Part 2

"This is but a brief memorial to the life and character of William Lynn. His work is done. Although he lived far beyond the allotted time for man, his death has come as a tragedy to his family and friends. Comfort is gathered from the fact that his life was one of service. Service in the building of his country and his State, service to his family, and service to his fellowman. No honest effort is ever lost. Service--honest and faithful--has a force and influence that will live forever. We can understand that the name of this man will be perpetuated because his service in building a home along this little watercourse has caused it to be named 'Lynn Creek,' and that his name has been given to a school-house and to a church and to a political division of a township, and yet every other deed of honest service from the beginning to the end of his long and useful life will live and share in framing the lives, conduct and destiny of those who follow him so long as time shall last."

Mother Newcomer

Mother Newcomer certainly enjoyed Kansas, and she soon became as well known as an old-timer. At home she was the cook and the baker and the dressmaker and the tailor, besides doing a part of all other work about the place. She knew where the best greens could be picked in early spring, and the best berries in the summer, and she either made the boys pick them or she took her snake-killing dog with her and picked them herself; and all through the year she was a part of all the activities of the home; and she enjoyed it all.

When a babe was to be born anywhere for miles around, she was there. Sometimes she was the lone attendant, and again she helped Dr. Taylor, who had been in the valley from the beginning; and more than once she worked with some young doctor who was so panicky because the baby didn't hurry that she would have to tell him to keep his feet on the ground, and that millions of babies had been born before a doctor or a medical college had ever been discovered. One night at midnight she waked up one of the boys, and told him that his father was out saddling the pony, and that he must go for Dr. Woods, who lived about five miles to the west. The boy finally wakened up and got his clothes on, and found that she was just ready to leave with a neighbor for his home, and that someone must go for the doctor. The pony had been saddled by that time, and was tied with a heavy rope to a tree near the door. The boy put on plenty of clothes and then mounted the pony, while his father held the little beast to keep him from standing on his head. The father pointed to the seven stars then showing up in the southern sky and told the boy to keep them to his left and to ride until he had crossed the railroad, and then go up to the first house and yell until someone came out so that he could inquire for the home of Dr. Woods. The directions being given, the pony was untied and turned loose, with the end of the rope fastened to the horn of the saddle. Of course the pony ran off for about a mile, but the boy kept him headed in the right direction, and after a while he slowed down and made the journey in good shape. When Dr. Woods was roused he made the boy come in and get warm while he got his horse, and together they rode back, and long before day the doctor had joined Mother Newcomer at the neighbor's house.

Dr. Taylor still lives at his old home about three miles north of the stone bridge. He is a fine type of the pioneer doctor, and he not only knows the books, but he knows men and women, and especially Kansas men and women; and more than that, he knows Kansas and its climate, its tricks, and its good moods and its bad ones. For nearly fifty years he has ministered to the sick and the afflicted, and those who thought they were sick or afflicted, along the roads and trails of Wakarusa; and none could do it better or more faithfully. Doctor Woods was of the same type. He always traveled horseback, usually riding a large, strong, rough horse; and he knew the bridle-paths, and where to ford the streams.

She was always interested in the school, and one of the first things that attracted her special attention was the fact that only four months of school was provided for in the year. She started an agitation for a longer term, and in the midst of it the word came through the country that either by a statute or a decision of the Supreme Court women were allowed to vote at school elections; and therefore upon school-meeting day she had one of the boys hitch a team to the farm wagon and they drove round and gathered up and took six women to the school meeting. They proved to be the balance of power, and a new director was elected, and a vote was carried for nine months school and for a levy large enough to pay a good teacher. The records show that from that day to this the old district has never been disgraced with a short term, nor meager provisions for school support.

With all her activities, her best and greatest service was in her tender, sympathetic helpfulness and cooperation with her husband and children. There never was a day so dark but that she was full of good cheer and comfort. One terrible August day a hot wind blew across the State like a blast from Hell; leaves that were green in the morning could be burned with a match at noon; and the crops in every field seemed doomed for destruction. When the men came in at midday they were sorely discouraged, but they found a splendid dinner on the table, the floor scrubbed to make the room cool, and the blinds down toward the south; and Mother Newcomer, with a clean apron and cheerful face, sitting at the end of the table, almost made them forget the terrible hurricane of heat that was being driven across the country. During the meal some of them spoke of their discouragement, but she was full of plans as to how they might pull through; and when some said there would be no corn and no feed, she insisted that there would be a harvest of some kind. In keeping with a custom of hers, she enforced her views by a quotation: "Summer and winter, seed time and harvest, shall not fail so long as time shall last." From this she argued that there was sure to be a harvest, and they all went out with better cheer. And indeed there was some harvest, and they were able to hold on for another year.

