Savannah

This is my heritage ~ I have this original lithograph that was used in "The Official Atlas Of Kansas 1887" ~ these scenes depicting my great grandfather T.I. Eddy's original homestead on the farm where I grew up. Below is an excerpt taken from: OLD SETTLERS' TALES by F.F. Crevecoeur, 1902

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Among the earliest settlements made near here was that at America City. The 25th of May, 1856, there arrived at that place eight families, who drove through from Iowa with oxen. These families were as follows:

Sanford H. Eddy and his wife, Caroline, who were natives of New York, and who had gone to Iowa in 1855 with their children, Theodore Ira (T.I.), Eugenia, and Julius.

Hiram Dean, his wife and three sons, John, Frank, and Oscar, and a daughter, Margaret.

Daniel Arnold, his wife and child, Willie.

Daniel Benthusen Benson, his wife and son, George, and daughter, Susan.

Hezekiah Scrutchfield, his wife and three daughters, Mary, Alice, and Martha and Mary.

Garrett Randall, his wife, Sarah, and two sons, James and Robert.

George Randall, son of Garrett, and his wife, who was a daughter of James Armstrong.

Harve Randall, his wife and son, Kimball, and daughter, Mary.

These all located in or near to America City.

Sanford Eddy, his wife and three children, moved from America City to Savannah in 1866, where he bought out John Wilson. His daughter, Eugenia, was married the same year he moved to Savannah to (sic) Harve Armstrong, and died in 1876. His son, Julius, died here in May, 1873, aged 18 or 19 years. Mr. Eddy died in Havensville, in 1897. His wife had preceded him, having died in 1879, His son, T. I. married Martha Jacoby, of America City, in the Spring of 1866, and located on his father's farm and lived a number of years in a log house, as did his parents. He built the stone house which stands on his farm in 1874. Some Swedes by the name of Tureen did the mason work. His father built a frame house in 1877. T. I. Eddy is the father of twelve children, all living. We make room to mention the six oldest, who are: Ira, Delia (Mrs. Mel J. Thompson), Ernest, Hattie, Josie (Mrs. Lem Talbott), Julius, and Dora (Mrs. Ad Harris).

For several years after the pioneers located at America City they had to go to Missouri for provisions, as they had not yet raised any, and they also got their hogs there, for there was no one here of whom they could get any. Commencing with 1861, T. I. Eddy and others did freighting for a living from Atchison to Salt Lake City, and to a place 150 miles this side of the city. The trail they followed went by Marysville, Fort Kearney, and along the Platte river, and was known as the Mormon or Fremont trail. Two trips would be made a year, and it took them three weeks to make the trip one way. Oxen were used to do the hauling. Indians were thick in the country traversed by the freighters, and reports of murders and massacres were frequent, but the train that Mr. Eddy was in seemed to be a lucky one, as they were never molested, though rumors of killings either ahead of them or after they had passed were plentiful. The graves of those dying along the way, or who were killed, were marked by pieces of board, and these had the same effect on our freighters that the barrel of a revolver or a gun has on those into whose face it is thrust, when they seem to look as large as a stovepipe, for they appeared to be as numerous as the palings in a fence. On their first trip there would be stretches of country along the road traveled of 200 miles where not a house or ranch was seen. The boys, while freighting, made two trips to Denver. In 1866, in which year Mr. Eddy says we had the first grasshoppers, he made a trip in company with Harve Armstrong, William McKee (a brother of Eph), Pat Riley, and two others, one by the name of Cheatham and the other Runyan. In May, 1868, Mr. Eddy was out plowing when he saw the woman folks coming out of the house, which they stood and looked up at. He wondered what fancy they could have taken, and on making inquiries he was informed that the house had been shaking, which was so, as there had been a slight shock of earthquake, which made the dishes rattle and things generally move around. As Mr. Eddy was walking in loose dirt, he did not notice it as did those who stood on solid ground.

John Wilson came to Savannah, from Indiana, in 1861 or 1862, and settled on what is now the T.I. Eddy farm. The house where he lived stood west of the present Eddy house, near the creek. He was accompanied by his wife and several children, two of whom were boys (Marion, who is now dead, and Lafayette, at present living in Soldier). He also had a daughter, Savannah, after whom the postoffice (sic) at that place was named, and two other children, who died while he was living here and who were buried where Mr. Eddy's garden now is. A Peter Prow brought a sawmill to that place, and had Mr. Eddy secure a payment on it. The mill eventually became Mr. Wilson's property, and he leased it one year to Eph McKee and Thomas Cross. He afterwards sold the mill to Heath & McComas, who moved it to Missouri. Mr. Wilson went from here to Circleville, Jackson County, in 1866, where he died.