WALKED FROM WASHINGTON.
Atwell J. Cross, 69, Dividing Honors
With Edward Payson Weston.
Edward Payson Weston isn't the only aged pedestrian who can break records. Atwell J. Cross, 69 years old, soldier and prospector,arrived in Kansas City yesterday in excellent condition after a little walk from Washington, D. C., whence he started May 6. He walked every foot of the way except a short trip by railway between Springfield and Quincy, Ill., when he was sick, and wished to go to a hospital in Quincy. Cross is on his way to Denver, where he has a mining claim.
He started from the capital with the intention of making twenty-five miles a day, but when he reached Zanesvile, O., he discovered that he had averaged 35 11/13 miles. After that the roads grew worse, and his average slumped. He was put back four days by sickness at Quincy. He expects to leave here today.
Cross, as a boy, was one of the gold seekers who rushed to California in 1849. During the civil war he was first a member of the Nineteenth Maine infantry, but was wounded in the leg at Gettysburg and discharged. He afterward re-enlisted in the Seventeenth Massachusetts infantry, and finished the war with that regiment. All his life he has been a prospector or engaged in some outdoor employment.
Cross supports himself by selling shoe laces in the towns where he stops. He is a single man and has no near relatives living.
