The other Keith is very correct. The 1860 census of Jackson Township (NW Johnson County) lists the two Purdee households of James and Thomas Purdee on pages 499 and 500 of the census-taker's book. Years ago I researched this location with old plat books in the Johnson County Historical Society in Warrensburg and drove by the place. It is very close to the village of Columbus in what is now Columbus Township of north-central Johnson County. The census takers were not always careful with name spellings, as I have always read the name as Pardee in nearly all literature, including the most trusted. Perhaps someone more gifted in genealogy could tell us the correct spelling for the Purdees or Pardees?

The Columbus people were only two glad to have Quantrill use what was left of their community to rendezvous his band on more than one occasion after the Kansas troops burned down most of the place and dispossessed most of the occupants into the snow in early January 1862. To be fair, guerrillas ambushed those Kansas troops just outside town inflicting some casualties first.

Bruce Nichols