Atchison County Biographies
E. W. Howe's Historical Edition of the Atchison Daily Globe
These biographies were originally published in 1896 in the Atchison Daily Globe, written by the editor and publisher, E. W. Howe. In 1916 the biographies were reproduced in Sheffield Ingall's "History of Atchison County, Kansas," with a few updates such as death information.
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JOSHUA WHEELER.
Joshua Wheeler was one of the best known, as well as one of the most
successful, farmers Atchison county ever had. His papers on questions
pertaining to agriculture and the farm, read before the various societies, attracted
wide-spread attention. In State affairs, he served the public long and honor-
ably, and for over twenty years was a member of the State board of
agriculture, serving three years as its president. His long connection with the State
Agriculture College game him an extended acquaintance over the State, and
he was appointed regent for that institution by Governor Haney in 1871, and
re-appointed by Governor Martin in 18S8, serving until April, 1894. During
several years of that time he was treasurer of the board, and gained an
extensive knowledge of the college and its history. He served in the State senate
during 1863 and 1864 and in the fall of 1885 was elected for another term.
Joshua Wheeler was born in Buckingham, England, February 12, 1827,
and came to America in 1844, locating in New Jersey, where he resided four
years before removing to Illinois. In 1857 a colony of seven or eight families
of Fulton county, Illinois, farmers, Seventh-Day Baptists, came to Kansas,
and located in the southwest portion of Atchison county, covering the entire
distance overland. S. P. Griffin and Dennis Sounders preceded the colony
in the spring of the same year to look up a location. They went as far to the
southwest as Emporia, but found no land equal to that of Atchison county.
After locating the land for the colony they went back to Illinois, but did not
accompany the colony to Kansas, but came a year or two later. Griffin
farmed for nearly twenty years, but afterwards became a Nortonville
merchant. He was the father of Charles T. Griffin, at one time an attorney in Atchison.
When the colony of Seventh-Day people arrived at the end of their destination they found the
land in possession of colonists, but they bought them
out, preempted claims and laid out the now famous Seventh-Day Lane. The
land was then an open prairie, occupied only by an occasional hut. It is at
this time the admiration of every visitor abounding in well cultivated fields,
pastures, groves, orchards, comfortable homes, to which paint is no stranger,
large barns, uniformly trimmed hedges, and peopled by as thrifty a class as
can be found in the western country. Later on Seventh-Day people came
from Iowa, Wisconsin and New York, and joined the Illinois colony on
Seventh-Day Lane, which is two miles in length. The Seventh-Day Baptists observe their Sabbath
from sundown Friday evening to sundown Saturday
evening. Their church has a seating capacity of 400, which is always
comfortably filled, and was built in 1884, prior to which time the Seventh-Day Baptists worshiped in their school house.
A. A. Randolph was the first pastor of the church on Seventh-Day Lane.
He came here from Pennsylvania in 1863, and died in 1868. S. R. Wheeler,
a brother of Joshua Wheeler, was pastor of the church for twelve years.
When the Seventh-Day Baptists built their homes on the Lane smooth
wire cost eleven and one-half cents per pound in Atchison, and ordinary
flooring, $100.00 per thousand feet. Money was loaned at four per cent, per
month. They did all of their trading in Atchison until Nortonville was built.
Joshua Wheeler was not only a successful farmer, but a good business
man. He kept a regular set of books, and could always tell exactly what it
cost him to produce a bushel of wheat in any of the different years of his
farm experience. He could tell also what a bushel of com, fed to cattle,
would produce. In 1877 he sold his wheat for $1.75 per bushel.
He owned a farm of over 300 acres, just at the west end of the Lane,
where he died on the fourteenth day of May, 1896.
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This website created Jan. 24, 2012 by Sheryl McClure.
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