The oxen slowly responded to the gee, haw, and halt command of Augustus
     B. Reynolds and young son, Holden (22 years), Old Kiowa was in sight!
     September 15, 1877.
       In two prairie schooners the family had been enroute five months from
     Whitehall, New York. The wagons were wearing out, the animals walked slowly
     through belldeep prairie grasses. The family walked in the shade of the
     schooner. Margaret Ann Holden Reynolds carried the youngest daughter,
     "Gussie", eleven months old. Three sons followed: Fred, 12, George, 9,
     Clarence, 5. They stumbled in the grass as thick and high as their heads.
     Jesse 16, walked near the team, learning to drive oxen.
       The wagons carried few housekeeping items, clothing, bedding, a limited
     supply of food purchased in cow-town Wichita.
       Augustus selected the homestead on the Medicine River. There the family
     lived for six years in their Sod Castle. (The dugout was north of Old Kiowa
     about three miles on the west side of the river.) He farmed (corn) and 
     raised cattle.
       The family experienced hardships common to the Kansas pioneer. Severe
     storms; rain, sleet, snow. Strong winds, lightning and thunder. Hunger.
     Son, Jesse, died, age seventeen, of a rattlesnake bit, buried at sun-down
     in an unmarked prairie grave. Remembered only by the family. Son, Clarence,
     buried in Old Kiowa Cemetery, 1888, dead of typhoid fever, caused by drinking
     impure water from the river. Augustus blamed the pollution on the influx
     of people and cattle into the area.
       In 1884 the family moved to the Cedar Hills Ranch. Red sandstone was
     hauled by sled and oxen to build a one-room home. The house was enlarged
     with sleeping rooms upstairs. A deep well was hand-dug near the house. 
     Pure drinking water. (The well exists today.)
       Augustus died in the home in 1903. Margaret, as was the custom, lived
     with the children until death in 1925, rural Hazelton.
       Augustus Reynolds descended from an English family who immigrated to
     Massachusetts in 1630. Family members were participants in the wars of
     our country. Mainly protestants. Mainly farmers in his direct line. He
     was educatied in New York state by Judge Jabez Hammond. Margaret Ann 
     Holden, descended from an immigrant English family who were farmers and
     millers; closely allied with the Church of England. She was educated in
     private schools in Canada.
       Daughter Augusta, educated in Canada taught school in Barber County
     until married to Hugh Wible. Fred homesteaded a farm near Syracuse.
     Holden, a cowboy on the Jones, Plumer and New Western Trail, homesteaded
     a farm in Oklahoma. George, a cowboy on the same trail, farmed near
     Hazelton.
       Today, Augustus and Margaret have a great grandson, Donald Spicer, who
     farms in Barber County, near Hazelton. Brenda Spicer Odell, who is in
     business in Hazelton, is a great-great-granddaughter.
       Other descendents may be found in Kansas, Oklahoma, Washington, Alaska,
     and California. We are proud of our pioneer heritage. Proud of our roots
     deep in the prairie land of Barber County.
     
                
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas, pg. 380 
     Submitted by: Bertha Reynolds Wilson