Hamlin

Hamlin is an itty bitty town, boasting a population of just 46 in the 2010 census. This is quite a step down from the 1910 census figure of 208.

Interestingly, Ellen Palmer Allerton, the poet who I mentioned in our post about Padonia, is apparently buried in Hamlin's cemetery. Though maybe it's not that interesting -- I guess we all have to get buried somewhere.

By the time we rolled through, the rain had stopped and the kids were sleeping, so Magen and I got to take a selfie. There wasn't much more to the town than the grain elevator you see in the background, but there was a mighty pretty lady there for a little while at least. (And no, I'm not referring to Ellen Palmer Allerton's corpse.)

Padonia

Even in some of the earliest histories of Kansas, Padonia is mentioned as a township where businesses and services were declining. Today, it is more or less a ghost town. Only a small group of houses and a grain elevator and remain, though in the past it also had a mill.

We've loved seeing the kids get old enough to take their own pictures on these little trips. On this occasion, it was raining quite a bit, so the kids did all the photography in the rain while Magen and I stayed in the van and cuddled. Pretty convenient for the parents of this outfit!

One of the most famous residents of Padonia was the poet Ellen Palmer Allerton, who arrived in a covered wagon in 1879. Two of her poetry collections are available on Google Books: Annabel, and Other Poems and Walls of Corn and Other Poems. Here are some lovely lines from "Annabel" that capture the sense of place that permeates her poetry:

Look there, my friend, through yonder clump of trees. 

You see yon lofty, weather-beaten wall?

You hear the hum of wheels, the broken fall 

Of pent up waters borne along the breeze? 

That is the old brown mill. Its walls have stood 

While children's children have grown old and gray, 

While ruthless axes have hewn down the wood,

And yonder town has grown, rood after rood, 

The mill has stood there as it stands today.