Dickinson Co., KS AHGP-Portrait and
Biographical Record of Dickinson, Saline, McPherson and
Marion Counties-Augustus Packard
Portrait and Biographical
Record of Dickinson, Saline, McPherson and Marion
Counties
Chapman Brothers, Chicago, 1893
AUGUSTUS PACKARD is the earliest settlers
of Center Township, Dickinson
County, and has here made his home continuously-
since 1857. He now owns land
on sections 1, 2, 3, 10 and 11, having entered
large tracts of land from the Government at a
very early day. He was born near Athens, Ohio,
November 9th, 1833, and is a son of George and
Elizabeth (Oliver) Packard, natives of New York,
and early settlers of the Buckeye State. At the
age of seventeen he left home and secured work
on a steamboat where he served as second mate
until 1856. On the same vessel, with a company
of Georgia men, he came to Kansas and went to
Paola. Coming in contact with John Brown, he
was promised a quarter-section of land if he would
join a company about to establish a colony in
Kansas. This Mr. Packard decided to do, but he
soon came to the conclusion that Brown was deranged,
and he joined Jim Lane, with whom he
served three weeks, when, with about one hundred
others, he was arrested by United States troops.
A few days later, however, he was released.
Returning to St. Louis, Mr. Packard joined a
surveying party which was to survey roads from
Ft. Riley to Ft. Kearney, but after three weeks he
returned to Ft. Riley and engaged in teaming
from that place to Leavenworth. The year previous,
with two comrades, he had journeyed up
Smoky River on a hunting expedition, made a
claim and broken a little land where he now lives.
One comrade soon afterward died and the other
remained in Junction City, where he held land
for Mr. Riley, who built the claim house. For the
next four years Mr. Packard hunted buffaloes for
their hides, often killing as many as sixty in a
day. The hides were sold at twelve cents per
pound. This was often exciting sport. In the
winter he hunted elks, wolves, mountain lions, etc.
He also kept teams and freighted on the roads to
the southwest until after the railroads were built,
when he began farming. During the war he had
enlisted in the Seventeenth Regiment of the State
militia and participated in the Price raid. He had
secured sixteen hundred acres of land, for which
he paid from $1.25 to $10 per acre, and now engaged
in agricultural pursuits and in raising cattle
and horses.
Mr. Packard was married in Baltimore to Alice
B. Tooten, but after nine years they separated.
The court granted her $20,000, including two
hundred and eighty-four acres of land, comprising
the home farm and the fine residence thereon.
The four children live with the mother. They
are Annetta, aged sixteen; Helen, fourteen years
of age; Alice, twelve years old; and Augustus, a
lad of ten.
For many years Mr. Packard has given his attention
exclusively to fanning and stock-raising.
He now has five hundred and fifty acres of valuable
land, mostly on the bottoms near Smoky Hill
River. Of this two hundred acres are planted in
corn. He also feeds one hundred hogs. By good
business ability, untiring labor and enterprise he
has acquired a handsome property, and since 1857
he has made his home upon the claim upon which
he first located.
Mr. Packard has witnessed the entire growth of
the county and has undergone all the hardships
and experiences of frontier life. While teaming
he has been surrounded by the Indians, who were
much more numerous than his white neighbors for
many years. In 1860, he saw many hundreds of
the emigrants en route to Pike's Peak, many of
whom were pushing hand-carts before them loaded
with provisions. A typical pioneer, he can recall
many scenes and incidents of life on the frontier
which would prove of more thrilling interest than
a fairy tale if written out. He has aided in the
development of the county, borne his part in
its upbuilding, and as one of its earliest pioneers
well deserves representation in this volume.
(c) 2009 Sheryl McClure for
Dickinson County KS AHGP