That part of Lincoln county now known as the Vesper community, first began to be settled in 1869. Tradition says that Indians engaged in a battle with some railroad employees at Lone Rock, three miles south of Vesper in 1868, but in less than 40 years thereafter, it was impossible to find a trace of anyone who knew the particulars concerning the incident.
The country filled up rapidly once the settlement was begun, and all the government land had been taken by 1872.
Wm. B. Cheney was the first settler. The Middlekauff family followed shortly thereafter while there was yet only one house between Lincoln and Vesper. Other families settling near Vesper were those of A.W. Lewis, H.S. Steele, Wm. Schofield, Troup Hickey, John Toole, Wm. Baird, Robert Lewis, John Stein, J.P. Harmon.
Mr. Schofield’s home was the objective point of all newcomers upon arrival in the Vesper neighborhood. The Vesper post office, having been established in 1873, was moved around over the neighborhood for some years. It was first kept by H.S. Steele on Section 10, Vesper township, and in turn thereafter by Robert Lewis, John Stein, J.P. Harmon and Mrs. Robert Lewis following the death of her husband. The railroad, coming through while Mrs. Lewis was postmistress, was the immediate reason for moving the post office near where the station was built. A Mr. Shoemaker kept the first shoe store in a building which was later destroyed by fire. Mr. Baird, a carpenter and architect, built the first wagon ever made in the county in 1873 for Martin Hendrickson. He built, also, Lincoln county’s first windmill for a Mr. Davis. Simon Bogh built a store building in which to house his stock of merchandise. The next owner, George Elrod, built an addition to the store and later sold out to Miss Lillie White who was eventually bought out by Middlekauff and Gilpin. These owners put up the building occupied by Wick and Jepsen at the turn of the century. The latter firm also built a hardware store. Wick bought out the merchandise part of the business.
Thos. Garrity, after selling his drug store, built a stone building for the stock of hardware which he purchased from the aforementioned firm. Wick then took Jepsen into partnership. Porter and Sons stocked the old Bogh building with merchandise at about the same time. John Murphy bought out Porter and Sons but went out of business after a short while. Thos. Garrity sold out to Maurice Cromwell. By 1908, Vesper was becoming a flourishing little city and boasted the presence of a lumber yard, blacksmith shop, hotel, bank, restaurant, meat market, hardware store, general store, three elevators and two churches, Catholic and Presbyterian. The latter was built by a popular subscription and is used by all denominations.
The Vesper State bank had a capital stock of $10,000 and a surplus of $2,000 some 30 years ago. The president of the then-thriving institution was W.B. Middlekauff and A.F. Morgenson was cashier. The board of directors at that time included H.P. Jensen, A.V. Broberg, C.C. Nielsen, W.H. Cheney and C.H. Peckham.
The ancestors of Vesper’s first settler, Wm. B. Cheney, came to America shortly after a friendly sovereign presented the State of Maryland to Lord Baltimore. Upon their arrival in the "promised land" the Cheneys, of English and French descent, received from Lord Baltimore grants of land on which they lived for many years. These lands, in Washington county, Maryland, were occupied by the Cheney family as far back as Wm. B. Cheney’s grandfather.
Wm. B. Cheney was born on the old homestead in Maryland April 4, 1828, and died at Vesper, Kansas, in January of 1897. Having come to Vesper in October 1871, Mr. Cheney bought a homestead claim of 80 acres. His life closed years later, on his original homestead situated inside the railroad limits. Distinguished for his integrity and acumen in business affairs, Wm. B. Cheney accumulated during his lifetime 800 acres of valuable land. A faithful Democrat, whose character placed him in the high esteem of his neighbors, Mr. Cheney was often elected to township offices. He married Sarah F. Bacchtel, a childhood neighbor who was born in Washington county, Maryland, June 16, 1830, and died at Vesper, Kansas, in July of 1898. They were the parents of the following children: Robert B., Fannie Shrader, William H. Samuel, Charles, Ettie Seibert, Sally Yost, Shelby B., Lillie Brumbaugh, Maude Mong and Joseph. Most of these children, all favorably known at Vesper in the past, have followed their parents in death. Joseph, the only son now surviving his parents, lives on a farm near Vesper, adjoining his father’s homestead.
William H. Cheney, associated with his father from 1872 until the death of the father in 1897, was born in Washington county, Maryland, October 12, 1854, and died on the Kansas homestead of his parents just a few years ago. William H. followed his parents to Kansas after a short space of six months. At the death of his parents, William H. came into possession of the homestead and kept adding to his acreage so that within 20 years after the father’s death, he was the owner of 1,600 acres of land. While carrying on general farming and diversifying his crops, William H. devoted a large acreage to pasture because he was a big stockman in Lincoln county – raising horses, cattle and Duroc-Jersey hogs, all thoroughbreds. During the past 20 years, he was a director in the Vesper State bank and was also a director in the Farmer’s Elevator company of Vesper. Politically a democrat, William H. Cheney served as clerk of Grant township and also as clerk of the school board. He never married. He was a member of Sylvan Grove Lodge No. 456, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and a member of the Salina Consistory, No. 3, having been raised to the 32nd degree.
