This item came from a Howard Courant issue of sometime in 1914 and is from the "FORTY YEARS AGO" column quoting from the Longton Howard County Ledger of May 9, 1874:
"Z. T. Dean, our young tonsorial friend, while out hunting the other day shot a crane. Its wings measured something less than sixteen feet from tip to tip."
That is one huge bird! I wonder what he did with it? So the Howard Courant was the Howard paper in 1914? Daddy was born out there Nov.1, 1914.
There were two Howard newspapers at the time.
The Howard Courant was the Republican paper ran by Thomas E. Thompson and The Howard Citizen was the Democrat paper run by Fred C. Flory. These guys were good friends, and eventually, the newspapers occupied the same building running off the same press owned by Flory. Each editor had his own office. The two newspapers merged in 1942.
Waldo,
Have you ever written out a "family tree" of the newspapers from Elk County that are now represented in the Prairie Star? Or even gone so far as to draw it all the way out to include the CQ papers and the eastern Cowley ones?
Just curious.
Charles
Good! Thank You. Waldo. Now I know why the paper I always read when I was growing up was the Howard Courant Citizen.
I did it for the northern Howard/Elk County portion and it was in some files that I lost earlier this year. After I was presented with the Blue Screen of Death on my computer, I told the repair guy to start me out with a clean slate. I had backups of everything except that one directory. And, I don't know why I had left that directory out.
At one time, I thought I wanted to do it for the "other" side but never did get around to it.
There was a lady several years ago who wrote in the Flint HIlls Express (I think it had that name then) exclaiming the newspaper's roots were over 100 years old and they dated all the way back to 1894.
I did not know it at the time but she was off by 25 years since the roots actually went back to 1871. She was just retiring and I think she might have been working in the Sedan office and was looking at it only from the perspective of her old newspaper. I think it was a Burden newspaper, but I cannot recall.
The Courant itself started in 1874 in Elk City. Moved to Longton for a spell and then moved to Howard City to replace the Beacon. The same guy, Abe Steinbarger, owned both the Courant and the Beacon. Steinbarger was the first mayor of Howard and right after that changed his name to Steinberger. Still don't know the reasoning but he is buried in Grace Lawn.
The 1871 editor, Adrian J. Reynolds, who is at the deepest root, liked to tell people he started publishing in 1870. When he merged with the Howard Courant around 1878 he stayed on as an editor and he put that information in the Howard Courant masthead. Not sure why he claimed that and there is no evidence to support it. He might have been trying to claim that his newspaper was the first in Howard or Elk County but the Elk Falls Examiner came out two weeks before Reynold's Ledger did.
When Tom Thompson came along in 1881, he eventually corrected it to 1871.
All the old timers remember the Courant-Citizen. I remember reading it also.
Mrs Thompson sold out to the Citizen seven years after her husband's death.
She married Tom Thompson in 1882 so she was getting up there when she hung it up. They had a son who was also a newspaper man but he apparently had no interest in Howard and went to work for the Kansas City Star retiring from there in 1958.
She was a visible co-editor of the Courant from almost the time they were married and she took over after he died. Actually, it was before that because he was sickly and confined to bed for some time before he died.
Waldo,
Are the historical news items you refer to from your files or do you have a computer link to access old copies of Elk County newspapers? When I go to Howard, I like to go to the library and check out the microfilm but was curious if there were maybe other ways to retrieve that information for us out-of-towners.
KRI
No, I get my research the same way you do--from microfilm reels. From Inter Library loans and I have been known to go to Topeka a few times.
March 21, 1874, Longton Howard County Ledger:
"Some parties owning a fish net are taking from fifty to one hundred pounds of fish from Elk River daily."
"Somebody has been killing Georgie Cannon's bantam chickens, and George is mad."
Elk County Ledger (Howard), January 6, 1877
"The transcripts and records of old Howard county have been delivered and accepted by the Commissioners."
Elk County was created effective June 1, 1875. One of the provisions of the Howard County division law was that all the original records went to Chautauqua County. All of those records were required by that law to be copied and provided to Elk County. It took two and one-half years for the hand copying to take place.
Curiously, I wonder how many people were involved in doing the copying and did they do it on a full time basis or just when they had the time?
Larryj
The only information on the transcribers I have is that "others" did the actual work.
