Its founder was John P. Wheeler, a young man who came to the Territory when about twenty-one years of age, and who has been described as “a red-headed, blue-eyed, consumptive, slim, freckled enthusiast from Massachusetts.”
Atchison at this time was a strong pro-slavery town, and no abolitionist was a welcome settler in her midst. For this reason Sumner sprang into existence. It was a dream of its founder to make Sumner an important forwarding point, one of its claims being the fact that it was the most westerly of any of the Missouri river towns in Kansas.
In 1856 the site was surveyed and platted, and the name “Sumner” given the new town, in honor of George Sumner, one of the original stockholders, and not for his brother, the Hon. Charles Sumner, United States senator, of Massachusetts, as many people suppose.
To bring Sumner before the public Mr. Wheeler engaged an artist named Albert Conant to come out and make a drawing of it, and this was later taken to Cincinnati, and a colored lithograph made from it, which was widely circulated. From copies of this lithograph still extant it must be admitted that the artist did not slight the town in any particular.
In the fall of 1857 the Sumner Town Company began the erection of a large brick hotel. Samuel Hollister had the contract, his bid being $16,000. The brick used in the construction were made on the ground, and the lumber used in the construction work came by steamboat from Pittsburgh, Pa. The hotel was completed in the summer of 1858, and at last accounts the town company still owed Mr. Hollister $3,000. Some years later the brick used in the hotel were gathered and cleaned and hauled to Atchison and used for the construction of a building owned by the late John J. Ingalls, located at 108–110 South Fourth street.
In the fall of 1857 Cone Brothers (John P. and D. D.) brought a printing outfit to Kansas, and were induced to locate in Sumner, where they shortly begun the publication of The Sumner Gazette, the first issue of which appeared on September 12. During the political canvass that fall they also issued a daily. The Gazette was issued until 1861 when it suspended, its publishers believing that it was the only paper in Kansas that outlived the town in which it started.
Among those engaged in business in Sumner on October 1, 1857, the Daily Gazette shows the following:
John P. Wheeler, attorney and counsellor at law, commissioner of deeds, dealer in real estate, etc.
Kahn & Fassler, general store, on Front street, between Washington avenue and Chestnut street.
Mayer & Rohrmann, carpenters and builders.