Eli came to Kansas 11 May 1856 from Indiana with his parents. He never
remarried after the death of his wife and son.
1865-1875 Kansas, Emporia, Lyon Co., Census. Lyon Co., Kansas marriage
record Book B, page 67. Newspaper article "An Indian Raid" and Eli Hiatt 88
yrs old was one of Lyon Co.'s first Settlers.
Eli Hiatt, 820 Commercial Celebrated his 88th birthday anniversary the other day, but there is nothing remarkable aobut that he said. "In these days public prevention of disease by the wholesale high-powered remedies for most anything and the fact that Kansas is supposed to be the healthiest place in the U.S. all three of these make a man's 88th birthday an every day occurance, although I never expected to see mine.
The remarkable thing about Mr. Hiatt is that he, and his sister, Mrs. Julia Hinshaw, widow of the late Ira Hinshaw are amoung the oldest settlers in Lyon Co. They have been living here since 1858. That is 75 long years. They believe that there are no two relatives in the county who can equal that
record.
The parents of Mr. Hiatt and Mrs. Hinshaw, Mr. and Mrs. Curtis Hiatt, moved to Lyon Co., then known as Breckenridge Co., in the spring of '56, a year before Emporia was started. Eli Hiatt was born Jan 23, 1843, in Hamilton Co., Ind. Mrs. Hinshaw is seven years younger. The family left Indiana in the fall of 1855, went to Peoria and spent the winter, and when the roads opened, they came to Kansas. Curtis Hiatt took a claim just across the river from where Soden's bridge now spans the Cottonwood. Ike Jones now owns part of the original claim and the north part adjoins the Copley addition to Emporia.
On the claim the Hiatts put up a log house and reared their nine children
there. Of the nine only Ely Hiatt and Mrs. Hinshaw are living, two persons who lived neighbors to Emporia and watched the town grow up, from the first
building until it now has thousands of structures.
When the Hiatts came to Kansas they made their own roads, in part, followed Indian trails and a few tracks of the fewer settlers, forded creeks and rivers and some way or other they got here. "It is the funniest thing, too", said Mrs. Hinsahw, "when brother and I were children, coming to Kansas and for a long time after, the prairie grass was so high that sometimes a man on horseback could not be seen at any distance. That wild grass was much higher than most anyone imagines it was, if they have never seen it, and as far as that goes, it is almost too high for me to imagine after so many years. Why, sometimes it was 10 feet high.Gunkles and Fowlers here
When the Hiatts came to Emporia several families lived along the Cottonwood river bottoms in Lyon County. The Gunkles and the Fowlers were here and Jeff Pigman ran a trading post at the Columbia Ford. Several Welsh families were living along Dry Creek, south of the river and by 1860 many families had taken claims in the bottoms. "I believe that until some of the pro-slavery people in the colony near Neosho Rapids ran the people out from along Dry creek" said Mr. Hiatt, "there were more families than there are today. Every claim along the creek had been filed on.
Mr. Haitt tells many interesting stories of the fights between the
pro-slavery people and abolitionists. One farmere, who wasn't much interested but had some ideas about freedom of everyone, was talked into moving out of the neighborhood, and he sold Curtis Hiatt everything that he left on his farm for $5, including a crop of corn, and several hundred fence rails. Curtis Hiatt was too hardy a soul and too strong minded to let any of the pro-slavery farmers talk him out of leaving, and when more and more antis settled across the river in the new town of Emporia he wasn't bothered.
Among Eli Haitt vivied reminders of his youth is the time when he was camped just outside of Lawrence when the slavery leader Quantril, made his famous raid on Lawrence and massacred so many people.
"We were on our way to Lawrence for supplies and camped that night, planning to go into town the next day to do our trading", Mr. Hiatt says, "We heard a good bit of racket over in the town that night be we didn't go over and that was probably what saved our necks. The next morning we drove into town and I never saw such a sight in my life. The dead were scattered all over the street, I don't remember exactly how many, but 150 or more, anyhow".Life was more Quiet
"But, with all the slavery arguments, Indians, buffalos, and whatnot of the early days," continued Mr. Hiatt, "life was much more quite and rolled along more smoothly that it does now, with automobiles, airplanes and tehse gangsters that we read about every time we open the papers. The Indians we had around here in this section were models as far as conduct was concerned and they were as honest even though the wild west picture show play them up as thieves."
