Green Cemetery - Willard, Shawnee County, Kansas

These blogs are wonderful!!   They allow cousins and friends to share information that would not otherwise be possible.    After I wrote the blog about Francis M. and Roxanna Eaton Jones, Craig Gunther, who lives in Topeka, Kansas, made a trip to visit the Green Cemetery and take photographs.   Craig is the son of Bruce Gunther, the grandson of Clair and Marie Hedges Gunther, the great grandson of John and Thelma Clark Hedges, the great great grandson of Jim Pete and Mabel Jones Clark, the 3rd great grandson of Leander and Vergia Miller Jones, and the 4th great grandson of Francis M. and Roxanna Eaton Jones.  Thank you very much Craig.   I know family members will appreciate the photos.


Craig shared this photo: L-R are Craig Gunther (born in 1978) Mabel R. (Jones) Clark holding Craig's brother Ryan (born in 1983).  Mable, the boy's great great grandmother, was 90 when the picture was taken.   She loved all of her family.   Unfortunately, Ryan was killed in a tragic accident in 2008.   They are the sons of Bruce Gunther and Tamah Linn Boyce Gunther.

 This photo is of Craig Gunther, looking at the tombstone of his 4th Great Grandfather, Francis M. Jones in the Green Cemetery.   This tombstone is a typical government stone.

 This photograph shows the tombstone of Francis M. Jones.  Of interest in the foreground is the lime green ball.   This is what we used to call an "osage orange" and is the fruit from a hedge or bodark tree.    Grandma Mabel Clark and my mother used to pick these fruits up in the fall and put them in the far corners of their closets and under their beds and dressers.  Grandma Mabel Clark said that her Potawatomi Indian friends told her that if you put hedge balls in dark places, spiders and other bugs would never come near.  My mom and grandmother certainly took their advice.

Hedge trees were used as "cheap fences" by pioneers.   They were planted along property lines, grew quickly, were covered with thorns and would keep cattle inside their bounds.  Today they have mostly been removed and/or cut for firewood.   Hedge burns incredibly hot, so hot it has to be mixed with other woods.

 This is a photograph of the stone home built by the Green Family.   A portion of the cemetery existed long before the Green's came from Vermont or even before the town of Willard was established.  Previously, there was a settlement called Uniontown, and important Potawatomi and Oregon Trail trading community.   The north half of the cemetery contains the graves of many Potawatomi Indian people who died during a cholera and small pox epidemic.   Here's what Topeka Capitol Journal columnist wrote about it:

 Uniontown once Indian trade post

Posted by
Dick King

Dick King

Question: I have heard of a ghost town, Union Town, in western Shawnee County. Can you give me some history about it? — L.A., Topeka

Answer: Uniontown, official spelling, has the distinction of once being the largest city in Kansas, back when it was not even a territory.      The history was found by Jeff Imparato, research librarian at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, in "Ghost Towns of Kansas, Volume 2," by Daniel Fitzgerald, Topeka historian and author, which was published in 1979.

Uniontown traces its history to March1848 when it became a Potawatomi Indian trading post about a half-mile south of the present-day Rossville.  Uniontown was the official trading post from then until about 1853, and it reached a population of about 300 people and 60 buildings.

Practically all of the Western Trails in Kansas led to this point, and a ferry was built after a contract was signed on July 10, 1850.  "Union town not only became an important trading post," wrote Fitzgerald, "but also was the site of the Potawatomi annuity payment building, which operated until 1859."

The gatherings usually lasted 10 to 15 days, during which Indians enjoyed gambling and horse racing, along with tribal dancing.  By 1849, the town was booming wildly.  The St. Louis Republican wrote with advice for emigrants:
"Emigrants for California or Oregon, by the way of Independence, Kansas Landing or Westport, will find an excellent ford across the Kansas River at Uniontown, in the event of high water, and at Uniontown the traders have a good supply of all articles of provisions at reasonable rates."

Cholera hit the area hard in 1849 and 1850 and Indians died by the hundreds, according to Fitzgerald. Before the surviving whites left Uniontown, they buried many Indians in a common grave and burned the entire town.  Uniontown recovered and in 1850, it again was established as a trading post with a physician, two blacksmiths, a wagon-maker, two gunsmiths and a saw mill.  A branch of the Oregon Trail passed through town and soon there were 60 buildings, 14 of them stores, with the largest settlement in the state.  In 1859, the remains of the town were burned and the largest city in Kansas was reduced to ashes."

 This is the tombstone of Virginia "Vergie" Hannah Miller Jones in Green Cemetery.   There are varying spellings of her nickname.   My Grandmother always used "Vergie" but this tombstone was placed 50 years after her death by her brother, Richard Miller, who lived in Everett, Washington.   Uncle Dick as we called him, used to come back nearly every year and spend several months with my his niece, Mabel Clark and other relatives.  He also attended the Masonic Lodge at Delia, Kansas where he had grown up.   Uncle Dick and his children owned a cedar shingle mill in Startup, Washington.  I remember he always drove a new Ford Thunderbird.  Vergie was the wife of Leander E. Jones and died during childbirth in 1901.   Her baby son, Louis Jones, is buried beside her.




This is Craig Gunther's photo of the tombstone some of the Green Family.    The last Green descendants were childless and left all of their farm surrounding the cemetery to the State of Kansas as a nature preserve.   The farm is full of wild turkeys, deer and other game now.










This is another of the Potawatomi graves that are located on the north end of the property.   I always thought this portion of the cemetery was legally part of the Green Cemetery but there is now a sign there that indicates it is owned of the Potawatomi Indian Nation.   That's the way it should be. 

This is another photograph of the south end of the Green Cemetery.  You can see the hedge trees forming the south boundary of the graveyard.
During the years I lived in Kansas (1944-1978) the Saturday before Memorial Day was always a long day of traveling from cemetery to cemetery and putting quart jars of flowers on graves.   Memorial Day was first observed in 1868 but was at first called Decoration Day.   As a child, my relatives all still called the observance Decoration Day.   It was a time when you took flowers to decorate the graves of soldiers and relatives and honor them.   We would load the trunk of our car with big buckets filled with iris, peonies, spirea, and other flowers.   There would also be a box of fruit jars under our feet in the back seat.   We'd take a spade or shovel with us as well.  We'd visit the Green Cemetery, the Bethlehem Cemetery in Snokomo, and the Old Stone Church Cemetery at Maple Hill.   We'd dig little holes, bury the jars halfway, pour in water and arrange the flowers.   My Grandmothers Mabel Clark and Mildred Corbin, my mother Lucille Clark and my cousin Bonnie Mitchell and my brother Gary Clark and I would usually provide the contingent.   Usually the next weekend, we'd make a trip to pick up all the jars because they would be needed for canning vegetables over the summer.

Thanks again Bruce and Happy Trails to you all!

Jim and Mabel Clark Marry and Have A Daughter, Thelma Maree.

Wedding Picture: James Peter and Mable Rachel Jones Clark - March 15, 1910

My grandparents, James Peter and Mabel Rachel Jones, were married at the home of her father, Leander Emory and her stepmother, Jeanetta Susanna (Reinhardt) Jones who were living in Paxico, Kansas at the time.   Grandfather Jones had married Susanna after the death of his first wife, Vergie (Miller) Jones on December 7, 1901.  I don't ever remember hearing anyone say how Lee and Susanna met.   She lived with her parents in Silver Lake, but her family had previously rented the Woodford Farm a mile west of Maple Hill on what is now Warren Road.  

