Print edition: 
The tale began on Halloween night in 1949.
A skull was left on the doorstep of a Circleville family in Jackson County, Kansas.
The family didn’t know what to do with it and had no knowledge of its history or background.
So they kept it.
For decades.
The family then moved the skull with them to Cheney. And there, the skull was buried near a tree row on a farmstead – where it was found last month.
A former resident of the property told authorities the skull had been in the family’s possession since it was left on his parents’ doorstep in Circleville, Sedgwick County investigators said Wednesday. The family had made attempts through the years to have the skull identified. In the 1970s, the family asked a museum official to help identify it and was told the skull was most likely a World War II souvenir, according to a news release issued by sheriff’s Capt. Greg Pollock.
Sedgwick County investigators will be transferring the case to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, Pollock said.The family could not be reached for comment.
Jackson County’s chief detective Al Dunn said he’s still trying to verify the story.
“I’ve contacted the oldest living member of the sheriff’s office who started working here in 1953 and he’s lived here his entire life and doesn’t recall any unsolved homicides or murders that would fit the circumstances of the skull being found.”
Chances are, Dunn said, it could be the skull of a person who may have been an early resident of Jackson County and whose grave may have been disturbed through the years.
“It’s not uncommon to find bones or human remains in the area,” he said. “We have a large creek that runs through Jackson County and six years ago, a skull cap was found embedded in the creek bed and found by some guys out trapping. They called us and it turned out to be Native American that lived over a thousand years ago. Problem is that in the early days when somebody passed away, the family often picked a spot that had special meaning to them and just buried them there. Over the years, people have forgotten where the gravesites are.”
Captain Pollock said sheriff’s investigators asked an anthropologist to determine the race and sex of the human skull. Last week, the anthropologist concluded that the skull came from a black woman between the ages of 35 and 50. On Wednesday, Pollock said he still believed the skull was of African American origin and not what the family was told by a museum specialist in the 1970s that it was of Asian descent and brought to America as a World War II souvenir.
“You look at the science from back in the ’70s and now,” Pollock said.
The skull was found Jan. 29 when Cheney police were called to the farmstead after potential buyers found the partial skull while walking over the grounds. The skull was partly buried in a tree row.
Is it possible the skull could be from an African-American who lived in Jackson County perhaps in the days of territorial Kansas or later?
Yes, says Anna Wilhelm, a volunteer with the Jackson County Historical Society.
In the territorial days of Kansas – 1854 to 1861 – Jackson County was largely an abolitionist stronghold. It was linked to the Underground Railroad leading slaves to freedom. It was also along the route where John Brown stole 11 slaves in Missouri just before Christmas 1858 and brought them across the Kansas border to freedom..
“It is such an early time with no records,” Wilhelm said. What is known is that there was an African-American presence in Jackson County – and more specifically in Circleville.
Wilhelm, a native of Circleville, said most early settlers were buried in a cemetery three miles southwest of Circleville. The most prominent black families of the late 19th century were named Jolly and Plum.
“Those families are no longer around,” she said.
