable service as an attorney, having had charge of thirteen courts-martial and five military commissions. At the close of the war both McMullen and Buck located in Clarksville, Tennessee. Buck bought property, published a Republican newspaper, and practiced law during the time McMullen was working for the Treasury Department of Tennessee. In April 1870 Buck moved to Emporia, Kansas, where he was admitted to practice as a lawyer on July 1, 1870.
E. W. Cunningham, of Emporia, Kansas, was elected Police Judge at the first election held there in April 1870. He became a law partner of J. J. Buck after Buck passed the bar in July 1870. The law firm of Buck and Cunningham was dissolved in February 1871. Soon afterwards Cunningham became a partner with E. E. Rowland in a local newspaper, the Emporia Tribune.
Col. John Cornelius McMullen, of Clarksville, Tennessee, remained at “Sumner” after Millington and Fuller left. The February 17, 1871, issue of the Emporia News had the following item: “Col. J. C. McMullen, an attorney at law of Clarksville, Tennessee, and Judge Cunningham intended to start Saturday morning on a tour through Sumner County, the promised land in which some of their possessions lie, but when the stage-driver called for them they concluded they would not start that day—there being twelve passengers inside of the vehicle and three on the outside. We understand that Col. McMullen is making arrangements to locate in Kansas, and we hope he will.”
John Cornelius McMullen was born in the family home March 15 or March 17, 1835, located in Wilmington, Delaware, near the New Jersey border. He was educated at Lawrence University from 1853 to 1860, receiving a degree. He enlisted September 16, 1861, at the age of 26, for three years as a Private in Company H, First Wisconsin Infantry, from Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin. He became a Second Lieutenant October 8, 1861; First Lieutenant March 20, 1862; a Captain October 27, 1863; was wounded at Jonesboro, Georgia, and mustered out of service at Camp Washburn, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 14, 1864. His regiment was involved in numerous engagements in Middle Kentucky and Tennessee and Northern Georgia, including the Atlanta Campaign of 1864 under Gen. Sherman. J. C. McMullen was soon after employed by the Government in the Treasury Department of Tennessee, which position he held for seven years. During this time his friendship with J. Jay Buck continued and he became known as “Col. J. C. McMullen.”
McMullen and Loomis Families. John C. McMullen married Miss Mary E. Loomis, a daughter of Isaac C. Loomis, in 1865. J. C. McMullen’s sister, Mary E McMullen., married Alonzo Loomis, a son of Mr. I. C. Loomis. Alonzo Loomis died, leaving a son, Howard Loomis, who was born in New York.
                                    The Arkansas City Bank of Arkansas City.

By November 1871 different members of the McMullen and Loomis families had settled in Arkansas City, where McMullen started a private bank called “The Arkansas City Bank of Arkansas City.” By 1873 the bank was housed in a cut stone building and Col. McMullen paid $6,000 for an elegant private residence constructed of brick with cut stone trimmings.
McMullen was the President of the Arkansas City Bank. A son of I. C. Loomis, James A. Loomis, was the first Cashier of the bank. Loomis became a dentist in 1866 and kept up his practice while serving as Cashier. He also served as president of the Arkansas City Council, and acted as Mayor at times. In October 1876 J. A. Loomis became a partner in dentistry with Dr. John Alexander, first physician in Arkansas City. Loomis purchased the drug store of Kellogg & Hoyt and started “The People’s Drug Store” in January 1878.
A. W. Berkey was hired by McMullen in 1876 as a clerk and later became Assistant Cashier as J. A. Loomis became much busier with dentistry work. In 1876 the Arkansas City Bank did a general banking business, made collections, loaned money on real estate security—making loans for capitalists a specialty—and featured their Savings Department, which received sums as low as $1.00, upon which they paid seven per cent interest. Directors were J. Jay Buck, L. B. Kellogg, L. C. Norton, Col. J. C. McMullen, and James A. Loomis.
Directors of The Arkansas City Bank of Arkansas City.
J. Jay Buck, of Emporia, an old friend of Col. McMullen, who joined him in participating as a proprietor of “Sumner” in 1870.
Prof. L. B. Kellogg, Principal of the Emporia Normal School before coming to Arkansas City, became proprietor and editor of the Arkansas City Traveler in September 1871, retaining C. M. Scott as local editor. Kellogg retired in October 1872 and began to study and practice law; Scott then became proprietor and editor. In July 1875 L. B. Kellogg formed a partnership with ex-Governor S. J. Crawford at Emporia, retaining his directorship with the Arkansas City bank. In May 1878 Kellogg became a law partner of Hon. J. Jay Buck.
L. C. Norton, a nephew of Prof. Henry Brace Norton, one of the founders of Arkansas City, was another bank director. L. C. Norton had one son and three daughters. He owned property in East Bolton township and the north part of Arkansas City. Norton was involved in raising cattle. He later became a partner of Ira Barnett in securing cattle from the Indian Territory and shipping them by rail to Kansas City. Mr. Norton became an agent for the Stover Windmill in 1884; his wife sold plants from a greenhouse she established in Arkansas City. In 1885 Norton became a partner of N. T. Snyder. In 1885 they purchased a pure bred Jersey bull named “Endorus” from Col. J. C. McMullen, previously owned by Ezra Meech, a prominent Merino sheep raiser from Vermont who settled for a time near Winfield.
Other bank directors were J. C. McMullen, president; and James A. Loomis, cashier.
Ezra P. Kinne - Relationship with McMullen and Loomis Families.
By May 1871 Ezra P. Kinne became a member of a town company in “Belle Plain,” Sumner County. Kinne started a grocery store, 16 by 20 feet. Soon afterwards the town name was changed to “Belle Plaine.” By January 1872 Ezra P. Kinne had moved to Bolton township south of Arkansas City, and became a supervisor on the construction of a bridge crossing the Arkansas River. In July 1872 Kinne, a Republican, became a member of the County Central Committee. In time he became acquainted with H. O. Meigs.

H. O. Meigs, a member of the Tisdale & Meigs stage line in June 1870, first visited Arkansas City and arranged for stock and tri-weekly stages. In July 1870 Meigs constructed a 20 ft. by 32 ft. two-story building with a cellar under it and announced his plans to start a wholesale grocery business. His plans changed when he became a member of the Southern Kansas Stage Company in September 1870. Meigs soon departed from that stage company and completed the erection of the building he had started, turning it into the “City Hotel” in January 1871. He soon became a member of the city council. By April 1874 H. O. Meigs, Mayor of Arkansas City, was compelled to put in another addition to his hotel.
Meigs & Kinne. In 1874 H. O. Meigs and E. P. Kinne, both members of the city council, became partners. They maintained an office in Arkansas City, where they kept abstract books for Cowley County. Their office was also used for meetings by the city council.
In July 1874 Col. J. C. McMullen, E. P. Kinne, I. C. Loomis, Judge William A. Peffer, and several ladies were joined by a “Special Contributor” of the Arkansas City Traveler on a visit to the salt works at “Salt Springs” in Cowley County, where a ton of salt per week was being produced. Judge Timothy McIntire of Arkansas City was the superintendent.
Judge William A. Peffer was an old acquaintance of Col. McMullen, having met him at Clarksville, Tennessee, when Peffer started practicing law.
Peffer was born in Pennsylvania on September 10, 1832, of Dutch parents. He became a teacher until he went to California in 1850 after gold. He returned in 1852 after he had made considerable money. In February 1862 he went to Illinois to get away from guerilla warfare—enlisting as a private in August 1862 in the 83rd Illinois Infantry. He was promoted to second lieutenant in March 1863. During the three years of his service, he was engaged principally in the performance of detached duty as quartermaster, adjutant, and judge-advocate of a military commission and as depot quartermaster in the engineering department at Nashville, Tennessee. He was mustered out on June 26, 1865.
In 1870 Peffer moved to Wilson County, Kansas. Two years later he moved to Fredonia and established the Fredonia Journal, a weekly newspaper, at the same time continuing his law practice. He then established the Coffeyville Journal. In 1874 he was elected to the state senate as a Republican and served one term. He was a delegate to the Republican national convention in 1880, and moved to Topeka, where he assumed control of the Kansas Farmer, which he purchased later. In 1890 he joined the Farmers’ Alliance movement. In 1891 the People’s party elected him to the United States senate, where he served one term.
In October 1891 Peffer spoke for over two hours at Riverside Park, Arkansas City, informing those present that Census Superintendent Foster had stated to him that his record showed that nine millions of homes in the United States were mortgaged and that the real estate mortgages of Kansas, exclusive of lands belonging to railroads, amounted to more than $235,000,000. For making this statement he was branded by republican papers as a falsifier, unworthy of the people he represented. The speaker read from official documents to prove that the eastern states were adding to their assessed valuation in a much greater ratio than other parts of the country—four of the eastern states having increased more in the past ten years than all the rest put together. This was done principally through the medium of interest on their loans.
On September 11, 1874, the Winfield Courier announced that the contract to build a bridge across Dutch Creek was let to E. P. Kinne, Esq., of Arkansas City, for $2,500. The paper stated the following about the bridge: “It is to be what is known as the Fake Truss. The bridge is, we believe, to be completed in sixty days.”

