In addition to the names of merchants and professional men heretofore given, “Andreas’ History of Kansas” gives the following list: Grafton Thomassen, the slave owner, ran a sawmill. Thomassen’s name appears in the records of Atchison county in connection with land transfers as Grafton Thomason; Luther C. Challiss, who occupied a store on the levee, 45 by 100 feet which he filled with dry goods and groceries, and advertised “such an assortment as was never before offered for sale in the upper country”; Samuel Dickson, a merchant and politician and also an auctioneer, on the north side of C street; Lewis Burnes, M. P. Rively and Stephen Johnson carried stocks of assorted merchandise; A. J. G. Westbrook, a grocer, and Patrick Laughlin, who fled from Doniphan on account of the murder of Collins, the Free State man, was a tinner; William C. Null and Albert G. Schmitt operated a warehouse and carried a general stock of merchandise at the corner of Second and C streets; Charles E. Woolfolk and Robert H. Cavell had a large store and warehouse at the steamboat landing; George M. Million operated the Pioneer Saloon; John Robertson conducted a saddlery and harness business; Messrs. Jackson & Ireland were a contracting firm with a shop over Samuel Dickson’s store; Uncle Sam Clothing Store, at the corner of C and Third streets, was conducted by Jacob Saqui & Company; Giles B. Buck sold stoves on C street; O. B. Dickson was proprietor of the Atchison House; Drs. J. H. Stringfellow and D. M. McVay were the leading physicians; and it is interesting to note that Washburn’s Great American Colossal Circus, which was the first in Kansas, gave two exhibitions in Atchison, July 31, 1856. This aggregation carried three clowns, a full brass and string band and an immense pavilion, and many other novel and attractive features.
Fully fifty new buildings were erected during the spring and summer of 1856.
During this period in the history of the county, Free State people began to come into their own. They grew bolder, following the compromise with the pro-slavery citizens, over the question of the distribution of city officers and because of other concessions that were made by the pro-slavery citizens for the general good of the community. It was not strange, therefore, that some of the less tactful and politic Free State leaders should over-reach themselves at such a time. While the “Reign of Terrorism” under the Stringfellow regime was on, the Free State men in Atchison county considered discretion the better part of valor. They were very quiet, with few exceptions, of whom Pardee Butler was a conspicuous example, but they were nevertheless quite numerous in the county, and particularly was this the case in and around Monrovia, Eden and Ocena; in fact, there was an organization of Free State men in the county as early as 1857, and several quiet meetings were held that year; and at Monrovia a society was formed, of which Franklin G. Adams was the chief officer and spokesman.
Early in May, 1857, Senator Pomeroy and the Free State men bought the Squatter Sovereign from Dr. Stringfellow, and Mr. Adams and Robert McBratney became its editors. Mr. Adams was just as ardent a Free State man as Dr. Stringfellow was the other way, so the policy of the paper was completely reversed. Judge Adams was a lawyer and partner of John J. Ingalls for a while. He represented Atchison county in the constitutional convention that met in Mineola March 23, 1858 and which subsequently adjourned to Leavenworth. Caleb May, G. M. Fuller, C. A. Woodworth and H. E. Baker were the other delegates from Atchison county. Judge Adams was later one of the useful men of Kansas, and at the time of his death he was secretary of the State Historical Society, which position he filled with credit and honor for many years. On August 22, 1858, following the local compromise with the pro-slavery leaders, Judge Adams concluded the time was ripe to invite James H. Lane, the great Free State leader, to Atchison, to make a speech. He consequently served notice in his paper that Lane would be in Atchison October 19. As soon as it was generally known that Lane had been invited to speak in Atchison a number of the more rabid pro-slavery men concluded that the speaking would not take place. On the other hand, Judge Adams was just as determined that Lane would have a public meeting in Atchison. For the purpose of insuring order on that occasion Adams invited a number of strong and reliable Free State friends from Leavenworth to come up to Atchison and see that fair play was done. The invitation to the Leavenworth Free Soilers was accepted with alacrity and they arrived on the morning of the day Lane was billed to make his speech and brought with them their side arms as a matter of precaution. They made the office of Adams, Swift & Company their headquarters while here. Shortly after the arrival of the Leavenworth contingent and while sitting in his office Judge Adams noticed a crowd gathering on Commercial street, near Fifth. Suspecting that the crowd had gathered for no good purpose, Judge Adams and six of his friends started for the scene of what appeared to him to be a disturbance. On their way they met Caleb A. Woodworth, Sr., hatless and apparently in trouble. As