INDEX.

TRANSPORTATION FIFTY YEARS AGO
Overland Emigrant and Freight Train, Operated by Sprague & Digan, Leaving West Main Street, Atchison, Kan., April 1, 1866, en route to the Far West.

History of Atchison County

CHAPTER I.
GEOLOGY.

FOSSILS—EVIDENCES OF EARLY ANIMAL AND PLANT LIFE—GEOLOGICAL AGES—ROCK FORMATION—GLACIER PERIOD—MINERALS.

The oldest citizens of Atchison county are the animals and plants whose fossil remains now lie buried in the solid rocks. These denizens of long ago, by their lives, made it possible for later and better citizens to live and flourish in the happy and contented homes of her best citizens of the present day. Long before man ever saw Atchison county—long before man lived anywhere upon this earth, the seas swarmed with animal life and the dry lands supported a fauna and a flora substantially as great as those of the present time.

In character the animals and plants of those early days were very different from those of the present time. Almost all of their kind long ago became extinct. It is only the few who have living representatives anywhere in the world today, and they are degraded in form and size as though they had long outlived their usefulness. Some of the animals live in the waters of distant oceans, such as the brachiopods and other shell fish; the crinoids or sea lilies, and others of like character. On the dry land we find a few insects of the cock-roach type and other creeping things which inhabit dark and damp places, animals of gloom on whose forms the sunshine of day rarely falls.

The plants, likewise, are degraded in size and form. The modern bull-rushes of our swamps are descendants of ancient giants of their kind which grew to ten or twenty times the size of their modern representatives. The little creeping vines sometimes found in the shaded forest are lineal descendants of the mighty trees of the forests in the long ago while materials were gathering for the rock masses constituting Atchison county.

In order to converse rationally about geological time it has been found most convenient to divide time into periods in accordance with great natural events, and to give a name to each period that in some way expresses something desirable to be known and remembered. Usually geographic names of areas where rock masses are exposed to the surface of the ground are chosen, or some favorite geographic term may be used, and in rare instances some quality name expressive of the character or composition of the rocks.

Following the best usage of geologists the rocks exposed at the surface all belong to the age known as the Carboniferous, which lies at the top of the Palaeozoic, or ancient life rocks. The Carboniferous is divided and subdivided into a number of divisions, the lowermost of which has been named the Mississippian on account of their great abundance throughout the Mississippi valley. Above the Mississippian we find a mass of alternating beds of shale and limestone and sandstone aggregating about 2,500 feet in thickness, called the Pennsylvanians, a term borrowed from the State of Pennsylvania, where rocks of the same age so abound. Rocks formed during the remainder of geologic time are not found in Atchison county, except the covering of soil and clay so abundant throughout the county. An old-time name for the Pennsylvanian rocks is the coal-measures, a term now on the decline because the newer names—well, it is newer.

It appears that from the close of the Pennsylvanian time to the present Atchison county has been dry land. At one time, quite recently, as geologists reckon time, climatic conditions changed so that the snow falling during the winter could not be melted during the summer, so that to the far north great quantities of snow and ice accumulated and gradually spread over the surface of a large part of North America. One limb of this ice mass moved slowly southward and covered all of Atchison county, and much adjacent territory, and brought with it vast quantities of soil and clay and gravel that the ice sheet, as a great scraper, picked up from the surface as it came along. When the ice finally melted this debris was left, like a mantle of snow, covering the entire surface of Atchison county.

The rocks of Pennsylvanian age have within them much of value economically. Here and there inter-stratified with the sandstone and shale are large and valuable beds of coal, as is abundantly shown by the drilled wells and coal shafts within the county. It is probable that almost the entire county is underlaid with this same bed of coal, and if so it is worth substantially as much to the county as is the surface soil. It lies at so great a depth that it may be mined without any danger whatever of disturbing the surface.

Main Building State Orphans’ Home, Atchison, Kan.

The large amount of good hard limestone in the county guarantees an everlasting supply of stone for road making, railroad ballast, crushed rock for concrete works and all other uses to which such limestone may be put. With the Missouri river on the eastern boundary carrying unlimited amounts of sand Atchison county is well supplied with every material needed for unlimited amounts of mortar construction of all kinds. Recently, since Portland cement construction has so effectually replaced stone masonry, this becomes a very important matter.

Should market conditions ever become favorable it is also possible to manufacture the best grades of Portland cement by properly combining the limestones and shales of the county. Their chemical and physical properties are admirably suited for such purposes.

There is a possibility that somewhere within the county oil and gas may be found by proper prospecting. As no search for these materials has yet been made it is impossible to say what the results might be. Atchison county, however, lies within the oil zone that has been proven to be so much farther south, and until proper search has been made no one can say that oil and gas cannot be found here also.

CHAPTER II.
PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.

EVIDENCES OF PALEOLITHIC MAN—AN ANCIENT FORTIFICATION—ABORIGINAL VILLAGE AND CAMP SITES—THE INGALLS AND OTHER BURIAL MOUNDS.

How long the region embraced in Atchison county has been the home of man is not known, but the finding of a prehistoric human skeleton, computed by the highest anthropological and geological authorities to be at least 10,000 years old, in the adjoining county of Leavenworth, favors the presumption that what is now Atchison county was occupied by man at an equally remote period. Evidences of a very early human existence here have been found at various times. Near Potter, in this county, the writer found deep in the undisturbed gravel and clay, a rude flint implement that unquestionably had been fashioned by prehistoric man, evidently, of what is known as the Paleolithic period. In drilling the well at the power house of the Atchison Street Railway, Light and Power Company, the late T. J. Ingels, of Atchison, encountered at a great depth, several fragments of fossilized bone, intermingled with charcoal, evidently the remains of a very ancient fireplace. About 1880, M. M. Trimmer, an Atchison contractor, in opening a stone quarry at the northeast point of the Branchtown hill, near the confluence of White Clay and Brewery creeks, in Atchison, unexpectedly encountered a pit or excavation, eighty feet long, sixty feet wide, and eighteen feet deep, in the solid rock formation of the hill. The surface of the hill is composed of drift or gravel, and the pit had become filled with this gravel to the original surface, thus obliterating all external evidences of its existence. The lower layer of stone, about six inches thick, had been left for a floor in the pit, and in the northwest corner this lower strata of stone for about four feet square had been removed. Water issued from the ground at this point indicating that a spring or well, or source of water supply, had been located here. A careful examination of the place at the time showed unmistakably that this excavation had been made by human hands at a very early period and was probably used as a fortification or defensive work. Prehistoric excavations of this character, made in the solid rock, are common in Europe, but almost unknown in America, except in the cases of ancient flint and steatite quarries, and the absence of either in the Atchison formation, except an occasional flint nodule, precludes the possibility that this was just an aboriginal quarry. The Smithsonian authorities at Washington pronounced the work worthy of careful study, but unfortunately it was obliterated by the progress of the quarrying. Many weapons and implements of the stone age have been found in the vicinity of this pit.

