Ghost Stories from Owl City

By Helen Casebier

From the Topeka Capital, 1928

Hidden back among the timbered hills of Jefferson county, where the only sound to break the stillness of the long black nights is the interminable hooting of the owls which inhabit the trees, is a hamlet named Owl City, so named because of this colony of owls.

Owl City was never anything but a section house and a tool house of a little branch line of the Leavenworth and Topeka railroad,* where a one-horse engine dubbed “Old Jerky” went chugging up and down the hills twice a day. Now there is nothing but a tool house. But the section house was surrounded by a group of farms once inhabited by as queer a folk as ever saw day, old timers of the county affirm. They were real backwoodsmen just like the Southern mountaineers. The curly beards of the men straggled over the collars of their blue gingham shirts, while their razors rested peacefully all winter in the back of the kitchen cupboards, to be brought out each year when the snow left the ground, for the annual spring shave. Superstitious, too, they were and suspicious, and when one neighbor’s cattle got mixed up with another’s cattle there were fierce quarrels. Sometimes the quarreling parties went to law, but more often one of the men hauled out the family rifle and went gunning for his neighbor.

"Old Jerky" at Ozawkie

The woods were thick over the hills, with big old oaks and black walnut trees, and heavy underbrush. The nights were most dismal, with only the black of the trees and the melancholy sounds, as from one hill would come the mournful cry of a screech-owl and an answering screech from a neighboring hill. The woods were a good place for ghosts, these superstitious people believed. Queer things were apt to happen.

Often in the winter nights a group of them would gather about the big log fire in one of their homes. Inevitably the talk turned to ghosts, how eerie, monotonous footsteps followed old Jim Thompson home the other evening, and how strange lights were seen by Fanny Bouyer as she went through the woods. As the tales grew more gruesome and voices dropped lower and lower, eyes turned reluctantly from the fire to the black of the night outside.

Finally they all became so scared at the tales they told, that the guests refused to go home but stayed at the house all night. The next morning when it grew plenty light, their courage returned, and they banished the ghosts and trudged bravely home.

Some of the people have been dead now for many years, but their peculiarities are remembered by the people in Jefferson county, and many can tell tales of the “old maids,” and McTurk, the miser, of “Honest Jim” Thompson, who never swore and never got drunk, and of crazy Fanny Bouyer, who prowled the woods at night and peered in people’s windows.

 

Everybody knew the old maids, Tilly and Libby Ashton. They might have been good-looking, but none could say for sure. They dressed in women’s clothes, but the clothes were of the roughest and coarsest materials. Their lanky hair streamed from beneath the men’s caps they wore pulled down over their eyes.

The two women lived on a farm on the edge of the clearing. They had money, people believed, but they built themselves a hut in the woods, made of odds and ends of lumber, with a brush-shed tacked on to it. They probably almost froze in winter, for their house was flimsy and their stove small, but year after year they lived there, allowing no man on the place, and doing all their own work.

Tilly was the older one and the more determined, and could swear as well as any man. When there was any discussion about whose cattle was whose, she held her own in the argument.

They raised fine cattle and thoroughbred horses, and they kept many dogs on the place. People would often see them lumbering along in an old wagon, followed by a dozen horses and surrounded by a barking, yapping pack of dogs.

Then one winter Tilly caught cold and the cold went into pneumonia. She steadily refused to call a doctor. Some of the neighboring women came in to help her. She lay in the flimsy little hut on a bed of tarpaulin and gunny-sacking.

Finally they all perceived she was dying, and someone called a doctor. He came out, looked her over and wanted to give her medicine, but Tilly said, “I fought a good fight, but I know I’m dying, and I’ll be damned if I’ll take any of your medicine. There’s going to be no bill against my property when I’m dead.”

She died the next day. After a decent interval of mourning, Libby took some of the money, bought some pretty new clothes, washed her face and combed her hair, and the neighbors discovered to their surprise that she had chestnut hair, a white skin and red cheeks.

Then she went away to Illinois, and rumors soon floated back to the inhabitants of Owl City that she was married. She was never heard of again.

Illustration of Megascops asio (syn. Otus asio)
by John James Audubon

 “McTurk, the miser,” — his full name was John McTurk — was another mystery to the curious people of the community. Old McTurk lived alone in a one-room shack, his food year in and year out consisting of crackers and bacon. No women were allowed to come near the place.

He was a short stout man, badly stooped, and wore bedraggled clothes. His face was always covered with a stubby beard. He shaved oftener than did the other worthies of the neighborhood, but probably he shaved, they thought, with a butcher knife or a piece of window glass. His face looked that way.