The transcript fee was five cents per "folio," which was one-hundred words. Don't have any information on the total payment to the contractor but the Elk County register of deeds received the contract from the Elk County commissioners to do the transcribing. He sublet the contract to an individual in Chautauqua County for four cents per folio. That individual sublet the contract to "others" who were making about three cents between them per folio for their work.
There were around 13,700 people in Howard County at division, which would seem to reflect a large number of records.
I don't know that I have seen any of the transcribed records, but I have seen copies of letters and government documents of the time and in most cases they can be difficult to read; contrary to what some of us have been taught about the expert penmanship of the times.
Longton Town Company incorporated on August 23, 1870.
Post office approved May 1870.
Advertising from the Longton Howard County Ledger, February 23, 1871, first issue.
CARTMELL & FULLENWIDER,
ATTORNIES AT LAW, Longton, Kansas. Will practice in all courts of Southern Kansas.
H. H. WILCOX,
NOTARY PUBLIC, Solicits the patronage of the citizens of Longton Howard county.
R. H. REED, M.D.,
PHYSICIAN & SURGEON
Having permanently located in Longton. All diseases of either sex promptly and privately treated.
JOSEPH W. KERR,
Physician, Offers his professional services to the people of Longton and vicinity.
THE LONGTON HOUSE,
GEO. HANSBROUGH. Proprietor, will accommodate the traveling public at reasonable rates.
WRIGHT & KIRBY,
PROPRIETORS Steam Saw Mill, are prepared to furnish lumber of all varieties on short notice.
OLIVER PEASE,
MANUFACTURER OF SHINGLES,
Mill one half mile east of Longton, Kansas.
ALEX. PATTON,
GENERAL BLACKSMITHING & Wagon-making.
Waldo,
Do you have any idea where the Longton House was located? The oldest Sanborn map I have is 1899 and it doesn't show the whole town. It shows the Gordon House and I think the 1903 map shows it and the Whitmer hotel. I've been told there was a big hotel down near the depot.
I have not seen anything that indicates an actual location.
Longton Howard County Ledger, April 23, 1871:
Our County Clerk should be instructed to procure a bottle of black ink with which to write public documents. The red ink that he makes use of fades out in a short time after being exposed to the air; besides it smacks to much of the country school boy to use red ink.
Cave Springs Globe, May 3, 1882:
The Kansas penitentiary has 666 regular boarders at present.
Croquet is the favorite pastime of the young folks in town.
Go to E. H. Long for your drugs.
A large acreage of flax will be sown in this township this spring.
L. W. Yandall has purchased a new wagon.
Go to Reser for nice notions, straw hats, etc.
We have our rooster in training for the coming victory. [do not have clue as to the meaning of this unless they were having cockfights]
Howard Courant, September 24, 1914:
ROUND OAK FURNACES!
Of course you want your home kept warm in winter. There is one way to do it: Buy a good furnace. Many of the best homes in Elk county are warmed with Round Oak Furnaces. Ask anybody who has one if he likes it. They will all tell you "Yes."
Two very dapperly dressed men are in a basement next to a huge furnace talking to each other. One says to the other:
"Brown, this is the greatest furnace in the world—it's a genuine Round Oak. Had I put it in last year; I would have saved a pile of money. It burns half the coal of any other furnace I ever have had any experience with and we have been more comfortable here this severe winter weather than at any time we have lived here."
The Round Oak is at Home in Every Land.
Save Money by buying Right Now!
I am heavily overstocked on furnaces, and you can save enough to pay for your winter's coal by buying NOW! See me.
R. C. RICE
Metropolitan Bld'g, Howard, Kans
My understanding is the business was in the basement of the Metropolitan Hotel and I thought it manufactured the furnaces, although a hotel would be an odd location to make something.
Longton Weekly Ledger, April 25, 1874:
"The old man Bender and his son have been caught again. This time in the southern Utah Territory. It seems to be pretty certain that the right birds are in the trap this time."
Again, the feds did not have the Neosho County serial killers.
Besides the father and son, they were also looking for the mother and daughter.
They were never found.
What did the Benders do? I noticed someone mentioned them earlier but can't remember reading anything about them.
Google The Bloody Benders of Cherryvale Kansas, Ms Bear. They were some bad actors!
There is a lot of conflicting information on the Benders. So someone may disagree on the following.
