People

Nettie Craig Asberry is considered the first Black woman to earn a doctorate degree. Her family settled in Nicodemus in 1879, and she taught in town from 1886-1889, teaching both at the District No. 1 School and offering private music lessons. Asberry spent most of her life in Tacoma, Washington where she continued to teach music and advocated for the equal rights of all.

As an early settler, Zachariah T. Fletcher was instrumental in the development of Nicodemus. He opened a general store, the town’s first business, in the fall of 1877 and opened Nicodemus’s first post office, operating as its first postmaster. Z. T. Fletcher and his family were heavily involved in several aspects of the community including education, businesses, and local politics.

Charles Page was a veteran and Black homesteader who went west with the Exoduster movement. He homesteaded in the Black colony of Nicodemus, Kansas. He proved up and acquired the patent to his land in June 1887. Between proving up and receiving his patent he moved to Atchison, Kansas. There he made a name for himself and became wealthy working as a houseman.

Edward P. McCabe moved to Nicodemus in 1878 and quickly became involved in local politics, helping establish Nicodemus as a permanent community. With Nicodemus as his political launching point, McCabe became a trailblazer for Black politicians west of the Mississippi River, pushing for equality through legislation and breaking racial barriers in the governments of Kansas and Oklahoma Territory from the 1880s through the 1900s.

Abraham Hall was a civil war veteran, railroad porter, Nicodemus homesteader, and business owner. Hall enlisted into the Union Army serving in the 117th U.S. colored troops infantry, Company B for three years. He lived in Chicago working as a Porter for the Pullman Palace Car Company before deciding to take a chance out west by filing for a homestead claim in 1885. 

Kirtley arrived in Nicodemus in November 1878. He believed that owning land encouraged self-sufficiency. His passion, however, was education. As a child denied the chance to learn to read and write, he arrived in Nicodemus carrying books. He worked with other community members to organize the community's first school and permitted the students to use the books that he had brought with him.

In the spring of 1878, Daniel and Willianna Hickman and about 150 other formerly enslaved people left Georgetown, Kentucky. They traveled by train to Ellis, Kansas and then on foot to Nicodemus. Attracted by the allure of what was predicted to be the “largest Colored Community in America”, the Hickmans and others saw homesteading on the frontier of Kansas as a new beginning. As a Baptist pastor, Daniel was leadership figure in the Black community of Nicodemus.

Albert Fisher filed a homestead claim at the Kirwin, Kansas Land Office in 1879, and worked diligently to prove up on this claim with his wife, Eliza. Albert Fisher was one of the first settlers in the Wildhorse township of Graham County, Kansas and was incredibly involved within his community. Fisher was also a Civil War veteran. In 1885, he was chosen to be a part of Graham County’s Republican convention.