My Grandfather Jones owned a custom steam harvesting operation and he may have cut and processed the Reinhardt grain.   Lee Jones also played the violin (fiddle) for barn dances and played the trombone for the Newbury Philharmonic Band.   They may have met in that way.   It's all conjecture unless one of my Jones or Clark cousins has the definitive story.

Mable Rachel and Edith Belle Jones taken about 1908 or 1909.

The whole family, Lee, Susanna, Mabel and her sister, Edith Belle Jones all operated the central telephone office at Paxico.   Jones Cousin Francis M. "Frank" Shipp was the lineman for the local phone company and got the job for them when it was vacated in 1911.  Lee Jones continued to operate his threshing rigs and the women operated the switchboard, taking all calls in the area.

I have a copy of my grandparent's wedding invitation which states:  "Lee and Susanna Jones have the pleasure of inviting you to the wedding of their daughter, Mable Rachel Jones to James Peter Clark on Sunday, March 15, 1910 at high noon.  The ceremony will take place at the Lee Jones Home.  A Wedding Dance and meal will follow at the Modern Woodman Hall, Snokomo. "  (The Modern Woodman Hall has been moved into Paxico and made into an antique shop but was originaly located on the grounds of the Snokomo Stone School House south of Paxico.)   The date was special because it was Grandfather Jim Clark's birthday.  He had been born on March 15, 1886 at the home of his parents, James E. and Anna Lawson Clark in Snokomo.   

Grandfather Jim Clark was a farmer and "horse trader."   I put the latter in quotes because that term had a broad definition.   He bought, broke and sold horses to area farmers and individuals.   He broke them for riding, driving behind buggies and wagons, and for pulling farm implements.   More of that another time.

After the wedding, they moved to the Hauboldt Farm in Snokomo.   That farm was located about three miles south of Paxico and was a good farm with about 10 acres of pasture, 70 acres of farmland and a good four-room frame house.   I remember Grandmother Clark always emphasizing that it had ingrain carpet on the floors, which was uncommon.  The house no longer stands.  

The Morris Chair, a wedding present from Jim to Mabel Clark in 1910.

I had four items that were wedding gifts and I have now given them to my children, Nicholas and Amy.  The Morris Chair and oak bookcase were wedding gifts from Jim Pete to Mabel.  Nicholas has the large oak chair which has been re-upholstered in green velvet.  The back of the chair has four covered button tufts.  Each arm has a carved lion's head.   It has been upholstered many times but it was originally done in a black horsehair fabric.  Grandmother always said the horsehair fabric was very scratchy and you couldn't sit on it long---another reason she disliked it.  It is called a Morris Chair and has a wooden bar that goes across the back.   This bar can be moved up and down in three positions and allowed the back of the chair to be upright or almost lay horizontal.  It was the first recliner.   Nicholas also has a tall oak bookcase.   This is the type that had three shelves below with two drawers and one door above.   The door has a beveled glass mirror.   Grandmother Clark told me many times that had she been with Jim Pete when he bought them, she would have selected something entirely different.   She never liked either one of the pieces. 

The Golden Oak Bookcase and Kerosene Lamp that were wedding presents to Jim and Mabel Clark in 1910.

Shortly after my wife and I were married, we were looking for fruit jars in Grandmother's attic and stumbled over the chair.   She was keeping the bookcase hidden in the back of her closet and had old chamber pots on the bottom shelf with a cloth tacked in front to hide them.   When we asked if we could have them, I remember her saying "What on earth would you want those ugly old things for?"  They were ugly.   Both needed lots of TLC.

My daughter Amy has two more decorate items.   One is a pressed glass kerosene lamp which Grandmother Clark always said was the first thing she and her husband Jim purchased for their new home.   She said they purchased it at the Strowig Hardware in Paxico and it cost .25 cents.  It has a large font and wick and still provides a good amount of light when needed.    The other item was another piece grandmother considered ugly and of little use.   Again, we stumbled over it in the attic on an expedition to gather canning jars.   It was a silver plate coffee urn.  It was in four pieces and black as coal.   The urn swivels back and forth and hangs from a silver plateau that has a u-shaped piece on which the urn stands.   Grandmother said that it was a gift from her father, Lee Jones and his wife Susanna.   "I don't know why they gave it to us.   We were poor as church mice and the kind of entertaining we did on a tenant farm sure didn't require a silver coffee urn, but Papa thought we should have something nice."

The Silver Coffee Urn, a 1910 wedding present, after it was restored and replated in 2008.

I had the urn for 30 years and always wanted to  have it replated but never seemed to have the money or time.   Finally when I got ready to break up housekeeping in 2008, I had the work done at Meridian Silver Restoration and Plating in Connecticut.    Grandmother told me her father paid $15.00 for it originally.   I paid $1,200.00 to have it repaired and replated.    It now sits proudly on the sideboard in my daughter's dining room.  

I also gave Amy the pillow shame that was made by Vergie Miller Jones for the hope chest of her daughter, Mabel Jones Clark.    It was made of fine white cotton, wide enough and long enough to cover two pillows on a regular bed.   It has a six-inch wide ruffle of the same white cotton.   Across the entire sham is a delicate red embroidery in sort of a paisley design.   This would have been made sometime between 1893 and 1900 but I don't know exactly when.   Fortunately, Grandmother Clark used it very little and kept it out of the light so it is in very good condition.  Amy treasure's it but probably will never use it.

Photo of Virginia "Vergie" Hannah Miller Jones taken about 1890.

Grandmother Mabel and Grandfather Jim named their first child Thelma Maree.  She was born on August 10, 1911 at the Hauboldt Farm in Snokomo.  I have several photographs of Thelma as a little girl which I'll use here.  So far as I have been told, Grandmother and Grandfather Clark lived on the Hauboldt Farm for three years when one day Cousin Frank Shipp visited them and offered her the Central Office Telephone job at Maple Hill.  Frank was the son of Thomas James and Evaline Jones Shipp.   Evaline was Leander Jone's sister.

Photo of Frank Shipp, Pauline Shipp Love and Grandson Richard (who is the son of Marian Shipp Orton) in about 1949 or 1950.  This photo was taken in front of the Central Office at Maple Hill, which was covered in ivy vines.

Grandfather Clark put up all the arguments you might expect a man to make.   He didn't want his wife to work.   They now had a child to take care of and raise.  A woman's place was in the home.   But none of those was strong enough to persuade Grandmother from taking the job, so they moved to Maple Hill and took over the Central Office on August 1, 1914.  During the Great Depression, Grandfather Clark would be very glad his wife was one of the few people in Maple Hill receiving a regular pay check.

The Central Office was really a switchboard that was located in one room of a large four-room house located on Maple Hill's Main Street.   The "front room" was the Central Office.   Throughout my memory (1950 to 1962) the front room had the switchboard and lots of electrical switching equipment to handle incoming and outgoing telephone calls.   Just behind the switchboard was a large oak partner desk.   It is possible to place a chair and sit on either side of a partner desk.   This is where Grandmother did all of the bookkeeping for the Central Office and also met with customers.  In the far corner was an enclosed "booth" of about 3'x3' with a telephone and glass windows on two sides.   If you didn't have a phone in your house, you could come to the Central Office, go into the booth, and the operator would place a call and collect the appropriate fee.  Between the desk and booth was a large Warm Morning Coal Stove.   It sat on an asbestos stove board and there was always a coal hod, shovel and poker there.   There was also a large rocking chair and what Grandmother called a "day bed."   It was an upholstered sofa that had no back, only four large upholstered pillows.   If you took the pillows off, it could be used for a single bed.  

