George Scarborough was one of the most romantic characters that ever lived in Atchison county. Influenced by his niece’s description of Kansas, he came to Sumner in 1859 and purchased a tract of land now owned by E. W. Howe and known as Potato Hill. The location is probably the finest on the Missouri river. The farm lies on top of the bluff, and Scarborough’s house was built near the river. He was well fitted to enjoy the life of elegant leisure and seclusion, which he did. Early in life he went to Kentucky from Connecticut and taught school. While there he married the daughter of a congressman named Triplett. The wife died a year later, and Scarborough came into possession of considerable money. After that he adopted a literary and scientific life and spent much of his time abroad, where he collected many pictures and other art treasures. These were displayed in his home below Sumner. Scarborough was a botanist, and made a complete collection of the flora of this section, which he sent to the Smithsonian Institution, at Washington. One of his discoveries was that Atchison county had eleven varieties of the oak. Scarborough was one of the original founders of the First National Bank of this city, furnishing most of the original capital. In 1869 he went to Vineland, N. J., where he married a girl of twenty- three, although he was nearly seventy. His wife died within a year, in child birth, under precisely the same circumstances as his first wife. Scarborough died in 1883, in his old home in Connecticut, in absolute poverty, at the age of eighty-four. He is spoken of as one of the most elegant gentlemen who distinguished the early days. SAMUEL HOLLISTER. Samuel Hollister was one of the original settlers of Sumner. He landed at Leavenworth May 1, 1857, coming by boat from Jefferson City. Two weeks later he met a number of the members of the Sumner Town Company who were looking for somebody to go to Sumner to build a hotel. Having been a contractor and builder in his old home in New Jersey, Mr. Hollister accompanied the men to Sumner, which then consisted of a claim cabin, used as a hotel, and four frame houses in course of construction. The material for the frame houses had been brought from Cincinnati, ready framed, and when completed were 16×24, containing two rooms each. Mr. Hollister took the contract to build the Baker House, which contained three rooms on the ground floor. The half story above was all in one room, where the guests slept. The frames for the Baker House were hewn out in the timber adjoining the town; the weather boarding and shingles were shipped up the river. The hotel was completed in the summer of 1857, and was operated by Hood Baker, a cousin of Capt. David Baker, for many years a prominent citizen of Atchison.