Years afterwards, she wrote all the boys who were away from home and asked them to be there Thanksgiving Day; and they were there. No one believed that it would be the last time they were all to be together; but all during the day there was a feeling of tenderness about the occasion; and it was the last time.

That day as they all sat about the great table and talked of their experiences in the new country, and one told of this adventure or this experience or another, finally one of the boys voiced the sentiment of all the others when he said: "In making this home here, Mother has done more than all the rest." On that same day she repeated another familiar quotation of hers, which the boys have always remembered: "I have been young and now I am old, and I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread;" and she said: "Do right as you understand and believe the right to be and you will be righteous, and have peace, and the promise will be yours."

John MacDonald

A Scotch lad who appeared to be scarcely out of his teens came to the neighborhood one October day and was soon employed as a farm hand. This employment did not last long, because the school ma'am got married, and he made application and was selected as the teacher in the district school. George Franks looked him over and said: "There's one thing certain. He's not liable to get married before the term is over."

He was certainly an awkward lad, and his peculiar brogue as well as the unusual phraseology employed by him was a source of extraordinary amusement and entertainment to everyone. Of course, he was welcomed and made at home, just as every stranger was, and good-natured frontier manners prevented fun being made of him to his face. However, and notwithstanding the best that could be done, it was not unusual for a company of young folks to get around him and ask him questions, and they frequently burst into laughter over his quaint expressions. It embarrassed him very much at the time; and in his later years he often said that he sometimes blushed even then to think of what he had said and how the young folks laughed at him. Purely as a matter of self-defense, he developed the habit of saying things to make folks laugh; and, having an active, ingenious mind, he soon developed into a humorist, and this characteristic obtained with him during all his life.

He became one of the fixtures in the community, and not only taught the Berry Creek school, but nearly every other school for a number of miles around. Although he was a thorough Scotchman, raised with all the strictness which his hardy people and the Presbyterian faith provided, he was known among school children as "John Easy"; and it is to be recorded that during the many years that he was a Wakarusa Valley school teacher he never struck a pupil nor laid violent hands on one. How he managed to get along without doing so is still a marvel to the old-timers in the neighborhood. It was probably because of the fact that he was a continuous and ardent student himself, always having on hand, in addition to school work, one or more scientific or literary studies which he pursued, and the youngsters caught the spirit from him, and on this account were not hard to manage. It can be truly said of him that by his conduct, his life, and his teachings, he coaxed and led the way of his pupils to higher education and to better things. Again, the idea that he was liable to say something that would make you laugh possessed the children as well as the grown folks, and he knew it, and frequently used his ability as a humorist to keep attention to himself and to the work the pupils had in hand. One day, during a drill in history, he pointed to a lad from the most outspoken Democratic family in the vicinity, and said, 'You write the names of all the _Republican Presidents_ on the blackboard." The way he said it caused a lot of merriment. The boy stepped to the board and wrote the full list, and, after the last name he wrote, "The last of that bright band." Every one watched the teacher when he looked over the work. He said not a word, but took a piece of chalk and wrote like he was digging into the board, "Do you think so?"

To close friends he would confess that he loved the taste of every intoxicating liquor (and in his native land among those surrounding him it was a common practice for nearly everyone to use strong drink of some character), yet he never drank, and he was among the first to advocate and work for the destruction of the liquor traffic in Kansas.

His splendid work as a teacher made him friends and acquaintances throughout the county, and in course of time he was elected County Superintendent, which position he held for many years. It was his custom as Superintendent to go on foot when visiting the different schools of the county, and he knew every trail and bridle-path. It was a treat to the pupils and teacher to have him come slipping in at the door, after which he would take off his wraps and "loaf around," as he called it. He always left something in the way of help to those who were trying to learn. His life along the trails of Wakarusa was a tour of usefulness, and he had the confidence of everyone, from the most well-to-do to the poorest; and from the most respected to the worthless.

As years went by he married and commenced the establishment of a home on a farm purchased and owned by him. He mixed newspaper and educational work with his farming, and this took him away from home much of the time. One day he returned after a short absence and found his home desolated. It is enough to say that it was the consuming tragedy of his life, and it left him alone among men. Very few aside from his country neighbors ever knew of his trouble. Years went by, and honors came to him in educational work, not only in the State but throughout the United States and the world; and his old neighbors on Wakarusa often thought of him and sympathized with him and had heartaches for him, because they knew how he suffered; and he knew that they knew, and they knew that he knew that they knew.