Just behind the front room/central office, was a very large living and dining room.    There was no partition, just one big open space.  I would guess it was perhaps 16'x20'.  Grandmother and Grandfather Clark had the typical kinds of living room furniture as well as a dark wood dining set that had six chairs.   Grandmother always had lots of interesting pictures hanging on the wall.  There was also a Warm Morning Coal Stove against the east wall until it was replaced by a propane heater in the 1950s.

Behind the living/dining room was one large bedroom.   It was unusual in that it had a walled-off walk-in closet where they kept all of their clothing.   In this room, there was only a kerosene heater that was used when it was very cold.

Thelma Clark, 1919, eight years old.

Built on the south end of the living/dining room, was a very large eat-in kitchen.   In the southeast corner, there was a porcelain sink that had a pitcher pump.   The pump pulled water from a rain water cistern that was located just outside the south kitchen window.  Also on the south wall was a huge coal iron cook range.   Grandmother did get a gas cook range sometime during the 1950s, but I surely remember that big iron range with the warming oven across the top.   Lots and lots and lots of good food came from that range---and the propane gas range that followed.    As I recalled, there was no built-in storage but grandmother had a Hoosier-type cabinet that held all of her pots, pans, baking equipment and spices.   There were two drawers above, a roll-top-type center section that had a flour sifter, a porcelain board that pulled out to make it large enough to roll pie crusts or roll and cut noodles, and below was one large drawer on the left and four drawers on the right.   In addition, Grandmother also had a narrow but tall cabinet that held all of her dishes and glassware.   In front of the west window was a kitchen table with four chairs.   This is where most meals were eaten.   It was painted green at one time and then gray.   Grandmother had found stencils of birds that she had applied at the corners on the top and also on the legs.  She also had the stencils on the middle splats of the chair back.   I always spent lots of time looking at those birds and asking questions.   Grandmother could whistle as well as anyone I ever heard and she would imitate the bird whistles.   I thought she was very, very special---and she was!!


Thelma Clark, holding new brother John Leander "Tim" Clark at Stewart Farm where he was born on April 19, 1921. 

Aunt Thelma went to school at the old, two-story white frame school house in Maple Hill.  I have a scrap book she made when she was in the third grade.  It's made with oil cloth covers and has lots of pictures cut from magazines.  Aunt Thelma was born with a "lazy eye."   Now we know that lazy eye can be cured with glasses and exercises, but then that knowledge was not available.   I know, because I have that same trait.  Supposedly its a "Jones" family gene :)    Because of the eye, Aunt Thelma avoided having her picture taken and I have very few.   I'll include them all here in this article.

Aunt Thelma was married at the age of 18 to John Milton Hedges.  John was a native of Lakinburg, Jackson County, Kansas and was born September 1, 1908.   Uncle John and his family had moved to Maple Hill where his father (and I believe also his brother) taught school.  He and Aunt Thelma would spend the majority of their lives at Denison, Jackson County, Kansas with the exception of a decade or more spent in Omaha, Nebraska where Uncle John was a Federal Meat Inspector.

When my parents, John L. "Tim" and Lucille Corbin Clark were married in January 1942, they soon moved to Denison, Kansas where they helped Uncle John and Aunt Thelma Hedges operate a grocery store.   Uncle John and Aunt Thelma operated the store for many years.

Photo of Thelma Clark taken on the south side of the Maple Hill Central Office at 10-years-old, 1921.

They were the parents of four children:   Peggy Lou born December 31, 1928 at Maple Hill, Kansas; Maree Vietta born March 30, 1933 at Maple Hill, Kansas; James Franklin "Jimmy" born April 28, 1936 at Maple Hill, Kansas and John Clark "Johnnie" born December 7, 1947.

L-R: John L. "Tim" Clark, Mable R. Clark and Thelma M. Hedges taken in the dining room at Moundview Farm on Mabel's 80th birthday, September 6, 1973.

Uncle John went to Normal School and received his teaching certificate.   He taught in country schools for several years and then went into the United Stated Navy during World War II.  After spending several years in operating the general store in Denison, he became a meat inspector for the U. S. Department of Agriculture.    Aunt Thelma was a hard worker and helped him with the store.  After moving to Omaha, she worked as a clerk in a novelty store.  When Uncle John retired, he and Aunt Thelma moved back to Denison, Kansas where he passed away on January 13, 1989.   Aunt Thelma died on October 28, 1995.

Hedges Brothers and Sisters: L-R are Peggy Lou McCrory, Marie Gunther, Jimmie and Johnnie Hedges.

I really don't have a lot of memories of the Hedges during my youth.   I spent more time with them and with their children and their families after they moved back to Denison and when I was an adult.   They were members of the Denison Bible Church and gave liberally of their time and talents.   I always remember Aunt Thelma and Uncle John as very caring people.   When my Grandmother Clark celebrated her 80th birthday on Sunday, September 6, 1973, my wife and I had a luncheon at our home Moundview Farm, three miles west of Maple Hill.   We invited Aunt Thelma and Uncle John to come down for church and then we all ate and had such a good time visiting.   I'll include a photo, which is the only one I have of my father, Aunt Thelma and Grandmother Clark together.  All of my brothers and I drove to Denison to see her at Christmas time in 1993.   We had such a good visit and Aunt Thelma said that she had regretted that we didn't spend more time together but our families were busy raising children and lived about 50 miles apart.   That was a long way from Maple Hill to Denison on poor roads in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.    I'll write later of my four Hedges cousins.

L-R:  Thelma M. Hedges, John M. Hedges, Mable R. Clark, Jim Pete Clark, Lucille Corbin Clark and Tim Clark taken in January 1942 shortly after Tim and Lucille Clark were married.

Enjoy this information.    Happy Trails!

The Maple Hill Depot, Elevator, Stockyards and Associated Memories

This picture of the Maple Hill Depot, Elevator and Stockyards appears on a 1910 Bower's Postcard which I purchased from Ebay.   As a boy of 8 or 10, I remember this scene but it was not to remain so for long.   These three elements of Maple Hill commerce played important rolls in the town's development.  However, the decline of passenger train service, the advent of trucking grain, and ceasing of  shipping livestock via rail cars brought much change to the community.

By the time I was born in 1944, the era of steam engines was coming to an end.   The new diesel-powered engines were much more efficient and powerful.  My last memories of steam engines takes me back to 1951.  I had just finished the first grade at Maple Hill Grade School in mid-May.  My family was living in a rental house in the north end of Maple Hill that is currently the home of Frances Flannary.   It was located just to the north of the home of our cousins, Charles and Bonnie Mitchell.  My mother had driven with Bonnie Mitchell, to the home of my maternal grandparents, Robert and Mildred Corbin, on a Monday, July 9 to wash clothing.   Their home was located on a 20-acre farm on the north side of Mill Creek about 1.5 miles south of Maple Hill.