He must have been rich. They knew he was, for his shack was set in the midst of a large and fertile farm in the Delaware river valley. He loaned money to all the farmers in the country and usually had several thousand dollars loaned out at one time. But no one knew where he kept his money. He did not bank it. It wasn’t around the shack. They decided he must bury it.

When the Delaware river rose one year and overflowed the country, old McTurk hovered watchfully around a big cottonwood tree near the river bank. He lingered there until the river went down again. People saw him guarding it and told each other, “That’s where old McTurk keeps his money.”

He died not long after that, died of exposure to the cold. Men took care of him during his illness, for he still would allow no woman near. Soon after his death, two men in the community, who had been struggling to make a living, became suddenly and mysteriously prosperous. People shook their heads and said of them, “They found old John McTurk’s money.”

The Leavenworth and Topeka railroad’s bridge over the
Delaware River near Ozawkie required constant upkeep.

*The Leavenworth and Topeka railroad ran from Leavenworth through central Jefferson County to Meriden Junction, where its tracks connected with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. Under slightly different names, it operated from 1881 to 1931. For its history, see The People’s Railroad by I.E. Quastler.

The exact location of Owl City is unknown. Perhaps the hints in this article will help those who wish to solve the mystery.

This story appeared in “Yesteryears” in April 1989.

The Great Fire

Perry Again at Mercy of the Fiery Demon

Loss About $15,000 — Hard Work to Keep Entire Town from Burning

From the Perry Mirror, July 2, 1903

While the citizens of Perry were peacefully sleeping Monday night, and the wind was blowing lively from the southwest, a fire started in the west end of town, which, for an hour, threatened the town with annihilation. The blaze seems to have originated in the back part of the building owned by Larimer & Bouton.

The first one who noticed the fire was a brakeman on the U.P. railroad. As soon as he saw the smoke he ran and gave the alarm. Several of the citizens awoke and the bells awakened the whole town.

All the buckets available were brought into requisition and soon a small army of workers, both men and women, were diligently at work fighting fire.

The windmill and water trough are thought to be among the earliest
features on the main street of Perry, Kansas

Heroic efforts were made to confine the fire to the place of starting, but it was soon evident that the blacksmith shop was doomed and also the home of Mr. Malone. The elevator became very hot several times during the fire, and the rosin was fried out in spots, but the brigade kept it thoroughly saturated with water and covered with salt.

As the wind was high the sparks and embers fell as far north as the Presbyterian church, but no other fires started.

The Thomas lumber yard was a source of danger, appreciated thoroughly by the thoughtful and strenuous efforts made to keep it free from danger.

The large barn of George Strange was well manned with hose and bucket line and as soon as an ember fell it was promptly extinguished.

The old cigar factory building owned by Mr. Lee was also burned.

Several things might be said which would be of benefit. We all learn by experience, and each fire has its lessons and warnings. The first thing self evident is that our village is entirely unprepared to cope with fire and whatever catches on fire will burn down in spite of all our efforts.

The second thing is that we have in our midst some of the species called “chumps,” able bodied men who will stand around and gape at a fire while women carry water and who haven’t gumption or sense enough to get out of the way of the toiling, water soaked women. Such cattle ought to be at home asleep getting ready to watch their wives work the next day. Shame on such men!

A third thing is that we need more stone and brick buildings scattered over town to at as fire guards.

And a last thing is insure your property! Then you won’t be at home trying to get your own stuff out, but you can join the toilers, trying to check the fire!

Now as to the proper fire fighting apparatus: Perry needs four good cisterns or steel tanks located at the right place, kept filled with water. It needs a gasoline engine of sufficient power to throw a stream of water 40 feet high, set on trucks and placed in a convenient place. Then a fire marshal, appointed by the council, who shall direct the forces at a fire and whose word GOES at such times!

Some “Don’ts” for Fire Workers

• Don’t throw salt on the roofs of buildings and then go to work and wash it off.
• Don’t throw buckets from high places, recklessly: it is hard on collar-bones and buckets.
• Don’t get rattled, keep cool; your coolness is especially needed at such a time.
• Don’t for humanity’s sake, for decency’s sake and for your own sake stand by and let weak women and crippled men work while you stand like a fly trap, rubbering at the fire!

As to Losses

The heaviest losers were Messrs. Larimer & Boulton, who carried a $10,000 stock of hardware and implements, housed in their own building. This stock was insured for $7,000, with a local agent.

The blacksmith shop occupied by Moon & Gilstrap was destroyed with its entire contents. These men had no insurance and suffered quite a loss and great inconvenience, but you can’t keep a good thing down, and the boys have a temporary shop well under way at this writing and will be found at the old stand tacking on shoes that will stay.

