Note: The Peabody Gazette gives us some real insight into life in Plum Grove in the late 1870s and early 1880s. In this weekly newspaper, we find columns entitled “Plum Grove Items.” These columns were mostly submitted by two authors. The first contributor signs his name “A Star Cus,” It is easy to deduce from the style the columns are written and the similarity of the name that this is Starchus M. Spencer. The other contributor signs his name “Num Skull.” We are never given a clue as to the identity of Num Skull. In these bi-monthly columns, both of these authors garner a lot of information about the people, the area, and the climate of Plum Grove and vicinity.
THE PEABODY GAZETTE
26 MARCH, 1880
PLUM GROVE, BUTLER CO., KANSAS, 26 MARCH, 1880
EDITOR Gazette:
We will take notice of what you said in your last issue and make our speeches short; we will only add that the GAZETTES failed to come to time last Friday, which caused the postmaster here to receive any amount of abuse, he in return, abused the editor and his devil. Why was it thusly?
👉🏻 Saturday, Butler county sent as delegates to the State Convention E. B. Brainerd, A. L. Redden, C. H. Kurtz, A. J. Uhl, Mat. Palmer and M. H. Taylor. Our ambassadors go uninstructed. They stand two for Grant and four for Blaine.
👉🏻 On Tuesday, Mr. James M. Tucker received a dispatch that his father was not expected to live; he took the Wednesday morning train for Roseville, Illinois.
👉🏻 The measles is still on the boom among children in this vicinity; schools are closed on that account.
YOURS,
A STAR✬CUSS.
𝚨nything for A Quiet LifeΩ 