As usual, my mother, Lucille Clark, my brother Gary and I had helped pump water and had carried it from the well into the back porch of the Corbin home where there was a Maytag washing machine with an automatic ringer.  My mother didn't have a washing machine at the time so she and my grandmother, Bonnie Mitchell and Grandmother Corbin often washed together.    You had to put the cold water into the machine and the wash tubs used to rinse the clothes after washing.   Grandmother Corbin and Bonnie had sorted the clothes while we carried water.   Grandmother had an electric water heater which we used to heat the water in the washing machine.  We had just filled the washing machine and the rinse tubs and had started to heat the water.

Suddenly, there we all head a very frightening sound.   The wall telephone located just inside the kitchen door, began to issue forth continuous short rings.    That was the alarm signal and was given only when there was eminent danger in the area.   For instance if a tornado was reported on the ground in your area the danger alarm might be given.   If a child was lost and people were needed to help search, the danger signal was sounded.   If there was a fire in the neighborhood and people were needed to help fight it, the short rings would be heard.



My mother was closest to the wall phone and answered the alarm, which was given by my paternal grandmother, Mabel (Jones) Clark, who was the Central Office Operator in Maple Hill.    Her message went to all eight homes that were on our party lined:  "Leave your homes immediately.   The Rock Island Agent at McFarland reports an eight foot wall of water coming down Mill Creek that has just passed McFarland with much flooding.   I repeat, leave your homes and go to higher ground immediately."

I remember the shocked look on my mother's face and began to cry.   My mother said, "Leave everything we must get out immediately.   A wall of water is coming down Mill Creek."

That was hard to believe, because it was a beautiful sunny day.   However, in the weeks previous, many inches of rain had fallen.   It was reported that as much as 50" of rain had fallen during May, June and early July.    The Kansas River and Mill Creek had been nearly bank full several times.  The night before, 5" to 6" of rain had fallen throughout the Flint Hills to the southwest of Maple Hill. 

Without hesitation, we all climbed into Bonnie Mitchell's car and headed to Maple Hill, which was located on ground much higher than the Corbin Farm.  We didn't even unplug the water heater or close the door begin us.  I was sitting in the back seat with my brother Gary and Bonnie Mitchell.   My mother was driving and grandmother Corbin was riding in the front passenger seat.

We were headed east on the gravel road.   There were three frame homes in front of us, those of the Younts, Don and his sister Hattie McClelland, and Paul and Margaret McClelland.  The two McClelland homes were located right on the north bank of Mill Creek.   There was a sharp curve in front of their homes which made my mother slow to turn.

Just then, I saw Bonnie Mitchell look through the rear window.   "Lucille, floor board it!   The water is right behind us," was the report from Bonnie.  Mother did exactly that and gravel flew all over the road behind us but somehow, the elevation of the land was with us and the water did not over come us.  As we looked behind the car, we saw the wall of water swallow all of the land behind us and surround the the homes mentioned.   We stopped at the top of the hill, just before crossing the Rock Island tracks and continuing into Maple Hill.   The wall of water had inundated the entire Mill Creek Valley and was traveling on towards the juncture of the Kansas River and Mill Creek, about two miles to the north east of Maple Hill.

We drove on to the home of Bonnie and Charlie Mitchell where grandmother Corbin was to remain for nearly the next two weeks.    This was the beginning of the horrific 1951 Flood, a record devastation which was to ruin so many communities along the Kansas River and its tributaries and result in the building of Tuttle Creek Reservoir and other man-made lakes along it's course.

Herrington, Kansas and would stop in areas where the track could wash out.  The weight of the engines might keep the track from washing out but sometimes the track would be lost.

The engines soon became trapped as train tracks were flooded between Topeka and Maple Hill to the east and between Maple Hill and Alma to the west.    The engines were all brought to Maple Hill where for several days, the men came to the Maple Hill Cafe and ate their meals.  We children would go to the Maple Hill Depot and were allowed to climb on the engines and to pull the large gears to make them chug forward or backward for a very short distance.   It was a thrilling experience and I wish I had remembered to take my grandmother Clark's little Kodak Box Camera to record it.   I've never found anyone who took pictures of that scene.   They were simply too busy with flood needs to do so.

Tracks were washed out all along the Rock Island Railroad between Topeka and Herrington and the engines remained on sidings at Maple Hill for several weeks until tracks were repaired and they could be returned to storage.

During the worst of the flood, my father, John L. "Tim" Clark worked 24-hours a day to help save the railroad tracks near Willard.   He was a caterpillar heavy-equipment operator for Chuck Fauerbach at St. Marys.   He was expert at operating a D-9 Caterpillar bulldozer.   The Rock Island Railroad hired him to push rail cars filled with sand from the railroad tracks into the Kansas River.   The railroad brought the cars to the tracks at Willard, which paralleled the Kansas River.   My father would push the cars into the river as quickly as they could be delivered.   The hope was that the cars willed with sand might divert the current away from the bank which was near the railroad and save the tracks.   Nothing was more powerful than the raging Kansas River and the cars disappeared about as quickly as my father could push them into the river.    In fact, the sand currents buried the railroad cars which were never seen again and are still buried beneath the sand bars of the Kansas River.

My mother, who knew how to operate the telephone switchboard, helped my Grandmother Clark keep the United Telephone Office open in Maple Hill 24-hours daily to assist people trying to escape flood waters.   They were assisted by Mrs. Mabel Herron, relief operator and also by Irene Leeper Hoobler who had previously assisted my Grandmother and was again pressed into service.

During that two to three week period, Maple Hill was almost cut off from the outside world.  My maternal grandfather, Robert Corbin, was at work for the Kansas Highway Department when the wall of water went through the area and was able to return home only to traveling far to the west and taking back roads which were not flooded.   Late that evening, he waded through waist deep flood waters to the home of Don and Hattie McClelland.   There he borrowed a draft horse, mounted it and swam it to the Corbin home about 1/4 miles to the west.   He found the well had been ruined by flood waters, but the chickens were safe high on their roosts in the flooded chicken coop, and the milk cow was standing in tummy deep water in the barn.   The Corbin house was surrounded by about two feet of water but stood on a high foundation and the house proper did not sustain any flood damage.   The piles of clothing were still waiting on the back porch floor and were retrieved later.    Grandfather pulled the cow to higher ground, milked her, put the milk in a gallon jar and brought it back to town.  He did that for several days until the flood water retreated.

I believe that I also remember the last cars of cattle that were brought to Maple Hill.    I had seen Raymond and Ruth Brethour at church one Sunday in the spring of 1953.   I don't remember the exact date but usually cattle were not brought to pasture until the pastures were greening in late May.  I had just completed the third grade at Maple Hill.    Raymond and Ruth owned much of what had formerly been the Fowler-Todd Ranch southeast of Maple Hill.

Raymond told me that he was going to receive a load of ten boxcars filled with cattle the next day.   He had asked my great uncle, Edward Sutton Miller, to help him herd the cattle from the stockyards in town to the Brethour Ranch.   In addition, Robert Stockman, ranch foreman would also be assisting.  I told him I would love to participate and he said he would be happy to have some additional help and he would bring an extra horse for me to ride.

