Locust Grove was never laid out as a town site. It was a stopping place on the old stage route to Topeka, and the postoffice from Mount Pleasant was moved there in 1862.
HELENA.
Helena was located and named in this county, and the plat thereof was filed March 18, 1857, by James L. Byers, one of the proprietors of the town company, and was located on the north half of section 28, township 5, range 18, on the Little Grasshopper river, in Grasshopper township, at the crossing of the old Military road, five miles north of the present site of Effingham. The town appears on an old township map of eastern Kansas, published by Whitman & Searl, of Lawrence, in 1856. It shows it to have been on the east branch of Grasshopper river, about fifteen miles west of Atchison, and north of the Ft. Laramie and California roads.
CAYUGA.
Cayuga was laid out by a New York colony in 1856, and was named for Cayuga, N. Y. It was also in Grasshopper township, on the old Military road, one and one-half miles from Lancaster township line on part of the east half of section 18, township 5, range 18. It was surveyed by Dr. A. C. Tabor, and the plat was filed October 9, 1857, by George L. Willson. Provision was made in the town site for a public park and a young ladies’ seminary. It was claimed that it had at one time 400 inhabitants. Among the members of the town company were Messrs. Smooks, Fuller, Higby, Atherton, Ontis, Meeker, William Adams, Chase and Dr. Taylor. The land on which the town was located was “junked” as a claim by a Mrs. Place, and thereafter the town gradually went out of existence. It is said to have had a good two-story hotel and a number of business houses.
KENNEKUK.
In the plat which Royal Baldwin, president of the town company, filed April 6, 1859, the name of this town is given as Kennekuck. It was located on the southeast quarter and the southwest fractional quarter of section 3, township 5, range 17. Its streets were sixty feet wide, except Broadway, which was 100 feet wide, and Market street, which was eighty feet wide. One block was donated for a market house, and another block for a park, for religious and educational purposes. The streets were numbered from 1 to 10 and the cross streets were named as follows: Elm, Linn, Cedar, Poplar, Broadway, Market, Walnut, Weld, Perry and Baldwin. The town site was vacated by the board of county commissioners December 15, 1871. Kennekuk was a station on the Overland stage route, twenty-four miles west and north of Atchison. During the overland stage days Thomas Perry ran an eating station there, and Mrs. Perry, who was a grand cook, always had a smoking hot dinner ready with the best of coffee, for the occupants of the stage coaches. In the early days dances were held in the Perry home, and Hon. D. W. Wilder, the author of the celebrated “Annals of Kansas,” used to trip the light fantastic toe there, and it is said that he courted the girl who afterwards became his wife, in the Perry home.
Frank A. Root, who was an express messenger on the overland stage, says, in his book, that Kennekuk was the first “home” station out from Atchison, and the drivers were changed there. In 1863 it was a little town of perhaps a dozen houses with one store and a blacksmith shop. The Kickapoo Indian Agency was one of the most prominent buildings there, and was located near the old road in the northwestern part of the town. The town was laid out by William H. Wheeler, a surveyor and speculator, and was named for the Kickapoo chieftain, John Kennekuk. George Remsburg says that the town was platted in June, 1854, but the dedication on the original plat in the court house would indicate that it was platted on the date first mentioned in this sketch.
Hon. A. J. White, the son of Capt. Robert White, and at one time a member of the legislature from this county, and one of the leading farmers of the county, claims that Royal Baldwin was the first white settler in Kennekuk, and that he was appointed Indian agent for the Kickapoos there by President Pierce before Kansas was opened for settlement. Mr. Remsburg also says that many noted travelers stopped at Kennekuk, including Mark Twain.