Almost the entire surface of Atchison county, particularly where bordering streams, presents various traces of aboriginal occupancy, from the silent sepulchers of the dead and the mouldy rubbish of the wigwam, to the solitary arrowhead lost on the happy chase or the sanguinary war path. In many places these remains blend into the prehistoric, semi-historic and historic periods, showing evidences of a succession of occupancy. For instance we find the Neolithic stone celts or hatchets, the Neoeric iron tomahawks; fragments of fragile earthenware, mixed and moulded by the prehistoric potter, and bits of modern decorated porcelain made by some pale-faced patterner of Palissy; ornaments of stone, bone and shell; trinkets of brass and beads of glass, intermingled in confusion and profusion. These numerous relics of different peoples and periods, showing, as they do, diverse stages of culture and advancement, warrant the opinion that Atchison county, with its many natural advantages, was a favorite resort of successive peoples from time immemorial. Favorably situated at the great western bend of the Missouri river and at the outskirts of which was one of the richest Indian hunting grounds in the great wild West, embracing and surrounded by every natural advantage that would make it the prospective and wonted haunt of a wild-race, it was a prehistoric paradise, as it is today, a modern Arcadia.

State Orphans’ Home, Atchison, Kan.

The writer has personally examined hundreds of ancient Indian village, camp and workshop sites, and opened a number of mounds in Atchison county. The first ancient mounds ever opened in the county were on a very rugged hill known as the “Devil’s Backbone,” bordering Owl creek, and overlooking the Missouri river, in 1891. There were two of them, and they contained stone sepulchers in which the Indians had cremated their dead. Other stone grave mounds have been opened on the farms of John Myers, on Independence creek, in the northeastern part of the county; Maurice Fiehley, on Stranger creek, near Potter; George Storch, on Alcorn or Whiskey creek, just south of Atchison, and in several other places. The most interesting mound ever excavated in the county, however, was what is known as the Ingalls Mound, on land belonging to the estate of the late United States Senator John J. Ingalls, on a bluff of the Missouri river, at the mouth of Walnut creek, about five miles below Atchison. This mound was discovered by Senator Ingalls at an early day, and opened by the writer in 1907. It was fifteen feet in diameter, and was composed of alternate layers of stone and earth one on top of the other, the remains of several Indians being imbedded in the earth between the layers of stone. These remains were in a bad state of decay, most of the bones crumbling while being removed. The bones of each person had been placed in the mound in compact bundles, which seems to indicate that they had been removed from some temporary place of interment, perhaps from dilapidated scaffold burials, and deposited here in final sepulture. In some of the layers not only the bones but the rocks and earth were considerably burned, indicating incendiary funeral rites, while in others there were not the least marks of fire. The undermost layer, about three feet from the top, was a veritable cinder pit, being a burned mass or conglomerate of charcoal and charred and calcined human remains, showing no regularity or outline of skeletons, but all in utter confusion. A solitary pearl bead was the only object that withstood the terrible heat to which the lower tier of remains had been subjected. In one of the upper tiers were the bones of two infants. With one of them was a necklace of small shells of a species not native here. With another bundle of bones were two small, neatly chipped flint knives, a flint scraper, a bone whistle or “call,” several deer horn implements, and a large flint implement of doubtful usage, known to archaeologists as a “turtle-back,” because of its shape. With another bundle of bones, and which they seemed to be clasping, were several mussel shells, badly decomposed. One small ornament of an animal or bird claw, several flint arrowheads, and some fragments of pottery, were also found. In one of the skulls was embedded the flint blade of a war-club. Thirty-one yards northwest of this mound was found another of less prominence. It contained a burned mass of human remains, covered with a layer of about six inches of clay, baked almost to the consistency of brick. Lack of space forbids a mention of many other interesting archaeological discoveries made in this county from time to time. Suffice to say that there is ample evidence that within the borders of Atchison county there lived and thrived and passed away a considerable aboriginal population.

CHAPTER III.
INDIAN HISTORY.

HARAHEY, AN INDIAN PROVINCE OF CORONADO’S TIME—THE KANSA NATION—BOURGMONT’S VISIT IN 1724—COUNCIL ON COW ISLAND IN 1819—THE KICKAPOO INDIANS.

There is nothing definite to show that Coronado ever reached the confines of what is now Atchison county in 1541, as some historical writers have seen fit to state, but there is a probability that the Indian province of Harahey, which the natives thereof told him was just beyond Quivira, embraced our present county and most of the region of northeastern Kansas. Mark F. Zimmerman, an intelligent and painstaking student of Kansas archaeology and Indian history, has given this matter much consideration, and is confident that the Harahey chieftain, Tatarrax, immortalized in Coronado’s chronicles, ruled over this territory nearly four centuries ago. Until this fact is established, however, it remains that the Indian history of what is now Atchison county begins with the Kansa Indians in the early part of the eighteenth century. At the time of the Bourgmont expedition in 1724, and for some time before, this nation owned all of what is now northeastern Kansas, and maintained several villages along the Missouri river, the principal one being near the mouth of Independence creek, or at the present site of Doniphan. Here they had a large town. The writer made a careful examination and fully identified the site of this old town in 1904. The results of this exploration are given in a pamphlet entitled “An Old Kansas Indian Town on the Missouri,” published by the writer in 1914. Another important village of the Kansa was located at the mouth of what is now Salt creek, in Leavenworth county. Both of these historic villages were situated right near and at about the same distance from the present borders of Atchison county. There were several old Indian villages within the confines of Atchison county, as already stated in the preceding pages, but whether they belonged to the Kansa or to the Harahey (Pawnee) is yet a matter of conjecture.

One of these old Kansa towns, evidently the one at Salt creek, was the site of an important French post. Bougainville on French Posts in 1757, says: “Kanses. In ascending this stream (the Missouri river) we meet the village of the Kanses. We have there a garrison with a commandant, appointed as in the case with Pimiteoui and Fort Chartres, by New Orleans. This post produces one hundred bundles of furs.” Lewis and Clark, in 1804, noted the ruins of this old post and Kansa village. They were just outside of the southern borders of Atchison county, near the present site of Kickapoo.

The Independence creek town, or what is generally referred to by the early French as “Grand village des Canzes,” seems to have been a Jesuit Missionary station as early as 1727, according to Hon. George P. Morehouse, the historian of the Kansa Indians, who recently found in some old French-Canadian records of the province of Ontario an interesting fact not before recognized in Kansas history, that the name “Kansas” was a well known geographical term to designate a place on the Missouri river, within the present borders of our State, where the French government and its official church, nearly 200 years ago, had an important missionary center. Mr. Morehouse says: “It is significant as to the standing of this Mission station of the Jesuits at Kanzas, away out in the heart of the continent, that in this document it was classed along with their other important Indian Missions, such as the Iroquois, Abenaquis, and Tadoussac, and that the same amount per missionary was expended. It was ‘Kansas,’ a mission charge on the rolls of the Jesuit Fathers, for which annual appropriations of money were made as early as 1727. Here some of the saintly, self-sacrificing missionary pioneers of the Cross must have come from distant Quebec and Montreal, or from the faraway cloisters of sunny France. What zeal and sacrifice for others! Is it any wonder that the Kansa Indians always spoke reverently of the ‘black robes,’ who were the first to labor for their welfare in that long period in the wilderness.”

