Establishment of Town

The town of Pomona is beautifully situated ten miles west of Ottawa on elevated land near the Marias des Cygnes River in one of the most picturesque locations in the State. It was named by the founder, J. H. Whetstone, for the old italian goddess of the fruit of trees. The north side commands a fine view of the timber and bluffs on the opposite side of the river.

The land where the city of Pomona now stands was once owned by the powerful and savage Sac and Fox Indians. The Sac and Fox located in Kansas about 1844. The records show that on October 1, 1859, John McManus of Reading, Pennsylvania, by act of treaty with the confederated tribes of the Sac and Foxes of Mississippi did successfully deal and trade for 192,310 acres of land in Franklin, Coffey, and Osage Counties of the territory of Kansas. By treaty in 1861, the Sac and Fox reservation was so far diminished as to exclude them from Franklin County. On March 13, 1865, McManus received a patent from the government for this land. The title to this land was changed to the Seyfert McManus & Co. of Reading, Pennsylvania, a corporation dealing in Indian Lands in 1867.

About 1869, John H. Whetstone, acting as land agent for Reading Iron Works, came to control 12,000 to 15,000 acres of the above land in the west part of Franklin County, lying north of the Marais des Cygnes river, and mostly in a solid body. About this time Jonathan Parkinson obtained a long stretch of about 1,000 acres in the river bottoms just north of the river. During the five years previous to coming to Pomona, Mr. Whetstone had been engaged in the business of buying and selling lands at Ottawa. During this time, Ottawa had increased from 300 to over 3,000 people. The population of the county had increased four fold. Through the sale of property, Whetstone had helped locate more than 300 families.

While studying the various wants of this great body of people, he conceived the idea of establishing a colony on this tract of land under such circumstances as should best promote the interests of all. The central idea of the founder was not to provide each colonist with cheap land, but rather to collect together a class of people who had attained the elevation of a certain moral plane and that each should own as much or as little property according to his ability to pay for it in cash or on time. No one could buy property in this colony without signing a contract not to sell intoxicating liquors to be used as a beverage. The inexperienced colonist was to be given as much advise as he might need in any line. Special attention was devoted to providing such educational advantages as the majority might need. An industrious, sober, intelligent, moral and prosperous colony was the result.

On December 29, 1869 Mr. S. T. Kelsey went in with Mr. Whetstone, and they organized the John Whetstone & Co. Mr. Kelsey had many years of experience in the West; formerly as foreman of F. K. Phoenix Nursery Co., Bloomington, Illinois, and four years as founder and manager of the Ottawa University Nurseries and Horticulture farm at Ottawa. He had given much time and thought to the best and cheapest modes of making and improving farms and homes on prairie lands by planting a colony of fruit and tree growers on some selected site in Kansas. Believing that their purpose could best be accomplished by combining their experience and capital, they proceded to lay out their purchase into small farms with the view of selling to parties designing to become actual settlers and thus collect together a colony each one of whom should own a small farm or a village lot. To provide for those who might prefer village life, the town of Pomona was laid out and platted. There was Main Street running north and south, and Franklin Street running east and West. Franklin Street became an old immigrant trail and later was called a branch of the old Santa Fe trail. It is now known as highway 68.

The town lots were laid out in size from one eighth, two and one-half, then five and ten acre lots or tracts. It was the intention of the founder that all heads of families should own a home. This he concluded would insure perfect freedom in all deliberations, giving to each settler a home interest in the town. 240 acres were divided into city lots, 1200 acres surrounding that were divided into lots ranging from 10 acres up to 20 acres, and the remaining tracts of land outside the town were divided into 80 acre farms. A barbed wire fence 20 1/4 miles long enclosed each tract of land. Sections of 640 acres were fenced with osage orange hedge set out around each section with roadways on all section lines. We take barbed wire fencing for granted in these times, but in the 1860's barbed wire was not yet a part of our culture. A good alternative to board fencing that was used in the eastern United States but which was not an alternative in sparsely forested Kansas was hedge osage orange hedge fencing. They planted 130 miles of hedge as cross fences. The importance of growing the Osage Orange for fencing came to the front in 1867 when the Kansas state Legislature appropriated a bounty for tree planting within the state. Hedge or Osage Orange for fencing could be planted and raised for about $60 per mile while the most ramshackle fence of any other type would have cost about $268 per mile. Mr. Kelsey was a strong advocate of the hedge, and he went into the culture of the hedge to afford the farmers a convenient and cheap source of supply. He had a nursery east of town to furnish hedge plants. Many barrels of blue grass seed were sown on the prairies of this colony.

Mr. Whetstone planted 30,000 fruit trees in the colony. He had 400 acres of apple trees. He was often referred to as the Apple King of the county. Through careful grafting, he developed many new varieties of apples. He shipped apples all over the United States and exported some to Europe.