The mysterious Garley Post Office

“The first post office in the Jewell County was established here.” This fact was part of Mayor J. W.  Berry’s speech at the Old Settlers gathering held in Jewell 1898. 

That first post office, according to the Sept. 9, 1910, Jewell County Republican and the Sept. 9, 1921, Republican, was called “Garley.” It was manned by the first postmaster in Jewell County, John B. Hoffer.

Jewell County’s first mail was received from Lake Sibley on July 1, 1870. July 1 was also the date given in Winsor and Scarbrough’s “History of Jewell County, Kansas.” However, July 4, 1870 was reported in the July 15, 1880, Jewell County Monitor as the date the first mail arrived. The Monitor article did not reference “Garley.”

The Monitor article did report the mail came by horseback from Lake Sibley in Cloud County and was distributed from Hoffer’s “long cabin shanty.” The cabin was likely on his homestead in the NE 1⁄4 of Buffalo Township’s Section 31 near Buffalo Creek on the eastern edge of present-day Jewell. 

The two Republican articles and Winsor and Scarbrough’s notation are the only references to “Garley” as a post office in Jewell County that have been located by this researcher. The records of the U.S. Post Office do not note a “Garley Post Office” in Jewell County. 

There was a Garley Post Office in Cloud County but it was not established until 1876. The Kansas State Historical Society’s “Kansas Post Offices, 1828 to 1961” lists only one Garley Post Office in Kansas, that being the one in Cloud County. The 1878 Kansas Gazetteer does not list any place in Kansas with the name of “Garley.”

The records from the “Appointments of U.S. Postmasters” (Ancestry.com) lists Jewell as the first post office in Jewell County. The office was organized on July 7, 1870 with John Hoffer as the first postmaster. 

It should be noted, the second post office was the Vicksbourg Post Office with postmaster Andrew Hoyland. It was also organized on July 7, 1870. There is no record of when mail first arrived at the Vicksbourg Post Office. The name was changed to the Randall Post Office on Oct. 24, 1881.

It would seem the name “Garley” was not official nor used for any length of time. A historical enigma with all official records making no mention of the mysterious“Garley.” Official records, beginning on July 7, 1870, cite “Jewell” as the name of the post office with John Hoffer as the postmaster.

Hoffer was born Sept. 22, 1843 in Pennsylvania (likely Lancaster) to Joseph and Mary Rine Hoffer. He was the seventh of 15 children born to the Mennonite couple. 

John Hoffer was one of the early settlers on Buffalo Creek. He arrived in Jewell County on April 12, 1870 with 10 other men from Stephenson County, Illinois. (July 15, 1876, Jewell County Diamond and Winsor and Scarbrough’s “History of Jewell County, Kansas.”)  He is one of the 205 people enumerated in the 1870 U. S. Census. 

Hoffer’s cabin was the site of two significant Jewell County events. It has already been noted as the site from which the first mail in the county was distributed in early July of 1870. Before that, on May 13, 1870, his cabin was the gathering place for the 28 men who organized the Buffalo Militia and built Fort Jewell. (Jan. 19, 1878, Jewell County Diamond).

Postal records show that John Hoffer served as the Jewell Postmaster from July 7, 1870 until Oct. 26, 1870, when Zachariah F. Dodge became the second postmaster.  For some time, Hoffer continued to live in the Jewell area. He received the patent for his homestead on Oct. 30, 1877.

John Hoffer and Clara Brenizer were married on Sept. 22, 1874. Where isn’t known but she was also from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They had two sons, John and Curtis.

Hoffer continued to farm but eventually he had a furniture and grocery store. The furniture store opened in 1880 with “coffins constantly kept on hand.”  (April 2, 1880, Jewell County Republican) By 1881, he had both groceries and furniture with his groceries “fresh and of the best kind.”  (Jan. 21, 1881, Jewell County Republican)

John and Clara stayed in Jewell until the mid-1890s when they moved to California. They lived in San Francisco until their deaths in 1936 and 1918 respectively.

But by 1885, John’s younger brother, William Hoffer, had arrived in Jewell County. William was the 14th child of Joseph and Mary Rine Hoffer. William and his descendants remained in the Jewell area. William is the great-grandfather of current Jewell resident, Roy Hoffer. This makes Postmaster John Hoffer, Roy’s great-great- uncle.