Just when the Kansa Indians established themselves at the “Grand Village” at Doniphan, or at “Fort Village” at Kickapoo, is not known. The first recorded mention of a Kansa village along this section of the Missouri river is by Bourgmont in 1724. Onate met the Kansa on a hunting expedition on the prairies of Kansas in 1601, but does not state where their villages were located. The “Grand Village” was an old one, however, at the time of Bourgmont’s visit. Bourgmont does not mention the “Fort Village” at Salt creek, as he surely would had it been in existence at that time, and it is believed that it was established later, as it was in existence in 1757, as stated by Bourgainville.

As is a well known historical fact the Spanish attempted to invade and colonize the Missouri valley early in the eighteenth century. The French had come into possession of this region in 1682, and M. de Bourgmont was commissioned military commander on the Missouri in 1720, the French government becoming alarmed at the attempted Spanish invasion. Establishing friendly relations with the Indians of this region in order to have their assistance in repelling any further Spanish advance was the object of the Bourgmont expedition to the Kansa and Padouca Indians in 1724. Bourgmont’s party, consisting of himself, M. Bellerive, Sieur Renaudiere, two soldiers and five other Frenchmen, besides 177 Missouri and Osage Indians in charge of their own chiefs, marched overland from Fort Orleans, on the lower Missouri, and arrived at the “Grand village des Cansez” on July 7, 1724. Here they held a celebration of two weeks, consisting of pow-wows, councils, trading horses or merchandise, and making presents to the Indians, several boat loads of the latter, in charge of Lieutenant Saint Ange, having arrived by river route. On July 24 they “put themselves in battle array on the village height, the drum began to beat, and they marched away” on their journey to the Padoucas. The incidents of their march across what is now Atchison county, and other facts pertaining to this expedition will be found in the chapter on early explorations in this volume.

According to a tradition handed down from prehistoric times the Kansa, Osage, Omaha, Ponca and Kwapa were originally one people and lived along the Wabash and Ohio rivers. In their migrations they arrived at the mouth of the Ohio where there was a separation. Those who went down the Mississippi became known as the Kwapa, or “down stream people,” while those going up were called Omaha, or “up stream people.” At the mouth of the Missouri another division took place, the Omaha and Ponka proceeding far up that stream. The Osage located on the stream which bears their name, and the Kansa at the mouth of what is now the Kansas river. Later they moved on up the Missouri and established several villages, the most northern of which was at Independence Creek. At about the close of the Revolutionary war they were driven away from the Missouri by the Iowa and Sauk tribes, and they took up a permanent residence on the Kansas river, where Major Long’s expedition visited them in 1810. They continued to make predatory visits to the Missouri, however. They committed many depredations on traders and explorers passing up the river and even fired on the United States troops encamped at Cow Island. It was to prevent the recurrence of such outrages that Major O’Fallon arranged a council with the Kansa Nation. This council was held on Cow Island August 24, 1819, under an arbor built for the occasion. Major O’Fallon made a speech in which he set forth the cause of complaint which the Kansa had given by their repeated insults and depredations, giving them notice of the approach of a military force sufficient to chastise their insolence, and advising them to seize the present opportunity of averting the vengeance they deserved, by proper concessions, and by their future good behavior to conciliate those whose friendship they would have so much occasion to desire. The replies of the chiefs were simple and short, expressive of their conviction of the justice of the complaints against them, and of their acquiescence in the terms of the reconciliation proposed by the agent.

There were present at this council 161 Kansa Indians, including chiefs and warriors, and thirteen Osages. It was afterwards learned that the delegation would have been larger but for a quarrel that arose among the chiefs after they had started, in regard to precedence in rank, in consequence of which ten or twelve returned to the village on the Kansas river. Among those at the council were Na-he-da-ba, or Long Neck, one of the principal chiefs of the Kansas; Ka-he-ga-wa-to-ning-ga, or Little Chief, second in rank; Shen-ga-ne-ga, an ex-principal chief; Wa-ha-che-ra, or Big Knife, a war chief, and Wam-pa-wa-ra, or White Plume, afterwards a noted chief. Major O’Fallon had with him the officers of the garrison of Cow Island, or Cantonment Martin, and a few of those connected with Major Long’s exploring party. “The ceremonies,” says one account, “were enlivened by a military display, such as the firing of cannon, hoisting of flags, and an exhibition of rockets and shells, the latter evidently making a deeper impression on the Indians than the eloquence of Major O’Fallon.” A description of Major Long’s steamboat, built to impress the Indians on this occasion, will be found in the following chapter on early explorations.

From the Kansa Indians our State derived its name. For more than 300 years they dwelt upon our soil. At their very advent in this region what is now Atchison county became a part of their heritage and for generations it was a part of their imperial home.

By the treaty of Castor Hill, Mo., October 24, 1832, the Kickapoo Indians were assigned to a reservation in northeastern Kansas, which included most of what is now Atchison county. They settled on their new lands shortly after the treaty was made. Their principal settlement at that time was at the present site of Kickapoo, in Leavenworth county, where a Methodist mission was established among them by Rev. Jerome C. Berryman, in 1833. There is said to have been a mission station among the Kickapoos where Oak Mills, in Atchison county, now stands, at an early day, but nothing definite is known regarding its history, except that we have it from early settlers that an Indian known as Jim Corn seemed to be the head man of the band of Kickapoos that lived there, and that the white pioneers frequently attended services in the old mission house which stood in the hollow a short distance southwest of the present site of Oak Mills.

Wards of the State of Kansas, State Orphans’ Home, Atchison, Kan.

During the time that the Kickapoos owned and occupied what is now Atchison county, they were ruled over by two very distinguished chieftains—Keannakuk, the Prophet, and Masheena, or the Elk Horns. Both of these Indians were noted in Illinois long before they migrated westward and were prominently mentioned by Washington Irving, George Catlin, Charles Augustus Murray and other distinguished travelers and authors. Catlin painted their pictures in 1831, and these are included in the famous Catlin gallery in Washington. Keannakuk was both a noted chief and prophet of the tribe. He was a professed preacher of an order which he claimed to have originated at a very early day and his influence was very great among his people. He died at Kickapoo in 1852 and was buried there. Masheena was a really noted Indian. He led a band of Kickapoos at the battle of Tippecanoe. He died and was buried in Atchison county, near the old town of Kennekuk, in 1857. He was born in Illinois about 1770.

Important seats of Kickapoo occupancy in Atchison county in the early days were Kapioma, Muscotah and Kennekuk. Kapioma was named for a chief of that name who lived there. The present township of Kapioma gets its name from this source. Father John Baptiste Duerinck, a Jesuit, was a missionary among the Kickapoos at Kapioma in 1855–57. Muscotah was for a long time the seat of the Kickapoo agency. It is a Kickapoo name meaning “Beautiful Prairie,” or “Prairie of Fire.” Kennekuk was named for John Kennekuk, a Kickapoo chief, and son of Keannakuk, the Prophet.

By treaty of 1854 the Kickapoo reservation was diminished and the tribe was assigned to lands along the Grasshopper or Delaware river. Still later it was again diminished and they were given their present territory within the confines of Brown county.