It was some years after MacDonald had left the farm that one of the Berry Creek schoolboys, having grown to young manhood, was about to leave home for service as a soldier. His days were full of things to do, and he did not take time to hunt up old friends to say good-bye, but early in the morning of the day he was to go he met MacDonald on the sidewalk near his home. He was waiting for the young man, and he took him by the hand and looked at him as he often looked at him as a boy, and said, "I shall think of you often. God bless you. Good-bye." The beautiful May morning, with the sun just breaking "over the top," was something to remember, but the earnest man and his eloquent words of farewell were burned into the mind and heart of the younger man, and they gave him strength and courage.

Such was John MacDonald.

Jake Self

On a slab in the Ridgeway graveyard there is this inscription: "Jacob W. Self. Died January 27, 1873."

Jake Self was forty-nine years old when he died, and he had been a pioneer and a plainsman since his boyhood. He lived on the old Berry farm near the stone bridge. On the morning of the day of his death he, together with Wash Townsend and S. A. Sprague, went on horseback to Carbondale. Carbondale was then a thriving little village, with a few stores, a blacksmith shop, and about a dozen saloons. It was a warm day for winter, and the roads were muddy and sloppy. Late in the afternoon Self and his companions mounted their horses and started for home. They noticed that the wind had commenced to blow from the north and was quite cold, and that the ground cracked and broke under the horses' feet on account of the frozen crust that then covered it. As they left the village, riding briskly toward the northeast, they discovered that clouds had overcast the sky, and that low in the northwest they were heavy, and had that liquid-black appearance that settlers described as inky. The breeze from the northwest soon developed into a strong wind, with an occasional bit of snow, and it became colder and colder. By the time they reached the upper crossing of Berry Creek the air was full of snow, dry, hard, and driven fiercely by the wind. The men were suffering from the intense cold, and Townsend suggested that they take the creek road, which followed the lowland from that point to their home, but Self, who was riding a wild and spirited horse, insisted that he would ride across the prairie, and when the others separated from him, he called back that he would beat them home. He rode at a gallop by the Elliott school-house. John MacDonald, the teacher, stood in the door and watched him, and meditated upon his recklessness and upon the curse of strong drink, for he sat his horse as one who had been drinking and was full of power therefrom, though not intoxicated. Sprague and Townsend followed the course taken by them, and arrived at the farm shortly after dark, but Self was not there. They waited an hour, then another, and becoming alarmed concluded that Self had lost his way and that they would go out and try to find him. By this time the storm had become a frightful blizzard, the temperature far below zero, and the snow and wind driving like a hurricane. The two men rode westward onto the prairie, and as nearly as they could, they followed the road which they had expected Self to take. On account of the darkness and the storm, it became necessary for them to tie their horses together to prevent their being separated, and in this way they rode for an hour or more, and then concluded to give up the search and return home. They rode rapidly, and suddenly plunged into a deep ravine, which indicated to them that they were going in the wrong direction, and then they realized that they were lost and unable to agree on the direction they should take to reach home. Sprague suggested to Townsend that since the storm was coming from the northwest they might ride directly in the teeth of it and finally reach the Wakarusa bottom, and that then they could follow the stream downward to the farm. They adopted this plan, and after considerable difficulty reached the low wooded land along the stream at a point near where the Santa Fe Railroad now crosses the valley, and about one o'clock they were home. Each of them was frozen about the face, hands and feet. Self was not there.

They stayed up all night looking for him, and about four o'clock in the morning his horse came galloping home without him. Early in the morning, they, together with a party of neighbors, went out upon the prairie, and at a point about two miles from the farm they found his body completely frozen, crouched in the snow. The beaten snow near the body indicated that the horse had stood near him for a long time after he had fallen. A full pint of whiskey was in his pocket. Some said that he should have drunk more when he felt the whiskey die out of him and the cold come in; but one of them crushed the bottle on a wagon wheel, and they took the body home.

It was afterwards learned that he had ridden up to one farm house three times and inquired the way home, and each time started off in the wrong direction. He had lost the sense of direction and was tempest tossed, like a ship in mid-ocean without a pilot.

The next day three sturdy men started for Topeka with a heavy team and wagon, and shovels to be used in getting through the snow-drifts. They were going for a coffin for Jake Self, and it took hard work for almost the entire day before they reached the city.

And so Jake Self died, January 27, 1873, as indicated upon the marble slab.