The Benders were actually not from Cherryvale, although there is a museum there. And, Cherryvale was the point of origin for an investigation by law enforcement authorities. That investigation started with a mass meeting of Montgomery, Labette, and Neosho County residents in Cherryvale to discuss the fact that so many people went missing on a main road out of Cherryvale. The main road was between Cherryvale and Osage Mission.
The Benders actually had their wayside inn way out in the middle of nowhere somewhere around Thayer and Galesburg in Neosho County, around seventeen miles from Cherryvale.
They had a very small "Inn" in which they kept overnight visitors. There was a mother, father, daughter, and son team. The youngest female would distract a visitor and then one of the men would whack him on the back of the head with a sledge hammer. They cut his throat, if necessary, took his valuables, and then dumped him down a trapdoor leading to a cellar.
If no one else showed up they would retrieve the body and bury it at night somewhere on their 160 acre claim.
One victim was killed and subsequently thrown into a grave. Supposedly, they threw his nine-year old daughter, still alive, in on top of him and buried them both.
There were eleven victims dug up but there was general consensus there were more victims whose burial sites were never found.
The Benders were in attendance at that meeting in Cherryvale and after wards drove to Thayer, boarded a train, and were never seen again.
Thanks for site information. It was interesting reading and am going to go back to it. How far is Cherryvale from Howard? I am learning so much about Elk County from this forum. I will have to go back to visit again but will have to have more time than the first time I was there.
Cherryvale's on the other side of Independence. It's about an hour's drive east from Howard.
There used to be a Kansas Historical Marker about the Benders 3.75 miles east of US 169 on what used to be US 160. This was just a half mile from "Bender Mounds" (N 37.33956 W 95.47548).
Since they built US 400, and relocated US 160 to the south along old K96, they moved the historical marker to the rest area just north of the US 400/US 169 interchange. The beginning paragraph is on the KSHS site: http://www.kshs.org/tourists/markers.htm#56 (http://www.kshs.org/tourists/markers.htm#56)
Quote54. THE BLOODY BENDERS
Near here are the Bender Mounds, named for the infamous Bender family--John, his wife, son and daughter Kate who settled here in 1871. Kate soon gained notoriety as a self-proclaimed healer and spiritualist. Secretly, the four made a living through murder and robbery.
US-400 and US-169 interchange, Montgomery County
Rest area, north of Cherryvale
Charles
Thanks, I could have looked at a map but then I can't really tell how far it is from one place to another. What would have been the nearest large town back then?
The text of the original marker is located here: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-kansas/BenderHistoricalMarker.jpg (http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-kansas/BenderHistoricalMarker.jpg)
The site says it's the one at the jct, but it's actually the original one.
This site has a pretty good synopsis of the Bloody Benders: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/OZ-Benders.html (http://www.legendsofamerica.com/OZ-Benders.html)
Waldo, why did you have to start this tangent. ??? Now I can't seem to quit. :P Maybe it's time for your vacation. ;D :angel:
Charles
Fredonia Wilson County Citizen, June 26, 1874.
"SAD ACCIDENT.—A son of M. W. Hanson, residing in Longton, fell out of a Mulberry tree some time since and broke an arm, and his father to humor him gave him a revolver to play with. Thursday night, the father, being annoyed by the howling of dogs loaded two of the chambers in the pistol, went out and discharged one of them at the dogs. He returned into the house and placed the pistol above the door where he thought it would be out of reach of the boy. While the father and mother were out of the room, and an older brother was making a fire in the stove, the younger one put a chair against the door and got the pistol down. He pulled the hammer back, and raised the weapon to see if he could take accurate aim at his brother's head. Accidentally the trigger was touched, the ball entering the brain at the superior anterior angle of the right parietal bone, ranging downwards, striking some portion of the optical nerve, and probably lodging in the base of the brain. His life is despaired of."
Independence South Kansas Tribune, February 10, 1875, quoting from the Elk Falls Howard County Ledger,
"A fellow by the name of Burris, in the south part of the county, went and drew a lot of flour for his starving wife and children, and as he went home sold it for a plow."
The Auburn (IL) Citizen, September 13, 1907, quoting the Kansas City (MO) Journal of an unknown date:
"One Howard girl refused to go to Elk Falls with her best young man when she heard that the conveyance would cost him $4, and he rewarded her good sense by taking another girl."
