KANSAS A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Edited by FRANK W. BLACKMAR, A. M., Ph. D. IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME II ILLUSTRATED STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRART 210013011923 Copyright 1912 Standard Publishing Company. KANSAS VOLUME II. Jackson, Alfred Metcalf, lawyer and member of Congress, was born at South Carrollton, Muhlenberg county, Ky., July 14, 1860. He was educated at the Kentucky College in his native town, and in 1881 removed to Kansas, locating at Howard, Elk county, where he engaged in the practice of law. In 1890 he was elected county attorney, and two years later was elected judge of the Thirteenth judicial district. At the end of his term he removed to Winfield. In 1900 he was nominated by the Populists and Democrats on a fusion ticket for Congress and was elected in November of that year. While in Congress he introduced a bill proposing government ownership of telegraph lines which attracted considerable attention. At the close of his term he was defeated for a reëlection and resumed the practice of law at Winfield. In 1904 Mr. Jackson was a delegate to the Democratic national convention that nominated Parker and Davis. Jackson County, one of the counties formed by the first territorial legislature in 1855, is located in the second tier south from Nebraska, and the second west from Missouri. It is bounded on the west by Pottawatomie county, on the south by Wabaunsee and Shawnee, on the east by Jefferson and Atchison, and on the north by Nemaha and Brown. It is 1,172 feet above the level of the sea. The first exploration in the regions that afterward became Jackson county was by M. De Bourgmont and his company of Frenchmen who made a journey in 1724 through the lands of the Kansas to the Padouca Indians. He passed through Jackson county in going from a point above Atchison to the Kansas river just west of Shawnee county. The next exploring party was conducted in 1819 by Dr. Thomas Say, who, with four other scientists, went west as far as the Kansas village where Manhattan now stands, and returning, passed through Jackson county on their way to Cow island near Atchison. Fremont "the Pathfinder," passed through in 1843 on his trip to the Rocky mountains. The boundaries defined by the legislature of 1855 contained 1,140 square miles. The county was first called Calhoun (q. v.) in honor of John C. Calhoun. The county was surveyed in the same year and a place 7 miles from Topeka near the old Calhoun Bluffs was made the first county seat. New boundary lines were defined in 1857, when the actual organization of the county took place, and the present boundary lines were established by the legislature in 1858, when the county seat was located permanently at Holton. |