The Yankee and His Hog--and Other Troubles

Marus Doyen came straight from the heart of Maine to Wakarusa. His family consisted of himself and wife and an old mother who had made the journey with them. It did not take him long to provide comfortable habitations for himself and one horse and a cow, and he interested everyone by the ingenuity with which he constructed his buildings, so tight that even the Kansas wind could not blow through them, and as though he were calculating on the same kind of temperature during winter time that his home State produced.

He looked about him and got acquainted with his neighbors, and soon concluded that he should buy a hog to fatten up for the small amount of pork and lard that his family would need. Big Aaron Coberly sold him a fine, husky pig, and when he delivered him he found that the Yankee had made a good pen for him, not very big, but stout, and with a warm bed fixed in one corner that was well sheltered. A few days afterwards, one of the neighbors came by, and Doyen called him over to see his hog, and said:

"He's surely got the right name, because he eats more than the horse and cow both. By George, he is a perfect hog; and he hasn't any sense about his bed; has picked up every straw and carried it over to the other corner of his pen, and keeps it there. He's also making trouble by digging into the ground with his nose, and has one hole where he's dug so deep that he nearly stands on his head when he's working in it."

The neighbor advised him to cut the hog's nose in slashes or put rings in it, but told him that the more of a hog the hog made of himself, the better hog he would be. The Yankee scratched his head as he received this advice, and said nothing; but a few days afterwards the neighbor was going near his place and heard a terrible squealing, and went over and found the Yankee hanging onto the fence of the pig pen with a hoe in his hand, and he noticed that the hog's face was covered with blood where the Yankee had been trying to slash his nose with the hoe ground sharp as a razor. When the neighbor stopped to observe the proceedings, Doyen told him that this hog was the trial of his life; that he hated to cut his nose, but had finally concluded he must do so, and that he couldn't throw him down and handle him himself, so he had sharpened up his hoe and was trying to fix him so he couldn't dig in the ground. Resting on the hoe for a minute, the Yankee said:

"He's one of my troubles, sure enough; but we've had others. My wife's had an awful time trying to wash our clothes. The water will turn all sorts of colors and mix up like buttermilk every time she puts soap in it, and finally someone told her that she had to break the water. I've heard of breaking horses and colts and oxen, but I never heard of breaking water; but, by George, that's what we're having to do!"

The Trail That Never Was Traveled

As you drive from Topeka to the stone bridge, just before you enter the valley, you notice what may appear to be a road extending eastward between two fences set about thirty feet apart. The way is rough and stony, and full of weeds and brush, and if you ask whether it is a laid-out road, you will be informed that it is, and that years ago road viewers went over it and established it as one of the public roads of Shawnee County. If you ask whether it was ever traveled, the answer will be, "no." And if you ask why it was laid out, this will be the explanation:

William Cartmill, a tall, vigorous, turbulent Irishman, owned the land to the north. George Franks, a hard-working, sturdy, honest, conservative Englishman owned the land to the south. They never agreed about anything. Franks was a church man, and loved peace and quiet. Stern necessity had taught him the ways of a pioneer. He could build a good log house without a nail or any other article that would cost money, and with very few tools beside his ax and broadax. Cartmill paid no attention to the church, and was always in a row of some kind. He had a good heart, but he was naturally full of devilment, and he enjoyed making trouble for Franks. He soon learned that Franks was afraid of him, or at least he treated Franks as though he were. The fact was, that the Englishman did not fear him, but simply wanted to avoid trouble with him; but it was all the same to Cartmill, and gave him an excuse for making Franks all the trouble he could. He found Franks starting to build a fence one day along the line, and went out and ordered him off, and yelled after him as he went:

"You know bloody well that the line's four hundred yards further south, and if I catch yez here any more I'll cut your heart out and set it up on a sharp rock."

Of course, Franks was right about the line, but Cartmill quarreled with him until it became necessary to get a county surveyor to make a definite location and plant the corner-stone. Franks then built a fence just two feet south of the line, and as soon as he finished it Cartmill hitched onto it. This gave Cartmill the use of the fence and two feet of the Franks land. Of course, Franks didn't like this, and he tried to find some legal way to get rid of the annoyance without bringing a direct suit against Cartmill, and so he petitioned for a road to be laid out. The neighbors helped him with it, although they all knew that the road never would be traveled, and thus it was that years ago there was established a laid-out road along the brow of the Wakarusa hills, running over gullies and bluffs where no one would or could travel.

Cartmill used the lane for a calf pasture in the summer and a place to shoot rabbits in the winter, and always claimed that he had the best of the row.

To this day the lane is a rendezvous for rabbit and quail, and as the country boys tramp through it they thank all the lucky stars for the row between the English and the Irish.

The Conversion of Cartmill