The History of the Early Settlement of Norton County, Kansas

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Scheer.  They live in Ventura, California. Fred C. married Miss Sarah E. Lawrence.  She died with consumption in the winter of 1894.  He is now in Garfield township, this county.  J. E. is an old bachelor and lives with his parents. 

howell.JPG (38227 bytes) P. S. Howell moved from Indiana to Iowa about the year 1854.  He farmed until the late war when he enlisted in company H, 39 Iowa infantry and served three years.  He was not in any battle although he took part in several skirmishes.  He moved from Iowa to Kansas in the spring of 1880, took a homestead in the north part of Garfield township and still lives there.  He has always voted the republican ticket, has served two terms as trustee in his township, has filled the office of treasurer in school district 76 for thirteen years and now holds the office of justice of the peace in his township.  He says he expects to help elect a republican president to succeed old Grover. 

On May 4, 1878, a party of twelve started overland to Texas from Lansing, Iowa.  Their purpose was chiefly pleasure, recreation, health, although among the number a few had an idea of changing their location.  The medley consisted of lawyers, doctors, miller, banker, merchant, druggist, clerk, teacher, carpenter and one farmer.  They headed for Beatrice via Lincoln, Nebraska, in order to call on an Allamakee exile; then to Red Cloud to visit relatives of some of the group; thence to Texas, direct or round-about.

In drifting with the current of immigration westward the most remarkable circumstance in their experience was that every prairie schooner cross-sectioned, met or overtaken was headed for Norton county, Kansas.  

In making a diagonal from Red Cloud to Kirwin every mover was going west, and every objective point of the fellow traveler was Norton.  

A council of investigation was formed and a conclusion reached, after a brief discussion, that this Mecca of the emigrant was deserving an investigation; so after leaving Kirwin, then busy in celebrating the Fourth of July, the 

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