It is not generally known that a steamboat was ever built on Atchison county soil, much less that Oak Mills was ever the scene of the ship builder’s craft, outside of the construction of Indian canoes and the modern skiffs built by Dick King or some other later-day river man. Yet, it is a fact that Calvin Lewis once built and launched at “Lewis’ Point” a small stern-wheel steamboat, and operated it on the river for several years. In 1855 the first territorial legislature of Kansas passed an act authorizing Lewis to operate a ferry at “Lewis’ Point.” FARLEY’S FERRY. The same legislature that gave permission to Lewis to operate a ferry at “Lewis’ Point,” granted the same privilege to Nimrod Farley, to maintain a ferry across the Missouri river, opposite Iatan, Mo. Farley was a well known character in the Missouri bottoms in the vicinity of Iatan, Cow Island, and Oak Mills, in the early days. He lived near Iatan, but it seems that he owned land on the Kansas side, near Oak Mills, which offered a landing for his ferry. He was a brother of Josiah Farley, who laid out the town of Farley, in Platte county, in 1850. George McAdow later became proprietor of Farley’s Ferry and operated it until it was destroyed by Jayhawkers, shortly before the war. CHAPTER VIII. THE CIVIL WAR. THE ISSUE BETWEEN EARLY SETTLERS—INFLUX OF FREE STATE AND PRO-SLAVERY PARTISANS—EARLY VOLUNTEERING—MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS—THREATENED INVASION FROM MISSOURI—POLITICAL SOCIETIES—JAYHAWKERS—CLEVELAND’S GANG—LYNCHINGS—ATCHISON COUNTY TROOPS IN THE WAR—PRICE’S ATTEMPTED INVASION.