The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-01-03
FOUND A FORTUNE
HOW A LITTLE BOY FOUND 4 TIRE
MEND0Us BONANZA.
In His Youthful Peregrinatious He Finds
Checks and Drafts That Run mp Into
the Mllions-Once They Represented
the Bank Accounts of Nee Whose FL
nsncial Glory has Departed. and In
Many Cases Themselvcs-The Find Con-
sisted of the Cancelled Paper of the De-
funct Arkansas Valley Bank.

While peregrinating along the banks
of Little River yesterday Finlay Ross,
Jr., son of the city treasurer, ran across
| pile OF wealth that made his eyes stick
out like those of a brownie. He never
read, in his nursery tales. the discovery
Of such a rich bonanza. There was
fabout 100000 in the pile, and he ran
| back to mis- home and told his mamma
| that their neighbors, the Woodlands,
had gone crazy. Before his mamma had
| time to be astonished Finlay. Jr., had
! escaped to the barn and away he went,
| heiter SHELTER, over the lawn and down
to the river, pushing the Irishman's one
wheeled bicycle before him. Inside of
| twenty minutes ne returned with the
| wheelbarrow fun of papers representing
| the unique photographic work OF the
early days.
Il am richer than papa now" said the
! boy to mis- mamma as he gently and
carefully dropped TIE wheelbarrow and
wiped away the sweat from his fore
head.
In truth the boy would be very rich II
he could cash in the paper he had in his
wheelbarrow, out, unnappily the market
value Of the paper in question. by rea-
son of the events OF time, is at very
low figure.
short time ago Mrs. Woodman ard
her daughter, who lived near Mr.. Ross,
gave up house keeping and in packing
away their goods they ran across about
ton OF the old paper Of the defunct
Arkansas Valley bank of which Commo-
dore Woodman, the head Of the family,
was owner. They simply threw this pa
per in the yard and the breezes of Kan
sss famed them down TO the edge OF the
river, where the shrubbery caught them
and held them there until Finlay Ross
Junior discovered them.
The pile OF papers was made up princi-
pally Of old notes, drafts and checks, a.!
of which had been cancelled, and hence
were Of no value. Indeed a great many
of them would not be valuable even If
they were uncancelled and still alive
Some Of the men whose signatures were
TO the papers died long ago by various
methods and drifted along after cross
ing the dark river in various directions.
Some died with their boots on, some died
from the Jim jams, some died of old age
and some passed in their checks in the
regulation way. The names of some of
the rough characters of the early seven
ties were seen among them. They were
cowboys, drovers. gamblers. horse
thieves, stage drivers, city marshals.
city councilmen and other kinds OF hard
citizens. The names of good people were
also among them such as editors. preach
ers, school teachers and laboring men.
About one-tb.Id OF the pile of papers be-
longed to the seventies and some of them
back of these interesting pieces of pa
per. Men gave checks for thousands
then who could not give a check for
glass OF beer. and men were accepted
then as security for tens of thousands
whose word wouldn't go now for a hot
tomala- The signatures of men can be
seen now in that wind tossed pile of fiat
money who are scattered broadcast over
the world by the winds of adversely.
They can be found in every state of the
Union and in every state of Gociety over
the Atlantic and beyond the Pacific.
Mr.. Ross, being here long time, knew
a great many of these gentlemen and he
will keep their old checks as souvenirs Of
the good old days when money or the
money question did not trouble men
much. One of the first drafts he picked
out of the ruin was one given to the ed.-
tor of the Eagle and bearing the sigma
ture of Mr.. FRAZIER who was then one Of
the leading bank officers OF the city hnt
who afterwards had to keep mighty shy
OF an indignant people who got caught
in his bank when il broke