Judge Adams stopped to make inquiries of Mr. Woodworth regarding his trouble somebody from the rear assaulted him with a heavy blow on the cheek. Instead of following the Biblical injunction he did not turn his other cheek, but swung quickly in his tracks and levelled a pistol at his assailant, who was accompanied by a crowd of his friends, all armed and with blood in their eyes. As Judge Adams was about to pull the trigger of his gun a friend of Judge Adams shouted, “Don’t shoot yet!” following which admonition all of the crowd displayed cocked revolvers and aimed them in the direction of Judge Adams and his crowd. Observing that the Free Soilers meant business, the pro-slavery men discreetly withdrew without further trouble, and the Free Soil men returned to the office of Judge Adams. It was then determined that the meeting should be an out-of-door one, and as they passed out into the street, again the pro-slavery advocates mixed freely with the Free Soilers. A. J. W. Westbrook, of the “Home Guards,” mounted on a prancing horse, rode among the crowd, flourishing a cocked gun, apparently seeking to kill Judge Adams at the first favorable opportunity. It has been doubted that Westbrook meant business, but his conduct had the effect of stirring up his followers who avowed that Jim Lane should not speak in Atchison that night. His threatening attitude apparently had the desired effect, for the Free Soil men decided that it was not necessary for the existence of their cause that Jim Lane should speak and therefore postponed the speaking. Judge Adams was not altogether pleased but he was finally prevailed upon to return home without attempting further trouble. Later in the day a party of Free Soil men met General Lane on the outskirts of the city, returning from Doniphan where he had been speaking, and prevailed upon him not to come to Atchison. This was not the first attempt of Lane to visit Atchison county. He was entertained at dinner in 1855 at the home of Dr. J. H. Stringfellow, whose house occupied the site where the home of Ex-Governor W. J. Bailey now stands. The fact that Lane was a guest of Dr. Stringfellow will appear strange to those who knew nothing of the Stringfellow family. While they were belligerent pro-slavery advocates, they were always high class men with decent instincts and therefore it would not be unusual for them to open their home to so violent an opponent of theirs as Lane was. The eastern papers, in giving an account of Lane’s entertainment at the Stringfellow home, stated that the dinner was a very elaborate one, including oysters, plum pudding, terrapin and champagne. Mrs. Stringfellow told E. W. Howe in 1894 that Lane came to the house about 11 o’clock in the morning attended by a body-guard of four men and inquired for Dr. Stringfellow. The Doctor was away at the time, but was expected about noon. The men said that they would wait, whereupon Mrs. Stringfellow knew that she would probably have them for dinner. Her girl was just getting ready to go somewhere on an errand and was asked to remain at the house. Dr. Stringfellow came in about noon and when the two men met in the yard Stringfellow asked Lane if he was not afraid to call at his house. “I am not afraid,” Lane replied, “to call on a gentleman anywhere.” This gallantry captured Mrs. Stringfellow’s admiration and she invited Lane and his body-guard to dinner, which, contrary to the report in the eastern papers, was a very simple one. Mrs. Stringfellow, in her interview with Mr. Howe, said that it was as follows: Coffee, hot biscuits and butter, cold pie, preserves and milk; no terrapin, no oysters, no champagne, no plum pudding. Lane called at the house on a matter of business and Mrs. Stringfellow said that Lane and his body-guard were very kindly genteel men. Two or three weeks later, when Mrs. Stringfellow was alone in the house, she saw a wagon pass in the road with three or four men lying down in it. Presently another wagon, similarly loaded, attracted her attention. Then came four men and a woman on horseback and several men on foot. The people came from down town, or from southwest of town. The circumstances were peculiar, and Mrs. Stringfellow climbed on top of a table and watched the men through the upper sash of a window. They stopped in a little glade northeast of the house, when the woman dismounted from the horse, took off the skirt and turned out to be Jim Lane. He stood beside the horse and talked possibly half an hour. Mrs. Stringfellow is certain the speaker was Lane, because she had seen him only a few weeks before, and he rode the white horse he had ridden when he stopped at her house, and the same four men composed the body-guard. Lane had threatened to make a speech in the town but had been warned not to, as he had been warned two years earlier. He made his speech in spite of the warning, but his audience was composed of his friends only. A half hour after Lane disappeared over the hill toward the farm then owned by John Taylor, some distance south of the Orphans’ Home, forty mounted southerners appeared looking for him. Mrs. Stringfellow knew John Scott, the leader, and told him of the incident. The men laughed and then gave three rousing cheers for Jim Lane, who had outwitted them.
