northwest quarter of the same section; Jos. Fisher on the northeast quarter, of section 18, township 15, range 10, Frank Stehno, jr., on the southwest quarter, and V. Mares on the northwest quarter of the same section; Jos. Bachura later on settled on the southeast quarter of section 6. Frank Dolezal bought a relinquishment from Ira E. Danner, a veteran of the Civil War, of the southwest quarter of section 24, township 14, range 10, in Wilson township. Ján Cikánek settled on the northwest quarter of section 30, township 14, range 9, now in Columbia township. Frank and Jos. Brichácek, Jan Schánilec, and Frank Novak and brother settled near the Saline river in Lincoln county, close to Sylvan Grove, where also located the Frank Urban family that came from Washington county, Iowa, in 1882, and from Strejchov near Bechyne, Bohemia, in 1867. Starting in Iowa city as a laborer, Mr. Urban now owns a fine residence in Wilson, to which he retired from his farm in Lincoln county, where he and his sons own land to the amount of 1760 acres. This is by no means an isolated example of thrift, and it should be remembered that there were no free homesteads to be had when the Urban family came to this section of Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Josef Veverka, sr., came from Chicago, on the 17th day of January, 1878, with a family of small children, all too small to do much work, and a small capital. They bought the relinquishments to the southwest quarter of section 2, township 14, range 11, in Plymouth township, Russell county, of Vac Chrudimsky. Mr. Veverka, being located on the ridge that divides the waters of the Smoky Hill and Saline rivers right where there are building-stone quarries in abundance, made good use of them, putting up all farm buildings, and even a corral, of the magnesia limestone. Mrs. Veverka was an excellent business manager and her husband a hard worker; so they could not help but prosper, raising four sons and three daughters. They now live in a fine residence in Wilson, and recently sold a four-hundred-acre farm. Their sons own upwards of one thousand and forty acres of land. There are many more who have acquired much land, in fact the thrifty are too numerous to name.
The colony’s first sad misfortune occurred December 21, 1875, when Mr. Frank Hubka, who built in the ravine near the big curve of the Kansas Pacific railroad, was digging a well, and his neighbor, Mr. Josef Krofta, was helping. They had reached a depth of about twelve feet, going through sand, when what should have been expected happened. The sand caved in onto Mr. Krofta, burying him in the hole. A messenger was sent over two miles on foot to tell the writer of the accident. Knowing that the people near there had no material necessary in such a case, I lost no time in driving my wagon to Wilson, two and a half miles, getting what lumber I estimated to make the hole in that sand safe for a human being.
When I arrived at the hole with my tools, lumber, and the three railroad section hands I had impressed into service, I found the wife of the unfortunate Krofta down in the hole frantically trying to extricate her young husband from that treacherous and persistent sand and from the awful fate of being buried alive. Every move she made and every handful of sand she lifted from over her loved one's head brought down much more on all sides of her. She, herself, looked to me in the very jaws of death, the sand piling about her ready to swallow her on top of her beloved husband. Her mad efforts only succeeded in uncovering Krofta's head so as to let the air to his mouth, but
