Crumbs Along the Trail

About the Book

The Daniel Crumb family settled in Westerly, Rhode Island in 1669. For their service in the Indian war and the one for colonial freedom they were awarded land grants in central New York state. They then moved further west to establish a mill near De Ruyter forming a community known as Crumb Hill. During the War of 1812, family members became acquainted with an old sea captain who had political connections in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City and the state capital of New York. These people were seeking to further develop settlements which might support routes to the Northwest Territory. The captain encouraged the Crumbs to travel further west to the area beyond of the Finger Lakes. They did so using early features of the Erie Canal. The Crumb built mills formed new communities in the Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties of New York. Culver Crumb moved to Pennline, Pa. but stayed only ten years. With urgings from the American Settlement Company in early spring of 1857 after passing through the Midwest by train from Pennline to St. Louis, via Chicago, the Crumbs arrived by riverboat in Westport near Kansas City; the final leg of their journey on the Santa Fe Trail was by covered wagon to Council City, Kansas Territory. The dates of these journeys are established fact so the creative aspect of the writing deals with daily happenings in the lives of these people during these journeys and after their arrival in Kansas. G. Crumb

About the Author

The authors were both born and grew up on Kansas farmsteads within sight of the Santa Fe Trail. Their boyhood hunting forays frequently took them across the trail’s still visible ruts and by where the Santa Fe Trail crossed the Dragoon Creek. Marvin was born the same house where his father was born within easy view of the former home of their great grandfather C.G. Crumb a short distance from Havana. Although they both were active in grain farming as youngsters, they each took different vocational directions after reaching adulthood. Marvin Crumb became an innovative electronics industrialist on the international stage. His broad experience and interest led him into doing much of the research for this book but also into other diverse things including experimentation, over the past decade, with quantum physics and the related field of radionics. He says that “both of these interests are very exciting, frustrating, illuminating and extremely humiliating but do keep him from playing in the street!” Glenn was born on a farmstead over which pass the ruts of both the Santa Fe Trail and the lesser known Leavenworth (military) Trail. He attended the same one-room country school which his father attended and his grandfather helped build. Glenn became an academician with interests in innovative applications of technology in education. Dr. Crumb attended institutions of higher education located in the plains states although he also attended Harvard University and Stanford University for summer terms on fellowships from Du Pont and Shell Oil. Both his undergraduate and master’s degrees are from Emporia State University in physical sciences education while his doctorate, in Physics and Education, is from The University of Nebraska, Lincoln. These writers are the great, great grandsons of C. C. Crumb who came to Council City, Kansas Territory, in 1857 as a miller. Crumbs Along the Trail is the first offering of this pair.