Ephraim Overman

From WikiTree: Ephraim Overman married Lydia Rue and his brother, Elijah, married her sister Susannah Rue. Ephraim Overman married second Mary Jane Burgess (1822-1872) on December 11, 1850, and was condemned by the White Water MM for marrying contrary to discipline. On February 23, 1853, Ephraim got a certificate to the West Grove Monthly Meeting. On February 24, 1858, Ephraim was received back in the White Water MM on certificate from the West Grove Monthly Meeting. They had at least two children and stayed in Wayne Township. as the following directory listing attests until 1871 when they moved to Harveyville, Wabaunsee County, Kansas, where they were listed in 1880. Ephraim was working as a farmer with a son, Frank, who is epileptic and daughter Mary Alice age 11.

On February 22, 1871, Ephraim and children get a certificate from the White Water MM to the Cottonwood Monthly Meeting, Kansas. Harveyville was a raw settlement on the prairie when he arrived. In 1874 there was another serious drought. Ohio was again appealed to, and responded generously. Mr. Joseph Fields did the soliciting and managed the distribution of the goods. This brings us down to the time when the Santa Fe Railroad came to the place of the trail at Harveyville in 1880. The day the bonds were voted in Harvey Settlement, a wagon load of hop tea was sent by the railroad company as a gentle persuader. Then the town was laid out. Some years before this a town site had been located about a mile north of the present site, called Lexington, but no lots were sold.

It cannot be called rolling or undulating prairie, and I know of no word more appropriate to express the topography of the center of the county than "bluffy." It is one continuous chain of bluffs, some higher than the others. The uncertainty of the uplands for crops, except in unusually wet seasons, has caused settlers to locate chiefly on the low-lying lands along the streams and creeks; but while the upland prairie is almost destitute of settlement, there is not a single foot of the soil but has passed into individual ownership, and while it is still unoccupied, it is nearly all under fence, and it is no unusual thing to see tracts containing thousands of acres embraced within one enclosure. .