Randy and Diane Parker are good people, gracious as part of their character. They live off County Road 215 going from Wilton Springs to Napton. Their distinctness in their relationship with others are about the norm for the Napton neighborhood.

Sam Igo lives there and his son, David, and family live there, too. Across the E road Paul and Mary Adcock live and just beyond the old Napton Bank lives Mrs Harold Tichenor. She plays the organ in her home, has countless pictures of her family and the Napton vicinity -- and she is gracious, too.

Lots of history of Saline county abounds in Napton. Besides the old bank, a historical building in itself, Napton was once the county seat of Saline county.

Sam Igo owns the old Christian Church where colored folks -- as they were called then -- attended church faithfully, the white kids of the neighborhood went through high school in the school off the county road which goes by Senator Stouffer's Century Farm.

And if you drive that road, you will drive over the first concrete slab of highway in Saline County as you make your way back to Marshall.

Jimmie Williams, a former resident of Napton, told our Murray property research group that there is a distinct marking on a tree in the old church property. It is worth viewing for history's purposes.

Randy and Diane Parker own the property

Temple Murray's ownership of his property and where he raised his entire family suggests he probably sent his children to the school on the Parkers' land.

We don't think Temp could read or write, but he may have tried. He did business in the Wilton Springs and Napton areas and he called rural route Marshall his home.

Editor's note: Future "Recollections" columns will explore in more detail the history of Napton and its connections with the Temple Murray family.