The Kickapoos are a tribe of the central Algonquian group, forming a division with the Sauk and Foxes, with whom they have close ethnic and linguistic connection. The first definite appearance of this tribe in history was about 1667–70, when they were found by Allouez near the portage between Fox and Wisconsin rivers, in Wisconsin. About 1765 they moved down into the Illinois country, and later to Missouri and Kansas.

CHAPTER IV.
EARLY EXPLORATIONS.

CORONADO IN 1541—THE BOURGMONT EXPEDITION IN 1724—PERIN DU LAC—LEWIS AND CLARK—FIRST FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION—MAJOR STEPHEN H. LONG—CANTONMENT MARTIN—ISLE AU VACHE—OTHER EXPLORERS—PASCHAL PENSONEAU—THE OLD MILITARY ROAD—THE MORMONS.

Some historians (notably General Simpson) in their studies of the famous march of Coronado in search of the land of Quivira, in 1541, have brought the great Spanish explorer to the Missouri river, in northeastern Kansas. The more recent researches of Hodge, Bandalier and Brower, however, have proven beyond question that Coronado’s line of march through Kansas was north from Clark county to the Great Bend of the Arkansas river, and thence to the region northeastward from McPherson to the Kansas river, between the junction of its two main forks and Deep creek, in Riley county, where the long lost province of Quivira was located. Hence, it is no longer even probable that the great Spaniard on this famous march ever saw the Missouri river region in northeastern Kansas, much less to have ever set foot upon the soil of what is now Atchison county, as many have heretofore believed.

The first white men, of whom we have definite record, to visit what is now Atchison county, were those who composed the expedition of Capt. Etienne Vengard de Bourgmont, military commander of the French colony of Louisiana, who, in the summer of 1724, arrived at the Kansa Indian village where Doniphan now stands, crossed what is now Atchison county, and made several encampments on our soil. Leaving the Kansa village at Doniphan on the morning of July 24, en route to the province of the Padoucas, or what is now known as the Comanche tribe of Indians, in north central Kansas, Bourgmont and party marched a league and a half along what is now Deer creek, and went into camp, where they spent the day. The next day they passed Stranger creek, or what they designated “a small river,” and stopped on account of rain, until the 26th, when they proceeded a few miles further, and again went into camp. A thunder-storm, lasting all the afternoon, compelled them to remain encamped here. On the 27th they reached a river, which was doubtless the Grasshopper or Delaware, about four or five miles below Muscotah, where they again camped, and, on the 28th marched out of Atchison county somewhere along the southwest border, in Kapioma township. This strange procession, besides Bourgmont’s force of white men, consisted of 300 Indian warriors, with two grand chiefs and fourteen war chiefs, 300 Indian squaws, 500 Indian children, and 500 dogs, carrying and dragging provisions and equipments. The object of the expedition was to promote a general peace among, and effect an alliance between, the different tribes inhabitating this region. Shortly after leaving Atchison county, Bourgmont was taken very ill, and was obliged to return to Fort Orleans, on the lower Missouri. He was carried back across Atchison county to the Kansa village, on a hand-barrow, and then transported down the Missouri in a canoe. Upon his recovery he resumed his journey to the Padoucas in the fall of 1724, coming back by way of the Kansa village and Atchison county. No doubt other French explorers, traders and trappers, visited this county at an earlier date than did Bourgmont, but information concerning them is vague and uncertain.

Perin du Lac, a French explorer, set foot upon the soil of Atchison county while on an exploring trip up the Missouri in 1802–03. In his journal, published soon after his return to France, Du Lac mentions that “three miles below the old Kances Indian village they perceived some iron ore.” As the “old Kances village” was the one already referred to as having been at Doniphan, the iron ore discovered by Du Lac must have been in Atchison county, somewhere in the vicinity of Luther Dickerson’s old home, where the rocks are known to be strongly impregnated with iron. Du Lac gathered some specimens of the Atchison county ore, which he must have lost, for he says in his journal: “I intended to have assayed it on my return, but an accident unfortunately happening prevented me.”

In the summer of 1804 the famous “Louisiana Purchase exploring expedition” of Lewis and Clark passed up the Missouri river, arriving at the southeast corner of Atchison county on July 3. They passed Isle Au Vache, or Cow Island, opposite Oak Mills, stopped at a deserted trader’s house at or near the site of Port William, where they picked up a stray horse (the first recorded mention of a horse in what is now Atchison county) and camped that night somewhere in the vicinity of Walnut creek. The next morning they announced the “glorious Fourth” with a shot from their gun boat, and there began the first celebration of our Nation’s birthday on Kansas soil. That day they took dinner on the bank of White Clay creek, or what they called “Fourth of July creek.” Here Joe Fields, a member of the party, was bitten by a snake, and Sergeant Floyd, in commemoration of the incident, named the prairie on which Atchison now stands, “Joe Fields’ Snake Prairie.” Above the creek, they state, “was a high mound, where three Indian paths centered, and from which was a very extensive prospect.” This, undoubtedly, was the commanding elevation where the Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home now stands. On the evening of the Fourth they discovered and named Independence creek in honor of the day, and closed the day’s observances with “an evening gun and an additional gill of whiskey to the men.”

A detachment of Maj. Stephen H. Long’s Yellowstone exploring expedition, under command of Capt. Wyley Martin, spent the winter of 1818–19 on Cow Island, which now belongs to Atchison county, and established a post known as Cantonment Martin. This was the first United States military post established above Ft. Osage, and west of Missouri Territory. During that winter Captain Martin’s men killed between 2,000 and 3,000 deer, besides great numbers of bears, turkeys and other game. The troops that established this frontier post were a part of the First Rifle regiment, the “crack” organization of the United States army at that time. In July, 1819, Major Long arrived at Cow Island. His steamboats were the first to ascend the Missouri river above Ft. Osage. The next day Colonel Chambers and a detachment of infantry arrived. Thomas Say and his party of naturalists, under command of Major Biddle, at about the same time crossed Atchison county en route from the Kansa Indian village where Manhattan now stands, and joined Major Long’s party at Cow Island. Messrs. Say and Jessup, naturalists of the expedition, were taken very ill and had to remain at the island for some time. Col. Henry Atkinson, the founder of Ft. Atkinson, and commander of the western department for more than twenty years, arrived at Cow Island shortly after Major Long. Maj. John O’Fallon was sutler of the post and Indian agent for the upper Missouri. On July 4, 1819, the Nation’s birthday was celebrated on Cow Island. The flags were raised at full mast, guns were fired, and they had “pig with divers tarts to grace the table.” On August 24 an important council with the Kansa Indians was held on the island. An account of this council will be found in the chapter on Indian history in this volume.

One of the captains who was stationed on Cow Island—Bennett Riley—afterwards became a distinguished man in the history of this country. He was the man for whom Ft. Riley was named. He served with gallantry in the Indian country, the Northwest and Florida. In the Florida war he was promoted to colonel. In the war with Mexico he became a major-general, and was subsequently military governor of California. Col. John O’Fallon entered the army from Kentucky and fought in the Battle of Tippecanoe under Harrison, where he was severely wounded and carried the scar to his grave. He had a brilliant military record, and afterwards became one of the wealthiest and most public-spirited citizens of St. Louis.