On September 25, 1874, the Winfield Courier had another announcement. “Married. On Tuesday, September 22nd, 1874, at the residence of Col. J. C. McMullen, by Rev. Platter, of Winfield, Mr. E. P. Kinne and Mrs. Helen M. Loomis, both of Arkansas City.”
[Mrs. Helen M. Loomis, sister of J. C. McMullen, was the widow of Alonzo Loomis. Ezra P. Kinne was a widower, having lost his first wife, Elizabeth Harris Kinne.]
In May 1875 Meigs & Kinne erected a new stone steam saw and grist flouring mill at Dexter that had two run of burrs. They commenced work on August 1, 1875. Kinne finished his threshing in early August 1875. One piece of wheat, upon which only 18 bushels of seed was sown, threshed out 520 bushels. In September 1875 Kinne ran for Cowley County Register of Deeds on the Republican ticket. In November 1875 Meigs & Kinne sold their steam saw and grist mill at Dexter to the Carter Brothers of Arkansas City. E. P. Kinne was elected to the office of Register of Deeds in December 1875, making it necessary for him to move with his family to Winfield.
[In March 1876 E. P. Kinne and his brother, M. A. Kinne, a resident of Fulton County, Illinois, visited family members in Arkansas City. M. A. Kinne brought Elizabeth Kinne, daughter of E. P. Kinne and his first wife, who was born in 1861. Elizabeth excelled in the Winfield schools and after attending the Normal Institute in August 1877, became a teacher in Winfield. “Lizzie” Kinne was married to Ed. P. Greer, Local Editor of the Winfield Courier, on Wednesday morning, October 30, 1878, at the residence of her father, E. P. Kinne, in Winfield by Rev. N. L. Rigby.]
On June 28, 1876, the Arkansas City Traveler had the following news item.
“We wish to state to the public that we have thoroughly revised and corrected the set of Abstract Books prepared by Messrs. Meigs & Kinne. We have carefully compared each instru­ment on record in the Recorder’s office twice, each time by a different person, and know our books to be correct.
“We have also prepared, at much cost and labor, a complete list of all lands sold for taxes since the county was organized. Parties procuring abstracts of us get the benefit of this history of tax sales in this county. Our system of Abstracting is as thorough and complete as the system of bookkeeping; mistakes are almost impossible.
“These books are in charge of Mr. A. W. Berkey, who will devote all his time in the future to the Real Estate busi­ness. Any parties having land for sale can leave the same with him, and parties wishing to purchase will do well to give him a call before purchasing elsewhere. J. C. McMULLEN.”
Aristus W. Berkey, often referred to as “Ret,” was a son of William M. Berkey, who settled at Salt City. Margaret Brown, well known as “Grandma Brown,” died at the age of 79 in August 1881 at the residence of her son, W. M. Berkey. She married Henry Berkey in Indiana and they raised a large family. After Henry’s death she married a Mr. Brown.
A. W. Berkey, who had become a teller for the Arkansas City Bank, married Miss Georgie Christian, the eldest daughter of Hon. James Christian, one of the oldest residents of Kansas, on Wednesday evening September 26, 1877.
 She was born at Lawrence, Kansas, on May 21, 1856.

Georgie Christian, born at Lawrence, Kansas, on May 21, 1856, placed an ad in the Arkansas City Traveler on January 26, 1876, after the Christian family moved to Arkansas City. “I take pleasure in announcing to the citizens of Arkansas City and vicinity that I will give instructions on the piano to a limited number of scholars, either boys or girls, at the resi­dence of my parents, one door south of Mr. McMullen’s bank. Terms, $8.00 for 24 lessons for beginners. Georgie Christian. Late of the Conservatory of Music, Lawrence, Kansas.”
By September 1876 Georgie Christian was engaged as an assistant teacher in the Arkansas City schools, receiving $25.00 per month. It was noted by C. M. Scott, the Arkansas City Traveler editor, that Miss Christian was perhaps the only native born Kansas teacher in Kansas as the practice heretofore, in all parts of the State, had been to send East and import a teacher, with little or no experience, rather than have native talent at home in persons fully capable and in need of the job.
Judge James Christian was born on September 29, 1819, at Isla Lecale, Down County, Ireland, a son of Robert and Mary Christian. He came to the United States in 1834, at age 15, and located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he became a saddler. In 1842 he began to study law in Kentucky, alternating work at his trade, until he was admitted to the bar in 1851. He married Malinda G. Ross, daughter of Philip and Rebecca Ross, in 1846. They had three daughters: Georgie Christian Berkey; Molly Christian Snyder; and Linda Christian Daniels. In 1851 James Christian commenced his law practice in Missouri. The Christian family moved to Lawrence, Kansas, in 1854. In 1855 James Christian was elected as the first clerk and recorder of Douglas County, Kansas, and was clerk of the probate court. On December 5, 1855, the Kansas Supreme Court was organized, at which time James Christian, now thirty-six years of age, was admitted to practice by the Kansas Supreme Court.
Christian defended Josiah Miller, editor of a Lawrence Free State paper, who was arrested and tried on the 15th of May, 1856, for treason, and cleared him. The “Sacking of Lawrence” took place on May 21, 1856, when Sheriff Jones ordered his men in line before the Free-State Hotel, and called on Samuel C. Pomeroy, then the reputed agent of the Emigrant Aid Company, to surrender all arms and the village cannon. Pomeroy offered to wheel out the cannon but said the Sharps rifles were private property over which neither he nor the Emigrant Aid Company had any jurisdiction. Christian was able to save both Josiah Miller and Samuel C. Pomeroy when the “Sacking of Lawrence” took place by hiding them in his office. Pomeroy was elected on April 4, 1861, as one of the first U. S. Senators from Kansas along with James H. Lane. James Christian was a partner of Senator Jim Lane from 1857 until 1866, when Lane died. Josiah Miller became a member of the first state senate, but resigned his seat in that body to become postmaster at Lawrence. Miller died at Lawrence on July 7, 1870, after having a leg amputated. He was credited with being the author of the motto, “Ad astra per aspera.” In 1862 James Christian was appointed by President Lincoln as a commissary of subsistence in the army with the rank of Captain. He held this position until 1864 when he was mustered out.

Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, Kansas, took place at dawn on August 21, 1863, placing James Christian and his family at great risk. Sally Young, a seamstress who worked at the “Eldridge House,” was enjoying an early horseback with a male companion, S. S. Horton, when they were cut off by a band of raiders closing around Lawrence. Her escort eluded his pursuers and escaped into the country. Sally submitted to capture, and by her dashing fearlessness won over her captors and drew upon their gallantry for the protection of a list of assumed “brothers,” “brothers-in-law,” “cousins,” and “kinsfolk,” embracing all the families of her acquaintance whose names she could recall. Among these was “Uncle Jimmy Christian.” Thanks to her the Christian family and others that she named were not harmed.
In 1865 James Christian and Milt Reynolds started the Lawrence State Journal.
James Christian moved with his family to Arkansas City in January 1876, where he started an express office, and joined the Cowley County bar. In April 1876 he was elected as police judge. A good friend of Traveler editor, C. M. Scott, he often contributed articles.
On January 23, 1878, the Arkansas City Traveler had the following item. “Judge James Christian was the first Master of the fourth lodge organized in the Territory of Kansas. He helped to organize the first Grand Lodge in Kansas—having the second dispensation issued by the Grand Master of Missouri to organize a lodge in Kansas; but owing to political troubles, his lodge was numbered six on the list, it being located in that abolition den, Lawrence. Even Masons then were not disposed to do justice to locality. But times have changed since then. In looking over some old Grand Lodge reports, we noticed the name of Brother James Christian as Master of Sharpsburg Lodge No. 11, in Kentucky, in 1849, and of Prairie Lodge No. 90, in Missou­ri, 1850.”
The March 27, 1878, issue of the Winfield Courier printed a card relative to James Christian preceded by a statement: “Mr. Christian was a Kansan of the times that ‘tried men’s souls’ and was well known throughout the state as a talented attorney and orator.”
“Card. James Christian, attorney and counselor at law, Arkansas City, Cowley County, Kansas, Judge of the Police Court. Justice of the Peace, Notary Public, and Land Agent. Also, Agent for the ‘Home Insurance’ Company of New York, and Phoenix of Hartford, Conn. Will attend promptly to all business in his line. Oldest practicing lawyer in Kansas. Charges, moderate.”
On Sunday morning, June 30, 1878, a steamboat reached Arkansas City. Christian wrote a letter to his friend Murdock, editor of the Wichita Eagle, later printed in the Traveler. “Our town is mad with excitement. Men, women, and children, some on foot, some on horseback, others in buggies and wagons, rushed ‘pell mell’ for Harmon’s Ford on the Walnut, to witness a sight that our people have thought of, dreamed of, and prayed for the last six or seven years: a real, living, breathing steamboat; as the children sometimes say, ‘a sure enough steamboat.’ Some two hundred people rushed on board and examined her all over, from deck to Texas—cabin, engine, boiler, water wheel—all were scrutinized. They were in her and all over her. Steam being up, the captain invited all hands to a ride up the Walnut as far as Newman’s mill and back. The bank was lined with people and the yells and cheers of those on deck and those on shore made the welkin ring. It was hip!—rip!—huzzah!—one after another. A general good time was had. In the afternoon three hundred persons went aboard by invita­tion, for a ride down the river. Everything was hilarity and joy. Little preaching was heard in Arkansas City today, you may depend.”
Judge Christian was mentioned by the Winfield Courier on August 7, 1879.