Mr. Hiatt believes that the fall of 1856, the spring of 1857 and the winter between was the time of the worst stretch of cold weather that has ever hit Emporia. "Of course we had no therometers," he said today, "but one can almost tell by the feel. The cold weather was prolonged and I know that on Christmas Day of 1856 the ice on the Cottonwood was 18 inches thick and in some places it looked thicker.A Drought in 1888
"And talk about the dry weather of last summer, why these folks don't know
what dry weather is. Of course, I know that things rather curled up and the
mercury went to 114 degrees and all that, but the last real dry spell was in
1888, when the crops just naturally withered away so bad that the next summer, when the crop was fair again the farmers didn't hardly recognize it, it had been so long since they had seen anything growing. The old drouths lasted 18 months, usually or we didn't call them droths, unless they were hundingers."
The worst drouths Mr. Hiatt recalls in Lyon County since the white people
came were in 1860, 1874, 1881, 1888. He said that 1860 was probably the worst of the lot, and that in those years there wasn't any water, except small holes and springs, in any river or creek from the Kaw in northern Kansas to the Arkansas river through the southern part of the state.
Blizzards were a terror of the early days for the pioneer folks, as well as drouth, said Mr. Hiatt. "Maybe we noticeed them more, perhaps we didn't have any other form of amustment except to sit around and look at the weather, that is what some of the folks say nowadays, but we haven't had a real blizzard since 1886 and I'll stick by my guns on that. Why in those old times blizzards rain would start falling, then the mercury in the therometer would start to falling, and fall she would, sometimes 40 to 50 degrees in an hour.
Mr. Hiatt has hunted buffalos and lots of things that the boys of today
can't do in a big way locally. He recalled one trip down past where Wichita's skyscrapers now rise, in 1860. Wichita then, he said was just one little building a traders shanty, where a lone man made a bare living off of the Indians and the few white that happened to pass his place.
"Farmers howl nowadays, but they are pretty well off. We just raised corn
and wheat back int he days when I was a boy and we had no kafir, cane, alfalfa, oats, and other crops to fall back on. Farmers today raise everything, including hogs, but they shouldn't raise hogs, there are too many now, every third man you meet is one."
"I believe the main trouble with the farmers today is that they come to
town to hear Mit Wilhite talk on roads and then they never go home, they just
sit on a rail downtown somewheres, or ride around on Mit;s roads. If they
would go back to their farms and whack away with a hoe and a plow they might
get somewheres, but then, they would be work."
Eli Hiatt, talk like a patriarch and looks like one. He has long hair and a heavy beard. He is a big man and doesn's look his age. After leaving his father's farm when he was 21, he took a farm of his own, just 87 acres, over on the county farm road, southwest of Emporia. This he farmed more or less actively until he quit farming three years ago at the age of 85, and now he looks out of the window at the sunshine and itches for the fell of a hoe or a plow handle but he says he will have to content himself with a small piece of garden. Mr. Hiatt is rich as the soil, from which he sprang.
During 15 years of his life he worked at Soden's mill, farming his place in his spare time, but the rest of his life he stuck close to the 87 acres. Eli Hiatt was married to Miss Ellen Moore when he was 22 years old, and Mrs. Hiatt died seven months later. Mr. Hiatt never remarried.
The Emporia Daily Gazette 2 Feb 1931
(5503.) LIBNI B. HIATT (3426.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b/ 22-5mo-1872; d. 12-6mo-1872. (R22, 133).
(5505.) RHODENA ELNA HIATT (3426.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 6-1mo-1878; d. 6-3mo-1880. (R22, 133).
(5514.) MARY HANNAH ETTA HINSHAW (3428.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 138mo-1879; d. 18-11mo-1884. (R22, 133).
(5515.) MILLICENT JANE HINSHAW (3428.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 11-5mo-1881; d. 27-5mo-1881. (R22, 133).
