Brief
History from Kansas State Historical
Society:
Marion County was
organized on July 6, 1865, by George
Griffith; William H. Billins; William P.
Shreve; Reuben Riggs;
A. E. Case; and A. A. More. The
county was named for General Francis
Marion, Revolutionary War hero, and
contains the
cities of Peabody, Tampa,
Lincolnville, Ramona, Durham,
Florence, Hillsboro, Lehigh, Lost Springs,
Marion, Burns and
Goessel. Although based in fact,
many stories of legendary proportions
surround the area of land one section wide
and
eighteen sections long along the
east boundary of the county. A murder had
been committed in the area and Marion
County
did not want to have the trial so
they gave those sections to Chase County
to make certain the murder had occurred in
that
county.
The immigration of
Mennonites from Russia in 1874 and their
purchase of vast acreages of government
and railroad land;
and the large purchases of land by
William Scully, of Illinois, between 1870
and 1885 and his introduction of the
Scully land
system, which included tenant
farming and drain tiling the fields, both
helped the early settlement and
development of the
county. The Scully estate still
owned 53,491 acres in as late as 1942.
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