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 going to show them free home sites in the direction of Plum Creek Flats. Plum creek heads in Palacky township, and runs down through Valley township into Rice county. Nothing suited my party for ten miles along the way. I had told them there was a level country farther on, but they were so disgusted with the travel and the looks of the wild land that they wanted to go back, and made me turn when we were near the divide, from the summit of which they could have seen a most beautiful land of promise. They did not settle in my colony at all. Whether they regret it or not I never found out. The founding of the settlement in Palacky township occurred in June, 1876, when I took the Sekavec party over the crest, or summit, that divided the waters of the Smoky Hill from those of the Arkansas river, and showed them the “Plum Creek Flats.”

The largest party of Bohemian home-seekers came September 1, 1876, from Chicago. It was one of the organized clubs or colonization societies mentioned earlier in this article. The Chicago party which arrived in Wilson was but a small fraction, however, of the people who had been attending the meetings held in that city to organize an agricultural colony to settle on cheap lands or government homesteads. Since the panic of 1873 many people in the cities were in real distress, employment was scarce, and wages had been greatly reduced, therefore numbers had attended the meetings and joined the association. But when it came to raising a sum of money to defray the expenses of a committee to be sent out to discover a favorable location for the colony few were willing or able to pay their share of the necessary sum, and the majority withdrew. Out of the two hundred members but seventy five remained in the club, and finally in 1875 sent three members as a committee to look up a location. The committee, after a trip over the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe into central Kansas, returned, reporting in favor of Barton county. But the club for some reason disorganized, and nothing was done until by the efforts of Jan Oliverius, editor of a Bohemian weekly paper, “VestuikVěstník [sic],” then published in Chicago, Ill., a new company was organized. The secretary of this new company wrote a letter of inquiry to me at Wilson, Kan., and receiving a favorable answer to questions, the following members of the club and their families came to Wilson on September 1, 1876: Frank Malir, Matej Libal, Ján Lilák, Josef Fisher, Frank Stehno, sr., Frank Brichácek, V. Schánelec, Ján Schánelec, Frank Dolezal, Ján Cikánek, Frank Novák, V. Mares, all these with families, and Jos. Brichácek, Frank Habart, V. Vanis, Jos. Zamrzla and Frank Stehno, jr., young men of age, but single. More than the above named came, but did not remain to settle and develop the country, so their names are omitted. Later others came, following their relatives and friends; of these I mention the parents of Jos. Zamrzla with their children; Jos. Cikánek, Anton Slechta, V. Slechta, Jos. Smolik, Ján Vlcek, V. Zvolánek, Jos. Bachura, ——— Horejsi, Frank Branda, Frank Harach, V. Dolezal, Frank Lilák, and Frank Boushka. These new settlers located in all directions from the starting point—Wilson township.

For the first arrivals from Chicago I took my big farm wagon, and my two-seated spring wagon, both full. I drove them south of the Smoky Hill river, into what is now Noble township, and located Frank Malir on the southwest quarter of section 8, township 15, range 10, and V. Vanis on the south half of the northwest quarter, and M. Libal on the north half of the