Built after the fire of 1903, the railroad water tank
offered some provision for fighting future fires.

The home of Wm. Malone was destroyed also. Most of the household goods were saved, however, and as he owns the lot and has a job he will soon be on his feet again.

Mr. Swan and Mr. Taylor, carpenters, lost their tools in the Larimer & Boulton building and are badly crippled in their work.

It is understood that Mr. Thos. Lee, who owned the blacksmith shop, will soon put up a stone structure on the site of the shop. Also that Larimer & Boulton will rebuild.

This story appeared in “Yesteryears” in October 1986.

Doctor Loses Wife

Loses Wife from Car, Drives on

From the McLouth Times, June 27, 1929 

Dr. Cain is the recipient of many ha, ha's from his neighbors and townsmen these days, who were let in on a rich joke on him — fortunately not a serious joke.

He and Mrs. Cain were en route to Lawrence in a two seated car, the wife in the rear. To make a turn at a corner and avoid an obstruction the doctor swerved the car rather sharply. Mrs. Cain, being drowsy, lurched sideways and tumbled out the door, which was not well fastened. As she fell she called out to her husband, but he thought she was just chiding him for the quick turn and drove on without seeing what had happened. After a time — some folks say it was two miles down the road, doc may have to prove it was less — he heard the car door slam shut and turned, to discover his wife missing. Nor could he see her on the ground or in the ditch or down the road. Thoroughly alarmed, he turned the car around and drove back, at length meeting Mrs. Cain who was pursuing her fleeing husband, as best she might, shaken up and bruised as she was. What happened when she got him home closer to the rolling pin affiant sayeth not.

This story appeared in "Yesteryears" in October 1996.

Peace on the Grasshopper River

By Golden Becker

Written by Mr. Golden Becker at the time that Perry Dam was built: he remembered the Delaware River Valley as it used to be. We think this essay will be of interest to our new residents, who want to see the “before the lake” picture, and understand the attitude of the old timers. (The editor, Yesteryears, October 1989.)

In my boyhood days some seventy years ago, the Grasshopper valley was a peaceful valley. Wild life was permitted to roam the hills and valley, only enough was taken by man for his needs. I fished and hunted the valley from hillside to hillside and when water was to a trickle in the river. We thought of it as our river and it was a member of the family from Grandpa down to his grandchildren, and life was reasonably comfortable.

Designed and published by the Kansas
Department of Transportation. —
Kansas 2005–2006 Official Transportation Map.

There was the town of Thompsonville where Perry Dam is now built. It was named after a Mr. Thompson who had a grist mill with water power from a dam on the Grasshopper river. Flour and cornmeal were ground there. Up the river about three miles was Wolftown, a grocery store and blacksmith shop owned and run by Lawn Wolf. Next up the river four miles was Jacksonville, started by a Mr. Jackson who also had a grocery store and blacksmith shop. This was just three miles from where I was born. At Jacksonville there was a bridge across the Grasshopper which was dismantled when the river was straightened in 1908 and moved to the new channel. This bridge has now been taken out and moved for the Perry Lake. 

Next up the river was the town of Ozawkie. It was the county seat of Jefferson County.* A thriving town with a number of businesses, grocery store, pool hall, hardware store, feed store and grist mill also run by the water power with the limestone burrs for the grinding of flour and cornmeal. Water power was from a dam across the Grasshopper. The town of Ozawkie has been completely razed. A new town of Ozawkie has been built on the high hills west of the old town. Next was Grasshopper Falls named after Rock Falls in the river and now called Valley Falls. This town now remains a thriving small town and will be about the upper end of Perry Lake. The Grasshopper River was later named the Delaware River. This river is now destroyed from Valley Falls to Thompsonville for the Perry Lake. This is where I spent my early life — fishing, hunting and trapping. I trapped muskrat, mink, coon, opossum, coyote and skunk.

I can remember small trees that were permitted to grow to large ones three and four feet through and large ones that we pitched our tents under. The trees that we played squirrel in, the muddy banks that we went barefooted on, leaves we gathered to make a bed, and willow poles that we fished with a line tied on. We caught lots of fish — carp, buffalo, catfish, turtles and eels. We ate them all, did not waste a thing —if we caught it we ate it. Wild deer roamed the valley, wild ducks were by the millions and many prairie chickens. Wild life abounded everywhere.