The Arkansas City Democrat, of last week, contains the following personal: “Judge Christian is Express and Stage Agent, is an old stand-by, and has stood by and seen many things that we now read about. In the early history of Kansas, he has taken by the hand each of the 17 Governors of Kansas; knew intimately all the leading spirits that figured in Kansas trouble and early history; is now the oldest member of the Supreme Court of Kansas; was admitted the first day that the Supreme Court was organized, in July, 1865; was the first County Clerk and Register of Deeds in Douglas County, also Clerk of the Probate Court at its organiza­tion; served nearly four years in the late unpleasantness as Captain and Commissary of subsistence under a commission of Abraham Lincoln; was afterwards appointed and commissioned United States Attorney for Dacotah Territory by President Johnson, but declined the appointment on account of the climate, ‘preferring Southern Kansas without a commission, to Dacotah with one.’”
In 1879 James Christian’s eyesight began to fail. Friends held concerts and benefits for railroad tickets to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for Christian and his eldest daughter to see a cataract specialist. At first it appeared that he would regain his sight, but this did not happen.
Both the Kansas House and Senate passed resolutions memorializing congress to grant a pension to James Christian in February 1881 and the Kansas newspaper editors got busy.
On February 9, 1881, the Traveler printed an item written by the editor of the Caldwell Commercial. “‘Jimmy’ Christian, as he is familiarly called by the old settlers of Kansas, served through the war in the Commissary Department. Unlike some others who bore the rank and received the pay of a Captain, Jimmy didn't know how to save $200,000 or $300,000 in three or four years on a salary of $125 per month. He came out of the service as poor as when he entered it, with no blot or blemish upon his name as an officer or a man. Now he is old, worn out, and blind, and his blindness results from disease contracted while in the service. It would seem under these circumstances a mere matter of justice for the legislature of Kansas to press his case upon the attention of Congress, particu­larly when we have so many big, double-fisted, healthy men, who have not performed one-half the service Capt. Christian has rendered his country, drawing pensions for imaginary injury.”
The resolution pertaining to James Christian finally passed both Houses in March 1881. It did not go into effect until November 1882. James Christian was allotted a pension of $72.00 per month for total blindness from sunstroke. He received back pay of $1,200.
An article in the Arkansas City Traveler on June 7, 1883, described James Christian’s present condition. “Judge Christian walks pretty well for a blind man. Every morning he can be seen on the porch of his house with his hand on a stretched rope pacing forward and back for an hour or more. He walks sixty yards a minute, or 500 yards in sixteen and two-thirds minutes, 3,600 yards per hour, and in the course of a year would walk 766 miles. His new home affords him more pleasure than the small room he occupied on Summit street, and he has improved it so that it is one of the most attractive places in town. He enjoys good health, has a pleasant home with his family about him, and tries to make the best of life under his affliction. Now that he is in prosperity, so to speak, he has not forgotten the friends that aided him, and always speaks in the kindest terms of Senator Hackney, Hon. Thos. Ryan, Senator Plumb, and others who placed him in the circumstances he is today, where we earnestly hope, by the will of the Almighty, he may live and die in peace.”
Judge James Christian died on April 14, 1895. He was buried in Riverview Cemetery.
Col. J. C. McMullen and Family.

The departure of E. P. Kinne and family to Winfield was most upsetting to the family of Col. McMullen after E. P. Kinne became Register of Deeds in December 1875. They became quite agitated when Kinne was nominated in September 1877 by the Republican convention for a second term. Col. McMullen decided it would be easier to move his bank from Arkansas City to Winfield rather than to remain apart from their relatives. In November 1877 he purchased land from E. C. Manning and started plans for building a residence on his property in Winfield. For years a false rumor prevailed in Winfield that a dispute between Col. McMullen and J. C. Fuller took place inasmuch as McMullen borrowed J. C. Fuller’s house plans and the completed home, finished in 1880, was larger than Fuller’s home.
On January 31, 1878, the Winfield Courier had the following item: “J. Hoenscheidt is the architect employed by J. C. Fuller, M. L. Robinson, Jay Page, the Misses Aldrich, E. P. Hickok, C. Farringer, and others in the erection of their new residences. These residences will be built in modern style, to combine symmetry and beauty with convenience and stability, and will cost from two to seven thousand dollars each.” On February 28, 1878, the Courier reprinted  an article written by a Kansas City Journal of Commerce correspondent while he was staying at the Central Hotel in Winfield on February 13, 1878, in which some of the palatial residences being built in Winfield were described. “Mr. J. C. Fuller is building a mansion in the eastern part of town. It is a frame with brick veneer—a style new to Kansas, but in successful use in Northern Illinois and Wisconsin for the last ten years. It is elegant in all its appointments and will be supplied with hot air furnace, water, baths, speaking tubes, and all modern conveniences. The interior will be finished with walnut and ash, and the grounds will be handsomely ornamented with terraces and fountains. A short distance south of this, and far enough removed from the heart of the town to give it a suburban air of quiet and seclusion, Col. McMullen has decided to build his home. This also can only be seen on paper as yet, but the contract has been awarded and the material is being delivered. The design is no less extensive than the others, and in some respects shows a more elaborate style of architecture.” On March 16, 1878, a Winfield correspondent commented: “Col. McMullen, our new banker, is preparing to erect a new dwelling on his Manning lots. It will be one of the handsomest in the city, as the Colonel never does anything by halves.”
The McMullen family  moved in and lived there until Col. George W. Miller (of the 101 Ranch) purchased the house from McMullen in 1888. When the Miller family moved to the ranch in Oklahoma, they sold the house to the J. W. Hiatt family, whose descendants owned the property until 1998.
J. P. SHORT ERECTS BANK BUILDING FOR COL. McMULLEN.
In December 1877 J. P. Short erected a building adjoining the one he was putting up for Weston & Hyskell. This would be the second building east of the corner drug store on Main and 9th Avenue on the two lots owned by Short. He announced that the building would be occupied by Col. McMullen’s bank.

Col. McMullen had to wait until late January 1878 to remove his safes from the Arkansas City Bank, before closing the bank. At that time the new south bridge was completed across the Walnut River leading into Winfield. On October 25, 1876, the Arkansas City Traveler had an article about the second safe in McMullen’s bank: “Mr. A. O. Porter made a test trial of J. C. McMullen’s new safe, last week, to see if it could not be drilled into. A small portable lathe of great power was brought to bear on it, with one of Col’s number two drills, and in 15 minutes they cut through the two outer iron plates, when everyone thought they were going right through it, but as soon as the steel plate was reached, the drill stopped and was drawn out with the point worn off. The drill was re-tempered and tried again with the same result and like effect, when they gave up the test until morning. Bright and early the workmen were at work again with new drills, but could go no further, when they were satisfied it could not be entered. Mr. Wood then made a trial by pouring nitro muriatic acid in the hole, but could do nothing. The safe is a beautiful piece of workmanship, with a Yale time lock, weighs 4,400 pounds, is sold at $1,600, and made at Cincinnati, Ohio.”
Leon Lippman took the contract to haul both of Col. McMullen’s safes (weighing 4,400 and 4,460 pounds each), to Winfield for $30. He had six yoke of oxen to each wagon.
Leon Lippman, a native of France, was born in 1846. His parents were both French. Leon Lippman came to the United States when he was but eleven years of age. He joined the Union army in 1862 and was honorably discharged in 1865, with all the rights of citizenship of the government. He settled with his family in Dexter township in 1870. He had three sons and two daughters. A Republican, Mr. Lippman was a hard working farmer until he became the owner of a saw and grist mill located ten miles below Dexter in 1874. He also got the contract to build some sidewalks in Winfield in 1874 and 1875.
Howard County. On March 27, 1874, the Winfield Courier wrote about matters in Howard County.
“Howard County Records. We learn from Mr. Lippman of Dexter that the stolen records of Howard County were secreted during the county seat trouble, in a ravine three miles from Dexter in this county. They were kept concealed in three wagons under the guardianship of a young lawyer of the town of Boston, who with the others of his party pretended to be hunting claims until word was sent from Boston that the difficulty had been settled and for the books to be returned, when they informed one of the citizens of Dexter what they had in their wagons. The citizens of that town say that if they had only known what those wagons contained in time, they would have captured the books and proclaimed Dexter the county seat of Howard County.”

