Delphos,
KS
Pride of Solomon Valley
North Central Kansas is often
overlooked in Kansas travel books and folders, yet, this area may offer
more of interest for the visitor than any part of the state. And Delphos,
sitting off by itself away from any of the highways, received numerous
unexpected contacts with the outside world. Once you look into its treasures
you will be surprised and impressed with how many incidents of history
and prehistory touched this area.
Delphos is located 5 miles west of the US-81 and KS-41 intersection. Delphos
was laid out as a town in 1869 by W.A. Kiser. It was officially recorded
in 1871. The name, Delphos, was submitted by the first resident in the
vicinity, Levi Yockey, who came from Ohio Like many Ohio towns, Delphos,
Kansas, was laid out around a square that became a elm-shaded green park
with a grandstand in the center.
Buildings have come and gone, but some of the early
landmarks were the Commercial Hotel on the northeast corner of the square,
the Grade School and the Opera House. The school was replaced and lumber
from the Opera House was used to build the new Bohemian Hall in the limestone
hills.
NE Corner
Old Grade School
Old Opera House
NW Corner
SW Corner
SE Corner
East Side
Delphos Depot Waiting
Line for elevator
GRACE BEDELL BILLINGS' MONUMENT sits on the northwest corner
of the city park. Grace Bedell, the little girl who advised Abraham Lincoln
to raise a beard, lived her adult life in Delphos. On October 15, 1860,
Grace, who was eleven at the time, wrote to presidental-candidate Lincoln:
"I have got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and
if you let your whiskers grow will try and get the
rest of them to vote for you, you would look a great deal better, for your
face is so thin."
| Aug 13, 1860 |
Feb 9, 1861 |
On October 19, 1860, Lincoln wrote to Grace: "As
to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call
it a piece of silly affection [sic] if I were to begin now?" As time has
shown the public didn't feel it was an affectation. The beard changed Lincoln's
countenance from that of a plucked chicken to one of a man of distinction.
Lincoln's photos show the last taken without the beard and the first taken
after the full beard.
In February 1861, President Lincoln stopped his
train in Westfield, NY, Grace's hometown, and asked for her in the crowd.
When she came forward, he kissed her cheek and said, "You see, I let those
whiskers grow for you, Grace."
Grace came to Delphos as the bride of George Newton
Billings, a homesteader who later became the first
cashier of the Delphos State Bank. The monument shows part of her
letter to lincoln and his reply.
ANNA BREWSTER MORGAN was captured by Indians just northwest of
present-day Delphos during a raid on October 3, 1868. The young, pretty
school teacher had been married less than a month to James Morgan. On that
ill-fated day Mr. Morgan was working in a field about a mile north of their
dugout when he was attacked by a band of Sioux Indians.
His frightened horses ran back to the dugout. Mrs. Morgan, suspecting the
worst, strapped a pistol on her side, mounted one horse, and set out to
find her husband. The Indians had followed the horses, then hid in bushes
when they spied Anna approaching. They pounced on her after she had crossed
the creek. They tied her to her horse and took her to their camp.
Later the Sioux traded her to a band of Cheyennes,
who had earlier kidnapped Sarah C. White near Concordia. During the more
than five winter months, Anna and Sarah had given up all hope of rescue.
Their one attempt failed.
Then they were rescued by Gen. George Custer on March
22, 1869, northwest of the Wichita Mountains near today's Lawton, OK. Custer
demanded the return of the women with the threat of hanging one of six
hostage chiefs each day.
Anna gave birth to a half-Indian child, Ira, a few
months after rescue. The little fellow died about two years later. Anna
had three more children, but the unhappy marriage ended when the youngest
child was seven. Anna and her children moved in with her brother, Arthur
Brewster, and lived with him until the children were grown. Until she 
was
later declared insane, she had lived alone. She avoided publicity and was
never accepted by the community. She confessed to a
neighbor woman once, "I often wished they had never found me." Anna died
in 1902 in what was then called the State Asylum in Topeka. She is buried
near the entrance of the Delphos Cemetery next to her son, Ira.
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