Yesterday I wrapped up another visit to Moline, Kansas after doing more research in Sedan, Kansas, the county seat for Chautauqua County, trying to pinpoint the Cunningham Estate. Late morning, I visited the Shaffer House Museum in Moline after dropping by the library in town -- had stopped at the museum around 11:00 a.m. and found it closed again. The women at the library called Elaine, the proprietor for the museum, to see if she could open the museum for me to browse around again. I found nothing new during this visit but, did take pictures again of that Atlas for Elk County (hopefully better with the new camera).
After changing into shorts, I drove down route 99s to Angus Road and headed east toward county road 18 where I planned to drive south one more time with my Chautauqua County map that had my colored sections showing the Cunningham properties (the Cunningham Estate). Upon turning right on county road 18, my mind (and eyes) focused on the three northern properties in Elk County (Harvey, Henry and Adaline's) each 1/2 mi. X 1/2mi. The first fence running west marked the northern edge of the properties (1/2 mi. south of Angus Road). There was a line of trees running along the southern side of the fence with a small group of trees a few hundred yards away -- I imagined this would have been where the ruins of the Cunningham school could have been found but, I wasn't about to wander out through the waist deep grass (spiders, snakes and who knows what else would be waiting for me -- farmer with a shotgun?). I had been seeing a collection of spider webs draping across my windshield, radio antenna and side windows.
Another 1/4 mi. and I could see an old barn to my right and nearly where Old Man Cunningham's
house should have been. Then, road 18 hit county-line road and went left for about 1/4 mi. before it turned south for the remainder of my drive where it intersected Quivira Road at Union Chapel.
The first square mile on either side of Road 18 I knew to be Harvey Cunningham's property. The next 3/4 of a square to my right was also Harvey's, Sarah's or some combination belonging to the Cunningham's. One and a half miles south of County-line Road, the next mile and 1/2 mile to the west didn't belong to the Cunninghams but, as I drove down the road toward the valley and lake below, I could see tree-lined valleys to either side with the creeks running through them (North Caney Creek to the west).
As I reached the 2-1/2 mile mark from the county line, I noted that the property of Robt T. Cunningham started and ran 1/2 mile south, 1/2 mile to the east and a mile to the west into the valley on my right where North Caney Creek ran -- easy to imagine that is where that picnic took place (perhaps one reason that Robt. T is in that picture). I saw a dirt road running west through the pastures to the right (fenced off and directly across from the entrance to the Triple Seven Ranch). Another 1/2 mi. south, the road turned to the east along the bottom edge of Robt. T Cunningham's property. This also was the top edge (northern border) of Zachary T. Cunningham's property. The road turned and continued south through the biggest chunk of Zachary's property before reaching the bridge over Lake Quivira. Two more 1/2 mi. by 1/2mi. blocks of his property lay to the east and northeast like a checkerboard pattern.
When I reached the lake, there were lots of people out in boats and canoes. A beautiful place that may soon be ruined by some greedy, rich Texan who has acquired some 6,000 or 7,000 acres around the Boy Scout Camp -- probably looking to turn it into some private fishing and hunting club with million dollars homes embedded around the lake.
Glad to see another sunset (first one in Virginia since last fall). Now that the rain has stopped (mostly) will try to get the twins outside and perhaps enjoy that second sunset -- before heading out tomorrow for another 4 hour drive into Northern Virginia.