Howard County was created on February 26, 1867, when Governor Crawford approved an act creating a number of new counties in the territory recently acquired from the Osage Indians. Howard County was east of Cowley County. Election after election was held in Howard County, causing the county seat to be moved “from pillar to post.” Thousands of dollars were squandered annually in vain attempts to settle the matter. In January 1874 it appeared that Boston had won the county seat by vote, but the county officers at Elk Falls refused to release the county records and gave notice that they would continue to do business at Elk Falls. At 11:30 a.m., on January 20, 1874, twenty-four wagons, accompanied by about 150 men from Boston and vicinity, armed with guns, sabers, and revolvers, drove up in front of the various county offices in Elk Falls and loaded all the county books, records, desks, etc., into the wagons and departed for Boston, accompanied by the Deputy County Attorney. The Boston group established a criminal court, appointed a judge, jury, etc., and proceeded to try each member (amounting to over a hundred) for riotous conduct, with other members of the group being witnesses. Of course, all were acquitted and the costs taxed up to the county. In February 1874 the Attorney General and others were sent by Governor Osborn to Howard County to settle the county seat problem, and were able to establish that the matter should be arbitrated in the courts and that the county archives in the meantime should remain at Elk Falls. An officer went to Boston to secure the books and records, guarded by 300 armed men, but after the most diligent search failed to recover them, and on attempting to arrest the parties who had removed them was met by armed resistance, the parties alleging that they had been tried once and punished for the offense for which their arrest was sought. Sheriff Eli Titus of Howard County solicited help from the governor, The Boston people finally agreed to return the books and papers, and await the course of the law. It was found that the county safe could not be opened due to action by the Boston group which had seized it. In May 1874 the citizens of Howard County learned that their county treasurer had pocketed funds he held and “lit out” and the tax roll for the year 1873 was missing.
The fate of Howard County was determined by the Kansas legislature, which began to consider dividing the county in February 1874. By the act of March 11, 1875, Howard county passed out of existence and the counties of Elk and Chautauqua were created.
Leon Lippman was one of the participants in April 1875 at a meeting with a spiritualist
medium, Major F. Strout, at the home of a friend, Wm. Butterfield, who often served as justice of the peace in Silverdale township. The group united in seizing Strout, who introduced several spirits, and proved to their satisfaction that he was a fraud. Soon afterwards Lippman became ill, recovering in time to again become a candidate for Sheriff. He lost the nomination. He moved to a large body of timber on Grouse Creek, Silverdale township, in February 1876. In June 1877 Lippman lost the saw frame of his mill in the Walnut River when his boat capsized while crossing at A. A. Newman’s mill, submerging the frame fifteen feet under water and embedding it in eighteen inches of mud. It was recovered a week later. Leon Lippman again became a candidate for the office of Sheriff of Cowley County in August and was nominated by the Republican party in September 1877. He did not receive much support from D. A. Millington and his son-in-law, A. B. Lemmon, current editors of the Winfield Courier, now owned by the Courier Company. Lippman owed money to the paper. Lippman’s Democratic opponent, Charles L. Harter, often advertised in the Winfield Courier and promptly paid his bills. Harter was backed by a Democratic paper, the Telegram. Much opposition arose against Lippman. He was defeated by 88 votes.

In February 1878 Lippman’s saw mill was busy. On two different occasions men assembled 10,000 feet of lumber on a raft and came down the Walnut river to Lippman’s landing. Late that month Lippman moved his mill to another location. In March a spark from the engine started a fire which burned ten cords of wood. In April 1878 it was noted that there were three logs at his mill ten feet each in length that would make 3,000 feet of lumber. In August 1878 Lippman caught a leg in the wheel of one of his wagons and was dragged over 100 feet, striking on his head, which inflicted a severe wound. In September 1878 as Lippman’s log team with six yoke of oxen attached was crossing the log bridge near Newman’s mill, the bridge gave way, upsetting the wagon in the creek, and pulling one steer in with it. His crew cut the bow of the steer, which was hanging by the neck, and saved the rest from being pulled in. Two of his crew were attacked by two wildcats that month while sawing logs; they managed to escape by throwing rocks and clubs at them. Lippman had a pair of harness and two saddles stolen on September 25, 1878. They were found some weeks later under a straw stack a few miles away by a young boy who was herding cattle and had laid down on the stack to rest. Lippman moved his mill to a new body of timber on Grouse Creek, announcing that he would be able to turn out a large quantity of first-class lumber. In November 1878 Lippman took his mill to Winfield for repairs.
In September 1879 Leon Lippman and S. W. Chatterson became partners. Chatterson started a grist and saw mill in 1871 one mile below Silverdale, at the junction of Grouse and Silver creeks. Like Lippman, Chatterson had to move often in his search for native timber. Both decided that they would have more luck in Arkansas and moved there in June 1880. A month later Lippman returned on business matters and was thrown from a buggy, badly fracturing his right shoulder blade. It took about seven weeks to heal.
On Dec. 29, 1881, the Winfield Courier printed a report that Lippman and  Chatterson had been convicted of purloining timber from government lands in Arkansas and had been sent up for twenty years. On January 4, 1882, the Arkansas City Traveler printed this rumor and reported that Lippman’s two boys got into a quarrel which ended in a stabbing affray, the younger son killing his brother. This item was soon repeated in the Winfield Courier. On January 11, 1882, the Traveler had an item: “Some enterprising and reckless parties cut, and ran down the Arkansas River 1,500 cedar poles in one raft, last spring, and sold them at three dollars each; making $4,500 on the transac­tion. The poles were cut at the mouth of the Cimarron River, where they have as many more cut, ready for the rise next spring. The U. S. troops and Indian police are keeping a close watch on them, however, and if the timber thieves are not very careful, they may follow Mr. Lippman and his companions.”
On January 12, 1882, the Winfield Courier had several items.
“Dr. Wagner has handed us a note just received from Leon Lippman, of whom we have noticed reports from two sources and which we are glad to learn have no foundation in fact. In this letter Mr. Lippman says: ‘I find myself compelled to write you at once, for my wife has received a letter from yours inquiring about my reported imprisonment. I am not in prison, am not in danger of getting in, and have done nothing to merit it.’ He gives a detailed account of his saw mill and lumber business, which are prospering, and of all his children, mentioning them by name, and showing that they are all well, lively, and learning rapidly.’”
(The letter from Lippman mentioned the loss of a child by Chatterson in August 1881.)
The second item was the nearest thing to an apology that could be printed. “The report that Lippman was in the penitentiary proves to be a canard. J. E. Allen has received a communication from a lawyer at Cercy, Arkansas, stating that Lippman and Chatterson are there and doing well and are in greater danger of going to Congress than the penitentiary. We are glad to hear this and to be able to report it to their many friends in the county. We suppose that the story about Lippman’s boys getting into a quarrel in which one was killed has about the same foundation. This sounds to us more like truth than the former report.”
On January 18, 1882, the Arkansas City Traveler had the following item: “It is with pleasure we correct the rumors recently current with regard to Messrs. L. Lippman and Chatterson. They were pure fabrications as both gentlemen are, at this writing, respected citizens of our sister state, Arkansas.”
                           Citizens’ Bank of Winfield: J. C. McMullen, President.

On February 7, 1878, the first advertisement of the Citizens’ Bank appeared in the Winfield Courier. In October 1878 the bank was organized as a corporation under the laws of the State of Kansas, with a capital of $50,000. Among the officers of the bank listed were two new members: John D. Pryor, vice president, and B. F. Baldwin, Cashier.
Assistant Cashier A. W. Berkey and his wife moved to Winfield when J. C. McMullen started the Citizens’ bank there.
John D. Pryor, Vice President, was 29 years of age when he became an officer in the Citizens’ Bank. John D. Pryor arrived in Winfield in 1874, where his brother, Samuel D. Pryor, five years older than John, had established a law practice with E. B. Kager. Both of the Pryor brothers were formerly Illinois residents. John D. Pryor was admitted to the Cowley County bar in October 1875. In December 1875 he became an officer in the Winfield Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons. In January 1876 it was noted that J. D. Pryor, a graduate of the Chicago commercial college, was the agent for several musical instruments and insurance companies and a resident land agent at Winfield. He was also the junior member of the Bar firm of Pryor, Kager, and Pryor, which purchased H. O. Meigs’ real estate business in February 1876 and began to engage in the real estate and loan business in both Arkansas City and Winfield. In February 1877 it was noted that John D. Pryor had an interest in a new patent coal oil lamp developed by Baptist minister, Rev. N. L. Rigby, who had married Jennie S. Tousey, widow of Rev. A. W. Tousey, on March 31, 1874. Mrs. Rigby was a sister of C. A. Bliss. Mr. Pryor was married on February 14, 1877, to Miss E. J. Greenlee by Rev. J. E. Platter at the Baptist church. In October 1877 J. D. Pryor announced that he was the agent for the oldest Reed Organ Home in the United States, which furnished pianos and organs. In December 1877 it was noted that the new M. E. church in Winfield was lighted by the latest style Rigby & Pryor lamps. (A brass pipe, about an inch and a half in diameter, was suspended from the ceiling by four rods. The pipe passed through the center of the building, furnishing gas to the lamps, placed about four feet apart.) In January 1878 John D. Pryor served as clerk of the Winfield schools. On February 1, 1878, the law firm of Pryor, Kager & Pryor was dissolved. Pryor & Pryor continued the business of the firm in Winfield.
After becoming Vice President of the Citizens’ Bank in October 1878, John D. Pryor was involved in other activities in Winfield. In January 1879 Pryor and Col. J. C. McMullen were added to the board of trustees as a building committee to assist in the construction of a new Baptist Church. In April 1879 J. D. Pryor was elected as treasurer of the Board of Education.

