September 7, 2024

The newest acquisition by the Lone Jack Historical Society has quite a story to tell.

Lone Jack Historical Society volunteer, the late Stephanie Dyer, discussed with descendants of a Jackson County pioneer the importance of the Lone Jack Civil War Museum and its relevance in preserving the history of Ewing’s Order #11. These descendants had a handmade trunk from an ancestor they were interested in loaning to a museum for display.

While visiting with historical society president Alinda Miller and providing the trunk’s provenance, they learned they were distant cousins. During that visit to the museum, they decided instead to gift the trunk to the historical society as it fits nicely into its General Order #11 display.

Rev. Thomas Rule made the walnut trunk in Tennessee in 1830. A couple of years later he moved to Ray County, Missouri. He relocated from Ray County to Jackson County in 1836.

Rev. Rule was a primitive Baptist minister. In the early days of Jackson County, he was a prominent motivator in county affairs. Family tradition relates that he assisted in laying out Kansas City’s town plat with a grapevine, which served in place of a surveyor’s chain.

In 1829, John Stayton moved to Jackson County. He settled on 700 acres of government land on what is now Kiger Road in Independence. John built a small brick house with two rooms, where he remained until 1850 when he died.

John’s son Arthur married Delilah Wells in 1846. With his marriage, Arthur Stayton built a log cabin home on 40 acres of the old Stayton homestead.

Upon Delilah’s death, he married Harriett Rule in 1855. Harriett was the daughter of Rev. Thomas Rule, maker of the trunk. In 1862 he built a two-room brick house for Harriet. In 1870 he enhanced the home with a large addition.

When Ewing’s General Order No. 11 was issued in 1863, Arthur relocated his family to Texas. He took with him the handmade walnut chest, brought from Tennessee by his father-in-law Rev. Rule. This chest originally had a false bottom with a small box at one end, serving as a hiding place for valuables and money.

This trunk traveled from Tennessee, where it was created, to Ray County, Missouri, to Jackson County, to Texas and back to Jackson County.

A fly on the wall hears only what is said in that room. This trunk was privy to all that was said in each of the places it traveled through and to in its journeys. What was packed inside on each journey? What stories it could tell.

The estate of Gordon W. and Glenna M. Corn, great-granddaughter of Arthur Stayton, donated the handmade walnut trunk to the Lone Jack Historical Society. It is currently on display in the Lone Jack Civil War Museum.