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Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Hackett Hill

Dale and Linda Hermreck recently discovered a personal connection to Franklin County's past. Their story involves a plot of land near Ottawa, an early settler from Canada, and a chance discussion about history.

Linda, a member of the Rural History Club, was at home one evening reading about Reuben Hackett, who was born in Quebec in 1810 and moved to Kansas Territory in 1854. He settled near the northern border of the county and later, in 1866, moved to a piece of high ground a few miles northwest of Ottawa. Reuben and his wife, Matilda, raised a family and lived the rest of their lives on this property, which became known as Hackett Hill.

Dale, center, and Linda, right, with Jim and Barbara Wonderly.
Dale listened as Linda read aloud about the Hacketts and their property. After 16 years as a Realtor, Dale knows Franklin County pretty well. The location sounded familiar, and the features of the land were distinctive. It had reportedly been the site of coal mines that Hackett developed. Most notably, it rose above the surrounding area and offered a view all the way to Baldwin City.

As his wife was reading, Dale made the connection.

"Linda," he said, "we own that land."

As it turned out, one of Dale and Linda's properties is about 160 acres of real estate northwest of Ottawa. Real estate known years ago as Hackett Hill.

Having connected the dots, they recently invited the rest of the club out for a tour. We arrived on a sunny fall morning to find a spectacular view--there, on the horizon, we could make out Baldwin City--and some relics that may have dated back to Reuben Hackett's day.

Over the years, the property had been subdivided. The Hackett home was on a separate plot to the west, across Louisiana Road. The Hermrecks own the eastern portion, where Hackett discovered coal and built miner's shacks. For a time, Hackett Hill was a small but thriving community, with a store, an inn, and even a post office.

That view
The land today features several acres of prairie, some woods, and a small pond. Down in the woods, we found a couple of rectangular foundations outlined with rows of carefully placed stone. One had a corner about 4 feet high with stone that arched inward, supported in part by concrete. Was this part of the inn? The post office? Something else? If only we knew. We also found a couple other foundations that looked newer, with concrete that was smooth and level as if poured by professionals with modern equipment.

We followed Dale a few yards away to a depression in the ground several feet deep. It was next to a mound of dirt, long ago covered with vegetation, that was several feet high. Could this have been the entrance to a mine? It seemed possible, but we couldn't be sure. We found another depression/mound combination on the edge of the woods.

The mines had been a family affair. Two of Rueben and Matilda's sons worked in them, and their daughters married men who worked them as well. After the Hacketts opened their mine, entrepreneurs in other parts of the county followed suit. A report from 1886 shows the Hackett mine as the only one in Centropolis Township, but several others operated in Greenwood and Williamsburg Townships. The largest mine in the county at that time was J.H. Ransom's in Williamsburg; it produced 10 times the coal as the Hackett mine.

Hackett lived in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois before moving to Kansas, and had studied law, made bricks, and piloted flatboats on the Mississippi River. He claimed that he was the first white man to raise a roof in Franklin County and that the first white child born in the county was his daughter Ella. As a Free Stater, he associated with John Brown, and he enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War with his son William. Reuben also served as the first Justice of the Peace in Franklin County.

Inn? Post office?
He was a published author as well, having written "Selected Sketches of Science, Art, and Literature" in 1876, two years after an invasion of grasshoppers ran off many Kansans. Hackett brushed off the plague and touted the state's many virtues:

"Grasshoppers and drouth are the only disadvantages of this country; these occur only at long intervals, and so far in our history have been followed with prolific years which have completely repaired the damage. We are not subject to floods, which are a thousand times more destructive and far reaching in their effects than grasshoppers and drouth."

He may have gone too far with that last part, but he happened to live in Franklin County between major floods. Had he arrived 10 years earlier or lived about 20 years longer, he would have seen firsthand the risks posed by the Marais des Cygnes River. He died on Hackett Hill in 1891; Matilda died two years later. They are buried in Highland Cemetery, Ottawa.

We thank Dale and Linda for the tour and wish them luck learning more about Hackett Hill.

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