History of Atchison County, Kansas

by Sheffield Ingalls

JAMES R. GRAGG.

For nearly fifty-nine years James R. Gragg, wealthy farmer and stockman, of Lancaster township, Atchison county, Kansas, and the present township treasurer, has lived in Kansas, and is one of the real pioneers of the State. Since a lad six years of age he has been a resident of Atchison county, and has lived to see the once wild and barren prairie become one of the garden spots in America, and has seen the towns and cities grow within the borders of the county where once was a wild, unbroken waste. When a boy he was taught by his father that the greatest returns from the pursuit of agriculture could be obtained by the raising and feeding of live stock, and he has endeavored to follow his father’s teachings in this respect and has met with success, resulting from following a definite plan of getting the best results from his efforts. He is a descendant of a southern pioneer family, who were among the original settlers of eastern Tennessee, and again were pioneers in Clay county, Missouri, early in the nineteenth century. It is a topic of interest to compare the comfortable residence and farm buildings of Mr. Gragg, at this day, to the log cabin in which he was reared, and the stock shed made of poles and slough grass, which his father was forced by necessity to erect in the early days of the settlement of Kansas. Few families settled in Lancaster township as early as the Graggs, and in point of years of residence, James R. is probably the third oldest living settler of the township.

James R. Gragg was born February 5, 1851, in Clinton county, Missouri. He is a son of Jefferson and Mary (White) Gragg, to whom fifteen children were born. Four children, two sons and two daughters, are still living, as follows: Mrs. Mahala Martin, Gower, Mo.; James R.; Mrs. Alice Muks, near Oklahoma City, Okla.; and Bishop or Bascomb Gragg, Stafford, Kan. The Graggs are of Irish descent. The father of James Gragg was born in 1814 in eastern Tennessee. When he was a child his parents removed to Clay county, Missouri, where he grew up as a farmer. In the spring of 1856 Jefferson Gragg came to Kansas and settled in Leavenworth, where he had taken a claim. He sold this a year later and came to Atchison county, and preëmpted 160 acres in section 24, Lancaster township, on which James R. is now living. He paid $1.25 an acre. As soon as he took charge of the land he built a log house, twelve feet square and also erected a hay barn with a slough-grass roof. He brought a covered wagon to Kansas and lived in it until the log house was ready for occupancy. During the border war he was forced to return to Missouri for three months, but at the end of that time came back to Kansas and continued to improve his farm. It was slow work, as he did most of the plowing with oxen and this took a great deal of time, but he was able to accumulate a little money slowly, and in ten years erected a better house on his place. He had a hard fight for existence the first few years in the face of crop failures, droughts and grasshoppers, but when he retired, about 1890, he owned 640 acres of land which he divided among his children, and lived with them until his death, April 10, 1910. His wife, the mother of James R. Gragg, was born in Clinton county, Missouri, in 1816, and died in 1912. She was the daughter of Robert White, and her mother bore the maiden name of Cooley. Both parents were members of the South Methodist church, and helped to organize and build the Bethel church in Grasshopper township, which was one of the early Methodist churches in Kansas. Both parents are buried in old Huron cemetery.

James R. Gragg, the subject of this sketch, was reared on the farm where he now lives, and attended school in Lancaster and Huron, Kan., although his early educational opportunities were limited. In early days the father and his son were stock buyers on a large scale. The father did the actual buying, and the son had charge of the herds on the prairie. They did a large business in trading and buying and selling stock, and the son has continued this until the present time. James has always lived on the Gragg land and was with his father until the latter retired in 1890 and the land was divided. James later bought out the other heirs and now owns 1,040 acres in Atchison and Wabaunsee counties, 560 acres of this land being located in Atchison county, with three sets of farm buildings. He gives a great deal of attention to the stock selling part of his business, and feeds and winters 150 head each winter. On December 25, 1872, Mr. Gragg married Mrs. Viola A. Norris, who was born May 26, 1855, in Buchanan county, Missouri. She is a daughter of David and Martha (Cook) Norris. The father’s family came from Kentucky and the mother’s from Indiana. Mr. and Mrs. Gragg have two children: Jefferson K., born February 23, 1875, in Atchison county, Kansas; married in October, 1894, to Ella Walls, and has two children, Paul, aged twenty years, and George, aged twelve years. He is now engaged in the live stock commission business in Kansas City, Mo., and Arch, born May 3, 1889, who is farming on the home place, married March 11, 1914, to Edna Wilson, of Lancaster township, a daughter of J. E. Wilson. Jefferson, the older son, completed a course in the Atchison Business College. Mr. Gragg is a Democrat, and has been a member of the school board, and is now treasurer of Lancaster township. He is a member of the Methodist church and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Modern Woodmen of America.

URI SEELEY KEITH.

Uri Seeley Keith is one of the grand old men of Atchison. His career has been interesting, and borders upon the romantic, when many incidents in which he has figured are recounted. A valiant soldier of the Union during the Civil war, it fell to him to perform the arrest of Vallandingham in Ohio when his activities in favor of the Confederacy had rendered him obnoxious to the State and Federal governments. Few men in Atchison have had a more varied or active life than Mr. Keith. He was born June 27, 1841, in Massillon, Ohio, the son of Fordyce M. and Parthena J. (Seeley) Keith, natives of New York and the Western Reserve of Ohio, respectively. Mrs. Keith was a daughter of Uri Seeley. Fordyce M. Keith was born in 1816 and died May 14, 1906. He was a son of Ansell Keith, a native of New York. The Keith family is descended from two brothers who were sons of General Keith, at one time a field marshal in the Russian army. He was a Scotch-Englishman, who quarreled with Queen Elizabeth and left England to take service under Peter the Great of Russia. His two sons immigrated to America in 1690, one settling in New York and the other going to the Southland. Two branches of the family thus sprang from these sons of Marshal Keith. Brigadier General Keith served under General Washington during the Revolution and the General lived at the Keith home in New York for a time. Ansell Keith served in the War of 1812. The Seeley family originally settled in Connecticut. Uri Seeley was born in 1791 and settled in the Western Reserve on a land grant of 100 acres where he died. Ansell, the father of Fordyce M., and grandfather of the subject of this sketch, settled in Lorain county, Ohio, in 1832, near Elyria and was a contractor and builder. Data regarding the members of the family is as follows: Ansell Keith was born June 24, 1786, and Betsy M., his wife, was born January 2, 1794; Uri Seeley was born May 25, 1791, and died August 10, 1877, and his wife, Abbey, was born October 23, 1792.

U. S. KEITH

C. H. BURROWS.
Commander G. A. R. Post No. 93.