Connie Jean squirmed and twisted on the sofa, as children will, causing the straps sustaining her little sun-suit to slip off her shoulders, annoying her to the point of alarm. I said, “Don’t let the straps bother you, Connie—you will not lose your suit.” She smiled, and her blue eyes opened wide. “If I would lose ‘em,” she said, “it would be too bad—got nothing under ‘em.” A very good man once said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.” LLEWELLYN CASTLE Published in Wetmore Spectator—Seneca Courier- Tribune—Goff Advance—Topeka Daily Capital—October, 1931 By John T. Bristow A half century ago England got rid of some of her surplus inhabitants by sending them over to this country to “root hog, or die” as the old saying is. They drifted in here “like lost leaves from the annals of men.” Colonies were planted in numerous sections of Kansas. Nemaha County, with her great sweep of vacant rolling prairies, inviting, snared one of those colonies. The settlement known as the old English colony was on section twenty-five, in Harrison township, five miles northwest of Wetmore. The section was purchased from the Union Pacific railroad company by the Co-operative Colonization Company, of London, about 1870. The London Colonization Company had about six hundred members. They drew lots to determine who would be the lucky—or unlucky—ones to come over first, expenses paid. John Fuller, John Mollineaux, George Dutch, John Radford, Charles McCarthy and John Stowell were the original six to enter upon the duties of conquering this land—virgin wild land it was. Except John Stowell, all these men had families, but they did not all bring their families over at first. An eight-room house was built in the middle of the section and all managed to live in it for a while. It was called Llewellyn Castle. Later, lean-tos were built on two sides of the big house, and finally, some smaller buildings were erected around the original house. The men were supplied, meagerly, with funds to equip the farm. The idea of the Company at first was to make a town in the center of the section, and cut the land up into 10-acre tracts. They seemed to think that ten acres would make a respectable sized farm. The town of Goff, a mile and a half away, got started and the Colony town project was abandoned. Also the 10-acre farm plan was changed to forty acres. The lumber for the improvements was unloaded at old Sother, a siding on the railroad a mile and a half south of the Colony section. There was a postoffice at old Sother. Nothing else. Not even a station agent.