Gritty Kansas newspaper editor Sylvester Fowler made Osage County his temporary home in the late 1800s. His passion in politics and writing rubbed many the wrong way, causing his stays to be cut short, but he remained determined to return to this place he felt held his same ideals.

Fowler was born in 1853 in Ohio, and came to Kansas when he was three years old. He entered the newspaper business in Pottawatomie County in the mid-1870s, pledging that a paper under his supervision would not publish anything “unsound in morals, or unhealthy in religion … and parents need not be afraid of its bringing an evil influence into their homes.”

It didn’t take long however, for the young, ambitious and outspoken newspaper man to stir controversy. In 1879, he was accused of plagiarizing and stealing from another paper.

He continued to push the limits of what was considered acceptable in society when he published a book called Sex and other Poems in 1890, which included what was considered erotic poetry but also poems of a more general nature. While tame by today’s standards, the mere utterances of anything of a sexual nature were taboo during the Victorian period, and Fowler’s poetry caused breathless readings among its fans.

“In spite of creeds that mislead us
And doubts that vex and perplex
I hold that the highest religion
Is the proper worship of sex.”-Sex 1890

Despite some approval the poet gained, others were not so impressed. The Nortonville News stated that Fowler’s poem dedicated to recently deceased newspaperman Milton W. Reynolds was so terrible, “It seems a great pity … that Reynolds could not rise from his grave and drop the man who would write such trash and dedicate it to him.”

At the time Sex and other Poems was published, the People’s Party (or Populist Party) arose on the political scene and caught the eye of Fowler. The Populists sought to restore the government to the hands of “plain people”, distancing itself from corporate and financial interests, a concept appealing to both farmers and under-represented minorities. Fowler, who maintained a farm in addition to running a newspaper, took up the Populist cause and started papers that were considered “organs” for the Populist Party.

In 1893, Fowler made the move to Osage County, considering it a place with down-home values and anticipating a good reception for a Populist paper. He purchased the former Burlingame Herald and turned it into the Burlingame Blade, a Populist promoting periodical. His success and ambition encouraged him to purchase the Lyndon Herald, also. He would consolidate those papers under one title, The People’s Herald, and move the offices to Lyndon, reasoning that he often got turned around in Burlingame.

His People’s Herald went head-to-head with the Osage City Free Press, calling it and any others out on any anti-populism rhetoric. It did not take Fowler long in his reporting to stir up controversy.

In the previous election, in an attempt to revitalize the lackluster response to enforcement of prohibition around the state, the Populists promoted an all-temperance ticket in Osage County. Problems arose when the Populists’ winning choice for county attorney, Ellis Lewis, was found to be all but temperate, and would not enforce the laws. Rumors began that the Populists had agreed that there was to be no enforcement of the laws if their ticket was elected. Both of these were too much for the ardent Populist Fowler to bear and he lashed out at Lewis in his People’s Herald, calling him a “miserable ingrate, malicious, ungrateful, and wretchedly debauched and depraved. He is a traitor to the party that honored him and to the friends who furnished him money … He is the most hopelessly confirmed drunkard today in Osage County. He is without self-control and without hope. Let him be removed.”

One hundred and fifty years ago, the town of Lyndon was born, and as it turned out, was the only child of Judge Lawrence D. Bailey.

After land within the Sac and Fox reserve had been opened up for white settlement in 1869, a first attempt was made to locate a town in the center of Osage County, with the apt name of Osage Center. The creators of Osage Center lacked the funds to give it a proper start, however.

In 1870, another push was made for a town, this time employing the help of Judge Bailey, of Douglas County. It was Bailey that would be the boost that gave the eventual town of Lyndon its successful beginning.

Judge Bailey was born in 1819, in Vermont. A progressive man, he took a stance against slavery in 1837. While pursuing a degree in law, he apprenticed with the Tappans, who were prominent abolitionists. Because of his strong beliefs on slavery, Bailey headed west to Kansas in 1857 to help secure its entrance to the Union as a free state. He settled near Clinton in Douglas County.

He immediately put his politics to work, serving as one of the first supreme court justices in the new state. Judge Bailey was also instrumental in creating the first statewide board of agriculture, as well as establishing the State Normal School at Emporia, where he had maintained a law office for a short time.

His involvement in the early government of Kansas had him at the Eldridge Hotel, in Lawrence, in August 1863, when Quantrill’s raiders attacked the town. During the raid, Judge Bailey came face to face with Quantrill himself when the hotel was being evacuated. Not considered a threat, he was only asked to surrender his wallet, although the raiders left him with pocket change for breakfast. Bailey then swam the Kansas River to escape the violence.

Called the “wheel horse of Kansas farmers” for his hardworking approach to pretty much everything, Bailey also pursued building cities. With his work in politics and the State Board of Agriculture, he had traveled to nearly every county in the state, which gave him a good knowledge of Kansas and the needs of successful industry. He was appointed postmaster (a crucial position for any prospective town) of Belvoir, a town adjoining his sizeable estate in Douglas County.

Judge Bailey was involved in what was initially called the Wakarusa Valley Railroad, a jerkwater line that cut a path to Carbondale and then Emporia, and which traveled through Belvoir after it was relocated to a position nearer to the line. Jerkwater lines were so named for the tanks that hung at stops along this type of line – to start the water the engineer would jerk a chain to refill the train’s water tank for steam power.

“And they soon resolved to start a town,
To be the central gem and crown –
‘The Hub’ of Osage presently.
‘Twas done and Lyndon was the name,
From brook and hill the compound came!
She soon acquired some local fame,
And grew for months quite rapidly.”

Because of his “go get them” attitude, Bailey was employed to boom Lyndon and make it a desirable location to lure away the county seat from Burlingame. Bailey named the town Lyndon after a pleasant community in Vermont.

