Nicodemus, Kansas

Nicodemus, Kansas is the only remaining western community established by African Americans after the Civil War. In the late 1870s the black population of the South was extremely restless as the Reconstruction following the Civil War failed to bring the long awaited freedom, equality and prosperity. Instead, they were racially oppressed, poverty-stricken, debt-ridden and starving. W.R. Hill, a white land developer from Indiana, described a "Promised Land” in Kansas to black families in the backwoods of Kentucky and Tennessee. Hill told of a sparsely settled territory with abundant wild game, wild horses that could be tamed, and an opportunity to own land through the homesteading process in Nicodemus, Kansas. The town site of Nicodemus, named for a legendary figure that came to America on a slave ship and later purchased his freedom, was planned in 1877 by Hill and Reverend W.H. Smith, a black man. The Reverend Simon P. Roundtree was the first settler, arriving on June 18, 1877. Zack T. Fletcher and his wife, Jenny Smith Fletcher (the daughter of Reverend W.H. Smith) arrived in July. Smith, Roundtree, and the Fletchers made claims to their property and built temporary homes in dugouts along the prairie. The Nicodemus Town Company produced numerous circulars to promote the town, inviting "Colored People of the United States” to come and settle in the "Great Solomon Valley.” The Reverend Roundtree became actively involved in the promotion and worked with a man by the name of Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, a black carpenter from Nashville, who traveled all over distributing the circulars. Singleton, who could not read or write, distributed so many circulars that he was sometimes called the "Moses of the Colored Exodus." The Blacks who decided to emigrate soon acquired the name "Exodusters". The black refugees associated Kansas with the Underground Railroad and the fiery abolitionist John Brown and were particularly responsive to opportunities to settle there. Handbills and fliers distributed by the Nicodemus Town Company portrayed Nicodemus as a place for African-Americans to establish Black self-government. At the same time, railroads, needing to populate the West to create markets for their services, exaggerated the qualities of the soils and climate in this "Western Eden.” By 1886 Nicodemus had become a prosperous community of 600 residents surrounded by black-owned farms. The town had two newspapers, a drugstore, a bank, schoolhouse, three churches, and a general store. The general store was erected by S. G. Wilson in 1879 as the first two story building in the town. Nicodemus’s most prominent citizen, Edwin P. McCabe, arrived 1878. McCabe served the community as an attorney, land agent, and later county clerk. In 1882 he became the highest-ranking African American elected official outside the South when he was elected the state auditor of Kansas. One of the town’s early settlers, Zachary Fletcher, became the first postmaster and first entrepreneur. He started the St. Francis Hotel and a livery stable. His wife Jenny Smith Fletcher was the town’s first schoolteacher. The post office, school, and hotel were all in the same building, the most prominent in town. The building still stands in Nicodemus today. By the late 1880s Nicodemus fell into decline. In 1885 winter blizzards destroyed forty percent of the township’s wheat crop. Then two years later town leaders had put sixteen thousand dollars in investment in three different railroads in hopes that one would extend its lines into or near their town; however, all three railroads bypassed Nicodemus. After that the town boosters ceased trying to lure newcomers, especially after the most prominent citizen Edwin McCabe left in 1889. Its population steadily declined and today there are about 40 residents.