This article is about some Crittenden County families that moved to Kansas and made their homes there.
Kansas Bound
This article is about the history of that time and some of the families that chose Kansas as their new home. Many stayed and built a new life, but some got homesick for their ole' Kentucky home and returned to finish their life in Crittenden County.
Agents for Kansas sent ads to many papers. In our Crittenden Press in 1902 the ad says KANSAS, Great Land of Opportunities. There is for sale a large acreage of choice wheat, corn and alfalfa farms, in tracts of 160 to 800 acres, ranging in price from $10 to $50 per acre. The wheat grown on these lands this year will make from 20 to 40 bushels per acre.
Soon families were leaving Crittenden County to see about these land opportunities. As early as 1884 families from this area were loading up their belongings, catching the north bound train and heading for the state of Kansas. Some of these early families were: John and Lamira Jane Fralick, and their son, Dave Fralick; Albert and Emily Hillyard; William and Mary Crider and four small sons; Frank and Alice Crider and son; and John and Mary Jacobs.
In March 1904 another company of fourteen persons, citizens from the same neighborhood, boarded an I. C. north-bound train for Kansas, where they aim to make their future homes.
The company consisted of Sam Woodall, Albert Cliff, wife and daughter, Albert Dunn, Thomas Carter, wife and daughter, James Carter, Will Murray and wife, James McCormick, Sherman Woodall and Luther Murray.
Also during this time period, groups of men would travel to Kansas to work in the wheat fields. A. C. Babb and Alonzo Duvall had a threshing crew that traveled to Hoxie Kansas. When the harvesting season was over they would return back to Crittenden County.
October of 1904, Dr. John Reynolds from Webster County visits Kansas and he shared with The Crittenden Record the Kentucky Settlement, where our people are showing their mettle.
We are home again after making a tour through the state of Kansas, and with the hope many good people who read The Crittenden Record may, with a certain degree of satisfaction, peruse these items, we shall endeavor to write something concerning the "Kentucky Settlement" in the counties of Phillips and Sheridan.
The Kentucky Settlement is in the northeastern part of Phillips County and is composed of ex-Kentuckians who were former citizens of Crittenden and Caldwell Counties in Kentucky.
The Kentuckians are too numerous to remember all the names but the most familiar are the following: Alexander, Blackburn, Brantley, Bugg, Cannon, Crider, Farmer, Fralick, Hillyard, Jacobs, McCain, McDowell, Morse, Paris and Wilson.
Among the many farmers of Phillips County, who have made it pay by attending strictly to business, are the following F. B. Cannon, J. B. Moss, Albert A. Hillyard, John Jacobs and various others. The worth of these distinguished former Kentuckians but now Kansans is estimated from ten to fifty thousand dollars.
When we made our advent into Sheridan County, we were met at Selden by W. D. (Bud) Brantley and Sherman Woodall, two former Kentuckians whose courtesy, sociability and hospitality are unsurpassed.
They soon equipped a conveyance, Brantley furnishing two horses and Woodall a surrey, we spent two days driving over the level country and seeing the farmers, towns, jack rabbits, ground-squirrels, and prairie chickens.
While making this drive we saw the families of two or more former Kentuckians, T. H. Carter and J. A. Hillyard. We spent one night with Mr. Hillyard. We also heard of other Crittenden Countians who reside in Sheridan County, whose names are; Allen, Asbridge, Beckner, Clift, Morse, Towery and Wilson.
The time spent in Sheridan County was brief, as well as pleasant, and I thank Mr. Brantley and Woodall for a pleasant time.
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