(5518.) OLA JUSTINA HIATT (3429.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 5-10mo-1880.) Lyon Co., Kansas; living 1950 at 415 W. 7th Emporia, Kansas; unmarried. Miss Hiatt, along with her cousin Mrs. Kelly (No. (5511.) )., has been another staunch supporter of this project. Her assistance is greatly apprciated. - editor.
(5519.) ONA HIATT (3429.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 28-8mo-1882; d. young ? (R22,133).
(5520.) ESSIE HIATT (3429.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 11-3mo-1886.) Lyon Co., Kansas; living 1950, unmarried, with her sister Ola, at 415 W. 7th Emporia, Kansas. (Twin of Bassie Hiatt.) (R22, 133).
(5521.) BESSIE HIATT (3429.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 11-3mo-1886, Lyon Co., Kansas; d. young, twin of Essie. (R22,133).
(5522.) MAUD HIATT (3430.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 7-7mo-1880; d. 8-7mo-1880. (R22, 133).
(5528.) GUY SYLVESTER HIATT (3430.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 24-1mo-1897; d. 7-3mo1898. (R22, 133).
Line in Record @I28632@ (RIN 28625) from GEDCOM file not recognized:
EVEN
TYPE Disowned
DATE 1827
PLAC Mou.
Both are buried in Poplar Ridge Meeting Grounds, Hamilton County, Carmel, Indiana
(5487.) STEPHEN CURTIS HINSHAW (3423.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 22-1mo-1858. Lyon Co., Kansas; m. 20-1mo-1880, to HANNAH LEE BRICKELL;
b. 18-5mo-1859. Tann, : d. 21-6mo-1935. Emporia. Lyon Co., Kansas,CH: (7031.) George Andrew; (7032.) David Scull; (7033.) Eleanor Rhoads; (7034.) Anna J.; (7035.) Frances Lenore; (7036.) Clark M.; (7037.) David Hainer; (7038.) Stephen Curtis; (7039.) Albert Frederick; (7040.) Sarah H. (R22, 133).
(7034.) ANNA J. HINSHAW (5487.) (3423.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 1-1mo-1885; d. 12-1mo-1885. (R22, 133).
(7036.) CLARK M. HINSHAW (5487.) (3423.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 10-2mo-1891; d. 17-2mo-1891. (R22, 133).
(7040.) SARAH H. HINSHAW (5487.) (3423.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 24-5mo-1898. (R22, 133).
(5488.) SABINA ELMA HINSHAW (3432.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 18-2mo-1860, Lyon Co., Kansas; d. 27-5mo-1936, Lyon Co., Kansas; m. 12-12mo-1877, to JESSE HARRIS McMILLAN; b. 16-7mo-1851, Washington Co., Iowa; d. 18-9mo-1916, Lyon Co., Kansas.CH: (7041.) Elenora Anna Dora: (7042.) Curtis Laten: (7043.) George Embree Hinshaw. (R22, 133).
(7042.) CURTIS LATEN McMILLAN (5488.) (3423.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 26-6mo-1882; d. 30-6mo-1884. (R22.) (133).
Found in HH book, Sent by Lena Wright. Known as the Kansas Quaker Poet.
(5489.) JOHN EMBREE HINSHAW (3423.) (1581.) (582.) (144.) (22.) (3.) (1.):
b. 24-6mo-1862, Emporia, Lyon Co., Kansas; Living 1950, Emporia, Kansas;
well known as The Kansas Quaker Poet; m. 26-12mo-1894, to ELIZABETH B. SMITH, d/o Barclay Smith; b. 11-11mo-1869; d. 14-4mo-1939:CH: (7044.) Howard Barclay; (7045.) Bertha Anna; (7046.) Elba Mabel; (7047.) Lena Mattie; (7048.) Arthur Embree; (7049.) Edwin Andrew. (22,133, 170).
Sent by Lena Wright, Found in HH Book.
D/o Roulay Smith and Hannah Hoyle.TYPE Get Certifcate to
DATE 20 JAN 1897
PLAC Cottonwood MM. Kansas