The Settlement of Peabody

The Wisconsin Colony played a major role in the settlement of Peabody. In the spring of 1870, a group of men in Wisconsin, organized for the purpose of settling in Kansas. Membership in the association cost $25 per member. Leaders of the alliance were Colonel J. E. Cone, president, William C. Nye, secretary, and C. D. Bradley, general agent.   These men, along with M. Birdsall, were the commissioners of the organization.  The group planned to settle a tract six miles wide and nine miles in length along both sides of Doyle Creek, which was part of the proposed route for the Santa Fe Railroad. After arriving on the scene, the group enlarged its claim to a tract 12 by 8 miles in size. A surveyor was hired to plat the acreage and show settlers which lands were available in the region named Coneburg, in honor of the company president. The townsite extended from where the present U. S. Highway 50 is on the north end of present-day Peabody to Division Street (so named when the street became the dividing line between the two early communities of Coneburg and Peabody). Civilian homesteaders of this acreage paid $2.50 an acre under the Preemption Law, soldiers who had not fought for the South in the Civil War could acquire acreage for $1.25 with soldier warrants. The railroad land grant, which went on the market 1 January 1871, sold from $3 to $10 an acre (Gazette, 29 June 1961).

The part of the Wisconsin Colony formed the Coneburg Town Company on 31 March 1871, and the plat of the town was recorded on 10 April at the United States Land Office in Augusta, Kansas. After surveying the site, the organization soon discovered it was unable to control claim jumping or jurisdiction over the tract. The Wisconsin group quickly splintered because of infighting and a new group spun-off from part of the old. By May 1871, the community of Coneburg included at least two "boarding houses, a lumber yard, two grocery stores, a dry goods store, a drug and grocery store, a boot and shoe store, an agricultural implement house, a blacksmith shop," and approximately 12 dwellings (Peabody the First 100 Years 1970:3)

A legal battle ensued between various segments of the area. By the Congressional Act of March 1867, probate judges were granted the authority to enter townsites but were not authorized to create such areas. On 23 February 1873, the Secretary of the Interior canceled the new Coneburg townsite. The group petitioned to have the case reopened during the winter of 1874-1875 (White 1970: Chapter One). A new hearing occurred in the summer of 1875, at Wichita. The court ruled in favor of the earlier judiciary decision made by Judge I. W. Bouse who had ruled in favor of the Coneburg Company (White 1970: Chapter One). However, this decision was overturned in September 1877 when the Secretary of the Interior affirmed the rights of the North Peabody Town Company. In 1877, the federal government ruled Probate Judge I. W. Bouse had overstepped his authority when he approved the entry of the Coneburg townsite. Bouse ordered the site surveyed, platted, apportioned to the occupants, and partly deeded. The federal government saw his ruling as a violation of the law.

In the meantime, the community of Peabody was also created south of North Peabody. For $2,878.97 William and Annie Endicott (of Suffolk, Massachusetts) acquired title on May 6, 1870 fromAmos Lawrence for the south-half of Section 4, Township 22, Range 3, the future site of Peabody. On January 12 1871, the Endicotts sold the acreage for $2,700 to Marion schoolteacher Thomas M. Potter. While construction was underway on theAtchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad line west of Emporia, the directors of the company traveled through the area on an inspection tour six days before a new townsite was filed. Businessmen rushed to the new site. With the Wisconsin Colony land in legal dispute, Potter's clear title on the south-half of section four was seen by town speculators as the most desirable location for a community. Potter's holding was platted, adjoining North Peabody at Division Street. Because of the county surveyors error in measurements, the width of Division Street (the dividing line between Peabody and part of Coneburg that became North Peabody) was 90 feet wide on the east edge of the town and fifteen feet wide on the west edge.

Potter, Col Robinson, S. B. Riggs, R. K. Tabor, L. Carson, and J. S. Straughen (attorney for Potter) formed the Peabody Town Company. (Peabody the First 100 Years 1970:3). Potter was president and F. H. Kolloch (often spelled Kollock) has been reported as one of the secretaries of the company. On June 16, 1871, when the charter for incorporation was filed for the Peabody Town Company, Potter and his wife, Mary sold the land to the Peabody Town Company for $6,400. The town was named Peabody in honor of F. H. Peabody of Boston, the railroad's vice president after the directors of the line recommended the railroad be routed south of North Peabody.

In 1874, Peabody visited the community named in his honor and agreed to donate the funds necessary to build a library and furnish it with furniture and a collection of books and periodicals if the residents agreed to maintain and support the bequest. The facility was the state's first free public library and is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1901, the structure contained 7,000 volumes. In 1914, a new Carnegie Library Building, also on the National Register of Historic Places, was erected nearby to replace the earlier frame structure. The older building was converted to a utility house for the city park. The original library is currently used as a local museum.

About 1871, Kolloch and Waller Chenault formed the Kolloch Chenault Bank, later the First National Bank. During the 1870s, Kolloch served as a judge. Chenault was the local public notary. Kolloch and Chenault were local real estate representatives for the Santa Fe Railroad. The men sold acreage and issued loans. In 1878, Kolloch was elected to the Kansas legislature. The bank played a major role in the settlement of the area. From November through April of 1882-83, the land department of the bank sold 5,000 acres in the area; this sales period was during a time of slow activity (Gazette, May 10, 1993).

By July 1871, the population of the community (or combined communities) totaled approximately 500 persons who occupied about 75 dwellings in the vicinity (Peabody the First 100 Years 1970: 15). A continual stream of emigrant wagons passed through Peabody daily in 1878. Peabody was incorporated as a third class city of March 15, 1878. By April 1878, the population of Peabody was 525. During the following year, that figure had increased to 841. Between April and September 1878, more than 40 new dwellings were built and demand for additional housing still exceeded the supply. The commercial district began near the Santa Fe Depot. By 1881 most of the lots in the business sector had standing structures upon them, many of which were single-story, frame buildings. In 1882, a total of 125 buildings existed in Peabody. Three years later, the population of Peabody totaled 1,630, and an additional 120 persons were believed to be temporary residents in the community. Although the number of residents dropped during the depression of the 1890s, by 1910 the population numbered 1,628 individuals.