Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1893-03-04
The Early History of Collyer.

Q0lQ III IuS W0SG LlO OpoId AOuoO III
the purpose of organizing Soldiers and
Sailors colony. Citizens, as we'll as sol
diers and sailors, joined it, each paying
membership fee of S., which was to bt
used in defraying expenses and erecting
a building for the use of the colony mem
bers when they arrived in Trego county
ard until such time as they could MAKE
arrangements to settle upon thell
3homesteads.
Col. Pratt was organizer and Rev
Robert Collyer ID. d. whose best wishes
/ are always with and for the veteran,
wherever he may be, became an honorary
member and president of the colony,
q giving at the same time much substan-
tial aid It is in his honor that the lit
tie town in the western part Of Trego
county is named and no town along the
line of the Union Pacific Railway has
had greater honor conferred upon it
in the naming than has our town.
To those who read the New York and
Chicago papers, little can be told which
is not already known. He is native of
Yorkshire, England. His life has been a
busy and useful one. At the age of eight
years he began working in factory, an
swering to the cali of the bell in the
morning at six o'clock in the morning
and toi!ing on until eight o'clock at
night, and, he says in one of his books,
crushing home when work was over to
some treasure of book, hugging it up
close to his bowl of porridge and eat and
read, and read long after he was done
eating so long as the careful house.
mother would allow candle or a Goa"
He continued to work in the factory
until he was fifteen years old, at which
time he left his much loved home in the
valley of the Washburn, and the next we
hear of him he has adopted his fathers
calling and has become a blacksmith,
still gathering such slips and seeds of
knowledge as came within his reach and
planting them in very fertile brain.
The first we hear of him in this country
trade and, on Sundays, preaching at all
the Methodist meeting houses, near his
home, for nothing and finding himself.
At the beginning of the war of the re.
bellion he was among the leading Unita-
rian ministers of Chicago and, when the
news of the battle of Fort Donelson
reached there, he felt that he might do
something for the wounded and, without
waiting for the permission of his congre-
cation, he Immediately started to the
scene of the conflict to offer his services
as nurse and to give such words OF hope
and comfort to the poor fellows as lay in
his power. He afterwards became chap
lain in the army. His home was ia Chi
cago at the time the colony was organ
lied but shortly afterwards he removed
to New York. At present he is pastor of
the Church of the Messiah in the city of
New York. Last summer he went to
to England in company with Mr.. Rob-
erson Gill, of Troy, New York, for the
purpose of delivering the opening ad-
dress at the founding of a free school and
library at village named Trimbe, not
far from the home of his childhood. 1t
was the princely, priceless gift of Mr..
Gill to quiet little villa ge, the home Of
his youth and where he seemed to have
left much of his heart. [ know it is of
Robert Collyer and not of Robertson Gill
that write but could not forbear men,
tioning this because it has occurred to me
that there must have been very great
amount of superior heart and head film
in that part of England that would pro-
duce such grand examples to the whole
world, as this two mentioned above.
Our own little town has a number of
very interesting books sent by DR.. Coll
yer and every week brings one or two
new ones. They are here as free circu-
IatIng library for the use of all who wish
to read them and am glad to be able to
say that they are we'll read and carefully
used.
On the 18th of March, of the same
year VI VIC VI Iuo COlOuyJ GuciS
stepped from a west-bound train locat-
ing committee consisting of Col. Pratt,
r. G. Kessler and l.. LeBron. The place
at which they stopped was known as
Coyote. The only human habitation
there was section house kept by "Uncle
Ben. Richards" who had come there
when that was the terminus of the Kan
sas Pacific Railway.
Many are the interesting stories he
could tell of the wild and woody west.
TheGrand Duke Alexis, in company with
Gen. Sheridan, Custer and Buffalo Bill,
made their headquarters there when the
Grand Duke was on his hunting expedi-
ton on the "Great American Desert"
The committee proceeded at once to
locate claims and to erect the Colony
house. They built it opposite the section
house, intending at that time to establish
the town there, changing the name Coy
ote to Collyer as had been agreed upon
at the meetings in Chicago. But through