That night, we heard the train stop and pull the cars of cattle onto the stockyard siding.   I was so excited I hadn't been able to sleep all night.   I was at the stockyards at the crack of dawn, ready to help herd the cattle.    At that point in time,  all of the fields along the route between the stockyards and the Brethour Ranch were fenced, so there was really little chance of the cattle stampeding.   There were no homes located along the route so you didn't have to worry about the cattle getting into farm yards or destroying gardens.

None-the-less, I relished the opportunity to be a "cowboy" and help with the cattle drive.   Raymond did bring an extra horse and we enjoyed the 2.5 mile drive from the stockyards to the ranch.   Uncle Ed and Bob Stockman road at the front because the cattle were kind of wild from the long train ride.   They had come from Montana.  Raymond Brethour and I rode at the back of the herd to make sure no stragglers were left behind.   It took all morning to get the cattle from town out to the ranch, but it was a very exciting experience.

Uncle Ed Miller and his horse, Buttermilk.  This picture is taken on the town pasture owned by my Grandfather and Grandmother, James Peter and Mabel R. (Jones) Clark.  It was located at the south end of Maple Hill and the elevator is in the background.
My Uncle Ed Miller, was perhaps one of the last of the old-fashioned "cowboys" left in the area.  He had worked for many of the ranches and walked with bowed-legs as was common for those who rode horses every day.   He kept his horse in the barn located on my Grandfather and Grandmother Clark's property at the south end of Maple Hill.   At that time, our family was living in that house.   Uncle Ed and Aunt Belle Leeper Miller lived in a little three-room house just across the street east of the Methodist Church.   I remember them both well.    All of his life, I can remember Uncle Ed having his leather gloves in the back pocket of his jeans as most of the cowboys did.

The elevator shown in the photograph, is the original grain storage facility built by the Maple Hill Town Company when the town was founded in 1887.   The town company was principally owned by George A. Fowler, who was a Kansas City meat packing magnet and by William Tod, who was at that time his ranch manager at Maple Hill.   Tod soon purchased the interest of Fowler and the ranch continued for many years as the Tod Ranch.   No town along a main railroad line as complete without a grain elevator and the elevator shown in the photograph was state-of-the-art for that period.   The elevator was torn down in the last half of the 1990s, having provided nearly 100 years of  service.

The deport shown, is the second one build at Maple Hill.   The first depot was hastily built and was known as a "Type #3" depot.   During the squabble between William A. Pierce and George A Fowler over the location of the Maple Hill Townsite, the deport lumber was actually moved twice under the cover of darkness by ranch hands.   Finally Fowler won the location dispute by giving William A. Pierce stock in the town company.  The depot shown was a "Type #1" building, and was constructed in the late 1890s.   It had three rooms.   On the east end, there was a large waiting room with benches.  In the center section, there were three offices.   The south-most room had a big bay window which allowed the station agent to sit at his desk and see the track to the east and west of the depot.   The telegraph key was also located at the desk in that bay window.   The room on the west end of the depot was used for freight.   At the height of the passenger train era, there were 14 trains daily passing through Maple Hill.   The elevator was moved from its original location just to the west of the Maple Hill Elevator during the 1970s.   Bill Flesher purchased the depot and moved it onto the elevator property.   Both the elevator and the depot were dismantled in 1995-1996.

I cannot find any definitive information as to when the stockyards were taken down, but I believe that it was in 1953 or 1954.   The memory lingers that the cattle received by Raymond Brethour were the last that came to the stockyards at Maple Hill.

I'd love to hear from those who might have specific information about the depot, the elevator or the stockyards.    Happy trails!

Gone on Grampee Duty!

Dear readers, 

I wanted you to know that I will be going to Norfolk, Virginia tomorrow and will be on "Grampee Duty" for a few days.   I'll return on October 18, and will resume writing.   I'll be visiting my son Nicholas, his wife Natalie and their children Mia and Liam in Suffolk, VA.   I try and go at least a couple of times each year and hopefully they will soon be able to visit here in California.

Nicholas is an account executive for an electrical supply company in Norfolk, where the economy still thrives because there is a large U. S. Navy base as well as a N.A.T.O. base with some 180,000 military personnel and their dependents.   Natalie is an animal lover par excellence and works for an area kennel where she cares for dogs.   When we all lived in Lafayette, Indiana we all feared the times when Natalie decided to visit the local humane society shelter because not only did she choose pets for their family, she would come home with pets for the rest of us as well.   She always chose well and we enjoyed the dogs she brought home.

L-R are Natalie, Liam, Nicholas and Mia Clark.   This picture was taken at Christmas 2008, but it's one of my favorites.

The Smithfield Inn, Smithfield, VA

One time when I went to visit them, I stayed at the nearby Smithfield Inn.   It's owned by Smithfield Ham, and the desk clerk asked me if I'd like to stay in Paula Dean's room.  She had just been there making a commercial for Smithfield Ham.  I said "Of course!" The Inn is beautiful and historic.  As with most old Inns in Virginia, George Washington slept there.  Fortunately, it was already rented at $350 per night including breakfast.

Now, a great deal of training is needed to provide the proper care for grandchildren.   I obtained mine from my son-in-law Rich Allendorf, holding their oldest son Will and from my son Nicholas feeding his son Liam.   As you can tell, they are in proper uniform.   What you cannot see is that they are both sitting in front of a 50" television where they have taken a break from playing all manner of games.   Yes, Grampees have to be properly trained, and Daddies are best equipped to provide it.

We're hoping to go to Williamsburg while I'm there.  It's about 40 miles north of where they live.   Nicholas and Natalie became engaged while visiting Williamsburg and it's one of their favorite places.   Hopefully I'll get some good photos to bring home and share with you.

Mia was four in March this year and Liam will be six in November.   He is in Kindergarten and loves it.   Mia is jealous and can't wait to join Liam at school but attends private preschool. 

Grampee will do his duty, spending time with the family, spoiling the grand babies, and then flying away to leave Mom and Dad with the aftermath.   Isn't that what grandparents are supposed to do?
I'll be back writing about family history in a few days.   Happy trails!

Francis Marion and Roxanna Mary Mariah (Eaton) Jones

My paternal grandmother, Mabel Rachel (Jones) Clark, was a great storyteller.    The fascinating way in which she recounted the history of the Clarks and Jones Families was captivating to me.  She would get out her old pictures and spend hours telling me stories about the images of the person or persons portrayed.  She is the reason why I became a professional historian, spending my career teaching American History and directing historical museums.  Grandmother Clark was primarily responsible for me gathering and preserving family history and some of the history of Maple Hill Township, Wabaunsee County, Kansas.   My maternal grandmother, Mildred (McCauley) Corbin Clark was also interested in family history, as was "Aunt" Bonnie Mitchell, but Grandmother Clark just seemed to gush history and I drank it in.

Grandmother Clark was also a great source of community history, in that she was the Central Office Operator for United Telephone at Maple Hill, from 1914 until her retirement in 1958.    Every phone call made in the community when through the switchboard located in her front room.   As a result, she was involved first hand in disasters, fires, deaths, tornadoes, floods, and family joys and tribulations.  Grandmother was a walking encyclopedia of area and family history.

She often talked about her paternal grandparents, Francis Marion and Roxanna Mary Mariah (Eaton) Jones.  Unfortunately, she had very little good to say about her grandfather Jones.   Grandmother Clark was born in 1893 and her grandfather was already and old man of 65.   His wife, Roxanna, was 55.   My grandmother remembered him only as a very cruel, cold, person.....but I digress.   Let's begin at the beginning.

