1 of 2 Published Sunday, July 13, 2008 Well tread the prairie as of old Our fathers sailed the sea, And make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free! John Greenleaf Whittier, The Kansas Emigrants Ustaine Talley carries a part of Kansas history in her DNA. Her ancestors were among the freed slaves who migrated west after the Civil War and settled an all-black colony on the outskirts of Dunlap, a cattle shipping point on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad nestled in the rolling prairie between Emporia and Council Grove. Yet, when Talley and her seven siblings were growing up in Dunlap, she knew very little about her heritage and Singleton Colony, founded in the late 1870s by former slave-turned-cabinetmaker Benjamin Pap Singleton. I had no idea the land we grew up on was so very rich with history, she said. When Talley moved from Atlanta, Ga., to Topeka in 1996 to retire, she became interested in genealogy and wanted to find out where her family lived before migrating to Kansas. In the process of her investigation, she learned about the western migration of Easterners and the exodus of blacks from the South after the Civil War. Her first discovery was that her great-grandmother, Cassie Talley Hibbs, and uncles Martin, Robert and Porter Payne, who lived in Tennessee and Kentucky, respectively, were recruited to relocate to Dunlap by Singleton, who lived in Nashville, Tenn. Blacks, who werent allowed to own property in many southern states, could purchase land in free-state Kansas. Singletons first attempt to form a colony in Kansas at Baxter Springs failed. So when he brought his next group of freedmen to the state in 1878, he took steps to ensure they could stay on the land and prosper. On June 24, 1879, Talley said, Singleton and the town fathers of Dunlap signed a 50-year certificate of incorporation for Singleton Colony, about 1 1/2 miles southwest of Dunlap. Singleton was making sure his people would have the right to be there and be a legal part of the community, she said. Lessons to learn In the same year Singleton Colony was being incorporated, the Associate Presbyterian Church learned most of the black settlers in north-central Kansas couldnt read, Lawrence resident Philip Beard said in a 2001 article for Kansas History magazine. The church leadership decided to use any money it had to support mission work among the freedmen. The Rev. John Snodgrass was assigned as a missionary in Wabaunsee County, and eventually ended up in Dunlap. Snodgrass became involved in the education system when the local school board decided to establish separate schools for blacks and whites and he offered to provide a teacher for the black students. The teacher was Andrew Atchison, a University of Kansas graduate who helped found the Freedmens Aid Association of Dunlap to help blacks who wanted to obtain permanent homes in the Dunlap area, Beard said. One of the associations first actions was to establish the Kansas Colored Literary and Business Academy, a tuition-free school for all ages.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 17:40:46 +0000