B. F. Baldwin, Cashier, often called “Frank” Baldwin, was twenty-four years of age when he become a partner of Enoch Maris in March 1873 of a drug store in Winfield. Enoch Maris had been a partner of W. H. H. Maris in the firm of Maris & Co., which handled retail and wholesale groceries and provisions on the southwest corner of Main Street and 8th Avenue until the firm dissolved in September 1872. By October 1873 Maris and Baldwin moved into a new building with an additional partner, O. F. Carson. In November 1874 Mr. Carson withdrew, leaving Enoch Maris and B. F. Baldwin to continue the firm. In August 1875 the firm of Maris & Baldwin was dissolved, leaving B. Frank Baldwin the sole owner. Enoch Maris moved to El Dorado, where he opened up a lumber yard. B. F. Baldwin was appointed city clerk of Winfield in April 1875. In November 1875 he was elected as treasurer of Winfield township. In December 1875 his brother, George Albert Baldwin, arrived to assist B. F. Baldwin at the drug store, which was soon known as the “City Drug Store.” In September 1876 it was noted that Baldwin was handling notions and waiting on the ladies while Ira McCommon was handling drugs; and that Baldwin was appointed as a member of the Republican Central Committee for the 88th Representative district. B. Frank Baldwin’s youngest brother, George Albert, who assisted him at the drug store, died at the Central Hotel in Winfield on January 12, 1877, of pneumonia. He was sixteen years of age. His funeral was conducted by Rev. Platter at the Baptist church.
In April 1877 the new Winfield City Council appointed B. F. Baldwin as City Clerk. He immediately withdrew, suggesting that Henry E. Asp, an attorney, be appointed instead. The Council agreed. Baldwin became ill in March 1878 and had a hard time recovering. In June 1878 he sold out his stock of drugs and books to Messrs. Brown & Glass, and retired from the business. The new firm consisted of Henry Brown, late of Pueblo, Colorado, and Quincy A. Glass, an experienced druggist, who came from Chicago. Mr. Brown was an early settler in Kansas, having lived at Lawrence for seventeen years, where he took an active part in the early Kansas struggles.
The August 14, 1878, issue of the Traveler told of a trip made by B. F. Baldwin with C. M. Scott to Indian Territory and Texas. “Frank Baldwin returned from Texas with his face and hands browned, and his health so much improved that his friends at Winfield hardly knew him. He was in poor health when he started, but after a seven-hundred-mile ride on horseback, lying out in the open air, and chewing dried buffalo meat three times a day, he felt better.” B. F. Baldwin became Vice President of the Winfield Bank on April 4, 1879.
J. C. Fuller, president of the Winfield Bank, experienced health problems in 1879, brought about by too close confinement to his business at the bank.
On Friday, April 4, 1879, the Citizens’ Bank and the Winfield Bank consolidated, under the head of the “Winfield Bank,” with a capital of $50,000.
                                                       WINFIELD BANK.
J. C. McMullen was elected president, B. F. Baldwin, vice president, J. C. Fuller, cashier, and D. A. Millington, secretary of the “Winfield Bank.” Plans were made to immediately begin the erection of a brick building, 25 by 140 feet, on the lot occupied in April 1879 by the Winfield Bank of J. C. Fuller. It was announced on April 10, 1879, that the first floor would be occupied by the bank, the second story by offices, and the basement by the Courier Co., which printed the Winfield Courier. (Bank officers refused to rent the basement at $75 per month to a saloon, preferring to see it used as a printing office at $30 per month.) By May 1879 the cellar was ready for the mason work. The contract for the Winfield Bank was let in July 1879 when the foundation was being laid. Benjamin J. Bartlett, from Des Moines, Iowa, the architect in charge of the Baptist Church construction in Winfield, took the order of Swain & Watkins to Chicago for lumber and material for the Winfield Bank in August 1879. The counters were completed in early February 1880 from wood grown and manufactured in Cowley County: seasoned black walnut that had been paneled, polished, and inlaid, surmounted by a two-foot wire screen. Plate glass windows and stained transoms were put in by late December 1880.

John Swain, of Swain & Watkins, architects and builders, moved from England to Winfield in the early 1870s and took up carpenter work. He had an excellent voice and soon became acquainted with Emma S. Leffingwell. They were married in May 1874. John Swain was part of the group which formed the Winfield Musical Association in September 1874. He did the carpenter work on Manning’s brick business house in February 1877 and then departed for the Black Hills in search of gold, returning in October. In March 1879 John Swain and P. W. Watkins formed Swain & Watkins. Watkins drew the plans for a new $1,500 Presbyterian church at Little Dutch. In May the firm built a large carpenter shop on Eighth avenue, part of which was occupied by Pool & Hendrick’s carriage painting establishment. In July they added an addition to John D. Pryor’s residence before starting their work on the Winfield Bank. In January 1880 they completed plans in detail for J. B. Lynn’s new business building. They were awarded the contract for the wood-work of both courthouse wings in November 1880. The firm dissolved in 1881 when Watkins moved to Colorado. John Swain received a contract on the McDougall building in May 1881. By January 1883 Mr. and Mrs. Swain had moved to Florida.
An older brother of J. C. Fuller, Homer G. Fuller, was collection clerk for the Winfield Bank. His only son, Charles E. Fuller, was made bookkeeper in January 1880.
W. A. Lee moved to Winfield in 1877 and started an agricultural implement business. By March 7, 1878, he advertised his stock of plows and other implements located just back of Fuller’s bank. In August 1878 he built a small frame building, which he used as an office. A heavy advertiser, he often aired his views in the Winfield Courier. He had the following to say on August 8, 1878: “Having been denied the right to show my agricultural implements by setting them out in front of my office, as other agricultural implement dealers are permitted to do, and having been arrested and fined by the police judge in attempting to show my goods, all through a personal feeling of our city marshal, I ask all farmers wanting such implements to call back of the Winfield Bank and examine my goods. W. A. LEE.”
Lee’s suit against the City of Winfield was dismissed on August 26. 1878.
Lee’s business continued to grow. The July 31, 1879, issue of the Winfield Courier had the following item: “‘Go west young man’ 150 feet for a Hapgood Sulky Plow is the comic sign of W. A. Lee to induce the farmer to look over the rock heaps and debris of the new bank (now under construction) to his implement yard on the west end of the same lot the bank is being built on.”
An item in the August 5, 1880, issue of the Winfield Courier called attention to him. “W. A. Lee lost his team the other day, supposed to be stolen. He had driven it down to the depot and there hitched it to a post, and forgetting his team, came home on foot. Not finding his team at home, he made a row until someone told him where he had left it.”
On August 12, 1880, another item appeared in the Winfield Courier.
“Many are well acquainted with the way W. A. Lee, our well known implement dealer, began business when he located among us, and how against fearful opposition he has struggled, until today he has one of the finest implement houses in Southern Kansas. His ability to choose none but the best goods and throw out the poor is one great secret of his success; another, by his patience with the farmer and untiring energy he succeeds in holding his customers, and as a general thing farmers pay him promptly and willingly, showing that they are well pleased with their machin­ery. We can assure those who trade with Mr. Lee that in him they will find a fair and honorable gentleman, and can at least be assured of getting what he represents the goods to be.”
Lee again drew attention with an ad he placed on September 30, 1880, in the Courier.

“WANTED: A good Lawyer to attend to my business: one that does not dabble in politics. Call at my implement house. W. A. Lee, Agent for Moline Wagon.”
On November 11, 1880, the Winfield Courier had the following item: “W. A. Lee, agent for the Moline Wagon, advertising for a lawyer to do his business that did not dabble in politics, has an application from Pennsylvania oil region, from a lawyer who is agent for a colony, who says that after traveling over a greater portion of the United States, he has about decided to make our county their place of locating.”
In December 1880 Lee had an item in the Winfield Courier: “Our town seems to be infested with sneak thieves. Farmers are complaining to me that they cannot leave dry goods, grocer­ies, blankets, coats, or the least thing in their wagons while trading, but that is stolen. I will give $5.00 for the success­ful arrest and proof of the guilt of one of these thieves.”
W. A. Lee sold over $16,000 worth of implements in 1880. The January 27, 1881, issue of the Winfield Courier stated that he had rented the old Winfield Bank building for an implement house, just back of the new bank building. In February 1881 he rented and stocked a building with his implements in the growing city of Grenola.
In April 1881 W. A. Lee’s team became scared when a neck-yoke became disconnected from the end of the tongue, causing them to kick and run. The situation became desperate as the buggy top was up. Mr. Lee held his team and kept talking to them to quiet them; when he found that was not working, he pulled them into some plowed land and circled the team until he turned the buggy over, throwing himself and a friend from the wagon without a scratch. The buggy and harness were smashed.
On May 5, 1881, W. A. Lee responded to a request from the Winfield Courier to show what effect the prohibitory liquor laws had on his business.
“My trade is better than it was a year ago. I am selling more wagons, more cultivators, and more of almost every other kind of farm machin­ery. I am giving less credit than a year ago not that there are fewer men whom I would credit, for it is a fact that there are many more farmers whom I would credit than there were a year ago. Then there were many farmers who were in town frequently, drink­ing and idling around, seeming to care little for their farm work, who are now rarely seen in town; and when they do come, attend to their purchases and leave. And when I see them at home, they are busily putting in their seed and improving their farms. I could name a large number of farmers who have reformed wonderfully in this particular. I travel over our county fre­quently, and observe that an unusual amount of improvements are going on this spring.”
In October 1881 Lee began to handle the Stover Wind Mill.
On December 22, 1881, he paid for the following notice in the Winfield Courier.
“To all parties so disposed: I shall be thankful to you if you will leave your harvesters and reapers out in the field to rot where you cut your last wheat. My family is increasing and the acreage of wheat sown is less each year, consequently my only show to make a living out of the implement business is for all machinery to be left standing in the field to rot down.”
In January 1882 Lee was using the greater part of four lots for his implements in Winfield and had another carload on the way.

