Rising Sun

When Joseph Haddix arrived on the north bank of the “Kaw,” the popular name of the time for the Kansas River, the prospects for a new town site were immediately apparent.

The year was 1857.

The Kansas Territorial Capital of Lecompton was across the river to the south. A ferry, operated by William Simmons, crossed the Kaw at the present-day location of the Lecompton Road bridge. Although set aside by the federal government as Delaware Trust Lands, Haddix laid out Rising Sun (south of presentday Perry, Kan.).

Rising Sun was incorporated by the Territorial Legislature in 1858. William J. Norris, Henry C. Cockril, Thomas Cockril, and William G. Mathias were trustees, with Haddix as president.

Rising Sun was the earliest business center of Kentucky township. At the time, the township comprised the southern half of Jefferson County, named for the homeland of early settlers. The first settler in Kentucky township was slave-holder John Scaggs. He and his slaves were “skilled at sawing lumber.” Before Rising Sun was established, Scaggs supplied lumber for buildings across the river in Lecompton.

Town fathers immediately went to work establishing a proper community. Methodist minister, the Rev. Nathan Scarrett, preached the first sermon in the home of Alex Bayne.

By the end of 1857 the town boasted a church and schoolhouse. Miss Anna Foster was hired to teach by subscription. Other public buildings were to come “in a short time.” Two steam saw mills kept lumber coming. Four thousand feet of lumber could be produced in a day “affording good facilities for building, with little cost.”

The Dec. 31, 1857, issue of the Lecompton National Democrat recorded, “upwards of one hundred inhabitants,” with many more coming in every day.

Situated in the beautiful, well-timbered “Kaw Valley,” Rising Sun was built on expectations that the Missouri Pacific Railroad would build through the town, “making it a place of “much importance.”

The first polling place for Jefferson County was established in 1868. The United States Postmaster General awarded the town an official post office on Nov. 11, 1858. James Black was appointed postmaster.

It didn’t take long for controversy to arise. A letter dated June 29, 1859, published in the Leavenworth Times and reprinted in the Topeka Tribune, complained of political trickery in Jefferson County. Five or six men were refused the opportunity to vote at Rising Sun on June 7 for a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

The writer accused the founders of the town of stealing the land on which they lived and being of the “wrong party.”

The letter concluded, “We are not abolitionists, but we are decidedly opposed to being slaves ourselves.”

Even so, the results of the vote for the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution showed a significant presence of Free State men at Rising Sun with 30 votes against ratification compared to 42 votes in favor.

The Western Stage Company brought new visitors to Rising Sun with the commencement of operation in early March 1860. Rising Sun was a wide-open frontier town. Said to be infested with horse thieves, murderers, and gamblers, shootings were considered the regular order of the day.

At Lecompton, citizens kept their horses penned in a tight corral to deter theft. Armed guards were directed to signal for help with gunfire on the approach of suspected thieves. The alarm was soon sounded, and as men were seen coming in response from all directions, the horse thieves retreated, swimming their horses across the Kaw.

Once in Rising Sun, the would-be thieves grew overconfident amid familiar surroundings. After all, they had taken no horses in their foray to Lecompton. While drinking at the Rising Sun saloon, their pursuers also crossed the river. The fugitives were easily captured, taken outside and without their day in court, “hanged from a tree limb.” Under that limb near the saloon their remains rendered unto Rising Sun its unofficial burying ground.

The eventual success of the Free State movement brought a decline in Lecompton’s political and economic power. Rising Sun’s fortunes fell as well. Both towns were raided by federal troops the morning of July 27, 1862. Several men were arrested for treason and taken to Fort Leavenworth. The property of an unnamed man “reported as a recent bushwhacker from Missouri,” was confiscated. The Junction City Smoky Hill and Republican Union praised the action, “Keep the ball rolling, General — let the rebels throughout the state know that they are in ‘America’.”

In fact, Capt. Jerome Kunkel raised a company of 76 men from Rising Sun and Oskaloosa to support the Union. Kunkel’s troops arrived at Fort Leavenworth on Sept. 5, 1862. At Fort Leavenworth, the recruits became Company D, Eleventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry.

At Rising Sun robbery, murder, and hangings continued to be the order of the day. However, illumination would eventually set for Rising Sun. The railroad in which founders had placed their hopes passed them by. By 1890 Rising Sun had become a mere memory on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Kan. Phone: (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.