Notables
Sam Radges
1843-1921
Section 58, Lot 40
Sam Radges was publisher of Topeka’s city directories for half a century. But the impression he made on the capital city went far deeper than the collection of addresses and phone numbers.
Radges came to Kansas in 1867. An Army buddy had connections with the White House and wrangled Radges an appointment as postmaster at Fort Dodge. Sam, who came to American from Britain in 1860, was eager to see the Wild West.
Radges’ predecessor had allowed the officers from the fort to sort the mail themselves – they got their own letters faster that way, they said. But he soon figured out they were also taking letters that might contain responses to complaints about their conduct.
After he posted a no-admittance sign on the mail sorting room, they officers started meeting the stagecoach and taking the mail directly from it.
Radges had mail from the government sent to Fort Hays instead and learned he was right.
At that point, he decided he needed to get out of Dodge.
His next stop was Topeka, and he published his first city directory for 1870-71. It included a historical sketch of the city and state “and other useful information.”
Among the facts about Topeka recorded in that edition are the first death and the first birth, the breaking of ground for Constitution Hall, and a description of how the town developed in terms of businesses and structures.
Radges described the early issues between pro-slavery forces and the free-staters. He reported how in 1857, when pro-slavers were preventing supplies from getting to Topeka, a group of free-staters raided pro-slave Tecumseh and Ozawkie and took all of their supplies.
Radges’ directories had comprehensive lists of schools, churches and clubs. Businesses were listed by category. Residents also were listed with addresses and later with professions added. It was supported by copious advertising.
It is Radges’ burial arrangements, though, that probably have gotten the most attention over the years, though.
He had a burial vault built in Topeka Cemetery, and so he could keep up with things after he was gone, he contracted with The Daily Capital to have the newspaper delivered to his tomb. An electric light was installed in case he wanted to read the paper after dark.
The Topeka Herald in 1904 described Radges’ final resting place thus:
“Located centrally and on one of the principal streets of the Topeka cemetery, Colonel Radges contracted for a burial vault to be built of marble and granite, with cut stone base and foundation, thoroughly cemented. The pattern was odd. Instead of being above the street level and imposing, it was to be low, and though substantial and costly was not to be showy. The entrance was set in a sort of area reached by two or three steps down from the walk, and a large marble slab served as the door. The top was an oval of curved slabs of marble. Upon the door was the name ‘Radges.’”
That was the year Radges got an offer to buy the vault from the family of a woman who said her dying wish was to be entombed there. He wanted none of it.
“If anyone wants that vault I’ll sell it,” he said, “but I refuse to make the bargain while the corpse lies awaiting the conclusion of the deal.”
The undertaker made the arrangements, and the vault was sold.
After the new owner took occupancy, a stand of ivy took root and provided a lovely decoration. Radges had tried for several growing seasons to get ivy to grow, so he was terribly disappointed when he saw the beautiful drape that would not root for him.
His eventual resting place does have a vault, but of a more modest design. It is a concrete box with a thick granite slab on top, commonly referred to as an in-ground crypt. It says simply “Sam Radges Sleeps Here.” The slab is aligned a bit askew from other monuments in the section. Radges insisted a compass be use to orient his crypt exactly east/west.
And he made sure his burial spot would be readily identifiable.
He was in a local establishment and overheard some Washburn students boasting about a prank – they had buried a 4- or 5-ton boulder that had been placed on campus as a memorial by the most recent graduating class.
He approached the group and offered to pay any of them who could find him a similar boulder. Several of the young men said they would look.
Eldon Tice, one of the seniors to whom he made his offer to buy a boulder, soon informed Radges that he had discovered a big one on the Popenoe farm about six miles southwest of Topeka that he thought would be large enough.
When Radges saw the boulder he was pleased. It was more than six feet high as it lay on the ground and about four feet thick and as round and smooth as though it had been fashioned by hand. A rough mathematical calculation revealed the fact that the stone weighed about six and one-half tons, or 13,000 pounds.
The large red stone is known as a glacial erratic, stones deposited millennia ago as glaciers moved across the region. It is an incredibly dense rock. Radges noted he had to pay the mason who carved his name on it by the hour, not by the letter.
Radges died Jan. 5, 1921, a few days after suffering a stroke. He was born in 1843 in London, where his father was the crown jeweler. His older brother was heir to that honor, so Sam came to America around 1860. He was just getting settled in Ohio when the Civil War began. He volunteered and served three years in the 74th Ohio Infantry.
In Topeka, Radges helped found the social group known as the Ananias Club, named for a character in the Bible who was called out by Jesus for lying. Radges’ title was “phenomenal prevaricator”; other members bore similarly distinctive designations – George W. Crane, egregious exaggerator; Hiram P. Dillon, felicitous fabricator; Cyrus K. Holliday, illustrious illusionist; Thomas A. Osborn, pungent punster, for instance. The club’s primary purpose was cultivation of members’ imaginations.
Radges also was a 33rd degree Mason and active in the affairs of the Grand Army of the Republic. He also helped run the local Humane Society.
Radges left funds in his will for the care of his housekeeper, Garnett McClintock, but she survived him by only a month. She is buried next to him.