On July 6, 1882, the Winfield Courier had the following item: “W. A. Lee has invented and patented an attachment to sulky plows which is likely to make the gentleman some money and save horse flesh.” A patent was issued to Lee for his invention, “Anti Friction Rolling Landside attachment.”
Mr. Lee drew attention in August 31, 1882, when he sent an article to the Winfield Courier requesting an amendment to a city ordinance in Winfield.
“Is the ordinance forbidding the stacking of hay inside the incorporation not a damage? A law to subserve the interests of a few and adverse to the interests of the mass, has always proved a mistake. Stacking hay in business blocks where there are a number of buildings joined together, is dangerous, and should not be allowed, but to say that the citizens living entirely out of these blocks and in the outskirts of town, often with but one house in a block, must stack their hay outside of town, is unjust and out of reason. For instance, a widow woman (and we know of them) with four or five helpless children to support, her show for doing this only her sewing machine and cow, by the time she has five tons of hay stacked out a mile from town, and it proves only to be three tons, and then pays a drayman 25 cents per day to bring in a small jag of hay, the cow will be a damage to her rather than a blessing. This same rule applies to all working men. About New Year’s day we see the advocates of such laws going round with a turkey in a basket helping the helpless. Is it not more humane and right to grant men and women rights, so that they can help themselves and feel that they are as good as anyone? Let us get up a petition and have this ordinance repealed, or rather amended. W. A. LEE.”
On September 7, 1882, the Winfield Courier printed the following notice: “To whom it may concern this is to certify that I will not be responsible for any bills that Mary A. Lee may make after this 6th day of September, A. D., 1882.”
William A. Lee responded to this notice on September 21, 1882. “Mr. Editor: Some fellow whose name ‘looks like me’ keeps publishing that he won’t pay his wife’s debts. Please say that my wife and I have no trouble except on wash days and when we count the babies and likelihoods. Friends are making inquiry about this Willis M. Lee matter.”
In October 1882 W. A. Lee sold part of his business to Messrs. Springston and Conrad and took a vacation to Southern Missouri. Many thought he had sold all of his business.
The following item that appeared on November 16, 1882, in the Courier explained the situation.
“Many of my friends have as much as asked me why I sold out my Implement business and stock. First I sold no stock, second only a part of my business, reserving the right to sell Sulky Plows and Corn Planters with my improvements. I also can handle Buggies, Wind-mills, Pumps, and have a right to start a business anywhere in the county outside corporate limits of Winfield. I expect also to keep as far as possible repairs for all the goods I have sold, and make good any warrantees on sales I have made. I have not as much as thought that I would leave Winfield or Cowley County, and want to say to my many friends that as soon as I get shaped up in new quarters, come around and have a drink of cold water with me and make yourselves at home. I am grateful indeed for past favors. W. A. LEE.”
During his vacation to southern Missouri, Lee and his younger brothers built a home for their aged mother.
In the November 30, 1882, issue of the Winfield Courier, W. A. Lee described his roller.

“Buy the Hapgood Sulky Plow with Lee’s Anti-friction Roller. With this there is no more dragging the bottom of the plow in the furrow, no more friction on the land side; no more strain on the sulky, no more side draft or slipping wheels; no more running of the plow on the lay; no more changing levers to finish up a land; no more trouble to make the plow take land enough; no more trouble to open a furrow in wet weather; no more strain on the arm to throw the plow out of ground; best of all, no more unnecessary draft on the team. The plow runs now on three wheels and cannot drag or bind. W. A. LEE, Agent.”
In December 1882 Lee purchased the lots and buildings on Ninth Avenue formerly owned by Max Shoeb, blacksmith, and extended the buildings back, making them two stories high.
In July 1883 W. A. Lee was offered by an Eastern firm 50 cents royalty on each plow built for the right to build his attachment to sulky plows. Me. Lee refused the offer. In August 1883 Lee exhibited one of his patent sulky plows at the Fair; it had the Anti-friction roller landside, as perfected and built by the Hapgood Plow Co.
In January 1884 Lee put a large basement under his implement house in Winfield for storage purposes, and began building a warehouse at Grenola. In March 1884 he established a branch office in Arkansas City, having already started an implement office in Udall. He was contemplating starting an implement house in Burden at that time.
On June 26, 1884, the Winfield Courier had the following article.
DECISION OF R. R. COMMISSIONERS. In answer to a complaint filed by W. A. Lee of Winfield before the Board of Railroad Commissioners, against the Southern Kansas railroad, the following decision was rendered.
On May 30, 1884, Complainant presented complaint to the Board against the respondent company, in which he stated two causes of complaint, in substance:
1st. That respondent charged Complainant $10, for switching a car on to the side track for the purpose of discharging part of its cargo at Grenola, the car having been billed through to Winfield, and
2nd. That in place of the discharged cargo at Grenola, Complainant put into the car four or five wagons to be carried through with the remaining goods to Winfield, for the carriage of which, from Grenola to Winfield, an extra charge of fifteen dollars was made by the Company. The car of goods—being implements—part of which were “unloaded” at Grenola, had been billed through and paid for to Winfield. Complainant claims that the wagons should be carried through to Winfield from Grenola without additional charge to that levied upon the original cargo.
With respect to the first cause of complaint, above stated. The Board is of the opinion that $10 is too great a charge for switching a car on to the side track. We find that the usual charge made for a like service on railroads is $5, and this amount the board believe reasonable and sufficient. We therefore request the company to refund to the Complainant the excess of charge over that sum, and to hereafter conform to this ruling in similar cases.

With respect to the second, it appears that it is the custom of railroads frequently to allow a car to be shipped at an intermediate station and discharge a part of its cargo, where the car load is made up of the same class or kind of freight, by payment of the rate to the farthest point. In this case by paying the rate to Winfield upon the car load, the shipper was permitted to unload part of the goods at Grenola, an intermediate station. By this arrangement the shipper derives this advantage. If he ships the whole car load to Winfield, he is under the necessity of paying a local rate, from Winfield to Grenola, on that part of the freight that he desires to dispose of at the latter place, or if he ships the same goods in two lots under two bills of lading, one to Grenola and the other to Winfield, he cannot avail himself of car load rates, but must ship the goods under a higher rate. He, therefore, under this arrangement, secures the most favorable rate, or avoids a return local rate on part of his goods. In this case the company undertook in its contract to carry the load of implements to Winfield with permission to the shipper to unload a part of the goods at Grenola, the shipper paying the extra cost of making the stop and doing the switching. But the contract did not require the company to transport in addition four or five wagons from Grenola to Winfield without extra charge, although transported in the same car.
The rates charged originally covered only the car load of implements, and if the shipper could, in this instance, successfully assert his claims, he would get his wagons carried for nothing. But such a privilege could only apply, or be taken advantage of, by persons whose character of shipments were similar to the complainants; that is, where he could unload part of the car en route and put into the car another lot of merchandise. All others would have to pay local rates upon freights, which such shippers would get carried free. Such a practice would be unjust both to railroad companies and other shippers, and would result in a system of unjust discrimination.
We are therefore, unable to see anything to correct in this respect.
By order of the Board. E. J. TURNER, Secretary. Topeka, Kansas, June 10, 1884.
Also, on June 26, 1884, the Winfield Courier had another item.
It is announced that the State Board of Railroad Commissioners and the various traffic managers in Kansas have finally agreed upon a schedule of freight rates, to be uniform on all roads in the State. The new agreement is based on the Beloit division, and makes a general reduction of 20 percent.
Lee’s location in Arkansas City changed. On June 28, 1884, the Arkansas City Republican had the following item: “W. A. Lee recently sold for $2,950 the lot he purchased for $1,800, three or four months since from T. H. McLaughlin. Mr. McLaughlin a few months ago, gave $950 for this lot. This gives the stranger some idea of the appreciation in value of property in Arkansas City.”
Lee purchased the corner east of Thompson & Woodin’s livery stable, Arkansas City, in July 1884. His brother, R. F. Lee, became the manager.
Also, in July 1884 W. A. Lee purchased the F. M. Freeland lot on the corner of Manning Street and Ninth Avenue in Winfield for $4,000.
In February 1885 W. A. Lee opened up a large seed house on West Ninth Avenue in Winfield. The store was located in the old Bank building west of the Winfield Bank.
On February 26, 1885, the Winfield Courier noted that if Lee’s fine sulky plow was given a lively start in Cowley County, it would induce the Hapgood Plow Co. to manufacture it for their whole trade, and, should they do so, Mr. Lee’s royalty would bring into the county about $2,000 each year.

