I wanted to post an update to let everyone know how the Amarugia book was coming and what I have been working on.  Over the holidays I had several days off and made a great deal of progress on the book.  I feel like I have gathered and deciphered most of the material gathered from written and online sources.  I have most of that information written up and I have determined which pieces make sense for the book and which ones do not.  I have completed a first draft of certain chapters of the book while others are only a collection of notes at this point.

My focus over the break has been to dig into both online sources and sources found at the Cass County Archives to identity key historical figures that need to be included in the telling of the story.  To find and verify these figures I relied on online genealogical resources, land transfer records, census records, and regional maps found mostly at the Cass County Historical Society.  A huge thanks to Jennifer Reed at the Historical Society for her help with this effort.

I had originally targeted late spring for the release of this book.  I don’t think I’m going to make that date, it will more likely be sometime in the summer.  At this point the reason for the delay is that I really want to get out and hike in the area to find the locations of key points of interest of the Amarugia Kingdom.  Selfishly, I don’t really want to do this is winter, but another reason is that the pictures will be better if they are in the spring.  I’d love to get pictures of the location of Oak Grove School, Christianson Hill, Owens Creek and any other historical places that anyone might be aware of.

To be honest, I have a good idea of where some of these items are but will need to figure out permissions to get to them as well as permission to use images of those sites.  Anyone that could help me find and photograph any of these sites, please contact me at jonarcherjones@gmail.com.   I would really appreciate your help.

In the same vein, I’m still seeking anyone who might have stories or family images of anything related to the Kingdom.  If you have read any of my books, (and if you haven’t, shame on you) you know that I like to include as many pictures as possible.  So far, the publicly available “Amarugia” pictures are few and far between.  I’m looking for images or any other information of the following Amarugians:  Jacob Weddington, David Wilson, Elias Owens, Greenburg Owens, Elizabeth Owens, Thomas Wadkins Bundy, Sara Renolds Bundy, HH Parish, JF Davenport, Samuel Weddington, Clara Belle Garrett Weddington, Jeremiah Dorsett, Evan Henten Fortner, Charles H Parish, Lloyd L Luckeman, Bur Mcanally, John N. Davidson.

Also, any images from the area, or from Everett around the 1880 – 1920 timeframe would be great.  I have tried this method to reach out before to anyone who has any info and I have unfortunately not gotten much in the way of feedback.  The book will be more complete if I can include more local flavor provided by residents, past or present.  If you have any information about the people or places above, I’d love to speak with your about them.  Please contact me at jonarcherjones@gmail.com.

As always, thanks for following my work.  I will be republishing previous posts in the February and March and then be back with new content in April, when my post will be about the Kaw Indian School in Council Grove, Kansas.