Burlingame Cemetery holds more than 250 veterans of the Civil War. Approximately 10 of those soldiers served in the United States Colored Troops. While that number seems relatively small, the ratio in comparison to other area cemeteries is quite high. Those that served in the Colored Troops fought for their freedom and had to overcome many obstacles including changing perceptions of how people felt about differences in race. One of these Burlingame Colored Troops veterans is Isaac Williams.

Isaac’s origins are uncertain, as is often the case with those formerly enslaved. The first evidence of Isaac is when he enlisted for the war effort at Benton Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri, with the 4th Missouri Colored Troops in December of 1863, which later became the 68th USCT. Some men serving in this regiment are noted to have been from eight central Missouri counties, however St. Louis was also a way station for the fugitive slaves coming in from the South on their way to free territory to the north or west. Isaac was transferred to the 67th USCT and mustered out at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at the end of the war.

After his service, Isaac found work and assistance from abolitionists in Osage and Lyon counties, in Kansas.

In 1865, Isaac was living near Waveland (near Wakarusa) with Charles C. Gardiner. Gardiner was a civil engineer, receiving training at Alfred University in New York, one of the few schools at the time that was integrated. Gardiner came to Kansas in 1859 and settled north of Burlingame. He removed to Missouri just before the war and served with two units of the loyalist Missouri home guards. At the end of the war, Gardiner was stationed at St. Louis, where he likely met Isaac.

While in Missouri, Gardiner married Lydia Buffington, a Quaker woman whose family assisted fugitives on the Underground Railroad. The Gardiners returned to Kansas in 1865, settling at Waveland, where they opened their home to Isaac and at least two other refugees.

From the Gardiner household, Isaac went to work in Lyon County for Nicholas Lockerman, around 1870. Lockerman supported the free state cause and was a wealthy stockman with a ferry that crossed the river on his property.

Isaac’s time in Lyon County was short – in the late 1870s he returned to the area north of Burlingame and rented land from O.H. Sheldon, a businessman who helped shape early Osage County.

Former Kansas governor Charles Robinson said of Sheldon, “When the wave of corruption swept over our young state, more blighting in its effects, if possible, than the curse of human slavery, against which successful war had been waged, no smell of fire was found upon his garments.”

The Star Block, at 520 Market Street, Osage City, center of photo, was once an early day medical center (or doctor’s office), operated by Dr. Roup for a year or so sometime around the early 1890s. Photo thanks to the Osage County Historical Society.

At one time, Osage County was home to not one but two hospitals. Both were located in Osage City and served the surrounding area. Barnes Hospital was owned by Miles W. Barnes, a young Tennessee doctor who operated his hospital in the 1920s and into the 1930s. His building was located at 110 S. Sixth Street. Brown Hospital was established in 1917 on Main Street and operated by Thomas O. Brown, a former Osage County schoolteacher.

Thomas Brown grew up in Lyndon, the son of farming parents. He excelled in school and after graduation became a local teacher at No. 68 (or Jack Rabbit) and Vassar schools. In 1892, Tom married Jessie Jones, of Arvonia, a sister of his good friend. Those that knew Tom Brown knew him to be “a competent and thorough teacher and his motto was ‘Onward and Upward’.” Not only did Tom encourage his students with those words, he followed them himself. It was in Arvonia that Tom crossed paths with Dr. William R. Roup, town physician, and likely decided upon a new career path.

Dr. Roup, like Tom Brown, had a thirst for knowledge that had led him to the pursuit of the expanding field of medicine. Dr. Roup received his medical degree in 1869 from the University of Iowa at a time when the medical profession was largely unregulated. Doctors during this time were generally classified according to those receiving formal medical training, such as Dr. Roup, and eclectic medicine, which utilized botanical remedies and physical therapy. In the early 1870s, Dr. Roup established a practice in Reading. He also practiced in Osage City for a year in the newly built Star Block, and in 1892-94 moved to Arvonia, where he influenced Tom Brown to follow a career in medicine.

The making of Osage County’s history was not limited solely to those individuals who maintained permanent residence here. Such is the case of John Rankin, an Ohio resident and the man who established the Presbyterian church in Lyndon, Kansas.

John Rankin was originally from Tennessee. Rankin was influenced by the period called the Second Great Enlightenment, which was a revival of the Christian faith that led many to realize slavery was incompatible with their beliefs.

Rankin became ordained as a pastor in 1814, and soon after joined a local Anti-Slavery Society, a branch of a nationwide group that believed prejudice in any form was offensive and that African Americans were entitled to the same rights and privileges as the white man. Rankin’s involvement in the Anti-Slavery Society was influential to famous abolitionist radicals such as William Lloyd Garrison.

Garrison is quoted as saying, “It was reading the productions of [Rankin’s] pen that awakened my mind to the enormity of the crime of slavery.”

Rankin’s opinions on slavery and his outreach to those that were oppressed caused his neighbors to create an environment that was increasingly dangerous for him and his family. Local mobs beat him and shaved his horse’s tail and mane, in addition to other instances of cruelty. Elders in his church encouraged him to move safely north if he was to continue to preach against slavery.

He moved his family first to Kentucky, where he organized an Anti-Slavery Society, and then across the river into Ripley, Ohio. The house at Ripley sat on a bluff 300 feet above the Ohio River and served as a beacon and refuge for those seeking freedom.

One such freedom seeker, a woman named Eliza, crossed the river one winter, jumping from one block of ice to another with her baby boy on her back. Her pursuers watched amazed at her every leap, expecting her to slip and succumb to the icy current, but Rankin’s awaiting hand reached down on the other side to assist her off the riverbed. Rankin later secured her passage with others to Toronto, Canada, and safety of freedom.