The Adams and the Warren Families
I always get a chuckle when I see the Facebook message: What have you been up to? People who know me realize thats a very limited field and usually genealogy and Maple Hill history are at the top of that list.
Over the past several months, I have been working on collecting the history of two of Maple Hills earliest families: The Warrens and the Adams. There are many similarities in the journeys of these families before settling in Maple Hill during the 1870s. Both the Warrens and the Adams are primarily Anglican in roots. The Warrens came from England and the Adams from Scotland and Ireland. The Warrens were early American arrivals, landing in New England during the 1600s. The Maple Hill Branch of the Adams Family immigrated to America later, arriving in Philadelphia during the mid-1700s. Alexander Adams wife, Mary Jane (Porter) Adams also comes from an Irish family that arrived in Philadelphia about the same time.
When the Warrens arrived in the mid-1600s, they were already from landed families in England. They bought land, cut timber, farmed and then branched out into various businesses. William Henry Warren, who brought his family to Maple Hill in late 1873, became a successful stock broker and business man with connections in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York—until the Great Banking and Railroad Panic of 1873, which destroyed him financially, and made it necessary to start over in Kansas.
The Adams families were primarily coal miners, farmers and Presbyterian ministers. Some were both or all three. By the end of the 1700s, they had mostly moved westward with the American Frontier, living in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. In the early 1800s, as Ohio approached statehood, several families moved to Wayne County, Ohio and cut new farms out of the wilderness. Rev. James Adams, who was the grandson of an early Presbyterian minister, took up the cloth himself and became a circuit riding Presbyterian pastor responsible for starting several churches in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. He died in 1826, but not before clearing a very fine farm of his own, which he left to his wife Hannah and sons Alexander and Cyrus Adams.
Like so many Americans, Alexander Adams saw potential in the Great American West and after marrying Mary Jane Porter in 1853, he moved to LaSalle County, Illinois where he bought 360 acres of land and paid cash with funds from the sale of the familys Ohio land. He prospered there and added another 500 acres of land. By 1870, he had accumulated real estate worth more than $16,000 and personal property valued at $2500. That was far more than the value of most Illinois farmers of that time. He also paid tangible tax in LaSalle County, which meant that he was making money from lending money. One had to pay tangible tax on the interest they accumulated on loans—and in 1870—most money lenders were getting 10% to 12% on the loans they made, triggering the tax.
It isnt surprising then, that Alexander Adams sent his oldest son, Franklin Adams, to look at land in pioneer Kansas. Franklin arrived in the winter of 1878 and spent boarded with Mary C. Beaubien a Maple Hill pioneer and widow of Edmund Beaubien. Franklin saw incredible potential and returned to Illinois to tell his father about the richness and availability of the land. Alexander Adams sold his LaSalle County real estate holdings and moved his family to a 360-acre farm northeast of Maple Hill, where he built a large, two-story frame dwelling. Alexander and Mary Jane Adams were the parents of four children: Franklin, Horace Greeley Adams, Emily Adams and Alice Adams. All of these children would become an important part of the new Maple Hill Community. Alexander Adams brought capital from the sale of his Illinois lands, and with that money he bought large farms in the Maple Hill community. He also also became a money lender. My cousin, Jack Herron, told me that Alexander Adams loaned him the $20 that he needed to purchase his first barber shop equipment. Jack Herron also told me that Alexander Adams didnt just sit at home and manage money—Alexander was a hard worker and would go out and gather the burned off hedge fence posts to cut up and mix with winter fire wood. It isnt surprising then, that his son, Franklin, established the Stockgrowers State Bank, using some of the inheritance from his fathers death in 1904. It isnt at all surprising that Alexanders son, Horace Greely Adams, would become one of the leading ranchers in Maple Hill, in Kansas and in the United States. Alexander and Mary Jane Adams had known and read about writer and newspaper publisher Horace Greeley, who wrote in his publications that young men should Go West to seek their fortunes. That must have made sufficient impact for them to name their son after this famous Eastern publisher.
The Warrens had an entirely different migration story. William Henry Warren had invested a great deal of his personal fortune, along with funds from his parents and in-laws, in the stocks and bonds of railroad companies. The Warrens were personal friends of several of the board members of the Atchison-Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in Boston. Like so many others in America, those who had capital to invest thought railroads were the safest place to put that capital.
After the first transcontinental railroad was completed in the mid-1860s, railroads went into a building frenzy. Railroads began to issue bonds based not on existing, finished track, but on the potential for building lines. There was such great optimism that even the largest of the financial institutions, J. P. Morgan in New York, Mellon Bank, and many others, invested in these bonds. It was much like the real estate balloon we have all just experienced—everyone thought railroads were a sure way to make money, as so many put trust in real estate. But neither assumption was true.
In 1872, J. P. Morgan began to experience financial reverses when railroads could not meet their mortgage and bond interest payments. It was like a game of dominos. One after another of the great banks and stock institutions fell having to close because of railroad failures. Wall Streets New York Stock Market finally had to close as well in October 1873. William Henry Warren found himself broke and most of the money he had invested for family had also disappeared. Most of the families lost everything and William Henry Warren also lost his fine Brooklyn brownstone house.
Bill Warren, grandson of William Henry Warren, told me that the only thing that saved the family were two Atchison-Topeka and Santa Re Railroad bonds, one owned by his grandmother Warren, and the other by her sister, Mrs. Ellen (Cheney) Thayer. The face value of these bonds was $1,000 each. They had been gifts from their grandmother, Abigale (Wood) Cheney, Newton, Massachusetts. Each of the bonds also had a coupon attached that entitled the bond holder to purchase 600 acres of land for $1.25 per acre. This was unbroken prairie land that had recently been acquired by the A-T&SF via Congressional grant following a land session treaty with the Kansas Potawatomi. Bill didnt recall what they were able to sell the bonds for, but with the proceeds of these two bonds, the Warrens and Thayers were able to move their extended families West to the Mill Creek Valley of Kansas and begin again as gentlemen farmers and ranchers. Bill was quick to note that the Cheney Family also had some capital that was also brought with them to Kansas and invested in their new land and homes.
The two families, the Warrens and the Adams, will become intertwined in 1885, when Horace Greeley Adams, Sr. will married Mable Gertrude Warren, daughter of Benjamin J and Martha P. Olney Warren. Benjamin and his wife Martha Warren came to Kansas in the late 1870s, from their home in Eastford, Windham County, Connecticut. Benjamin and Martha Warren bought their own farm in Maple Hill Township, and Benjamin became a gentleman farmer as had his brother, Dura Warren, the father of William Henry Warren.
This is a very brief account of how these two families, the Warrens and the Adams, arrived in Maple Hill and became forever woven into the cultural and historical fabric of this community. In future posts, I will be speaking mainly about the past generations of the ancestors of these two families. I will not delve into modern generations. Ill leave that to future historians. I believe that well find enough to talk about in discussing the 1600-1930 time period. The next several posts, will all relate Warren and Adams Family History and Genealogy. I will be using Maple Hill News articles from Wabaunsee County Newspapers and other sources to relay information that I have found. I hope you will enjoy these posts about the Warren and Adams Families. I wish Bill and Jack Warren were still with us to thank for information. I spent many happy hours listening to their family stories, especially Bill Warren. I also want to thank Peggy Adams, wife of Raymond Edmond Eddie Adams III, for assistance. Those of you who use the vast resources of Ancestry.com will also know that many other Adams and Warren Family genealogists have contributed information which I am using in this article.