Forest Park, Atchison, Kansas
While there was a tremendous traffic across the plains from Atchison in 1857, 1858 and 1859, and for a number of years later the “town was alive with business,” it is only fair to record that the town itself was not a thing of beauty and a joy forever, in spite of the efforts of Mayor Pomeroy and the city fathers who put the city in debt to the extent of $9,000, September 5, 1859, for public improvements.
Frank A. Root in his admirable book, “The Overland Stage to California,” published in 1901, has this to say in part upon his arrival here in November, 1858:
“It was in November, 1858, that I first set foot on the levee in Atchison. I stepped from the steamer, ‘Omaha,’ which boat was discharging its cargo of freight at the foot of Commercial street. At that time the place was a very small town. I took up my residence in Atchison the following spring, having this time come up the river on a steamboat from Weston where I had been employed as a compositor in the office of the Platte Argus. On landing at Atchison I had a solitary dime in my pocket, and, after using that to pay for my lunch, I started out in search of a job. A sign over the office which read: ‘Freedom’s Champion, John A. Martin, Editor and Publisher,’ attracted my attention. It hung above the door of the only newspaper office in the city at that time, but preparations were then being made by Gideon O. Chase, of Waverly, N. Y., to start the Atchison Union, which was to be a Democratic paper. I secured a place in the Champion office, beginning work the following morning. As I walked about the town I remember of having seen but four brick buildings on Commercial street. A part of the second story of one of them, about half a square west of the river, was occupied by the Champion. The Massasoit House was the leading hotel. The Planters, a two-story frame house, was a good hotel in those early days, but it was too far out to be convenient, located as it was, on the corner of Commercial and Sixth streets. West of Sixth there were but few scattering dwellings and perhaps a dozen business houses and shops. The road along Commercial street, west of Sixth, was crooked, for it had not been graded and the streets were full of stumps and remnants of a thick growth of underbrush that had previously been cut. A narrow, rickety bridge was spanning White Clay creek where that stream crosses Commercial street at Seventh street. Between Sixth and Seventh streets, north of Commercial street there was a frog pond occupying most of the block, where the boys pulled dog-grass in highwater, and where both boys and girls skated in winter. The Exchange hotel on Atchison street, between Second and the Levee, built of logs—subsequently changed to the National—was the principal hotel of Atchison, and for more than a quarter of a century stood as an old familiar landmark, built in early territorial days.
“Atchison was the first Kansas town visited by Horace Greeley. It was Sunday morning, May 15, 1859, a few days before beginning his overland journey across the continent by stage. He came through Missouri by the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad, thence down the Missouri river from St. Joseph on the ‘Platte Valley,’ a steamer then running to Kansas City in connection with trains on the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. It was in the old Massasoit House that Greeley wrote on Kansas soil, his first letter to the Tribune. During the latter part of the afternoon he was driven over the city in a carriage, John A. Martin being one of the party. The city was a favorite place of Albert D. Richardson, the noted correspondent of five eastern newspapers.