Major Willoughby Morgan assumed command of the Cow Island post April 13, 1819. He was also a distinguished officer. When Cantonment Martin was abandoned in September, 1819, it required a month to transport the troops from there to Council Bluffs on the steamboats.

One of these boats, the “Western Engineer,” the first that ever touched the shore of Atchison county, was of unique construction, having been expressly built for the expedition and calculated to impress the Indians. On her bow was the exhaust pipe, made in the form of a huge serpent, with wide open mouth and tongue painted a fiery red. The steam, escaping through the mouth, made a loud, wheezing noise that could be heard for miles. The Indians recognized in it the power of the great Manitou and were overcome with fear.

Cow Island has been a prominent landmark in the West from a very early period. It was discovered by the early French explorers and called by them Isle au Vache, meaning Isle of Cow or Cow Island. It was so named because a stray cow was found wandering about on the island. It is supposed that this cow was stolen by the Indians from one of the early French settlements and placed on this island to prevent her escape. There is a coincidence in the fact that the first horse and the first cow in what is now Atchison county, of which we have any record, were found in the same locality. The stray horse picked up by Lewis and Clark, mention of which is made on a preceding page of this chapter, was found almost opposite the upper end of Cow Island, on the Kansas shore. There is a tradition that the French had a trading post on Cow Island at a very early day.

In 1810, John Bradbury, a renowned English botanist, made a trip up the Missouri river, and was the first scientist to make a systematic study of the plants and geological formations of this region. He touched the shore of what is now Atchison county, and in his book, “Travels in the Interior of America,” speaks about the great fertility of our soil. He shipped the specimens collected on this trip to the botanical gardens of Liverpool, and no doubt many Atchison county specimens were included in these shipments. The next year H. M. Brackenridge, another explorer, came up the Missouri and made some observations along our shore.

Postoffice, Atchison, Kansas

The first permanent white settler of what is now Atchison county was a Frenchman, Paschal Pensoneau, who, about 1839, married a Kickapoo Indian woman and about 1844 settled on the bank of Stranger creek, near the present site of Potter, where he established a trading-house and opened the first farm in Atchison county on land which had been allotted him by the Government for services in the Black Hawk and Mexican wars. Pensoneau had long lived among the Kickapoo Indians, following them in their migrations from Illinois to Missouri and Kansas, generally pursuing the vocation of trader and interpreter. As early as 1833 or 1834 he was established on the Missouri river at the old Kickapoo town, later removing to Stranger creek, as aforestated. He became a very prominent and influential man among the Kickapoos. He long held the position of Government interpreter that tribe. After the treaty of 1854, diminishing the Kickapoo reserve, Pensoneau moved to the new lands assigned the tribe along the Grasshopper river, where he lived for many years. About 1875 he settled among a band of Kickapoo Indians, near Shawnee, Indian Territory, where he died some years later. He was born at Cahokia, Ill., April 17, 1796, his parents having been among the emigrants from Canada to the early French settlements of Illinois.

In 1850 the military road from Ft. Leavenworth to Ft. Laramie was laid out by Colonel Ogden. It crossed Atchison county, and over it passed many important expeditions to the Western plains and mountains, and to Oregon and California. Before this road was laid out as a Government highway, the same route had long been traveled as a trail. It was a great natural highway, being on the “dividing ridge” between the Missouri and Kansas rivers. Charles Augustus Murray, Francis Parkman, Captain Stansbury and other noted travelers journeyed over this trail during the thirties and forties, and in the fascinating volumes they have left, we find much of interest pertaining to the region of which Atchison county is now a part. During the gold excitement in California this old trail swarmed with emigrants seeking a fortune in the West. The Mormons, the soldiers, the overland freighters, the stage drivers, the hundred and one other picturesque types of character in the early West have helped to make the history of this famous old branch of the “Oregon and California Trail” immortalized by Parkman.

During the days of Mormon emigration a Mormon settlement sprang up a few miles west of Atchison, and immediately east of the present site of Shannon, which became known as “Mormon Grove.” The settlement was enclosed by trenches, which served as fences to prevent the stock from going astray, and traces of these old ditches may be seen to this day. Many of the Mormons here died of cholera and were buried near the settlement, but all traces of the old burial ground have been obliterated by cultivation of the soil.

CHAPTER V.
TERRITORIAL TIMES.

TERRITORY ACQUIRED FROM FRANCE IN 1803—ORGANIZATION OF TERRITORY—KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT—IMMIGRATION TO KANSAS—TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT—FREE STATE AND PRO-SLAVERY CONFLICT—FIRST ELECTION—SECRET POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS—BORDER WAR ACTIVITIES AND OUTRAGES—CONTESTS OVER ADOPTION OF CONSTITUTION—KANSAS ADMITTED TO THE UNION.

Kansas is as rich in historic lore and resources as any other region of the great West. George J. Remsburg, who has contributed two chapters of this history, has, with great care and accuracy, put into readable form an account of prehistoric times, Indian occupancy and the record of earlier explorers in northeastern Kansas. It is a tale of absorbing interest to those who would go back to the dawn of civilization here and study the force and character of men who paved the way for the developments that came after. To the intrepid Spanish conquerors of Mexico of the sixteenth century, and the hardy French explorers, two centuries later, we are indebted for the opening up of the Great American Desert, into which American pioneers, the century following, found their way. Thousands of years before these came, Atchison county had been the abode of hunting tribes and the feasting place of wild animals. Then came the ceaseless flow of the tide of civilization, which swept these earlier denizens from the field, to clear it for the “momentous conflict between the two opposing systems of American civilization, then struggling for mastery and supremacy over the Republic.” It was in Kansas that the war of rebellion began, and it was in the northeastern corner along the shores of the Missouri river—in Atchison county—“that the spark of conflict which had irritated a Nation for decades burst into devastating flames.”

It is a delicate task to convey anything approaching a truthful account of the storm and stress of opinions and emotions which accompanied the organization of Kansas as one of the great American commonwealths, and the part played by the citizens of Atchison county in that tremendous work, but sixty years have served to mellow the animosities and bitternesses of the past, and it is easier now to comprehend the strife of that distant day and pass unbiased judgment upon it.

When the United States acquired from France, in 1803, the territory of which Atchison county is a part, slavery was a legalized institution, and many of the residents held slaves. In the treaty of cession, there was incorporated an expressed stipulation that the inhabitants of Louisiana “should be incorporated into the Union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States, and in the meantime they should be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the religion which they professed.” Thus it came to pass for over fifty years after the time that vast empire was acquired from France the bitter contest between the anti-slavery and the pro-slavery advocates ebbed and flowed, and amidst a continual clash of ideas and finally after the shedding of blood, Kansas, and Atchison county, were born.

