NOTE: Elijah Hise Norton is either my great-great-grandfather or my g-g-g GF. I’m going to double-check the number of ‘greats’ when I get home. Also, see further notes below.
I was watching an Atchison DVD at my first official stop that morning. I heard a name that I thought to be Elijah Norton and the phrase ‘one of the founders of Atchison’. That piqued my interest, as I have a distant relative of the same name. Later, I checked Google and after awhile I found this sentence buried in the middle of one of the links:
All the preliminaries having therefore been satisfactorily arranged, Messrs. Stringfellow, Owens, Oldham, Morris, Martin, Million, and Dickerson agreed to form a town company and receive into their organization six additional parties, vis: David R. Atchison, Elisha Green, E. H. Norton, P.T. Abell and B. F. Stringfellow (as one), Burnes brothers (as one) and Stephen Johnson.
Now it gets interesting: 1. My relative’s name was Elijah Hise Norton. 2. The bulk of these men were from Platte City, MO, as was Elijah. So I believe my g-g-grandfather was a co-founder of Atchison!! The Atchison people were as surprised and excited as I was/am!! (Do you think they’ll let me attend the Founders Day Parade?)
Further notes of interest:
- Elijah Hise Norton was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri. We may hear more about him at my next stop in Jefferson City. (His picture hangs in the actual Chamber of the Court.)
- Atchison was named for David Rice Atchison (listed above), who was actually a US Senator from Missouri. Indeed, he was actually the 12th President of the United States for one day when Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn in on a Sunday (and the VP’s term had expired). Interesting story.
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