Comstock family serves three Jewell County post offices

The March 11, 1886 Burr Oak Herald proclaimed, "It is stated upon good authority that Ibaton, in this county, and Cora, in Smith, were named for Iba and Cora, two daughters of Thomas Comstock, one of the first settlers above Burr Oak, on White Rock Creek."

Both Ibaton and Cora were post offices as well as communities. Comstock was a postmaster but didn't serve as the postmaster at either of the post offices named for his daughters. He served as White Mound postmaster from June 15, 1871 to Jan. 21, 1874. Comstock's two homesteads, in sections 19 and 30 of Burr Oak Township, were just across the road from the post offices' locations.

On the 1878 map of Jewell County, the White Mound Post Office is shown in the SE 1⁄4 of Section 24 of White Mound Township. Today this location is the northwest corner of the intersection of U Road and 70 Road.

Both the township and the post office are named for White Mound. That geophysical feature – a single large outcropping of white rock on the prairie is today not as stark a contrast as in pioneer days. It is smaller, more covered with trees and importantly, on private property.

The White Mound Post Office was a relatively early post office. It was organized as Jewell County's 11th post office on June 15,1871 with Comstock as the first postmaster. There would be only two other postmasters in the less than eight years the post office existed.

According to his obituary, Comstock had arrived with his family in Jewell County on May 2, 1870 (Dec. 12, 1901-The Esbon Times). They were among the earliest arrivals. He had been born in Ohio and lived in Iowa before trekking farther west. As were many settlers, he was a Civil War veteran.

The family stayed only about 10 years in Jewell County before moving to Lawrence, Kan. Though they left Jewell County, both Comstock and his wife, Jane Elizabeth Lyons Comstock, returned to Jewell County at the end of their lives. Both died at the home of their daughter, Cora Comstock Michaels, in White Mound Township.

Thomas Comstock was buried in Kindler Cemetery west of Esbon in 1901. Jane Lyons Comstock was buried there in 1913. Kindler Cemetery is today known as the Esbon Cemetery and is located on R Road about a half mile east of 50 Road near Esbon.

The next postmaster was a widow, Mrs. Mariah E. Farnham Clemons. She was born in New York, but it is not known where else she lived or when she arrived in Jewell County. It is thought her husband, Henry, died around 1873.

Clemons served from Jan. 21, 1874 to Aug. 9, 1875. When she married Sylvester J. Foster, she had to be reappointed to the postmaster position as Mrs. Mariah E. Foster. She continued to serve until Nov. 19 1878.

Clemons-Foster received the patent for her homesteads on July 23, 1880. The land was located in Section 24 of White Mound Township, just as the post office was. Little else is known about this White Mound postmaster.

The last White Mound postmaster was John Hill. His term as postmaster was brief, only the three months from Nov. 19, 1878 to Feb. 12, 1879. The 1884 Jewell County Atlas shows a J. Hill owning the SE 1⁄4 of the SE 1⁄4 of Section 24, the location given for the post office.

John Hill was not a homesteader but he is found living in White Mound Township in various census, cemetery and postal documents from 1878 to 1915. Hill was born in Ohio then lived and married in Illinois before coming to Kansas.

His first wife, Elizabeth Adeline Burrow Hill, died Oct. 15, 1880, and was buried in Baker Cemetery west of Burr Oak. Hill's second wife, Mary Jane Mayfield Hill, died in 1898 and is also buried in Baker Cemetery. When "Uncle John Hill" died July 15, 1915, he was also buried there.

Just a few words tell the story of the White Rock Post Office. One of the several Jewell County post offices leaving but a faint historical trace of their existence.