Robert Cheney, grandfather of William H., was born in Washington county, Maryland, and died there in early manhood. He was survived by his wife, the former Miss Newcomer, also a native of Washington county, and two children, Wm. B., and Prudence. The latter died at Hagerstown, Maryland, the wife of John Dausler, who was cashier of a bank there for 40 years. Robert Cheney’s widow eventually married Anthony Wayne Lewis, so named after his kinsman, the brave General Anthony Wayne of Revolutionary War fame. Mr. Lewis was born in Washington county, Maryland, in 1810, and died at Hagerstown in 1878, having been a farmer all his life. Six children were born to this union, namely: George S., who was a pioneer in Kansas and died in 1912, a retired farmer of Lincoln county; Anthony Wayne, who died in this county in 1909, also a pioneer farmer; R.B., who died on his farm near Vesper, Kansas, at the age of 35 years; Elizabeth, the widow of Nicholas Brumbaugh who died on his farm in Washington county, Maryland; Mollie, who became the wife of Jacob D. Middlekauff and the mother of W. Bruce Middlekauff; Sallie, who married Samuel Byers of Winchester, Virginia.
It is interesting to note that a grandson of Robert Cheney’s married a granddaugter of his wife’s and her second husband, Anthony Wayne Lewis. Miss Alice Virginia Lewis was united in marriage to Joseph Cheney on October 16, 1889.
This writer was privileged, recently, to visit Mrs. Alice Cheney in the home of her sister, Mrs. J.B. Marshall of Lincoln, Kansas.
Because Mrs. Cheney was five years old when she arrived at her father’s Kansas homestead on March 8, 1872, she can remember her birthplace located two and one half miles from Hagerstown, Maryland. Although Hagerstown had been built out past the old house when Mrs. Cheney visited in Maryland, in 1921, she recognized her childhood home before it was pointed out to her. Mrs. Marshall, only three when she came to Kansas, does not remember the old New England home nor any details of the trip west.
Anthony Wayne Lewis met his wife and three little daughters when their train reached Ellsworth and brought them to their frontier home near Vesper, Kansas, in a covered wagon. Other families who came at the same time included several relatives and neighbors of the Lewis family by the name of Loy, Harmon, Stein, Cheney, Middlekauff, Willis and Brumbaugh.
Because the girls’ father, Mr. Lewis, had a lame leg, he drove the horses. The other men and boys walked from Ellsworth to Vesper, which the women and children sat in the hay which had been placed in the wagon to make their ride as comfortable as possible. Little five year old "Jenny," so called because her middle name was Virginia, was thrilled to be privileged to ride on the board seat at the front of the wagon beside her father.
"Carrie" Lewis Marshall, the second of the three Lewis children who migrated to Kansas with their parents 68 years ago, recalls her first impression of the new little home which her father had recently built near the present home of George Harbaugh. The little girls were delighted to find some baby chickens and a hen by the cook stove when they entered the house. The youngest of the three Lewis girls was a babe in arms when her mother came to Kansas to join the father. Their youngest sister who now resides in Salina was born near Vesper.
Lincoln Sentinel-Republican, Part II, February 29, 1940
Anthony Wayne Lewis, a carpenter, built his own and William Cheney’s houses and manufactured all of his household furniture. He also had to fashion a number of coffins in which deceased ones were laid to rest. The lumber for building purposes had to be hauled in wagons from Salina and other distant points. The only log houses on the river near Vesper belonged to Schofield and Steele. Steele’s original log cabin is covered with a frame exterior and is used today as a washhouse. Mrs. Steele, Vesper’s first [school teacher], taught four or five little girls, one of whom was Jenny Lewis, in her home. Other teachers in the neighborhood shortly after included Mary Toole and Mrs. Anna Wait. Mrs. Pierson was the first teacher in the Little old Vesper school house – the only school Mrs. J.B. Marshall ever attended. This school building was later made into a residence, the home of J.B. Cheney Jr., and his family for a number of years, and the home of Shelby Cheney at the time of his death. Only recently was the house vacated when the W.E. Lyne family moved to Lincoln.
Mrs. Cheney and Mrs. Marshall were privileged to see a buffalo killed near their house on one occasion when a few stray buffalo passed by in a northwesterly direction.
Jenny and Carrie were playing in the yard with some neighbor children one day when some peaceful Indians stopped to beg for some bread. Not knowing that [not] all Indians were dangerous, the children received quite a fright.
The devastating grasshopper raid and prairie fires took place during the early childhood of these amicable pioneer citizens of Lincoln county.
At the time of one severe fire which was carried in by a strong March wind after supper one evening, Mr. A.W. Lewis had nine acres of freshly plowed land near the house on which he picketed his horse and cow from the flames. The young calf was pinned in the cellar. The straw shed, chicken house, wood pile and everything except the house burned. It was believed that no nearby families lost a house in this particular fire. Chickens, many of them with features burned off, were running and flying in every direction during the hectic interval through which the flames leaped in frenzy; burning Russian thistles added to the devastation. The children, locked in the house while their parents and neighbors fought desperately against the fire, screamed in terror as they watched the oncoming fire.
