In July 1877, Negro exodusters from Kentucky established a settlement in the Promised Land of Kansas and named it Nicodemus. Although the colonists lacked sufficient tools, seed, and money, they managed to survive the first winter, some by selling buffalo bones and others by working for the Kansas Pacific railroad at Ellis, 35 miles away. By 1880, the all-Negro community had a population of more than 400, and its industry brought approving notices in Kansas newspapers. One story told of a farmer who with one cow broke and improved twelve acres of prairie and cultivated eight acres of corn while his wife drove the cow and kept the flies off. Another spaded a four-foot hedge row around 160 acres of land. Edward P. McCabe, who joined the colony in 1878, served two terms as state auditor from 1883 to 1887, becoming the first Negro to hold a major state office. By 1887, Nicodemus had churches, stores, lodges, a school, and two newspapers, but its future was blighted when a projected railroad failed to materialize. Nevertheless, these pioneers who built so much with so little hold a proud place in the Kansas story.