Soon the valley will be under water and my playground will be gone. The very trees that I played squirrel in and slept under are all gone. To me it is a desolate sight and I cannot call it progress. Engineers are building sightseeing roads and destroying nature — all that God has erected. It is a barren land now to be covered with water. They say for flood control. I have seen this valley covered with water from bluff to bluff many times and have rowed a boat from hillside to hillside. I saw it in 1903, 1908, 1915, 1935, and 1951. This new water will not be new to me. I believe that someday the valley will be flooded again, not where all this destruction is taking place but down stream and the whole valley laid to destruction. History says it happened in 1844 and it could happen again. Earthen dams have been known to break.

Upwards of fifty million dollars of our tax money is being spent. Farmers’ boyhood homes have been unhappily destroyed and they have been forced to move elsewhere, and in some cases death has occurred as a result of the power and the forcefulness of our federal government.

Lakes do fill up and someday become mud puddles. In Japan a lake of about 1200 acres that became a mud hole is now being made into farm land. The levee was leveled, and the land is being divided up in small tracts. Farmers have moved on the land to raise food for the much needed explosive population, which we are now having in our United States too. Flood control, as it is called, is for the farms and cities down stream, and not the ones upstream.

I knew the people from Thompsonville to Ozawkie, the old grist mill at Ozawkie where flour and corn meal was made, fished there many times — also at Thompsonville. Farmers who lived in that valley were Grimes, Thompsons, Markers, Meyers, Gibiers, Saylors, Starks, Wolfs, Selfs, Bakers, Metzgers, Richters, Breys, Fowlers and the Henry Plows. They all owned farms in the valley. Many years, year after year, we threshed wheat and oats for them and ate a thresherman’s dinner at their tables and fished on their farms. I have rowed a boat over their farms when the river was out of its banks, gigged and caught lots of fish and gave these people the fish we caught. I have helped them in their harvest, helped to haul their flooded wheat to high ground and we received no pay for this act of mercy.

The Beckers and these people were all workers. They worked from sunup to sundown. Many times we went to the Grasshopper with wagon loaded with tent, hay and corn for the horses, and a wooden box with minnows seined from Duck Branch. We pitched our tent and usually stayed two nights. These farmers came to our camp, some drank beer and played cards and were welcome to a mess of fish. We caught lots of fish and either ate them or gave them away. Everyone was welcome at our camp.

The Grasshopper/Delaware Valley lies beneath the lake.
Aerial view of the dam at Perry Lake, Kansas.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

In our present world there is respect for thy neighbor as long as he stays off the other fellow’s property, but let him get on your property and immediately you are disturbed. This is true on a national basis, country by country, nation by nation, and it is happening all over the world. It was not so seventy years ago.

In these days of division and dissent there is a challenge to all responsible citizens. For beneath the issues that drive us apart lie the ideals, the enduring values created by God that can bring us together.

* Ozawkie was the first county seat in Kansas Territorial days. After several elections, the vote placed the county seat at Oskaloosa. The records were removed by force from “Osawkee.” That formed a story line for a ’50s movie, “The Second Greatest Sex,” starring Jeanne Crain. ("The Second Greatest Sex" is also available on YouTube.) Parts of it were filmed in the old town of Ozawkie.

This article appeared in "Yesteryears" in October 1989. Construction of Perry Dam began in August 1964. The lake was filled by 1969 and dedicated in 1970.

Weeklies and Weaklies

Jefferson County has had 47 varieties of newspapers.

(from a scrapbook of clippings in our files, date unknown)

The first newspaper to be published in this county was the Grasshopper, founded at Grasshopper Falls in May 1858 by J.A. Cody. It was a small sheet; Mrs. Cody did the editorial work.

G. Raymond Gaeddert, First Newspapers in Kansas Counties: “Grasshopper,
Grasshopper Falls, June 5, 1858. This is undoubtedly the first newspaper
published in Jefferson county. The first issue appeared June 5, 1858.
J. A. Cody was listed as editor and proprietor, and S. Ward Smith, publisher.
Smith probably was the printer. According to Andreas, Mrs. Cody "did most
of the editorial work." [43] J. A. Cody was "an uncle of the famous scout,
Buffalo Bill," [44] whose given name was William Frederick Cody.”

After four months it suffered coma, was revived by Mr. Ross Whiting, and sold to David W. Guernsey, who rechristened it The Crescent. It proved a waning crescent, however, and its demise occurred a few months later. 

A new paper with the same royal head was established in 1873 by Geo. W. Hoover and Geo. A. Huron. In 1874 Huron consolidated with the New Era, a weekly founded at Lecompton by Rev. S. Weaver and moved to Valley Falls in September of 1871. In 1876 Huron sold the New Era to L.B. Wilson and others. Another year later the establishment was sold to A.G. Patrick and the sheet renamed the Valley Falls New Era. In 1878 Mr. Patrick sold his interest to G.D. Ingersoll. Geo. Harman was for some years publisher of the New Era.