From the Howard Courant-Ledger, August 1, 1878:
"Subscriptions and advertisements which had not expired with the last issue of the [Howard] Examiner was made, July 12, will be filled out by the [Howard] Industrial Journal."
Newspapers seemed all over the place at this time in Howard's history.
During the period 1878 to 1883, these newspapers published at one time or another in Howard:
Clipper
Courant
Courant-Ledger
Daily Courant
Daily Courant-Ledger
Elk County Herald [started by Thomas E Thompson and family]
Grip
Industrial Journal
Journal
Kansas Rural
Weekly Examiner
From the Elk County (Howard City) Ledger, November 25, 1876:
"The Biologicalciceroninaoperonicanphilomathian society meets every Wednesday night at 7 o'clock. John Nowlin, President."
That's OK. Penicillin clears it right up. ;D
Patryn Go to your local library and ask for the microfilm of whatever paper and years you want and they should be able to get it for you throught interlibrary loan. I often do that here. I believe the Kansas Historical Society website, (sorry don't have the link memorized), lists the papers and microfilm numbers. It sometimes takes 2 or 3 weeks to get them but you can usually have them for 3 weeks. Of course, they library will keep them there for you.
From the Longton Weekly Ledger, January 3, 1874:
"It is reported that Turner & Kelley, formerly of the Howard City Messenger have bought the material of the defunct Elk Falls Journal and are going to commence the publication of a new paper at Elk Falls. We wish the boys success in any legitimate undertaking. But with the number of newspapers already published in the county [there were but four in Howard County at the time] we hardly see how they can hope for financial success in publishing a paper in Elk Falls a dead town, and a town which they both proved to be dead, as they will discover by referring to back files of their own paper. Anything we might say, or any advice we might give would not be taken by them as coming from a "disinterested party" so we shall let them take their own course, and in due time will chronicle the demise of another Howard county newspaper. The first issue of the paper will be covered all over with the word failure, as anyone familiar with affairs in Howard county can plainly see.
"We made a true prediction of what would be the fate of the Journal which the first number of that lamented sheet made its appearance; and in anticipation of the commencement of another paper we predict the same in regard to it. We may be mistaken, may be reasoning from a false standpoint—a short year will tell."
While the Longton newspaper predicted a short year, Turner and Kelley's version of the Elk Falls Journal lasted one and a half years.
Elk Falls was fighting a nasty battle with Boston in court for the county seat when this editorial appeared. The Longton editor was a long time anti-Elk Falls fan and favored Boston.
The Independence Republican had moved to Elk Falls a year earlier in 1873, and became the Elk Falls Journal. That version of the Journal lasted less than a year when Howard City's Turner and Kelley decided to take it over keeping the name Journal. They had sold their Messenger in mid 1873 and that newspaper wound up in Boston.
Six months after the Longton editorial, Elk Falls appeared to be firmly entrenched as the county seat even though the entire county was awaiting a Kansas Supreme Court decision to decide between Elk Falls and Boston. The Longton newspaper decided to leave Longton and move to Elk Falls becoming the Howard County Ledger (not to be confused with an earlier Howard County Ledger in Longton).
With the move of the Ledger to Elk Falls, that town became a two-newspaper berg and would be until Howard County was divided in June 1875. At that time Turner and Kelley gave up and moved the Journal to Sedan where it became the Chautauqua Journal. The Ledger stayed in Elk Falls until November of the following year when it moved to Howard City.
Does anyone know where the original hard copies of the various Elk county newspapers are. The state historical society got rid of them several years ago and I wondered if they ended up in Elk county somewhere.
All the newspapers they had could be spoken for, which I did, but since I didn't live in Elk county, they turned me down. I did get all the Johnson county newspapers. I only took the pre-1965 papers. That produced 9 stacks each about 5 feet high. That's 45 feet for those of you who graduated from Howard High. LOL. Sorry, just had to get a little jab in there.
WRH
Moline High School 1961
From the Howard County Ledger (Elk Falls), August 5, 1875:
"The Board of Commissioners for Elk & Chautauqua counties meet in joint session at Sedan, on Monday, August 23rd, 1875. At that meeting they desire all claims against Howard county to be presented for settlement."
The Howard County Ledger editor refused to change the name of his newspaper because he thought the state law creating Elk and Chautauqua counties was unconstitutional. He also believed the Kansas Supreme Court would rule in that direction. Less than a month later on September 10, 1875, the Supreme Court determined the Howard County division law was constitutional.
