This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Platt, Lane, Bottsford Classification: Lookup Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/ok.2ADE/4132 Message Board Post: Mary: I don't know what's going on, but somehow my personal e-mail had a query from you inquiring about "Conductors on the Underground Railroad", and now I cannot find your posting on Rootsweb in order that I might reply to it. (I know there are other people in Iowa who are again researching this matter.) So, I will start over. One of your questions concerned the location of Gaston post office. I wrote an article for the Sidney Argus Herald of Feb. 18, 1971, and in that you may find a longer account in that issue. But for right now, I believe Lester W. Platt's home would have to have been in the NW quarter of Section 12 Township 68 Range 44, and, I am guessing that his letter boxes would have been of the "traveling kind" which could be moved from home to home whenever the post master would be changed. The "Frontier Guardian" of Apr. 3, 1850 contains an advertisement from Leter W. Platt in which he says he lives 4 miles north of Old Fort Kearney. Also, when one remembers that the line between the State of Missouri and Potawatomie Indian Country ran across the top of township 68, it becomes obvious that Platt would have to have been living BELOW this boundary line before the Missouri - Iowa boundary was established and re-surveyed about 1850. And the question must be asked if Platt moved after the state line had been resurveyed. It appears that he might have, so the exact location of his post office undoubtedly changed accordingly!.....But, take heart, it appears Platt always lived somewhere in the Civil Bend area, about four miles north of Nebraska City, and in the immediate neighborhood of present day Percival. I notice that Rev. Bottsford (died May 24, 1884 and buried in Grandview Cemetery) of Civil Bend is one of the people you asked about.....Also, William Lane: Is he a man that took part in Bloody Kansas with John Brown and Jim Lane? At one time, I believed that he married a girl from Civil Bend, but a definite answer can't be given until I have time to look at my old notes. You say Civil Bend was given as the post office for people enumerated in Benton township in 1860. I am quite sure the Percival post office replaced Civil Bend about the time the Civil War ended.