History of Boyle, Kansas

From The Winchester Star, October 9, 1942 (copied by Raymond Riley)

Boyle, Kansas, is located 25 miles west of Leavenworth, the highest point between Leavenworth and Valley Falls. The first post office was located one fourth mile east of the present office; and Mrs. Nancy Kendall was the post-mistress. The office was in the Kendall home, a log cabin, which stood for many years after the post office was established in the early 1860s.

On June 4, 1872, the first train arrived in Boyle with the first mail pouch containing letters and the Leavenworth Times, The Toledo Blade and an Atchison paper. By this time the post office had been moved to Mr. Jack Bates’ store, which had just started. Boyle now had its narrow gauge railroad, running thru a fine farming country in the northwest and east and timber and coal in the hills to the south; and its future looked very bright. Business was good, as lots of corn was shipped out and more hay was shipped out of Boyle than any point between Valley Falls and Leavenworth. Coal was shipped in and sold for ten cents per bushel or ten dollars and fifty cents per ton, on the track. The load limit of a coal car was 16,000 lbs. or 8 tons.

On August 14, 1875, the grasshoppers came. The sky was clouded with them and they left little behind them when they left. There was not much to ship out that year, but a daily train carried the mail, news and friendly good cheer. The two conductors on the run were Al Stokes and Jim Hall, and they were Al and Jim to the Boyle folk. If any of the boys were in Winchester they just got on the train with no cash and were never thrown off, but if the train was not traveling too fast they hopped off in their own yard, otherwise the train stopped in Boyle.

The last day of March, 1876, a great snow fell, drifting and blocking the railroad for two weeks. The store got low on staple goods and so the farmers that could, took their shovels and helped the railroaders clear the track. Mr. Bates had been helping at this work and had shoveled snow all morning, and in the afternoon he dropped dead with a heart attack. Six men, George Griffin, John Sowers, and Bob Kirkpatrick being among them, walked to Valley Falls and carried a casket out on their shoulders. The next day it took four horses hitched to a sled and several men to lay him to rest in Spring Grove cemetery.

There were several changes after Mr. Bates’ death, with different persons operating the store and post office, among them being John Boyle Sr. and John Boyle Jr., W.T. McClure, Frank Carr, Sam Heney, Newton Henry, a Mr. McCreary, and now Mr. C.A. McNeal and wife, who have been there forty years, and can sell you anything from a paper of pins to a gang plow. So Boyle still has the post office, general store and a good Methodist Church where Sunday School and church services are held every week. I always had respect for the Lord’s day and a community of generous people, and always enjoyed being at my hometown and birthplace.

John J. Ingalls once said, “God could have made a prettier place and a better place to live in, but I am sure he never did.”

—W.S. Fulton in the Valley Falls Vindicator

This story appeared in "Yesteryears" in October 2014.

History of Winchester

(Its 150^th year in 2007) 

Raymond Riley

In Memory of Raymond Riley (1932-2020)

From the Winchester Star, Dec. 29, 1950

The following article was sent to us by Mrs. Cora Charles, Berkeley, Calif., which she had received from the Kansas State Historical Soc. She wonders why not a centennial celebration in 1957? This is the only town in Jefferson Township, and is situated on the line of the Kansas Central Railroad. It is one of the oldest towns of the county, pleasantly located and is a thriving business point, with a population numbering about six hundred. Scattered over a large area, with large residence and business lots, ornamented with shade and fruit trees, and with a staid and moral population this is one of the neatest, quietest and most attractive villages of the county.

The history of the town begins with the date of June 19, 1854, when William M. Gardiner made a land claim there. He drove his stake near the present Winchester Hotel, then returned East. He returned with his family in March 1855, and built a cabin on his claim on Walnut Creek. He, on his prairie claim fenced a one-quarter section of land, about where the Academy addition to the town now is, and planted a few acres of corn, of which he received an abundant crop yield. After the government land survey he sold his claim to Joseph Best, who continued opening out the claim. He soon built a cabin, and not long after another was built and they were joined together and occupied as a hotel. It will be remembered that the location was on the line of the old military freight road. For this reason the hotel did a thriving business. Best’s first cabin was built of rough logs, and except for a few nails, it cost nothing but his own labor.

Central Hotel (Forsyth)

Though quite a large settlement has been formed in the vicinity, no move was made to lay off a town until early in the year 1857. About this time the project was taken under serious consideration. There was a question as to where the site should be located. The place first chosen was at the big spring, about one and one half miles further west, and it was to be named Savannah. But Alvin Best, who had formerly lived at Winchester, Va., chose the present location, and gave it the name of Winchester. He being the oldest man in the settlement, his wishes were cheerfully acceded to by the others.

A town site was at once surveyed, which was the northeast quarter of Section 26, Town 8, Range 19 east. Since that time several additions have been made to the original town. They are, Trower’s, Dodd’s, Marlett’s, Academy and Hinchman’s. As soon as the town was laid out, William Reboe located there, built a small frame building not far from what is now known as the “Old Stone Store,” and opened a store with a stock of dry goods and groceries.

During the summer of 1857, Reboe built the “Stone Store,” which is a small building, still standing, near the Winchester Hotel. For several years this was the big store of the village, though it changed owners several times. About the time the town was surveyed, Best sold his claim to Jess Yokum, and built a frame building a short distance east of where the hotel now is.

In 1857, Joseph Head opened a grocery and whisky shop, near the same store. He soon sold out and built a larger house. After a few months he sold to William M. Gardiner, who continued the grocery business until 1858, when he sold to D.H. Wright, who died the following year.

3rd Street, looking north

The village increased in population and business but slowly until the advent of the Kansas Central Railroad, in 1872. But during that and the succeeding year it grew rapidly, since which time it has grown steadily but slowly until the present time. It is a quiet and home-like village, with little transpiring out of the usual order of events. The first physician who located there was Dr. A.R. Cantwell in 1858; first child, Ella Simmons (daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alpha Simmons) born June 19, 1855; first minister to the gospel, Stephens Stiers; first school teacher, D.H. Wright; Christian Church, 1869, Jefferson Lodge No. 84, A.F.&A.M organized in 1869; The Winchester Argus was established in 1877 by Thomas W. Gardiner.

Other churches established here in the early days were the Methodist in 1863 and the Reformed Presbyterian in 1868.

Reformed Presbyterian Church (Forsyth)

By Prof. Blackman:

From the Statutes of the Territory of Kansas, 1855, Chapter 30, Sec. 29.

That the county of Jefferson shall be bounded as follows: Beginning at the north-west corner of the county of Leavenworth; thence west to the south-west corner of Atchison county, thence north to the south-east corner of Browne county; thence west along the said county of Browne, opposite a point twenty-two (22) miles west from the western boundary line of the county of Leavenworth; thence south to the main channel of the Kaw or Kansas river; thence down said channel to the south-west corner of the county of Leavenworth; thence north to the place of beginning.

This story appeared in “Yesteryears” in October 2007.