Lee continued to have trouble at Winfield over contemplated moves he wanted to make. He was turned down on his application to lease part of the building belonging to the city near the bell tower in April 1884. His petition in November 1884 to erect a frame stable within the fire limits was rejected.
In late April 1885 W. A. Lee was arrested.
The following items in the Thursday, April 30, 1885, Winfield Courier gave details.
“W. A. Lee was arrested Saturday for having machinery on the streets. Mr. Lee says he has been here a long time, claims that he has some rights, and intends to make a fight in the District Court. But the facts are that no man has individual rights above a majority of our populace. The City Council, elected by the unanimous voice of our people, have declared that no occupant can use for displaying his wares more than three feet next to the front of his place of business. It is a good ordinance—one which if enforced will give us a city far superior in appearance. Mr. Lee is a fair-minded, enterprising man—one who has always taken a deep interest in everything for our city’s advancement; and we think when he looks at this matter clearly, he will readily admit its justice.”
“W. A. Lee was arrested and fined $10 and costs for having his sample machinery out on the sidewalk. Mr. Lee claims he is on a side street, west 9th avenue, and that if he is deprived of the right to put out samples to draw attention, his business will in the main be about ruined. He claims he has some rights and will make a test case in the District Court.”
W. A. Lee had a lengthy article concerning events in the July 9, 1885, Winfield Courier.

Friends have asked me, “Why are you arrested by the city so often, when there seems to be no cause?” I answered Mr. Armstrong, of Tisdale, in this way: “I belong to no ring or clique, but act on my own views as best I know how. But why I should be spotted each time there is a new ordinance to take effect, or a new Marshal makes his entrance on the area of the town site, is more than I can tell. One of the arrests was for stacking hay in the city limits. This ordinance actually prohibited stacking as much as a wagon-box of hay outdoors. I had plenty of hay in one mile of town, and teams to draw it to town. But I saw the situation of my neighbors—widow women with orphan children—compelled to stack their hay outside of the city, to the mercy of thieves, and then pay a dray 25 cents each day to draw them a feed of hay, when they were depending on their cows for almost the whole of their support. To meet this unfair and inhuman ordinance square in the face, I hauled in a large stock of hay and took the consequence. In the District Court Judge Torrance dismissed the case at the cost of the city. In the last twenty days, I have been arrested twice and fined simply for having a few sample machines in front of my implement house. I am on a side street, west 9th avenue. On the day of the last arrest, on east 8th avenue, I noticed about two car loads of salt piled on a platform outside of the sidewalk. On the same day, on Main street, I noticed in front of a hardware store fish poles, pumps, ice chests, rod iron, and other traps, until the sidewalk was not more than six feet wide. I speak of these facts to show that this prosecution is malicious, and is damaging me unjustly over the county. Unprincipled men are using it against me. One editor, in the east part of the county, published my arrest and did not say what for. A man in Colorado saw the item and wrote home to his wife to know what Lee was arrested for. This same paper told its readers that the K. C. & S. W. railroad was just the thing until they found it would miss their town, then cried out with a loud voice that the county would be ruined if the bonds carried. I am in favor of a good city government and wholesome ordinances, such as laying sidewalks, grading streets, making fire limits, draining cess pools, removing hog pens, shutting up disorderly places of business—anything that tends to improve the health of the city and give work to the laboring class and raise our city in the estimation of people abroad. This should be encouraged. But such ordinances as grant the right to a revengeful man to arrest a businessman for having a few sample implements in front of his door simply because in time past he ran over his rye patch and made him a little mad, or grants some young spirt the right to jerk his opponent simply because he sees fit to wear a yellow and black checked coat cut short behind, with tight pants and a jaunty little hat, or to say that a lady must not be found on the streets after a certain hour, or a man shall pay a license to do business when his tax is as much as five men ought to pay, is to make a laughing stock out of us, and damage the welfare of our now prosperous city. The last ordinance will drive away good businessmen that would otherwise locate here. W. A. LEE.”
In November 1885 the Winfield City Council sold the city’s frame building located near the fire bell to W. A. Lee for $50.
On Thursday afternoon, November 26, 1885, the Winfield City Council met to open bids to furnish grounds for a new city building. All nine bids submitted were too high. The council intended to advertise for more bids; but Senator Hackney was on hand, grabbed a chair, and in two minutes had written out a bid offering his two lots for $1,000. The council was inclined to continue consideration when W. A. Lee said, “Put it there and I’ll give you a check for $100!” This put the lots down to $900, and without parley the council said in one voice, “Accepted.”
The Winfield City Council in February 1886 granted W. A. Lee the privilege of raising the roof of his machine shed six feet higher. In April 1886 he was before Judge Turner, charged with violating the fire limit ordinance by raising his machinery sheds. He was discharged, it being proven that he had a permit for this improvement from the city council.
Winfield Bank Employees: January 1881.
Charles E. Fuller, son of Homer G. Fuller and a nephew of J. C. Fuller, became the paying teller of the Winfield Bank in January 1881. His father, H. G. Fuller, retired.
A. W. Berkey became the collection clerk in January 1881.
James Lorton, a new man, became the bookkeeper. James Lorton was born in Illinois in February 1860. His father, James Lorton, died in April 1862. His mother remarried. James had to make sacrifices to complete his education. He found work in the home of J. C. McMullen in Arkansas City while he attended high school there in 1877. In August 1879 he attended the Normal Institute in Winfield. He graduated in June 1880 from the Winfield High School and attended the Normal Institute in August 1880. He later attended a commercial college in St. Louis before starting as a bookkeeper in the Winfield Bank in January 1881. He boarded with J. C. McMullen and family in Winfield.
The June 22, 1882, issue of the Winfield Courier had the following item.

Mr. James Lorton, bookkeeper in the Winfield Bank, met with quite a serious accident while returning from Arkansas City Saturday night. He was riding a pony that had been purchased in the city and leading one of Col. McMullen’s fine black horses, which he had ridden down. Three miles this side of Arkansas City, he left the main road and took a nearer route. The road he followed had been recently closed by a barbed wire fence and, it being very dark, James did not discover this until he ran against it. The horses were going on a fast walk, and the pony was immediately checked, but the other became frightened and sprang through. The wire being very severe, the horse was lacerated in a horrible manner, a large piece of flesh was torn from his breast, and the muscle of one of his front limbs nearly severed, besides numerous other cuts. James managed to get the animal home, but it is in a critical condition. “Clyde,” as he was called by the family, is a very fine horse and was valued at $300. The misfortune will break one of the best matched and prettiest spans of horses in the town. Barbed wire is being made so severe that it is a dangerous thing, and when put across a recently traveled road, it certainly should have brush or something of that kind laid upon it, that a person could tell at night what they were running into.
For years Mr. James Lorton was a part of the social group in Winfield. He married Miss Estelle Fuller, daughter of J. C. Fuller, on September 9, 1911.
Stone Steps in front of Winfield Bank.
In March 1880 a large stone (7 feet wide, 14 feet long, and 6 inches thick) was delivered in front of the Winfield Bank. In June 1880 the circular stone steps leading to the bank on Main Street were completed.
Disposition of Safe.
In January 1881 the Adams Express Co. took the safe from the old Winfield Bank building for use in their office.
Library and Reading Room Association.
The Library and Reading Room Association secured the west room in the Winfield Bank in February 1880. The entrance was on Ninth Avenue on the north side of the building. At that time people were asked to donate books, periodicals, papers, and furniture.
In January 1881 the library rooms were open on two days each week (Wednesday and Saturday). In less than a year they had created a valuable library besides paying the rent for their fine rooms and the services of a librarian. They added new books from time to time. They were about to invest $100, their late earnings, in well selected new books.
First Occupants on Second Floor of Winfield Bank.
M. G. Troup. Mr. Troup moved from Iowa in 1871 and settled on a claim in Fall River township, Wilson County, Kansas. He moved from there to Tisdale, Cowley County, where he became a merchant. He ran for the position of County Clerk in August 14, 1873, and was elected on November 4, 1873. He filled this office for four years. At the April 1875 election in Winfield, Troup was elected as one of the five councilmen and was reelected again on April 3, 1876. In 1877 Capt. J. S. Hunt was the Republican nominee for the two-year term as County Clerk. M. G. Troup became an independent candidate for reelection and defeated Hunt. In January 1880 Troup secured one of the offices in the new bank building after completing his arrangements to step down as County Clerk and start a first-class law practice after January 12, 1880, when he would become a licensed attorney. Troup was admitted to the Winfield bar to practice in the District Court as an attorney in May 1878.
A. B. Lemmon, son-in-law of D. A. Millington, joined M. G. Troup in the Winfield Bank Building in April 1880, when they became partners in the practice of law.