Francis Marion Jones was born on March 16, 1828 in Clark County, Ohio.   He was the son of Richard Jones, who was born in 1790, a native of Virginia according to the 1850 census.  On  June 16, 1820, he was married by a Justice of the Peace, to  Love Elsworth.   She was also born in Virginia in 1800.  For some reason, she is listed only as "L" Jones in the 1850 Census.   One transcriber listed it as "D" Jones but her name was Love.   

There were five children living with them and enumerated on the 1850 census:  Francis Marion, born in 1828; Mary, born in 1834; Nancy, born in 1836;  George Washington, born in 1842 and Joseph Jones born in 1842.  In addition, there was also Sarah, Matilda and Victoria, children which were not living with the family in 1850 but were listed on a Civil War Pension affidavit prepared by Love Jones in the 1860s.  

At the time the census was taken, they were living in Mad River Township, Clark County, Ohio.   All five of the children were born in Ohio according to the census, and both parents were born in Virginia.  Richard Jones was 60-years-old and his occupation was given as "Shoe Cobbler."   Love Jones was 50-years-old and born in Ohio.   Her occupation was given as "Keeping House" and was preceded by the "W" which stood for wife.

We have looked for the parents and siblings of Francis for many years but without success.  I want to thank a cousin of twins Paul and Pauline Shipp, great grandchildren of Francis and Roxanna Jones, for providing the information as well as copies of the Civil War documents.   You will be able to find her research at URL: http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/26470634/    
With the advent of new genealogy websites and the indexing of U.S. Census reports, we are now able to narrow the focus of our search with surprisingly good results.  In speaking with several of the grandchildren of Francis Jones (my grandmother, Mable Phillips Herron, Edith Jones Strowig, Vera Philllips Hicks, Frank Shipp and others) I was not able to learn much of his youth and early manhood.   Not much information was given on the U.S. Census prior to 1850.  I was not able to find any of the family on earlier census reports.   One clue to a part of Richard Jones history comes from his giving both of his sons patriot names.

Richard Jones, a Virginian, named his two sons after southern War Heroes.   Francis Marion was from South Carolina and was given the folk name: The Swamp Fox.   He is credited with being the first Revolutionary War officer to use guerrilla war tactics.    He always had small groups of men who would lay in wait and ambush British forces.   His legend was extremely well known.   He had died in 1795.    The fame of our country's first president, George Washington, himself a native of Virginia, needs no further explanation.

It would also be reasonable to assume that since Richard Jones named his sons for military heroes, he may have been in the military himself.   The computer website Ancestry.com has a fairly complete set of U. S. military records and they are easily searched.    There are several Richard Jones that have served in the military, each of whom was born in about 1790 and a half dozen or more born in Virginia.    I believe that I have found our Richard Jones among them but more research is needed.

Both of Richard and Love's sons, Francis Marion and George Washington, enlisted in the U. S. Army during the Civil War.    They both joined Michigan Sharpshooter regiments that later became a part of the Illinois Infantry.    Francis and George were both at Corinth, Mississippi at the end of their enlistments.   Francis was ill with dysentery and George was ill with typhoid fever.   George did not survive the illness and died at Corinth, Mississippi on August 10, 1862.    Love Jones had lived with George, who was not married, at Columbia, Van Buren County, Michigan before his enlistment.   She applied for and received a dependent's pension until her death on September 11, 1870.   The records indicate that her last pension payment should be sent in care of her daughter, Nancy Minick, but no address is provided.


Roxanna Mary Mariah (Eaton) Jones (1837-1925)

Francis was born in 1828, he was 22 years old and still living with his parents when the U.S. Census was taken in 1850.   My Grandmother and her cousins that I've mentioned before all said that he had tried to go into business with his father and become a shoe cobbler, but that didn't work out.   I don't remember ever hearing a reason but his father died during the early 1850s.   From the information we have, it would appear that they both moved to Michigan and took their mother with them.   We know that Francis left Clark County (the Cincinnati area) and moved to Van Buren County, Michigan where he became a school teacher.   He married one of his students, Roxanna Mary Mariah Eaton on February 2, 1854 at the home of her parents Eri and Rachel (Davies) Eaton.

The Eaton Family was one of the earliest to arrive in Geneva Township, Van Buren County, Michigan.   They moved there from Marshall Township, Oneida County, New York where they had lived since about 1800.   I have traced the family back to Sir Francis Eaton, who was born in Bristol, England and who sailed with his wife aboard the Mayflower in 1621.    His son, Francis II, was born in the Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, on June 1, 1627---one of the very early children born in the new American Colony.

Rachel Davies, the wife of Eri Eaton, is also a Mayflower Descendant.   She is the daughter of Jacob Davis, II who was born in Simsbury, Hartford County, Connecticut on October 3, 1762.   He was married to Catherine Admiston on September 8, 1785 at Schnectady, New York.

Jacob Davis was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, where he served in Capt. Zebulon Butler's Connecticut Line and at Valley Forge with General George Washington.  He was discharged on June 8, 1783.  He was granted 160 acres of Military Land near Albany, New York.   He died on May 5, 1841 at Johnstown, New York.   His wife Catherine, was granted a widow's military pension of $8 per month in 1848 and that was increased to $12 in 1855.   At that time, she was living with John P. Martin, a son-in-law, at Johnstown, New York.

I had many opportunities to visit with the grandchildren of Francis and Roxanna Jones.   My Grandmother Clark and her sister Edith Belle Jones Strowig, told me this story many times.   "Grandpa Jones had Roxanna Eaton as his pupil in school.   She was 17 and he was 28 when they were married in 1854.   In those days, there wasn't a lot of courtship time.   There was a custom among some, which I think came from the Indians, that a man would come to his father-in-law's house  leading a horse for his future wife to ride.  If the father gave his permission, the man would just lift his future bride up on the back of the horse and lead her to the minister Justice of the Peace's house where they would be married.   That's just what Grandpa Jones did.   He brought a horse, asked Eri Eaton if he could marry Roxanna and he said yes.   He put her on the horse and lead her to the Justice of the Peace's house and they were married.   They never had a date before that but he had known her as his student."

Francis Jones was elected supervisor of school in Van Buren County, Michigan in 1854 and again in 1862.   He was also granted a teaching license by Van Buren County.   He was also elected Geneva Township Clerk in 1863 and 1864.   None of his grandchildren seemed to know or remember if he had any kind of formal education but from documents he signed, his handwriting was very legible and proficient.

Francis volunteered for service in the Civil War.   He enlisted in Company D, Fourteenth Michigan Volunteers, in September 1861.  He served in several military campaigns until he became ill with chronic dysentery.   He was given an medical discharge on October 2, 1862 at Corinth, Mississippi and returned to Michigan.   With no antibiotics, dysentery is not easily cured in those days and Francis suffered from it the remainder of his life.   He was given a disability pension which passed to his wife Roxanna after his death.   This writer is in possession of all of the military and pension records of Francis M. Jones.

My great grandfather, Leander Emory Jones, was born on September 20, 1871 on a rented farm near Alma, Wabaunsee County, Kansas, the seventh children of Francis and Roxanna Jones.  Their sixth children, Lucretia Jones, was also born there on August 30, 1869.   Their fifth child, Carrie Jones, was born on June 16, 1866 in Van Buren County so they had to have moved between 1866 and 1869.