It was in the Thirty-second Congress that petitions were presented for the organization of the Territory of the Platte, viz: all that tract lying west of Iowa and Missouri and extending west to the Rocky mountains, but no action on the petitions was taken at that time. December 13, 1852, Willard P. Hall, a congressman from Missouri, submitted to the House of Representatives a bill organizing this region. This bill was referred to the committee on territories, which reported February 22, 1853, through its chairman, William A. Richardson, of Illinois. A bill organizing the territory of Nebraska, which covered the same territory as the bill of Mr. Hall, was met by unexpected and strong opposition from the southern members of Congress, and was rejected in the committee of the whole. The House, however, did not adopt the action of the committee, but passed the bill and sent it to the Senate, where it was defeated March 3, 1853, by six votes. On the fourteenth day of December, 1853, Senator Dodge, of Iowa, submitted to that body a new bill for the organization of the territory of Nebraska, embracing the same region as the bill which was defeated in the first session of the Thirty-second Congress. It was referred to the committee on territories, of which Stephen A. Douglas was chairman, on January 4, 1854.

It was during the discussion of this bill that the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise was foreshadowed. The story of the action of Senator Douglas in connection with the slavery question has appeared in every history since the Civil war. It is neither necessary nor proper to dwell at length upon his career in connection with the history of Atchison county. However, it was following a bitter discussion of the slavery question that the bill was passed, creating Kansas a territory. The provisions of the bill, as presented, were known to be in accordance with the wishes and designs of all the Southern members to have been accepted before being presented by President Pierce by a majority of the members of his cabinet, and to have the assured support of a sufficient number of Northern administration Democrats, to insure its passage beyond a doubt. The contest over the measure ended May 27, 1854, by the passage of the bill, which was approved May 30, 1854, by President Pierce.

The act organizing Nebraska and Kansas contained thirty-seven sections. The provisions relating to Kansas were embodied in the last eighteen sections, summarized as follow:

Section 19 defines the boundaries of the territory; gives it the name of Kansas, and prescribes that when admitted as a State, or States, the said territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission. Also provides for holding the rights of all Indian tribes inviolable, until such time as they shall be extinguished by treaty.

Section 20. The executive power and authority is vested in a governor, appointed by the President, to hold his office for the term of four years, or until his successor is appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States.

Section 21. The secretary of State is appointed and subject to removal by the President of the United States, and to be acting governor with full powers and functions of the governor in case of the absence of the governor from the territory, or a vacancy occurring.

Section 22. Legislative power and authority of territory is vested in the governor and a legislative body, consisting of two branches, a council and a house of representatives.

Section 23 prescribes qualifications of voters; giving the right to every free white male inhabitant, above the age of 21 years, who shall be an actual resident of the territory, to vote at the first election.

Section 24 limits the scope of territorial legislation, and defines the veto power of the governor.

Section 25 prescribes the manner of appointing and electing officers, not otherwise provided for.

Section 26 precludes members from holding any office created or the emoluments of which are increased during any session of the legislature of which they are a member, and prescribes qualifications for members of the legislative assembly.

Section 27 vests the judicial power in the supreme court, district courts, probate courts and in justices of the peace.

Section 28 declares the fugitive slave law of 1850 to be in full force in the territory.

Section 29 provides for the appointment of an attorney and marshal for the territory.

Section 30 treats with the nomination of the President, chief justice, associate justices, attorney and marshal, and their confirmation by the Senate, and prescribes the duties of these officers and fixes their salaries.

Section 31 locates the temporary seat of government of the territory at Ft. Leavenworth, and authorizes the use of the Government buildings there for public purposes.

Section 32 provides for the election of a delegate to Congress, and abrogates the Missouri Compromise.

Section 33 prescribes the manner and the amount of appropriations for the erection of public buildings, and other territorial purposes.

Section 34 reserves for the benefit of schools in the territory and states and territories hereafter to be erected out of the same, sections number 16 and 30 in each township, as they are surveyed.

Section 35 prescribes the mode of defining the judicial districts of the territory, and appointing the times and places of holding the various courts.

Section 36 requires officers to give official bonds, in such manner as the secretary of treasury may prescribe.

Section 37 declares all treaties, laws and other engagements made by the United States Government with the Indian tribes inhabiting the territory to remain inviolate, notwithstanding anything contained in the provisions of the act.

It was under the provisions of the above act that those coming to Kansas to civilize it and to erect their homes were to be guided.

Edward Everett Hale, in his history of Kansas and Nebraska, published in 1854, says, “Up to the summer of 1834, Kansas and Nebraska have had no civilized residents, except the soldiers sent to keep the Indian tribes in order; the missionaries sent to convert them; the traders who bought furs of them, and those of the natives who may be considered to have attained some measure of civilization from their connection with the whites.” So it will be seen that at the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, Atchison county was very sparsely settled.

All movements in the territory, or elsewhere, made for its organization, were provisional, as they were subject to the rights of the various Indian tribes, whose reservations covered, by well defined boundaries, every acre of northeastern Kansas, except such tracts as were reserved by the Government about Ft. Leavenworth, and other military stations, but with the move for the organization of the territory came an effort to extinguish the Indian’s title to the lands and thus open them to white settlers. One of the most interesting books bearing upon the history of Kansas of that time was “Greeley’s Conflict.” He makes the following statement with reference to this subject:

“When the bill organizing Kansas and Nebraska was first submitted to Congress in 1853, all that portion of Kansas which adjoins the State of Missouri, and, in fact, nearly all the accessible portion of both territories, was covered by Indian reservations, on which settlement by whites was strictly forbidden. The only exception was in favor of Government agents and religious missionaries; and these, especially the former, were nearly all Democrats and violent partisans of slavery. * * * * Within three months immediately preceding the passage of the Kansas bill aforesaid, treaties were quietly made at Washington with the Delawares, Otoes, Kickapoos, Kaskaskias, Shawnees, Sacs, Foxes and other tribes, whereby the greater part of the soil of Kansas, lying within one or two hundred miles of the Missouri border, was suddenly opened to white appropriation and settlement. These simultaneous purchases of the Indian land by the Government, though little was known of them elsewhere, were thoroughly understood and appreciated by the Missourians of the western border, who had for some time been organizing ‘Blue Lodges,’ ‘Social Bands,’ ‘Sons of the South,’ and other societies, with intent to take possession of Kansas in behalf of slavery. They were well assured and they fully believed that the object contemplated and desired, in lifting, by the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the interdict of slavery from Kansas, was to authorize and facilitate the legal extension of slavery into that region. Within a few days after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, hundreds of leading Missourians crossed into the adjacent territory, selected each his quarter section, or a larger area of land, put some sort of mark on it, and then united with his fellow-adventurers in a meeting, or meetings, intended to establish a sort of Missouri preëmption upon all this region.”

