Atchison County Churches
"THE STORY OF A KANSAS PARISH, Trinity Church, Atchison, Kansas, 1857-1911"
by
Rev. Francis S. White
Page 3, St. Andrew's Mission
At this point it is proper to stop the records,
and turn back the pages for a year, in order to write
a short account of the founding of
SAINT ANDREW'S MISSION
For this account I am indebted to Mr. William
Cain who at my request, has written some
memoranda for me to work on, and has also furnished me
with the carefully kept records of the early years
of the Mission made by the hand of that most
faithful and devoted man of God, Mr. J. F. Woodhouse.
Mr. Cain writes as follows:
August 15th, 1911.
My Dear Rector:
I wish to give you briefly the information asked
for concerning St. Andrew's Alission. If I appear
too much in evidence in connection with the Mission it is because I was there most of the time, but
occasionally, with or without any reasonable
excuse, I absented myself, although Mrs. Cain and
the children were always faithful attendants.
In the fall of 1884, Bishop Leonard, who was
then our Rector, consulted me as to the practical
part of establishing a Mission in our end of the
city, as I was the only vestryman from our locality.
He told me that a young lady, Miss Dorothy
Collett, was urging him to start the Mission, but
he did not wish to do so unless there was a
reasonable prospect that it would not be a failure, but
would accomplish some good for the church at large,
and for the more or less transient population of our
end of the city. I was not very enthusiastic about
it, and advised him to consider well whether he
could afford to devote much patient labor to the
work ; that young women soon marry, and the cares
of maternity and the household w^ould leave the
burden on him, but that I would endeavor to help him
if he concluded to start it. He called a meeting of
those interested to meet November 2nd, 1884, in the
school house in West Atchison. The men present
were Rev. Mr. Leonard, Mr. W. M. Scoullar, John
Dawson, John Woodhouse, Joseph Weston, and
myself. Although Mr. Leonard was very earnest and
persuasive the meeting was very discouraging about
money matters. No one wanted to pledge a cent
to pay the expense of hall rent, etc. I finally pledged
$10 toward furniture, and $15.00 toward the year's
rent of hall, $150 per year, and Mr. Leonard said it
would do to start on, and we "got busy" and held
our first service in Walker's Hall, on November 30,
1884. For some time I donated my services to sweep
out the room, trim the lamps and start a fire in the
Stove until we got enough from the offertory to pay
Mr. Overton to take the task off my hands.
During the Rectorship of Mr. Leonard I was
superintendent of the Sunday School ; also at a
later date I was nearly the whole official body, until I became rebellious and quit because the Rector
would not agree to have the work divided. The many
changes caused by the strikes and removals, and
deaths, seemed to keep us in a humble state of mind.
We do not seem to increase, nevertheless, the work
has not been labor in vain. Some of the best
people I have ever known have been connected with
St. Andrew's, and it has been the means of
developing a joyous faith in some of the dear ones who have
passed on, and in a general way it has helped to
curb the turbulent element in our midst.
Very truly,
W .S. Cain.
The work in St. Andrew's begun by Dr. Leonard was continued by him every Sunday afternoon,
with a Friday evening service and instruction, the
attendance averaging forty at a service.
In November, 1885, Mr. Leonard organized a
Sunday School in connection with the Mission with
an initial attendance of twenty-two scholars, five
teachers and four visitors. In this work, some of
his assistants were Mr. W. S. Cain, Miss Fox, niece
of Mrs. A. P. Kimball, Miss Collett and her sister,
Mr. and Mrs. D. B. Smart, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard
Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Woodhouse, and other equally
loyal. In October, 1886, an industrial school was
instituted with Mrs. Henry Amelung as directress,
and eighty-eight scholars were enrolled.
All these activities were housed in a rented hall,
but the energy of the Rector and the help of
certain people in the parish gave the work an
appearance of stability.
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