Corn meal and molasses were the mainstay of nourishment in those days. The girls’ mother frequently cooked bulffalo beans and parched corn and was very adept at baking sheep-sorrel pie which was always welcomed by her family. Jenny and Carrie were big girls in their teens when they first saw a banana. They were highly elated at Christmas time to awaken in the morning and find some raisins and cookies on a piepan or hanging from a plum tree branch. A stick of "store" candy warranted cause for jubilant celebration. Children were obliged to wear heavy brass-toed shoes that were burdensome to wear and often several sized too big.
Young ladies, in those days, were considered very immodest if a young man saw them with their sleeves rolled above the elbow – even if he surprised them while they were washing dishes.
Because glass paned and wire screens had not become commercialized, mosquito netting had to serve for both on windows and doors during the summer.
Mrs. Cheney recalls that at Christmas time, the Thorntons, whose house was south of the Andreasen homestead, would hitch a horse to a huge yule log and lead the horse through the house beside the fireplace where the log was unchained and prepared for burning.
Mr. and Mrs. A.W. Lewis moved to the Sylvan Grove hotel in 1888 and boarded the railroad hands. Merrymans, the only family preceding Lewis’, built the old Sylvan hotel and also ran the mill there. Jenny lived at the hotel only one year and nine days before her marriage to Joseph Cheney. Except for the first five years of their married life when Mr. and Mrs. Cheney resided on the A.W. Lewis homestead, they resided across the road from the old home place.
Carrie, really named Caroline, lived on the old home place for three years after her marriage to a popular young teacher of the Vesper school. Since then, Mr. and Mrs. J.B. Marshall have lived in town. Mr. Marshall, a teacher in Lincoln county for 15 years, taught at Vesper for five of those years. Mr. Marshall recalled that Mrs. Rebecca Stevenson was his first school teacher.
Mr. and Mrs. Marshall are the parents of two sons and five daughters, one of whom lives in Baltimore, near the birthplace of her mother, 15 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Mr. Marshall has a unique desk in his real estate office on Lincoln avenue. This desk, made 54 years ago, was originally placed in the old Lincoln House in 1886. A number of signs, ranging from $10 to $25 new, adorn the back of the desk on either side and above a long mirror. Mr. Marshall and E.A. McFarland, attorney, are the only ones of the people advertised who are still living. The wording of the individual advertisements follows:
J.B. Marshall, Real Estate and Loan Agents, Farms, Stock, Ranches and City Property for sale, Established in 1905.
E.A. McFarland, attorney at Law, Mercantile collections and loans.
L.E. Hoops, manufacturer of and dealer in all kinds of harness and saddlery, handmade work a specialty. Repairing neatly and promptly done. Carriage trimmer.
Go to Opera Hall Drug Store, R. [can’t read]. Prescriptions carefully compounded.
J.D. Miller, U.S. Land Office and Loan Agent.
Waterman Brothers and Adams, real estate Exchange, Successors to Saline Valley Land Co. Improved and unimproved farm, stock, ranches, R.R. Lands and city property for sale at bargains. Money to Loan. Partners to sell real estate.
The First National Bank of Lincoln, Kansas, J.F. Smith, president; F.A. Head, vice president, F.W. Junkin, cashier. Capital, $50,000. Collections a specialty. Farm loans Made.
The Banner Company, Real Estate Agents, Loans, insurance and collections. The Banner Addition, the finest lots in the city.
Hardesty and Dunham, Brownstone Front, Lincoln Ave.
Edgett and Warne, dealers in stoves, tinware, agricultural implements, etc., Lincoln, Kansas, Hardware.
W.S. Bryant, importer and breeder of Clydesdale horses. First class stock on hand. Terms easy, price slow.
E.M. Harris Negotiaties Farm Loans. Call and See Him.
Wilmarth and Ryan, City livery. First class rigs for commercial men a speciality.
A.M. Robinson, J.W. Smith, Robinson and Smith, city transfer. All work prlmpty attended to.
Besides the ads, the desk has a 30-inch mirror, two drawers, three pen trays and an ink well holder.
Addendum:
After reading the first part of the current story, Mrs. Eula (Harmon) Morgan of Sylvan Grove wrote a gracious letter to the author in which she imparted some interesting material. We quote in part:
"My father, J.P. Harmon, decided to come west in the fall of 1872 and what was more natural than that he should look up his good friends, the Cheneys. He was favorably impressed with Kansas and went back, sold out, and in April 1873 brought a small colony out to Kansas.
"Among the people who trekked west with us was Miss Nannie Gehr, a teacher of mine in the Hagerstown grade school. She was the FIRST teacher in the little new schoolhouse. Miss Gehr was followed in ’74 by Miss Mary Poole, Miss Nettie Sutton came in ’75, Mrs. Anna C. Wait in ’76, Miss Salome Pierson in ’77. All of these were college graduates, which was rather unusual in those days for country schools. My father and, I think, ‘Uncle Billy’ Cheney were on the school board along about that time."
