The Emporia Weekly Gazette - 2 February 1926 - Page 4 - "OLD-TIMER'S COLUMN: The First Limekiln - One of the forgotten early-day industries of Lyon county is recalled by N. S. Fuqua, whose father, the late Richard Fuqua, owned and operated a limekiln in the Forest Hill neighborhood. It was located about an eighth of a mile east of the Forest Hill schoolhouse, on the north side of Sixth Avenue in a ravine near a sycamore tree. The sycamore was a sapling then, but has grown into a good-sized tree. Mr. Fuqua started burning lime from the stone on his farm in 1863, and continued in the business until 1869. He and members of his family did most of the work, including a large share of the hauling---and the hauling wasn't over paved roads, either. The first lime Mr. Fuqua sold was for the walls of Emporia's first school building, the Old Stone which stood until comparatively recent years at the corner of Seventh and Constitution, in a corner of the high school grounds. For this and most of the lime he sold Mr. Fuqua received 20 to 35 cents a bushel, and for that which went into the walls of the Atyeo building, Sixth and Mechanic, in 1869, he received 52 cents. This was the first home of the Newman store in Emporia. Lime now sells in Emporia lumber yards by the barrel and in 50-pound bags, the bags selling for 75 cents. Burning lime is hard work, and the profit was not great, says Mr. Fuqua. Richard Fuqua also furnished lime for the walls and plaster of the old courthouse, the old Elemendaro schoolhouse on Eagle creek, many residences, and the old Mackey brewery building on the bluffs north of the Teachers College. N. S. Fuqua attended school in the Old Stone, and Mary Jane Watson was his teacher. Other limekilns were started in Lyon county, but so far as Mr. Fuqua knows, they didn't last long. The J. H. Pearsons now own the Fuqua farm, and the farm which belonged to N. S. Fuqua's grandfather, N. S. Stevenson, lies south of the road. Mr. Stevenson preempted this quarter section in 1858. In 1864 he laid out the little cemetery on his farm just east of Badger creek, on a much larger scale than now appears. After his death, says Mr. Fuqua, his grandmother sold the farm, with the understanding on her part, that the entire cemetery, containing several acres, platted by Mr. Stevenson, was to be deeded back to her, or to a cemetery association. The new owner deeded back only one acre says Mr. Fuqua, and his grandmother, having made a verbal agreement, had no recourse. Few burials are made in the cemetery now, but many of the members of early-day families were interred there, Mr. Fuqua's father and mother and his grandparents and many other relatives, four or five generations, lie in this little plot, with a few evergreens and some forest trees standing like sentinels near them. Judge I. T. Richardson in the present owner of the old Stevenson farm. Mr. Fuqua tells of an abandoned cemetery, the old Roe burying ground, half a mile north of this one on Badger creek, in which many bodies were interred, but which has not been used for many years. The land around if has all been fenced, and there no longer is a road, he says, to the old burying ground, which is on the Hunter farm. Of the many members of the Stevenson family, Mrs. Annie Hughes, Longmont, Colo., is the only one living of the 10 children of whom Mr. Fuqua's mother was one. The old Ticer place, half a mile of so west of Badger Creek, a deserted farm with the house standing high on a bluff to the south of Sixth avenue---a particularly sightly location ---- was school land, and the Ticers bought a part of the present house in the early days and moved it to the land. The remaining members of the family live in California and refuse to sell the farm, hoping some day oil may be discovered on it. This place and the Hunter farm are among the few farms in this neighborhood held by descendants of the first settlers. Mr. Fuqua came to Kansas from Putnam county, Mo., in 1860. He was married May 4, 1881, to Miss Mary Williamson, who had come to Kansas from Beech Haven, Pa., in 1878. They left the Forest Hill neighborhood in the early eighties, and lived there and on a farm near by until 15 years ago, when they moved to Emporia. Their home is at 512 Market. Mr. Fuqua is caretaker for the City library and for the First Congregational church. The Fuquas have no children, but have two adopted daughters, Mrs. Hazel Robinson, who lives in Emporia, and Mrs. Mary Rickman, of California. They have partly reared half a dozen other children. --- L. M. F."