C H A P T E R E L E V E N
A meeting. Go to Kansas, 1967. Nine Mile House. Do Stones grow? On the shelf. The Spencers. The Johnsons. Brother Rufus. March 15, 1868.
During the holidays of the year I was in school in Indianapolis I held a good meeting at Christian Liberty where I had taught and preached for a number of years. Many hearing, believed and were baptized. It was at this place afterwards that I preached my farewell sermon to old Indianans before going to Kansas. There were a great many people at this meeting. Among them a Methodist preacher who, being free to address the people, complimented me by saying that I had not only been a faithful servant of God among my own people but also among all people. He also said that while I left many friends in Indiana I would make many in Kansas. I am happy to say, I have found it even so. That preacher after ran for Governor of Indiana.
I was doing so well and had so many friends in Indiana that I had about abandoned the idea of going to Kansas, but mother, two of my brothers and my two sisters, were already in Kansas and were pleading with me to visit them at any rate. So about the first of July, 1867 I took a train from Washington, Indiana, to St. Louis, Mo, and from there I boarded a steamer for Leavenworth, Kansas, where I landed on the tenth of July, 1867. Our steamer, however, had made a landing early in the morning at Wyandotte to unload some railroad irons for the second road in Kansas. While there I steeped off on the muddy shore remarking that that was the first time I had ever dotted Kansas soil with my feet. "Well sir" said an old darky standing by, "this as a mighty big dot where you step off." I do not know to this day whether he meant the track I made or the town. Kansas City, Missouri was not big enough to stop at then, but it is the big dot of the West now. At Leavenworth and everywhere the yards, gardens, road-sides, fields, all looked barren and dead as if a fire had ran over them. The grass-hoppers had just left.
My brother Henry lived west of Leavenworth city in what was called the Nine Mile House. My brother, younger brother, Rufus, and two sisters, Mrs. Dotson, and Mrs. Sears, lived near Grasshopper Falls known now as Valley Falls.
Of course I had not been in Kansas very long until it was known that I was a young preacher. And I was called upon to preach the funeral of a most excellent lady, Mrs. Roach, who had died in the neighborhood of the Nine Mile House. This was the first time I ever preached in Kansas. It was only a few days after this that I attended a meeting held by Brethren Dibble and McCleary, a few miles west of the Nine Mile House at a place called NO. 6 and here I was invited to preach. I did do it, taking for a subject, "Growth." I remember saying in order to growth there must be union, for separation is death. Even rocks grow, but, separated into stones, they ceased to grow. Good, old, devout, scholarly brother Humber was there, and kindly criticized my sermon by saying he did not believe that rocks grow. I have never preached that sermon since, but I still think rocks do grow.
From that time, 1867, I was a faithful Sunday preacher, more or less in Kansas until I was nearly sixty years old, when I became so infirm that I submitted to a place on the shelf, where I am still waiting for transportation to the skies.
But I am not dead yet, so I will go back and tell the rest of my story. So many new friends in Kansas came about me soliciting me to stay, and teach and preach, that I agreed to do so for one year at least. Among these friends there were none better than Mr. Charley Spencer of Round Prairie. He secured for me the school at a larger salary than I had been getting in Indiana. I also had the privilege of preaching in the lower room of the Masonic building. To Mr. Spencer I preached the gospel, and taught his children to read.
He believed and was baptized, and his children grew up to be wise and good. His son, Hon. Dick Spencer now a leading lawyer of St. Joseph, Mo. learned his A. B. C. at my knees. It was also here during this year that I had the great pleasure and joy of baptizing my youngest brother, Rufus, into Christ.
In the meantime it was here I formed the acquaintance of the Johnson family, Mrs. Emily Johnson, the aged mother and six noble sons, W. L. David, W. H., J. E., J. C., and M. S. These were all good citizen and Christians. The youngest of whom, M. S. whose wife I baptized, became an able preacher of the Word, and is to this day, preaching somewhere in the state of Oklahoma. The third son, W. H. was widower, and, with my help to solemnize the contract, he took a second wife. This wedding took place on the hill across the creek from at Joseph McBride's residence (for the bride was his daughter), and this was my first wedding in Kansas. Of the weddings that followed this I will not attempt to tell you, for they are too many to be enumerated in a short story of an old preacher's life.
These Johnsons all sold their possessions in Leavenworth County and at the suggestion of Pardee Butler, moved north into Atchison Co. and settled in a new community called Pardee Station. The Johnsons earnestly solicited me to follow them to their new place and teach and preach in a large new school house that had been erected at the station. So in the spring, 1868, I visited Pardee Station, and preached. It happened that this Sunday was the 15th day of March, and consequently my thirtieth birthday anniversary.
This was the first time I ever preached in Atchison County. It was here and at this time that I met Elder Pardee Butler for the first time in life, and his family, consisting of his wife, two sons George C. 15 years old and Charley P. 9 years old, and a little grown daughter Rosetta, 23 years old of whom I will speak more fully later on.
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