Evening star., 1896-03-14
A DEAD CITY OF KANSAS.
once the Home of Many Prominent
People.


Once the Home of Many Prominent
People.
From the Kansas City Times.
Three miles south Of Atchison is the site
OK a dead city. whose streets once were
filled with the clamor of busy traffic and
echoed to the tread of thousands of oxen
and mules that in the pioneer days Of tie
great west transported the products of the
east across the great American desert to
the Rocky mountains.
1t was a city in which for a few years
$500 men and women and children lived
and labored and loved, in which many
lofty aspirations were born. and in which
. several young men began careers that have
become historical
This city was located what the early
French voyagers called the grand de-
tour of the Missouri river. 1t spEapg into
existence suddenly and imparceptibly
1t might almost have been considered a
creation of the magician's wand.
1t was named Sumner. in honor of the
great Massachusetts Senator. Its official
motto was PRO lege ct grese'' (for the law
and the people,.
Summers first citizens came mostly from
Massachusetts. They had come to the
frontier to make Kansas free state. ana
TO build a city within whose walls all
previous conditions of slavery should be
diSregarded, and where all men born should
be regarded as equal
II.
A lthograph printed in 1857 shows streets
of stately buildings. imposing seats Of
learning, church spires that pierced the
clouds, elegant hotels and theaters, the
river full of floating palaces its levee
lined with bales and barrels of merchandise
and the white smoke from numerous fac
tories hanging above the city, like ban
ner of peace and prosperity.
One day the steamboat Duncan s. Carter
landed at Summer. On its hurricane deck
was John j. ingalls,. then only twenty-four
years OIL As his eye swept the horizon
his prophetic soul uttered these words:
Behold the home of the future Senator
from Kansas"
Here the young college graduate. who
since that day became a Senator from
Kansas. lived and dreamed. until Summers
star had set and Atchison's sun had risen,
and then he moved to Atchison. bringing
with him Summers official seal and the key
of his hotel
Here lived that afterward brilliant au-
thor and journalist. Albert d. Richardson.
whose tragic death some years ago in the
counting room of the New iork Tribune
Is well remembered. His BEYOND the Mis-
sissippf' is to this day the most fascina ting
account Of the boundless west ever writ
ten.
Here lived nine-year-old Minnie Hauk
who was one day to become a prima DONNA
and who was to wed Count Wartegg
Minnie was born in poverty and Graded in
adversely. Her mother was poor washer
woman in Sumner
Here lived John E. Remsburg, the now
noted author-lecturer and free thinker
Mr.. Remsburs has probably delivered more
lectures in the last thirty years than any
man In the United States.
Here Walter A. Wood, the big manufac-
tuIer of agricultural implements, lived and
made and mended wagons
Here Lovejoy, 'the Yankee preacher"
preached and prayed and invoked Gods
wrath upon the slave owner.
Here lived Brother and SISTER" New
comb. from whom have descended a long
line of Jealous and eminent Methodists.
Sumner was "abolitionist," Atchison was
was a slave; in Sumner he was a fetch.
1t was in Atchison that the abolition
preacher Pardee Butler, was tarred and
feathered and set adrift on raft in the
river.
Jonathan Lang. alias ''Shang" f. e hero
of Senator ingalls, Catfish Aristocracy'
and the Last Mayor Of Sumner" lived
and died in Sumner. When all his lovely
still pined On the STEM
'Shang' continued to live in Sumner long
after every other citizen had moved away
and until every house save his miserable
hut had vanished like the baseless fabric
Of a vision. leaving no wreck behind. He
claimed and was proud of the title "the
last mayor of Sumner"
He died few years ago, and a little
later lightning struck his cabin and 1t Was
devoured by flames. And thus passed
away the last relic of Summer.
Atchison secured it's first railroad. The
smoke from the locomotive engines drifted
to Summer and enveioped it like a pail.
One day there was an exodus of citizens;
their houses were torn down and the TIM
bers thereof carted away, and foundation
stones were dug up and carried hence. The
forest. again unvexed by ak saw. assert
ed its dominion once more, and today, be-
meath the shadow cast by mighty oaks and
signing cottonwoods, Sumner lies dead and
forgotten.