The newspaper quickly became the Elk County Ledger.
This is probably the first time I have heard of county commissioners holding joint session.
Longton Weekly Ledger, January 17, 1874.
"A man named G.D. Gortman was murdered by one James Mund, near Jayhawk, in this county, on Monday, the fifth, inst. It seems that Gortman accused Mund of a criminal intimacy with his (Gortman's) wife, which resulted in Mund's shooting Gortman four or five times with a pistol and, after he was dead, two or three times with a rifle. The murderer escaped into the ever ready criminal's paradise, the Indian Territory, and is yet at large."
This was Howard County and Jayhawk was slightly southeast of Peru in the vicinity of Niotaze.
From the Longton Weekly Ledger, January 17, 1874:
"Of all our troubles since coming to Howard Co., our greatest has been to get a decently respectable quality of flour for family use.
"Our merchants would sell us a sack of flour with assurance that it was of the best quality and to prove that they believed it to be so, they would charge the price of first quality flour.
"But this did not make any difference, the flour would be black, musty and totally unfit for a whiteman to eat. The merchant was not to blame he had been imposed on by the wholesale dealer, whose motto was 'anything is good enough for the hoodoos in Southern Kansas.'
"Well, that thing has played out now, so far as this neighborhood is concerned.
"John Johnson, Esq., has his new flouring mill in full operation at his place on Elk River five miles below Longton [at what became Oak Valley].
"Several parties who have taken wheat to his mill come back with the report that they get a larger yield of flour and by all odds better flour than they have been able to obtain at any mill theretofore patronized by them.
"Mr. Johnson, well knowing that the printer is always in need of a little flour, sent us a sack 'Just to try it'—and after having made a fair trial of it we are willing to assert that we never saw better or whiter flour. It is much better to eat and the party who presides over our culinary department is in better humor and scolds less by half than formerly.
"We are very glad, indeed, that this enterprise of neighbor Johnson's is likely to prove a success—more especially as it will not only be a benefit to him but to everybody in Longton Township, as well."
From the Elk County Ledger (Howard City), May 5, 1877:
"There are entirely too many hogs running at large in town, for the comfort of the people who don't own them. We don't believe any citizen has a right, either legal or moral, to raise hogs at the expense, inconvenience and discomfort of his neighbor."
"All necessary blanks have been received and the Elk County Bank is now prepared to do any and all kinds of banking business. The members of the firm, Messrs. Momma & Eby, are well known to our community as gentlemen of enterprise and good business talent. They will succeed."
The Elk County Bank was located on the first floor below the second story Opera House where Cookson's Hardware is now. The bank eventually became the Elk County State Bank and then the Howard National Bank locating in a new stone building on the southeast corner of Washington and Wabash streets in 1886.
From the Kansas Telephone (a newspaper), September 3, 1887, speaking of its Elk Falls location:
"We have two hardware stores, three general merchandise, two drug stores, one bank, one grocery, one lumber yard, three hotels, two restaurants, one shaving parlor, one shoe shop, one tin shop, one furniture store, one livery and feed stable, one millinery store, two blacksmith shops, two medical physicians, one attorney-at-law, one real-estate man, one feed store and a meat market."
Elk Falls had a lot more businesses than it now has but when the first federal census of all cities was released in 1910, the population was only 271.
This was apparently the first edition of Kansas Telephone and it apparently did not last very long going out of business in the same month of September 1887.
Elk Falls would not get another newspaper until 1903.
From the Elk County Ledger (Howard City), April 28, 1877:
"The LEDGER office boasts a new 'devil.' Johnny Thompson proposes to learn the printer's trade. 'Tommy' [Thomas E. Thompson of Polk Daniels fame] has been promoted, and now has somebody to 'boss' over."
A printer devil was an apprentice who mixed containers of ink and gathered type for the typesetter.
Three years later, "Tommy," who had quit school at age thirteen, was now twenty years old and editor of the Elk Falls Signal.
From
Pettengill's Newspaper Directory and Advertiser's Hand-Book For 1877.
Howard City Courant; Wednesdays; republican; A.B. Steinbarger, publisher; circulation 800.