Immediately following the passage of the territorial act the immigration of Missourians to Kansas began, and, indeed, before its final passage the best of the lands had been located and marked for preëmption by the Missourians. This was true, apparently, in the case of George M. Million, whom the records disclose was the first settler in Atchison county, after Kansas was made a territory. Mr. Million was of German descent and came to the vicinity of Rushville in the hills east of Atchison from Coal county, Missouri, prior to 1841, where he was married to Sarah E. Dixon before she was fifteen years old. In 1841 Million occupied the present site of East Atchison as a farm. At that time the bottom land just east of Atchison was covered with tall rushes and was known as Rush bottom. The town of Rushville was originally known as Columbus, but the name was subsequently changed to Rushville because of the character of the country in which it was located. During the winter Million eked out his livelihood by cutting wood and hauling it to the river bank, selling it in the spring and summer to the steamboats that plied up and down the Missouri river. Sometime subsequent to 1841, Million built a flat-boat ferry and operated it for seven or eight years and did a thriving business during the great gold rush to California. He accumulated considerable money and later operated a store, trading with the Indians for furs and buying hemp, which he shipped down the river. In June, 1854, he “squatted” on the present townsite of Atchison, and built a log house at the foot of Atchison street, near his ferry landing, and just opposite his cabin on the Missouri side of the river. Following Million, in June, 1854 came a colony of emigrants from Iatan, Mo., and took up claims in the neighborhood of Oak Mills. They were F. P. Goddard, G. B. Goddard, James Douglass, Allen Hanson and George A. Wright, but the actual settlers and founders of Atchison county did not enter the territory of Kansas until July, 1854. On the twentieth day of that month Dr. J. H. Stringfellow with Ira Norris, Leonidas Oldham, James B. Martin and Neil Owens left Platte City, Mo., to decide definitely upon a good location for a town. With the exception of Dr. Stringfellow they all took claims about four miles southwest of the present city of Atchison. Traveling in a southwesterly direction from Platte City the party reached the river opposite Ft. Leavenworth and crossed to the Kansas side. They went north until they reached the mouth of Walnut creek, “and John Alcorn’s lonely cabin upon its banks.” They continued their course up the river until they came to the “south edge of the rim of the basin which circles around from the south line of the city, extending west by gradual incline to the divide between White Clay and Stranger creek, then north and east around to the northern limits of the city.” It was at this point that the Missouri river made the bend from the northeast, throwing the point where Atchison is now located, twelve miles west of any locality, north, and twenty miles west of Leavenworth, and thirty-five miles west of Kansas City. When they descended into the valley, of which Commercial street is now the lowest point, Dr. Stringfellow and his companions found George M. Million and Samuel Dickson. Mr. Dickson followed Million to Kansas from Rushville, and while there is some dispute as to who was the second resident in Atchison county after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the best authorities lead to the conclusion that to Samuel Dickson belongs that honor. Mr. Dickson erected a small shanty near the spring, which bore his name for so many years, on the east side of South Sixth street, between Park and Spring streets. His house is described as a structure twelve feet square, having one door and one window and a large stone chimney running up the outside. As soon as Dr. Stringfellow arrived he at once commenced negotiations with Mr. Million for the purchase of his claim. Mr. Million, apparently, was a shrewd real estate speculator and only surrendered his claim upon the payment of $1,000. Dr. Stringfellow considered this a very fancy figure for the land, but he and his associates were firm in their decision of founding a city at this point on the Missouri river and they gave Mr. Million his price. The organization of a town company which followed will be discussed in a subsequent chapter of this territory.

The first territorial appointment for the purpose of inaugurating a local government in Kansas was made in June, 1854. Governor Andrew. H. Reeder, of Easton, Pa., was appointed on that date. He took the oath of office in Washington, D. C., July 7, and arrived in Kansas at Ft. Leavenworth October 7, becoming at once the executive head of the Kansas government. Governor Reeder was a stranger to Kansas. With the exception of Senator Atchison he scarcely knew anybody in Kansas. He was a lawyer by profession, one of the ablest in the State of Pennsylvania. From early manhood he had been an ardent and loyal Democrat and had defended with vigor and great power the principle of squatter sovereignty and the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He was not a politician and was an able, honest, clear-thinking Democrat. Upon his arrival in Kansas he set himself at once to the task of inaugurating the government in the territory. According to his own testimony before the special congressional committee appointed by Congress to investigate the troubles in Kansas in 1856, he made it his first business to obtain information of the geography, settlements, population and general condition of the territory, with a view to its division into districts; the defining of their boundary; the location of suitable and central places for elections, and the full names of men in each district for election officers, persons to take the census, justices of the peace, and constables. He accordingly made a tour of the territory, and although he did not come to Atchison county his tour included many important and remote settlements in the territory. Upon his return he concluded that if the election for a delegate to Congress should be postponed until an election could be had for the legislature, which, in the one case required no previous census, and in the other a census was required, the greater part of the session of Congress, which would terminate on the fourth of March, would expire before a congressional delegate from the territory could reach Washington. He, therefore, ordered an election for a delegate to Congress, and postponed the taking of the census until after that election. He prepared, without unnecessary delay, a division of the territory into election districts, fixed a place of election in each, appointed election officers and ordered that the election should take place November 29, 1854. Atchison county was in the fifteenth election district, which comprised the following territory: Commencing at the mouth of Salt creek on the Missouri river; thence up said creek to the military road and along the middle of said road to the lower crossing of Stranger creek: thence up said creek to the line of the Kickapoo reservation, and thence along the southern and western line thereof to the line of the fourteenth district: thence between same, and down Independence creek to the mouth thereof, and thence down the Missouri river to the place of beginning. The place of the election was at the house of Pascal Pensoneau, on the Ft. Leavenworth and Oregon road, near what is now the town site of Potter. The election which followed was an exciting one. Public meetings were held in all of the towns and villages, at which resolutions were passed against the eastern abolitionists, the Platte County Argus sounding the following alarm:

“We know we speak the sentiments of some of the most distinguished statesmen of Missouri when we advise that counter-organizations be made, both in Kansas and Missouri, to thwart the reckless course of the abolitionists. We must meet them at their very threshold and scourge them back to their covers of darkness. They have made the issue, and it is for us to meet and repel them.”

The secret organizations, of which Greeley spoke, known as the “Blue Lodges,” “Social Bands,” and “Sons of the South,” became very active, and knowing the condition of affairs along the Missouri border, and having learned the needs and wishes of the actual settlers in the territory, Governor Reeder decided that their rights should not be jeopardized. Therefore, in ordering an election of a congressional delegate only, with the idea of a later proclamation ordering a territorial election of a legislature, he knew that much trouble would be spared. In his proclamation for the congressional election, provision was made for defining the qualifications of legal voters, and providing against fraud, both of which provisions were received with alarm by the leaders of the slavery Democracy, who, up to that time had hoped that the administration at Washington had sent them an ally. It was not long until they discovered that they were mistaken.

The actual settlers of the territory did not evince much interest in the election. They were all engaged in what appeared to them to be the more important business of building their homes and otherwise providing necessities before the approach of winter. There were no party organizations in the territory. The slavery question was not generally understood to be an issue. The first candidates to announce themselves were James N. Burnes, whose name has for sixty years been prominently identified with the social, political and business history of Atchison county, and J. B. Chapman. These two candidates subsequently withdrew from the campaign, and the names finally submitted to the voters were: Gen. John W. Whitfield, Robert P. Flenneken, Judge John A. Wakefield. Whitfield ignored the slavery issue during his canvass, but his cause was openly espoused by the Missourians. Flenneken was a friend of Governor Reeder, with Free Soil proclivities. Wakefield was an outspoken Free-Soiler. Hon. David R. Atchison, then a United States senator, and for whom Atchison county was named, was the head and front of the pro-slavery movement. He had a national reputation and was a power in the United States Senate, and won for himself the highest position in the gift of the Senate, having been chosen president protempore of that body after the death of Vice-President King. He was loyal to the southern views regarding slavery and this made him the unquestioned leader of the party which believed, as Senator Atchison himself believed, that the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill would inevitably result in a slave State west of Missouri. It was to Senator Atchison that Dr. J. H. Stringfellow, himself one of the strong leaders of the pro-slavery forces, looked for inspiration and direction. In a speech Senator Atchison made in Weston, Mo., November 6, 1854, which was just prior to the congressional election in Kansas, he said:

“My mission here today is, if possible, to awaken the people of this country to the danger ahead and to suggest the means to avoid it. The people of Kansas in their first elections will decide the question whether or not the slave-holder was to be excluded, and it depends upon a majority of the votes cast at the polls. Now, if a set of fanatics and demagogues a thousand miles off could afford to advance their money and exert every nerve to abolitionize the territory and exclude the slave-holder, when they have not the least personal interest in the matter, what is your duty? When you reside within one day’s journey of the territory, and when your peace, your quiet, and your property depend upon this action you can without any exertion send five hundred of your young men who will vote in favor of your institutions.”