In April 1880 Allen B. Lemmon returned to his Walnut township farm and advertised for 200 good stock hogs while his house was receiving an addition. He made plans to engage in the legal profession at the expiration of his tenure as Superintendent of Public Education. One month after sharing an office with Troup, Lemmon accepted the nomination for Representative of the 88th district by the Republican convention and in November 1880 received a majority of 631 votes for this office. Troup and Lemmon had to increase the size of their law library in November 1880. In January 1881 Lemmon introduced a bill in the house and Senator W. P. Hackney in the senate for the establishment of an institution located within two miles of Winfield for the feeble minded and idiots. M. G. Troup was joined by another lawyer, Lafe Pence, that same month.
Lafe Pence, a twenty-two year old Winfield attorney, doubled up with M. G. Troup in January 1881 after Lemmon’s departure to Topeka as a State Representative of the 88th District. Mr. Pence, a Democrat, graduated from Hanover College, Indiana, in 1877.
The Winfield Courier often poked fun at Pence. “One of Lafe Pence’s old Democratic friends brought him yesterday a big watermelon, two feet long. Lafe left it on the table in his office and went out to invite his friends to a treat. Jennings and other rats about the building got the melon, cleaned out the inside, and then fastened it together again, so it looked as good as new. Lafe returned with his friends, and with his big knife slashed open the melon, when lo! it was as vacant as Allison’s skull. The friends did not like the joke, so they stood Lafe on his head and poured ice water down his trousers.”
Lafe Pence left Winfield in August 1881 and became a partner in a law firm at Rico, Colorado. In December he visited Winfield with his bride from Franklin, Indiana, Clara Vawter, a niece of Prof. R. C. Story, Superintendent of Public Instruction. Pence and his family moved to Denver, Colorado, in 1884 when he was elected to the legislature. In December 1885 Mrs. Pence, 25 years old, gave birth to twins. She and the babies died soon afterwards. A two-year old son survived.
Prof. R. C. Story, born in Indiana, was a graduate of the law school at Ann Arbor, Michigan. He settled in Lazette, Windsor township, becoming President of the Grouse Creek Teachers’ Association, organized on October 24, 1874, and the first attorney-at-law in Lazette after he was admitted to the bar in March 1875. He was appointed Postmaster in February 1876, resigning in May 1876 when he moved to Harvey township. [Lazette, at first called “Jeffersonville” and then “Gazette,” ceased to exist when the new station for the K. C. L. & S. K. railroad was built 1¼ miles south of Lazette and the citizens moved their buildings to the new town of Cambridge, on the Grouse. The Lazette post office was discontinued in February 1880.] Prof. Story assisted in conducting the Normal Institute in August 1876, attended by 40 teachers. He was nominated by the Republican county convention in September as their candidate for the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. He was elected in November 1876 and held this office for three terms (1876-1882), working hard at making changes in the educational field. He published monthly the Cowley County Teacher at his office in the Courthouse, and submitted numerous items relative to education and teachers in the Winfield Courier. During 1882 Story visited each of the 135 school districts in Cowley County.

On June 1, 1882, the Winfield Courier printed an item from the Burden Enterprise. “Prof. R. C. Story, of Winfield, spent Thursday of last week visiting the Burden schools, and he reports them as doing good work in part. The lower grades, under Miss West, are too crowded, and are supplied with too little necessary apparatus to do work to the satisfaction of the teachers. Burden will do the right thing when a four or six room house is built for the accommodation of the children of the district.” On August 3, 1882, the Winfield Courier printed an item from “A Taxpayer,” living in Silver Creek township. “By the way, Burden has voted $3,500 in bonds to build a schoolhouse, and this is the way they did it. They got up a petition asking Mr. Story to annex five or six valuable farms to their district just in time to catch the bonds. The owners of three of these farms are absent, so there was no opposition from them. The others could not help themselves, so on the day appointed to vote the bonds, the ‘big four’ of Burden got all the livery force they could muster, went out into the highways and hedges, brought in the halt, the lame, and the blind; and so great was the rush that some of the board had to go head and shoulders out of the windows to receive the votes. Now, Mr. Editor, is this as it should be, is all this law? If so, we say amen.”
In February 1883 R. C. Story worked in the Winfield office of Jarvis, Conklin & Co., Real Estate and Loan Brokers. He sold his house in May and moved with his family to Fall River, Greenwood County, and soon became cashier of the Fall River Bank. In April 1884 the Story family moved to Atchison, Kansas.
M. G. Troup shared his office with J. P. Short in May 1881 after Lafe Pence left. By November 1881 Troup was the sole occupant of his law office over the Winfield Bank.
J. D. Pryor and E. P. Kinne formed “Pryor & Kinne,” a real estate and loan business, in October 1879. By January 1880 they relocated their office upstairs in the Winfield Bank. Attorney S. D. Pryor, a brother of J. D. Pryor, became a partner of the firm in February 1880. Pryor & Kinne (S. D. Pryor, J. D. Pryor, and E. P. Kinne) placed ads showing that they were attorneys at law, real estate, loan and insurance agents. In October 1880 Pryor and Kinne furnished their office with an immense fire and burglar proof safe, put into their second story office from the ground by A. F. (“Fred”) Kropp.
A. Fred Kropp, a native of Sweden, came from Iowa to Winfield circa 1874. In May 1876 he completed an excursion boat which held eight people. Propelled by an Archimedes lever, he charged passengers 25 cents to carry them up the Walnut river to an island. In February 1877 he built the cellar for Manning’s new brick business house. In May 1878 he built a machine for sawing stone and by September began moving buildings. On March 25, 1880, the Winfield Courier had the following item. “The town of Lazette has been imitating the Arabs, ‘folding their tents and silently stealing away.’ Fred Kropp has had the work in hand, and much of that ancient city now belongs to Cambridge. The Yellow Steer, the Blue Goose, the Black Bear still stand, but their glory is departing.” Kropp moved many  buildings in Winfield, Constant, Geuda Springs, etc. On October 29, 1885, the Winfield Courier had
the following item: “The depot building at Latham, on the K. C. & S. W., will be moved next week four or five hundred yards up the track, and the city of Tolles will be taken up bodily and placed some half a mile this way in order to make it a commercial center. Fred Kropp will hitch next week. Fred has moved almost everything in the last few weeks, but this is the first town he has unseated.”
E. P. Kinne and family moved to Kansas City in November 1881, where Kinne became involved in business matters. His plans to return to Winfield did not materialize.

J. D. Pryor patented a Journal for bookkeepers in December 1881, which did away with a large share of the labor necessary to run a complete set of double-entry books. In January 1882 an eastern insurance company adopted the Pryor business calendar. The firm of “Pryor & Kinne” dissolved on January 1, 1883, when it became apparent that  Kinne would not return to Winfield. S. D. Pryor moved his office into a different location. John D. Pryor left Winfield for several weeks on a prospecting tour in Florida. He soon returned and by July 1883 was once again handling real estate as well as fire, life, tornado, and windstorm insurance, retaining his office above the Winfield Bank. In September 1885 J. D. Pryor took on a new partner, E. P. Young. The real estate and loan agency was known as “Pryor & Young.” The firm often advertised a long list of farm and city property that they handled.
E. P. Young, 34, moved from Pennsylvania with his wife and four children to Cowley County in 1873. He built a two-story stone residence and barn in Tisdale township, using fine white magnesia limestone from the quarry of G. W. Foughty. Mr. Young, a Democrat, went through some “stormy” times in the early days of the township. Matters calmed down when the south part of Tisdale township changed into “Liberty township” in January 1875. Young was an active member of various attempts to get a railroad. He and his wife joined the Grange in February 1878. In March he was the district road overseer in grading the road and building culverts. By August 1878 he installed a pump to draw water. From March through November 1881 he worked as a drummer for a Kansas City firm. A member of Company D, 105 Ohio Infantry, during the Civil War, Mr. Young was one of the old veterans who attended a reunion in Topeka in September 1882. In February 1883 he was elected as a Justice of the Peace in Tisdale township. A Winfield Courier correspondent, “James,” described E. P. Young’s first activity as a Justice of the Peace on March 25, 1883.
“I am not much used to writing for papers, but must tell you how bad we (us boys) were all ‘tore up’ Sunday by the wedding. Billy Watkins has been fooling around here for some time, and finally married Annie Hoover against the wishes of quite a number of us. I suppose we will have to stand it since Billy ‘got the drop on us.’ We had one of the biggest times at his wedding ever seen in Liberty Township. The old and young, little and big, from Grandfather Catlin down to babes in arms, were there. Mrs. Hoover, assisted by friends, continued to dish up and pour out good things to the hungry guests until late in the afternoon. In the course of time all seemed to be satisfied, while the piles of roasted chicken, pies, cakes, puddings, etc., on the side tables seemed as big as ever. At 5 o’clock ’Squire Young from Tisdale was called out to tie the knot, which he did as if ’twas nothing new to him. After congratulations were over, we left them alone in their glory; not without some regrets, however. As we left we noticed the thoughtful mother of the bride pressed into the hands of the guests a paper of cake for those left at home. Long may they prosper. JAMES.”
Lightning struck the center of a millet stack at Young’s farm in April 1883. His neighbors helped him to cut the stack in two and stopped the fire.
On April 20, 1884, Edward W. Young, 21, oldest child of E. P. Young, who had suffered from asthma attacks for years, died. He was buried in the Winfield cemetery. In August 1885 Mrs. S. D. Pryor and Mrs. Henry Brown, with their little ones, spent the day with Mrs. E. P. Young at the Tisdale farm. Within a short time E. P. Young exchanged his house with a man from Winfield in order to give his children the advantage of the Winfield schools and joined with John D. Pryor in his real estate and loan firm. In March 1886 Fred Kropp moved a big red barn to South Loomis street where E. P. Young lived.