Newton Ainsworth
Three miles south and a little west of Olathe is a farm, now under a high state of cultivation, which is of some past note from an occasional mention in history. Its note worthy feature was a lone elm tree, the stump of which is yet standing at the crossing of the old Boonville and Santa Fe Trail, and the head waters of Cedar Creek. This fact, and that of its being the first farm opened in that part of the county, gave it the name of “Lone Elm Farm” by which it will be known in future years. Its proprietor, Mr. Newton Ainsworth gives it the additional reputation of being one of the best stock farms in the county.
Mr. Ainsworth is one of the early pioneers of Kansas. He is a native of Montgomery County, Ohio, to which his father, John Ainsworth, removed at an early day from Pennsylvania. He is the fifth member of a family of six children, and was left an orphan by the death of his mother, at the age of four years. High education and social advantages were those incident to the times of early frontiering in Ohio. Through diligence he attained a fair common school education, and his majority found him possessed of a good team, a vigorous constitution, and industrious habits. Removing to the west in 1856, he located at Quindaro, Wyandott County, Kansas, and during the rise of that once prosperous place, speculated with much success in lots and town stock. The means thus gained secured him his present comfortable homestead, upon which he located in the spring of 1857, improving it even before the extinction of the Indian title. A view of his residence will be seen on page 37 of this work.
During the border troubles and the was following, Mr. Ainsworth was much of the time in Government employ, mostly freighting across the plains, and to the military posts west and north west. In the fall of ’69 he was married to Miss Rosa Hammond, of Leavenworth, late of Pennsylvania. The other members of his father’s family now living are all in the west, in the enjoyment of prosperity and plenty. The eldest, (now Mrs. Black,) occupies an adjoining farm; the second of age, John Ainsworth, died in 1871, possessed of an interesting family, and desirable homestead in Wyandott County, Richard M. is physician in Kansas City; Ephraim is a respected and well-to-do citizen of Spring Hill Township, this county. David E., the youngest and most promising member of the family, gave his life to his country’s cause, being killed in the battle of the Wilderness. He entered the service while attending college at Ann Arbor, Michigan, and received a lieutenant’s commission from which he was afterwards promoted to the captaincy.
Mr. Ainsworth in the better days of his middle life, boasts a competence well earned, and a homestead of which he may justly be proud—thoroughly improved and fitted to the breeding of improved stock, of which he shows at this date some of the best in the west, and upon which he carried off first premiums at the Kansas City exposition of 1873.
Atlas Map of Johnson County, Kansas, E. F. Heisler and Co., 1874, p. 54.
