NOTE: Elijah Hise Norton is either my great-great-grandfather or my g-g-g GF.  I’m going to double-check the number of ‘greats’ when I get home.  Also, see further notes below.

I was watching an Atchison DVD at my first official stop that morning.  I heard a name that I thought to be Elijah Norton and the phrase ‘one of the founders of Atchison’.  That piqued my interest, as I have a distant relative of the same name.  Later, I checked Google and after awhile I found this sentence buried in the middle of one of the links:

All the preliminaries having therefore been satisfactorily arranged, Messrs. Stringfellow, Owens, Oldham, Morris, Martin, Million, and Dickerson agreed to form a town company and receive into their organization six additional parties, vis:  David R. Atchison, Elisha Green, E. H. Norton, P.T. Abell and B. F. Stringfellow (as one), Burnes brothers (as one) and Stephen Johnson.

Now it gets interesting:  1.  My relative’s name was Elijah Hise Norton. 2.  The bulk of these men were from Platte City, MO, as was Elijah.  So I believe my g-g-grandfather was a co-founder of Atchison!!  The Atchison people were as surprised and excited as I was/am!!  (Do you think they’ll let me attend the Founders Day Parade?)

Further notes of interest:

1.  Elijah Hise Norton was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri.  We may hear more about him at my next stop in Jefferson City. (His picture hangs in the actual Chamber of the Court.)
2. Atchison was named for David Rice Atchison (listed above), who was actually a US Senator from Missouri.  Indeed, he was actually the 12th President of the United States for one day when Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn in on a Sunday (and the VP’s term had expired).  Interesting story.