This excerpt from Isaac Goodnow's "Personal Reminiscences and Kansas Emigration, 1855" recalls the consolidation of the Canton Company with Goodnow's part. In The Manhattan Mercury, February 14, 1888.
Samuel Dexter Houston
Samuel Dexter Houston was born in 1818. He first came to Kansas in 1853, illegally squatting on what was then indigenous land. Kansas Territory did not open until 1854, after which he joined with the following four men to create the Canton Company. Houston was a staunch Free-Soiler and was elected to the first territorial legislature. He had a long career as a public servant, not only in Manhattan but later in Junction City and Salina as well. Interestingly, his son-in-law Luke Parsons was an associate of famous Kansas John Brown.
He died on February 28, 1910, in Salina, Kansas.
Elisha M. Thurston
Elisha Madison Thurston was the Secretary of the Board of Education in Maine when he decided to join the 4th New England Emigrant Aid Company Party to Kansas. Always in poor health, he hoped that the frontier would rejuvenate him. It did not work, however; he died in 1859, only 5 years after arriving. At the time of his death, he was the mayor of Manhattan.
Today, Thurston Avenue in Manhattan is named after him.
Dr. Horace A. Wilcox
Reverand Horace A. Wilcox hailed from the New England region. Wilcox traveled to Kansas in 1854 with the other men of the Canton Company. He began bringing new settlers to Kansas in early 1855, and he continued to do so until he moved back to the New England region in 1859.
Judge Sanders W. Johnston
Sanders W. Johnston, a Kentucky native, went to study law with General Thomas L. Hamer in Ohio. In 1851, he was elected to the Ohio State Senate. Three years later, President Franklin Pierce appointed Johnston as one of 3 territorial Kansas judges. These three men were all pro-slavery sympathizers. Johnston received the Third District, which was comprised mostly of lands yet unsettled by white pioneers.
He came to Kansas in the fall of 1854, but since he came ahead of the Chief Justice, he could not yet complete any judicial work. He began to explore the territory, which is most likely how he met Samuel D. Houston and joined the Canton Company. Following a scandal involving the illegal sale and purchase of indigenous lands, Johnston, his fellow judge Rush Elmore, and the then-Governor Andrew H. Reeder were removed from their offices.
Judge J.M. Russell
Little is known about the life of J.M. Russell. He came from Iowa to become a founding member of the Canton Company. A year later, a Judge Russell was installed as a Blue River precinct judge, most likely him. However, after this, his path becomes unclear.