Leander Emory "Lee" Jones, my great grandfather.   He was also known as "Deacon."

It is known that sometime between their arrival in Kansas and Leander's birth, they returned to Van Buren County, Michigan but stayed only a short time returning to Kansas.  It may have had something to do with settling of his bother George W. Jone's estate but that is not clear.

Lee and Roxanna settled first at Alma in Wabaunsee County where Grandfather Jones taught a country school and rented a small farm. Next they moved to a small farm south of Willard, Kansas.   This can be confusing, because the farm was actually on the west side of the road and in Wabaunsee County, but Willard was on the east side of the road and in Shawnee County.   The county line between Shawnee and Wabaunsee County was right in front of their house.   Francis Jones taught at the Post Creek School, a stone school house west of Williard in Wabaunsee County during the school year and had a large vegetable garden and sold vegetables during the summer.   He also worked for other people in their gardens.
Francis Jones was elected the chair of the Populist Party in Wabaunsee County in the election of 1900.   This was a party mostly composed of rural people and farmers that objected to the monopolies held by railroads.    He died on May 5, 1904 and was buried in the Green Cemetery, in what was formerly the village of Uniontown, in Shawnee County, Kansas.    This little cemetery was used by both the Potawatomi Indians and by local residents and has about 150 burials.  It is three miles northeast of the farm where Francis and Roxanna lived.   Roxanna lived with her children after his death.

My grandfather, Leander, had two nicknames:   Lee and Deacon.    They were used interchangeably but no one remembers him being called Leander.    He married Hannah Virginia "Vergie" Miller on April 12, 1892 in Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas.   I never remember hearing how they met, but they lived quite a distance apart for those days.  

Vergie was the daughter of William Washington and Sarah Ann Wykert Miller, and she was born in Jackson County, Kansas on June 1, 1875.   Her father rented farmland and also was a tenant farmer for Potawatomi allotment landholders on the Potawatomi Indian Reservation in Jackson County, Kansas.   They lived about three miles east of Delia, Kansas.   William Washington Miller's mother, Cintha Wilhite Miller, was born in 1824 and is thought to have been part Cherokee.  

Vergie and Leander Jones lived near Willard, Shawnee County, Kansas and Lee was a tenant farmer and did odd jobs.


The William and Sarah Wykert Miller Family 1909.  L-R back row, Edward, William, Herman.  L-R second row, William Washington, Sheridan and Sarah Ann Wykert Miller.

Lee and Vergie had three children:  Mabel Rachel born September 6, 1893, Louis Vernal born November 4, 1895, and Edith Belle born September 23, 1896, all at Willard, Shawnee County, Kansas.  Louis V. Jones caught pneumonia or whopping cough and died on February 18, 1899 and was buried in the Green Cemetery, located in the former village of Uniontown, Shawnee County, Kansas.   This was a very early cemetery where there were Potawatomi burials that occurred following a small pox epidemic in the 1830s.   There were also numerous other burials of local residents.  A family of New Englanders named Green donated land for the burial ground and lived nearby in a stone house until the 1960s.

Francis Jones died at his home on May 5, 1904.   He was buried beside his grandson Louis V. Jones and his daughter-in-law Hannah Virginia "Vergia" Miller Jones.  His grave is marked by the appropriate Civil War tombstone and also a Grand Army of the Republic marker.
Vergia Jones died of pregnancy complications on December 7, 1901 at Willard, Shawnee County, Kansas.   Her daughters, Mabel and Edith both recalled seeing their mother in her casket with the tiny infant cradled in her arms.  They were, of course, very distraught.   After the funeral, their father took them to the home of his parents, Francis and Roxanna Jones.   Mabel and Edith told me this story:  "We were so young and had just lost our Mama.   We were crying and crying and we couldn't eat our supper.   Grandpa Jones told us to quit crying and when we didn't, he whipped us with his belt.  We were just 8 and 6.    When we still wouldn't quit crying, he whipped us again and we both learned quickly that we had better not cry around him.   Papa had gone somewhere and left us there and when he came home, we told him what had happened.  He told us to mind Grandpa and Grandma Jones.    That Sunday, our Grandpa and Grandma Miller came over from Delia to visit.   We told them what had happened and Grandpa Miller just got our coats, put us in their wagon and took us home with them.   Papa didn't say one word.   Grandma and Grandpa Miller raised us until Papa married a second time in 1909.   Then we went to live with Papa and our stepmother, Jeanetta Susanna Reinhardt Jones.    Grandma and Grandpa Miller were the kindest people in the world and we went to school on the Indian Reservation.   They lived in a log house and they were friends with all of the Indian people.   Grandma Miller milked two cows and made butter to sell.   She always put a little yellow food coloring in it and all of the Indian people would buy her butter because it looked richer.    Edith and I had so many friends among the Indian children.   We remained friends and visited each others homes long after we were married."

Mabel and Edith Jones about 1909 in front of their home at Paxico, Kansas

Roxanna Jones lived with various of her children for the remainder of her life.   She died at the home of Leander and Suzanna Jones on March 24, 1925.    It was her request that she be buried with her son Leander and his second wife, Suzanna Reinhardt Jones in the Old Stone Church Cemetery west of Maple Hill, Kansas.   She said that Francis Jones had been very unkind to her in the last years of his life and she didn't wish to be buried with him.   Her son granted her wish.

Lee Jones married a second time to Jeanetta Suzanna Jones on December 24, 1909 in Silver Lake, Kansas.   They moved to Paxico, Wabaunsee County, Kansas where Lee and Suzanna operated the telephone exchange with the help of his daughters Mabel and Edith.   My grandmother, Mabel Jones Clark, told me this:  "My step mother was as good to me and to Edith as any real mother could be.  I always loved Mama Jones as we called her."

I have many other pictures of these people that I will use with other stories.   This one has gotten rather long.   Thanks for reading and Happy Trails!

There'll be Good Days and Bad Days but Always Try to Learn Something from Both!

How many of you try and think of the old sayings your heard your elders use?  My "Aunt" Bonnie Mitchell used to say, "There'll be good days and bad days but try to learn something from both."  Aunt Bonnie was a very wise woman!

For 30 years, I have been looking for my 3rd Great Grandfather on the Jones side of the family.   I didn't know his name, I only knew that my 2nd Great Grandfather, Francis Marion Jones, was born in Clark County, Ohio in 1828.  

I had heard may folk legends about my 3rd Great Grandfather from older relatives, long dead now.   I had written some of them down.   I was told that this ancestor was a shoe cobbler and that he had immigrated from Wales to America.   Jones is a very common name in Wales so I thought that was reasonable. I had heard that he was a veteran of the War of 1812, and that is why he had named his son, my 2nd Great Grandfather, Francis Marion Jones, after the War of 1812 hero.

Based on this information, I had always looked at the ship's lists of Welsh immigrants trying to find him.    I had looked for Francis Marion Jones in the Clark County, Ohio 1850 census but had never found him.   I had run down just about every source of information to no avail.

This this past Wednesday, I decided to do something I had never done before.   I simply put the name Francis Marion Jones and the birth year 1828 into the search window of Ancestry.com.   Why hadn't I done that before?   Why had I always given his birthplace as Wales?  To my great amazement, several family trees including Francis Marion Jones appeared on the screen.   I recognized a couple of them as being submitted by distant cousins whose names I knew but who I had never met.