At Oskaloosa, in July 1860, was established the Oskaloosa Independent, which is today the oldest surviving weekly newspaper in Kansas published continuously without change of name or of place.

 

In the fall of 1866 the Oskaloosa Democrat was founded by Stafford & Nesbitt. It was short-lived. The same fall B.R. Wilson and L.A. Heil established the Oskaloosa Statesman, a democratic paper. Wilson stayed with it four years, when it gave up the ghost.

Another democratic effort was the Sickle and Sheaf, 1873, Jules L. Williams and B.R. Wilson, publishers. In 1877 Wilson renamed it the Oskaloosa Sickle. 

It was a seven column folio, printed on a Washington hand press said to be the oldest of its kind in the state, having been brought to Lawrence in 1854 by John Speer, who used it to get out the Kansas Tribune,* and later took it to Topeka, where Speer and Ross used it in the spring of ’56 to publish the doings of the legislature in a daily edition of the Kansas Daily Tribune, the first daily newspaper of the capital city. We do not know what finally became of the old press, but if the State Historical society can tell us we shall be pleased to record it in this column later.** The Sickle and Sheaf persisted until 1886.

*G. Raymond Gaeddert, First Newspapers in Kansas Counties: “The Kansas Pioneer [later Tribune] published at Lawrence, October 18, 1854, although printed at Medina, Ohio, must be regarded as the first newspaper in Douglas county, according to the definition controlling this article. John Speer, editor of the Medina (Ohio) Gazette, was the editor and publisher.”
“The Kansas Herald of Freedom, Lawrence, January 3, 1855, first issue printed in the county. The first issue of The Kansas Herald of Freedom, published by George W. Brown, dated October 21, 1854, but printed September 20, 1854, preceded the Kansas Pioneer, but it must be disqualified in this race for priority because it was not published within the present confines of Douglas county.”

**For a thoroughly confusing account of the earliest printing press in Kansas (although probably not the press used for the Sickle and Sheaf), see Kirke Mechem, The Mystery of the Meeker Press: “The question may still be asked, as it was when this Society was organized in 1875, ‘What has become of Kansas' historic press?’ Perhaps it was destroyed in one of the raids on Lawrence or was disposed of in some obscure transaction of which, so far at least, we have no record. Possibly Kerns did take it to Missouri, and it may still be in existence in some country print shop. Certainly the myths relating its migrations, if they are old enough to be called myths, are as curious as any in the annals of Kansas—and Kansas history contains some strange myths. But whatever the state does, it does wholeheartedly. Where only seven cities strove for the distinction of being known as Homer's birthplace, Kansas, in the short space of seventy-five years, has furnished ten towns with claims on a press which in all likelihood was never seen in any of them.”

See also Douglas C. McMurtrie, Pioneer Printing of Kansas, 1855-1860.

And Kansas territorial newspapers.

This article appeared in “Yesteryears” in October 1989, in honor of National Newspaper Week.

President Taft Visits Rock Creek, Kansas

By Clara Martin Council

President Taft also made a brief stop
in Valley Falls, Kansas.

On a long special Santa Fe train, President Taft arrived in Topeka early on a September day in 1911. There was a parade and a speech at the celebration for the laying of the corner stone for the Memorial Building in Topeka. President Taft then left for a trip to Atchison and St. Joseph, and he made a brief stop at Rock Creek.

The President came out of the parlor car at the rear of the train and addressed a large crowd which had gathered at the depot. He said to the people, “So this is Rock Creek, Kansas. It is also the name of our most beautiful park in Washington, D.C., ‘Rock Creek Park’.”

The Rock Creek Band greeted him, playing “The Star Spangled Banner.” The members of the band were Fletcher Long who was the director, his brother John Long, Vern Puckett, John E. Coffey, James E. Coffey, Dr. Preston, Clarence Banks, William Edwards, Everett Edwards, Roy Williams, Roger Williams, and Charles J. Martin (who was a brother to Clara M. Council and the father of Lila M. Swafford). All of the above were from Rock Creek. Gene and Dick Christy of Meriden were also members of the band.

This was a very special day for the little town, and people came from near and far to see the President. The occasion was long remembered by those who were present.

(This article was written by Clara Martin Council who was present at the whistle-stop in Rock Creek that day. The article was submitted by her niece, Lila Martin Swafford.)

This article appeared in “Yesteryears” in April 1989.