Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories: Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas
John Locke · en
THE CHERRYVALE ICE CO.
Watkins Brothers, Prop’s
CHERRYVALE, KANSAS
Feby. 17, 1939.
Jno. T. Bristow, Esq., Wetmore, Kans.
Dear Friend John:
“Memory’s Store-House Unlocked,” by J. T. Bristow, appearing in the
Wetmore Spectator, came to me through the mail recently and I sure
enjoyed reading it more than anything I have read in some time.
Having attended the Campbell University and knowing personally many of
the characters in your article makes it of unusual interest and I wish
to congratulate you for writing such an interesting historic record and
thank you for the copy sent me.
Sincerely yours,
F. M. Watkins
Among the emigrants from the East during the early settlement of the
Sunflower state, were John and Green Campbell. Tall, stalwart young men
they were. Green was then twenty-two years old. John was a few years
older. With their sisters, Caroline and Sally Ann, and their mother,
Ruth Campbell, born in North Carolina in 1803, they came to Nemaha
county by ox-team in a covered wagon from down around Springfield,
Missouri, in 1856. Their father, James Campbell, had died in Missouri.
Passing up smooth high lands, the brothers selected adjoining claims in
the breaks of upper Elk creek, section thirty, Wetmore township. This
selection of rather rough lands was influenced no doubt by the presence
of some timber and a spring of “living” water—two indispensable
requisites of the pioneer farmer. Then, too, they might have entertained
the notion of becoming cattle barons. Many of the early comers had
such dreams. Here was the ideal location. Here they would have few
neighbors—and unlimited free range.
Goodsprings, Nevada, February 12, 1939.
Mr. John T. Bristow, Wetmore, Kansas.
Dear Sir:
I want to thank you for the copies of the Wetmore Spectator which you
sent to me, which carry the life of father. Frank Williams had already
given me one issue, which I have loaned to several of father’s friends,
a few of whom are still alive. The new copies will be treasured by my
brother, my sister, and myself.
Father died while I was still so young that I have been able to retain
but few memories of him. However, I have gathered so many impressions
from friends who knew him well, not to mention mother, that I feel that
I have gained quite a true picture of him. In this connection it seems
to me that your life of him is not only accurate, in its main for I know
this to be true features, but that it goes deeper, and gives some
of the spirit that animated him. And particularly do I like your last
paragraph, and your reference “. . . . in whose heart there seems to
have burned an inextinguishable desire for something that never came.”;
Sincerely yours,
Byram C. Campbell