Henry Township

Henry Township

Henry township is composed of congressional township 37, range 33, and the two lower rows of sections in township 38-33. It is the northwestern corner township of Vernon county, bounded on the north by Bates county and west by the state of Kansas. The greater portion of the township is fine, fertile prairie. Along the Little Osage, which runs through the south central portion of the township, from west to east, and on Duncan's creek, which flows from the north, through the northwestern portions of the township, into the Osage, are some tracts of fairly good timber.

The mounds in some portions of the township are conspicuous objects and are full of good stone. In the northern part not only stone, but coal, is exposed at the surface in some depressions. There is a great abundance of water, easily obtained.

The farming lands - those on the prairies, both north and south of the Osage - are simply magnificent and produce bountifully. In the growing seasons the prospect is a delightful one. The crops grow luxuriantly and there lies spread out before the be¬ holder a scene of green fields, pleasant pastures, undulating vales and rising mounds, interspersed here and there with tasteful residences, sclioolhouses and churches, with all the other con¬ comitants of a community of peace and plenty.

Oil and gas are no doubt to be found in abundant quantities, as J. M. Thurley in section 34, township 37, range 33, Henry township, Vernon county, struck gas at 170 feet and lias piped his house and has been burning gas for fuel and lighting for the past two years. This well when first struck had a thirtv-fivepound rock pressure, and this has been increased to a forty-six-

Early Settlers

Peter Duncan was probably the first settler in what is now Henry township. In the year 1839 he located nearly two miles north of the Osage, on the east side of the creek which bears his name (southeast quarter section 5), where was afterward Duncan Creek postoffice. Here he resided for many years, at last selling the land to James Lawrence. During the Civil War he was a Confederate soldier, and at the battle of Prairie Grove, Ark., was badly wounded by a saber stroke; from the effects of this wound he never entirely recovered.

William Bartlett came from White county, Tennessee, in the spring of 1842 to the central part of section 15; X.- E. Marchbanks came from Overton county, Tennesse, to the same section May 9, 1841. Mr. Bartlett died in 1864. Mr. Marchbanks died in Lawrence county, Missouri, in 1872, aged sixty-eight years.

William Barnes came from Jackson county in about 1839 and settled on Duncan's creek, in section 8, south of Peter Duncan's claim. Barnes was the contractor that constructed the LTnited States military road from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Scott. While executing his contract he visited this country on a hunting expedi¬ tion and was so delighted with it that he determined to make it his home. He died in Kansas many years ago. Daniel Smith settled half a mile southwest of Barnes and west of Duncan's creek in 1839 and died there.

Henry Jent settled on Duncan's creek in southwest quarter section 32-38-33, in 1844. the year of the high waters. Joseph P. Avery came to the northeast part of section 8, a little south of Duncan's, in 1850. There were very few settlers in the town¬ ship besides those named until after the year 1850. when a few others came in. During the Kansas troubles this section was in a constant state of excitement and alarm and settlement and im¬ migration were as effectually checked as they were a few years later by the Civil War.

A man named William B. Fail established a store on the Kan¬ sas line, just in the edge of the Osage bottom, in about 1856. It was a huge log building - a fortress as well as a storehouse. Fail's customers were from both sides. Kansas jayhawkers and Mis- souri border ruffians met here on neutral ground and bought their supplies, all in a friendly way, without collision and without collu¬ sion, either. Fail died in 1859, and Captain Staples' Vernon county company was stationed here during the famous southwest expedition from November, 1860, to May, 1861.

David Cruise, after leaving Metz township, settled in this township, south of the Osage, on section 21, northeast of Hoover, and it was here that he was killed by John Brown's liberators in 1858.

Many a time and oft did the jayhawker chiefs - Lane. Mont¬ gomery, Jennison and Weer - ride through this township, going on or returning from a Missouri raid. In the fall of 1863 the Confederate guerrillas, under Quantrill and Anderson, passed through the western part of this township on their way to winter quarters in Texas. A few days later the Baxter Springs massacre, or slaughter, came off.

In the summer of 1861, a band of twenty-five jayhawkers came to the field where Esq. N. R. Marehbanks was harvesting, in com¬ pany with Joseph Jones. The jayhawkers gave the farmers a severe tongue lashing, cut off a piece of Jones' ear and then robbed Air. Marehbanks of everything they fancied, including all of his serviceable horses and some of his household goods. The ensuing fall or early winter another squad came over and butch¬ ered and carried away all the fat hogs of Esq. Marehbanks and Wm. Bartlett. During the year 1862 the same squad of jayhawk¬ ers took all the horses these gentlemen then had, and drove away seventy-five head of their sheep. In 1863 Air. Alarchbanks re¬ moved to Nebraska to avoid the harassments to which he was subject, and remained there till the war was well over. He was the father of Capt. Wm. Alarchbanks and the bushwhacker "Bob" Alarchbanks, and the Kansas men disliked him especially.

On the Kansas City Southern Railroad, is a thriving little vil¬ lage of 200 or more inhabitants, and is surrounded by a rich farming country. Owing to its close proximity to Kansas City, and having a direct railroad line north and south, makes this a favored shipping point. The people are progressive, and fully alive to their opportunities.

20, in 1883, by Jacob Rumbaugh and Richard Kaufman. But after the building of the K. C., P. & G. Railroad, now known as the Kansas City Southern, the town site was abandoned and the new town of Stotesbury absorbed it.