Marshall County KS Archives Biographies.....Haslett, Melissa 1838 - living in 1917
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com July 21, 2005, 5:22 am

Author: B. F. Bowen

MRS. MELISSA HASLETT.

    Mrs. Melissa Haslett is one of the real pioneers of Marshall county and
there are few who have more vivid or distinct recollections of the days of the
unbroken prairie and of the open range, of the days before the railroad had
penetrated into this part of Kansas and when the lumbering ox carts or the mule
trains over the old Overland trail afforded the only means of transportation.
She came into Kansas when a young woman with her parents in territorial days,
the family settling on a pioneer farm four miles northeast of where Frankfort
later sprang up, and she ever since has been a resident of this county;
therefore thoroughly familiar with the history of the same from the days of the
very beginning of a social order hereabout and has ever done well her part in
the development of the social and cultural life of the community of which she
has been a member since the days of her girlhood, even before Kansas had taken
her place in the proud sisterhood of states.

    Melissa Mitchell was born in Calhoun county, Michigan, August 3, 1838, a
daughter of George and Maria (Brainard) Mitchell, natives of the state of New
York and pioneers of Michigan, who were the parents of six children, three of
whom grew to maturity, Mrs. Haslett having a brother, Edwin Mitchell, and a
sister, Mrs. Myla Herrick, both of Clay Center, this state. George Mitchell died
in Michigan in 1847 and in 1858 his widow and her children came to Kansas,
settling four miles northeast of the present city of Frankfort, where they
established their home, thus having been among the very earliest settlers in
this part of Kansas. Mrs. Mitchell was married four times. She had five children
by her first husband. He died in Michigan; then she married a Mr. Caldwell, by
whom she had one child. He also died in Michigan. Then she married George
Marshall, with whom she came to Kansas; no children were born. He died and was
buried in Kansas. Her last husband was a Mr. Striker; there were no children.
Years later Mrs. Striker moved to Clay Center, where she spent her last days,
her death occurring in 1908. She was born in 1818 and had thus reached the great
age of ninety years at the time of her death.

    On July 3, 1858, the year in which she came to Kansas, Melissa Mitchell was
united in marriage to Harvey Randall, a cabinet-maker who had come out here to
try his fortunes on the plains; both came together; they were married in
Michigan. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Randall pre-empted a tract of one
hundred and twenty acres of land four and one-half miles northeast of where
Frankfort later sprang up and there built a log house which cost them six
dollars. This house had neither windows nor a floor and had but a "shake" roof,
about as humble a dwelling as any young couple ever started housekeeping in, but
their hearts were strong and their hands willing and they started in to develop
a real home there on the wind-swept plain and were doing very well when the
Civil War broke out. Mr. Randall at once enlisted his services in defense of the
Union and in 1861 went to the front as a member of Company D, Eighth Regiment,
Kansas Volunteer Infantry, with which command he served until his death in 1862,
dying in the service of his country. When her husband went to war Mrs. Randall
left her humble farm home and with her two children rejoined her mother in the
latter's home farther to the south, where she made her home until her marriage
in 1865 to Charles Haslett, a native of Vermont, who had come to Kansas in 1860
and was a veteran of the Civil War, he also having gone to the front with the
Eighth Kansas, with which command he served until his honorable discharge on
account of disabilities incurred in Andersonville prison. Mr. Haslett served for
fifteen months in Rebel prisons, having been moved from one to another until
finally, the fourth move, he found- himself in dreaded Andersonville. Upon his
final exchange and removal from that horrid prison pen, he was in such a reduced
physical condition that he was honorably discharged from service and returned to
his home in Kansas.

    After her second marriage, Mrs. Haslett returned to her farm northeast of
Frankfort and found that during her absence the log house which she had left
there had been torn down and carried away by some unscrupulous but enterprising
settler who no doubt wanted the logs for use on his own claim, and it became
necessary for her and Mr. Haslett at once to erect a new house. They built a
neat frame house, thirty-four by fourteen feet, and there, for a second time,
this pioneer woman started in housekeeping. Their affairs prospered and though
they suffered, in common with all the early settlers of this county, during the
days of the grasshoppers and the scourging hot winds, they gradually built up a
good piece of property, adding to their holdings until they became the owners of
a fine farm of one hundred and sixty acres. There they made their home until
1895, when they left the farm and moved to Frankfort, where Mr. Haslett died in
1902, he then being seventy years of age, and where Mrs. Haslett is still
living, one of the honored pioneer residents of Marshall county. Mrs. Haslett
still owns her farm, deriving a comfortable income from its rental.

    By her first marriage Mrs. Haslett had two children, Clara, who died in
1863, and Harvey Randall, who is now engaged in the loan business at Oklahoma
City. To her second union four children were born, namely: Myla Mayme, who
married Z. M. Robison and died in 1911, leaving seven children, Elmer, Ollie.
Melissa, Charles, Gertrude, Iva and Guy: Edwin Elliot, who died in youth; Ira,
who also died in youth, and Henry, of Morris county, this state, who has been
twice married and is now a widower with one child, a son, Walter. Mrs. Haslett
has ten great-grandchildren, Elmer Robison, who lives in North Dakota, having
two children: Mrs. Ollie (Robison) Pendleton. of Oklahoma, having two children:
Mrs. Melissa (Robison) Line, of Illinois, having four children, and Mrs.
Gertrude (Robison) Peterson, of Texas, having two children. Charles Robison
lives in Salt Lake City and Iva and Guy Robison are living in New York with
their father.

    Mr. Haslett was an active member of the local post of the Grand Army of the
Republic and Mrs. Haslett has been a member of the Woman's Relief Corps since
the organization of the same at Frankfort, ever taking a warm interest in the
beneficent objects of that patriotic body. Mrs. Haslett retains very vivid
recollections of pioneer days here on the plains and is a veritable mine of
information concerning matters relating to pioneer days. She recalls that the
first year she and Mr. Randall occupied their pre-emption claim their taxes
amounted to two dollars and fifty cents. On the nights preceding January 1,
1861, they attended a "watch meeting" at the home of a neighbor, two miles
distant, driving across the prairie with their ox-teams through snow four feet
deep. Mrs. Haslett said the funny thing about this was, there was neither a
watch nor a clock in the house. They only had an almanac and watched by that,
knowing that the moon would rise by 11 P. M. On July 4 of that same year they
attended a picnic at the Barrett settlement, to which all the settlers for miles
about drove in, there being about sixty persons present thus to celebrate the
national holiday out here on the plains. When Mrs. Haslett came to Kansas the
nearest market was at Atchison and they drove over each fall, "if they had the
money"; otherwise they did without and got along as well as they could with the
products of their own hands. That, of course, was before the days of the
railroads or of established highways and the settlers drove their ox-teams by
the shortest route, right out over the open range, definite trails thus
gradually becoming established, the same serving as highways until a proper
system of roads gradually was evolved as the country became settled and the
range became fenced.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

History of Marshall County, Kansas: its people, industries, and institutions
by
Emma E. Forter

Indianapolis, Ind.: B.F. Bowen & Co. (1917)

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ks/marshall/bios/haslett15bs.txt

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