DR. W. K. GRIMES.
One of the oldest citizens of Atchison was Dr. W. H. Grimes, who came here from Yellow Spring, Ohio, in 1858. His son, E. B. Grimes, came a year before, and opened a drug store in the building for many years occupied as an office by the Atchison Water Company, across from the Byram Hotel. Dr. W. H. Grimes practiced medicine until the war broke out, when he became a surgeon in the Thirteenth Kansas. Returning to Atchison at the close of the war, he continued the practice of medicine until his death, in 1879.
E. B. Grimes was a quartermaster during the war with a rank of major. At the close of the war he entered the regular army, and built many of the posts in the Department of the Platte, notably Ft. Laramie, Ft. Fetterman and Ft. Douglass. He died at Ft. Leavenworth, in 1882.
Another son, Dr. R. V. Grimes, was a lieutenant in his father’s regiment. After the war he became an army surgeon, and was in many of the Indian campaigns in the Northwest. He was in Merritt’s command when it went to the rescue of General Custer, and was the surgeon in Major Thornburg’s command when it was surrounded at the famous fight on Milk river. The command was surrounded five days by the Utes, and was finally rescued by General Merritt. While he lived in Atchison he was employed as a printer on the Champion.
Two other sons of Dr. Grimes, John and Howard Grimes, were members of Colonel Jennison’s Seventh Kansas Jayhawkers.