I began to carefully look through these family lines and I learned how absolutely important it is to compare your information, census information, and family traditions to make sure you are following the right line.

I believe one of my cousins to have the right information while I believe the other to have made assumptions and many inaccuracies.   The line the second cousin is following is not correct and is not our family.   This cousin somehow added a child to the family of Francis Marion Jones that was never mentioned in any of my material and whose birth date was not feasible.   My cousin had used work supplied by a family member of this child, to complete the Jones line.   How I wish it could be so, because the line included some very important Massachusetts families who were judges and ministers and Mayflower descendants.   One branch even went to Montreal and Quebec and would have given me some French Ancestors.   But it was not to be so.

The first family tree I looked at is the one I believe to be correct.  Francis Marion Jones is the son of Richard and D. Jones, who were living in Mad River Township, Clark County, Ohio when the 1850 Census was taken.     They were both born in Virginia and Richard is shown to be a War of 1812 veteran.

I will continue this writing and give all the information and include photos of Francis Marion and his wife Roxanna Eaton Jones in future writing.   In genealogy, there will be good days and bad days, but this writer has learned something from both---don't jump at conclusions---check facts.   Have a great weekend!

On A Hill Far Away.....

Anyone who grew up in a small, Protestant country church probably knows the hymn, "The Old Rugged Cross," which begins with the words I've used to title this blog entry.    This blog will be used to tell a bit about the Old Stone Church and Cemetery, which is located about 1.5 miles west of Maple Hill, Kansas.   This church is near and dear to my heart and to many members of our family.

When pioneers moved west and settled, one of the first things they did was provide a house of worship.   They would meet in homes until the church was built and that's just what happened at Maple Hill.   There were several Eastern families who moved from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York who were either related by blood, marriage or by church affiliation.   They were the Warrens, Cheneys, Thayers, Pierce and Woodfords.   In one way or another, they all had associations with the Eliot Congregational Church of West Newton, Massachusetts.

The Old Stone Church taken about 1910.


When the Warrens moved to Kansas in 1873, they built large stone houses where the first religious gatherings were held.   Soon they had convinced the Eliot Congregational Church to start a mission church at Maple Hill.   William Pierce gave 40 acres of prime pastureland for the building of the church and to provide a burial ground.   The church was situated high on a hillside overlooking the Mill Creek Valley and the area's most prominent landmark, Buffalo Mound.

The church was founded in 1875 at a meeting held in the District #39 School House.  This was the first frame school in Maple Hill Township and is located on the Adams Ranch north of Maple Hill but has been remodeled many times and is used as a residence.  There was an earlier log school house built near Watermann's Crossing on Mill Creek.  There were 13 charter members in the new church.  The congregation met in the church and were often served by the Rev. W. S. Crouch, who was pastor of the Congregational Church in St. Marys.   The stone church built and was dedicated in 1882.   The dedication provided an opportunity for a huge gathering of Congregationalists from Topeka, St. Marys, Alma, Manhattan and other cities.   It was reported that the hillside was "covered" with wagons, buggies and horses.

The Old Stone Church in 1999 after second restoration.


The church was dealt a severe blow in 1887 when the Rock Island Railroad was built through the Mill Creek Valley.   It had been the plan of William A. Pierce to build the new town of Maple Hill on his ranch just to the south of the church.   However prior to 1887, another large ranch, that of George Fowler and William J. Tod, had developed east of the church on many sections of land.  For a modern-day reference, the Fowler/Tod Ranch is primarily located on what is today called the Brethour and Hudson Ranches, divided by Interstate 70.  The Fowler-Tod and Pierce factions fought and pursued legal action to secure the townsite on their ranch, but finally Pierce was given stock in the Fowler-Tod townsite and the new town of Maple Hill was developed 1.5 miles east of the church.  (Within five short years, William A. Pierce had lost his ranch and moved to Denver, Colorado where he died penniless in the 1920s.)  

Transportation was by foot, horseback or horse-drawn conveyance at that time and being separated from the town by 1.5 miles was a handicap for the fledgling church.    So in 1905, the Maple Hill Town Company offered the original grade school building and the land on which it sat for a town church.  The understanding was clearly that the burial ground would remain in the country at the Old Stone Church.

The Methodist Episcopal Church, Maple Hill, Kansas about 1920.   This church merged with the Maple Hill Community Congregational Church, which used this building as a parish/social hall until the new hall was built in 1950.   This church was then torn down.  The Methodist parsonage, built just to the west of the church, was used as the parsonage of the Maple Hill Community Congregational Church from the late 1930s until the early 1970s when a new parsonage was built.

There were three other churches in Maple Hill.   There were the Methodist, Baptist, and AME.   Eventually all of these churches closed and their members were melded into what became known as The Maple Hill Community Congregational Church.   This is the church where I was baptised and where I attended until I moved out-of-state in 1978.   The members of my extended Clark, Jones, Corbin and McCauley families were all members of the Old Stone Church and its successor, the Maple Hill Community Congregational Church.   Some of the Lemon family belonged to the Methodist Church, some to the Baptist and some to the Congregational Church.   However all of these families living in Maple Hill Township buried their dead in the Old Stone Church Cemetery.  Many of the Clarks are buried in the Snokomo Cemetery in Newbury Township south of Paxico, Kansas in Wabaunsee County.

The interior of the Old Stone Church in 2000, after the second restoration.




Ronelle Bennett of Alma, a well-known plastered in the Mill Creek Valley, was hired to do the plaster work but the youth group assisted him in putting up and moving scaffolding and in mixing and carrying scuds of plaster.   The work took about three weeks.
Miss Emily Adams headed the raising of funds to pay for the plastering, a new floor, and to provide furnishings for the new church.   Over the summer of 1961, I personally typed over 200 letters for Miss Adams on her little Royal portable typewriter.   These letters went to families near and far who had some association with the church or cemetery.    We were successful in raising more than $15,000 which was enough to complete the work. 

The front facade of the Maple Hill Community Congregational "Town" Church as it appears today.   It was dedicated in 1905 and has been remodeled many times since.

Ann Gorbet Adams, wife of Raymond Adams, Jr., chose the paint colors for the interior and the Hammarlund Family donated a very large wooden cross for the front of the sanctuary.  The wood came from rafters of an old church in St. Marys.  The restored church was rededicated on Memorial Day/Decoration Day, 1963 and was used until 1994.
As fate would have it, the church was completely destroyed by a tornado in April of 1994.   When it burned, the church walls remained standing and the roof was replaced.   When it was hit by the tornado, the walls and everything inside the church was completely destroyed.  The church/cemetery board decided to use insurance monies and again there were generous donors who allowed the church to be completely restored a second time.

This is the view looking west from the top (east) of the cemetery grounds.   The view looks across the Mill Creek Valley and the large hill is "Buffalo Mound," one of the highest landmarks in the area.  This is incredibly beautiful vista.

In the mid-1990s, the church and cemetery received a very large, anonymous six-figure bequest, which allows for the complete maintenance and upkeep of both the cemetery and maintenance.   In addition, Emma Jeanne and Warner Adams gave an additional five acres of ground to the cemetery, which should be sufficient for several generations to come.
Barring some kind of natural or human disaster, the Old Stone Church and Cemetery should be well kept and much loved well into the future.   May it be so.