The Courant published at Howard City on Wednesday morning of each week; 4 pages; size, 22 x 31 inches. Established in 1874 [at Elk City]. Circulation, 800 copies. Official newspaper of the county, and leading republican paper in senatorial district. Advertising rates reasonable. A. B. Steinbarger, editor and proprietor. Sample copies mailed on application. S. M. Pengengill & Co., advertising agents.
Howard City, Elk Co. Ledger; Saturdays; republican; Adrian Reynolds, publisher, circulation, 600.
These were the only two newspapers publishing in Elk County at that time.
From an unknown date (but sometime in 1881) of the Lee's Summit, Mo., News-Letter:
The "Elk Co. HERALD" a very neat and spicy paper, hailing from Howard, Kansas has reached our table. Its style make-up and appearance will compare with any paper in the west. We recognize the fact that Tom E. Thompson, formerly of the Elk Falls Signal is the local editor."
Lee's Summit is near Kansas City.
The Thompson men started the Elk County Herald in Howard in early 1881 and then bought the Courant that fall.
Presumably the word "spicy" in relation to print had a different meaning in 1881.
From the Elk County Ledger (Howard City), April 21, 1877:
"A mammoth railroad meeting was held at Elk Falls on Tuesday. It was in the interest of the L. L. & G. extension and was largely attended by people from Independence. The people of Elk Falls and the county generally have been urging the L. L. & G. to build a railroad into this county for several years; but have never received any encouragement. Now, however, when there is a prospect for roads from other points, the L. L. & G., together with the Independence people, begin to "hump themselves." The Elk Falls meeting was adjourned –so we are informed—for two weeks to give the L. L. & G. people time to get up a proposition which they will submit to this county."
From the Longton Weekly Ledger, January 17, 1874:
"On New Year's Eve, a gentleman living near Peru had a wagon and pair of horses stolen from him. The thief made good his escape into the Territory, and has not since been heard from. If the vigilantes would only swing one or two of them the thieving would cease. It is a little rough, but very effectual. A vigilance committee comes nearer meting out justice to the offender than does either Judge or jury. Judge and jury may be bought, but a committee, never."
Maybe for a few years anyway, we need to bring back this form of judgment. It would help solve the overflow in the prison system.
I'll bet that I get a flood of replies to this way of thinking. oh welllllll~~~~~~~
I am sure most comments will be in agreement. I know I agree.
From the December 5, 1873, Emporia News quoting from the Wichita City Eagle:
"Four Delaware Indians, old friends of J. R. Mead's have been trapping below town, along the Arkansas and Chisholm creek, for the past thirty days. They have secured 30 beavers, fifty coon and several otter, in all between four and five hundred [animals]."
At this time in history, the Delaware tribe had been moved from their Kansas reservation, which became Wyandotte, Leavenworth, and Jefferson counties, to the reduced Indian Territory that became Oklahoma.
In their entire history of contact with the federal government, they had been moved from the Delaware River area in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, from which they took their name, to Ohio. As civilization pressed westward, the federal government moved them again to Indiana, then to Missouri, then to Kansas, and then to Oklahoma.
There are currently two bands in Oklahoma, one headquartered in Anadarko, and the largest headquartered in Bartlesville. Some bands left the tribe early on and went to the grandmother country where they have two reservations in Ontario. There are also some communities left in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but they do not have a reservation status.
Kansas Democrat (Independence), January 31, 1873:
Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad Line. Daily trains between Lawrence and Independence. All trains carry passengers. Night Express north will run daily, Saturdays excepted. All other trains will run daily, Sundays excepted.
Day train from Lawrence arrives at 6:40 pm. Day train to Lawrence departs at 6:30 am.
Night train from Lawrence arrives at 6:30 am. Night train to Lawrence departs at 7:00 pm.
Connections at Independence with stages for Elk City, Longton, Peru, Elk Falls, Tisdale, Winfield and Arkansas City.
Tisdale is now just a blip eight miles east of Winfield.
There were no rails west of Independence at the time.
Wichita did have end of track service but its line came from Newton to the north.
A word from Adrian J. Reynolds editor of the Howard County Ledger (Longton), February 23, 1871:
"Portions of the barracks at West Point were recently destroyed by fire. Pity the whole institution were not destroyed never to be rebuilt. It seems to be only a place well calculated to educate and feed a select few aristoeratical fledgelings, not a few of whom are ready—it seems—to turn against the hand that warmed and fed them, when opportunity offers."