We were favored last week with a pleasant call from "Hank" Roberts, the oldest inhabitant of Atchison county. In 1838 he had just returned to his home from the Florida war, and learning that the government was to establish a post on the west side of the Missouri river near the point where the Iowa and Missouri line strikes the river, he, in company with a man by the name of Wilson came up to the point where Nebraska City now stands, and at the mouth of Table Creek where the garrison was to be established. The intention of the party was to open a ranche [sic] and furnish the post with forage, horses and beef for the use of the soldiers to be quartered at that point. Search was made up and down the river banks for a suitable location for a farm, but the land in Nebraska and Iowa was all considered too low, and they continued down the river till the Sonora bottom was reached, and a suitable location was selected, and the site by Roberts was called "Sonora." Returning to his home in one of the lower counties he purchased an outfit, and with seven men started for his new home. There were then no roads north of the Nodaway river and no settlers along the river above that point, and the party were compelled to bridge the smaller streams and build rafts to cross the larger ones. Their progress was therefore very slow; and they were seventeen days in making the trip from Nodway to Sonora, where they arrived late in April 1838. St Joseph, at that time called "Black Snake Hill," was only a trading post and consisted of less than a half dozen log cabins, owned and controlled by a Frenchman by the name of Rubudoix.

The soldiers sent out to establish the post, did not arrive till 1846. They built a block house and occupied the same only a few weeks when they were ordered off to Mexico, and Mr Roberts' speculation failed for want of government patronage.

Mr Roberts has considered Atchison county his home since he arrived here in 1838, although he spent six years in California and a year or two in Iowa and Nebraska. He will be 76 years old in October next, and has declared his intention of spending the balance of his days in Atchison county. Atchison County Journal.