On November 28, the day preceding the election, the secret society voters in Missouri began to cross over into Kansas. They came organized to carry the election and in such overwhelming numbers as to completely over-awe and out-number the legal voters of the territory at many of the precincts. They took possession of the polls, elected many of the judges, intimidated others to resign and refusing to take the oath qualifying themselves as voters and prescribe to the regulations of the election, cast their ballots for General John W. Whitfield and hastily beat their retreat to Missouri. The whole number of votes cast in that election was 2,233, of which number Whitfield received 2,258; Wakefield, 248; Flenneken, 305, with twenty-two scattering votes. The frauds which were at first denied by both the pro-slavery newspapers and General Whitfield himself, were not long in being discovered.

In the Fifteenth district, of which Atchison county was a part, the total number of votes cast was 306, of which Wakefield got none; Flenneken, 39, and Whitfield, 267. The total number of votes given by the census was 308, and in the majority report of the congressional committee of the following year 206 illegal votes were shown to have been cast in that district. However, there was little immediate disturbance following the election. The settlers continued to busy themselves in completing their homes and were more interested in securing titles to their lands than in the future destiny of the territory.

In the following January and February Governor Reeder caused an enumeration of the inhabitants to be taken preparatory to calling an election for a legislature. H. B. Jolly was named as enumerator for the Fifteenth district and Mr. Jolly found a total of 873 persons in the district, divided as follows: Males, 492; females, 381; voters, 308; minors, 448; natives of the United States, 846; foreign born, sixteen; negroes, fifteen; slaves, fifteen. The date appointed for the legislative election was March 30, 1855. The proclamation of the governor defined the election districts; appointed the voting precincts; named the judges of the election, defined the duties of the judges, and the qualifications of voters. Thirteen members of the council and twenty-six members of the house of representatives were to constitute the legislative assembly of the territory. Atchison was in the Ninth council district and in the Thirteenth representative district. Following the precedent established in the election for congressional delegate the November before the blue lodges of Missouri became active and large numbers of members of the secret societies of Missouri were sent into every council and representative district in the territory for the purpose of controlling the election. They were armed and came with provisions and tents. They overpowered and intimidated the resident voters to such an extent that only 1,410 legal votes were cast in the territory out of 2,905 enumerated in the census.

D. A. N. Grover was the pro-slavery candidate for councilman in the Ninth Council district with no opposition and he received 411 votes which was the total number of votes enumerated for that district. H. B. C. Harris and J. Weddell were the pro-slavery candidates for representative in the Thirteenth district with no opposition. They each received 412 votes, being the total number of votes enumerated in the district.

It was another victory for the pro-slavery sympathizers and the Free State men were indignant, while on the other hand the pro-slavery residents, with their Missouri allies, did not conceal their joy, at the same time admitting frankly the outrages which were practiced at the polls. The Leavenworth Herald of April 6 headed its election returns with the following:

“All Hail.

Pro-Slavery Party Victorious.

We have met the enemy, and they are ours.

Veni Vidi Vici!

Free White State Party used up.

“The triumph of the pro-slavery party is complete and overwhelming. Come on, Southern men; bring your slaves and fill up the territory. Kansas is Saved! Abolitionism is rebuked. Her fortress stormed. Her flag is dragging in the dust. The tri-colored platform has fallen with a crash. The rotten timbers of its structure were not sufficient to sustain the small fragments of the party.”

The Parkville Luminary which was published in Platte county, Missouri, very mildly protested against the manner of carrying the election and spoke in friendly terms of the Free Soil settlers. The following week its office and place was destroyed by a mob and forced its editors to flee the country for their lives.

The election of November 29, 1854, so incensed the Anti-Slavery element that the Free State movement was given a great impetus. A convention of Free State men at Lawrence June 8, 1855, and the Big Springs convention September 5, 1855, were the result, and from that date many other public meetings of Free State men followed. The Free State sentiment fully crystalized itself in the momentous election of October 9, 1855, following eight days after the date set by the pro-slavery legislature for an election of delegate to Congress to succeed J. W. Whitfield, who had been elected the year before. The first election in 1855 was held October 1 but was participated in only by pro-slavery men. The abstract of the poll books showed that 2,738 votes were cast in the territory and Whitfield received 2,721, of which it is only fair to say that 857 were declared illegal. In the Free State election Ex-Governor Andrew H. Reeder received 2,849 votes, of which 101 were cast in Atchison county. On the same day an election for delegates to a constitutional convention to be held at Topeka took place and R. H. Crosby, a merchant of Oceana, Atchison county, and Caleb May, a farmer, near the same place, were elected delegates.

The returns of the pro-slavery election having been made according to law, the governor granted the certificate of election to Whitfield, who returned to Washington as the duly elected delegate from Kansas. The territorial executive committee, elected at the Big Springs convention, gave a certificate of election to Reeder. The Topeka constitutional convention subsequently convened October 23, 1855, and was in session until November 11. This body of Free State men framed a constitution, and among other things memorialized Congress to admit Kansas as a State. It was understood by all that the validity of the work of the convention was contingent upon the admission of Kansas as a State. Meanwhile the executive committee of Kansas Territory appointed at the Topeka primary, September 19, 1855, under the leadership of James H. Lane, continued to direct and inspire the work for a State government.

As a counter-irritant to the activities of the Free State men, and for the purpose of allaying the insane excitement of the territorial legislature, the pro-slavery followers organized a Law and Order party, which was pledged to the establishment of slavery in Kansas. From thenceforth it was open warfare between the two great forces contending for supremacy in the territory. Atchison was the stronghold of the Law and Order party, as Lawrence was the stronghold of the Free State party. The Free State party was looked upon by the Law and Order advocates as made up of revolutionists and the Law and Order party was determined to bring them to time as soon as possible, but as the members of the Free State party held themselves apart from the legal machinery devised for the government of the territory, bringing no suits in its courts; attending no elections; paying no attention to its county organizations; offering no estates to its probate judges, and paying no tax levies made by authority of the legislature, they were careful to commit no act which would lay themselves liable to the laws which they abhorred. They settled all their disputes by arbitration in order to avoid litigation, but as they could build, manufacture, buy and sell and establish schools and churches without coming under the domination of the pro-slavery forces, they managed to do tolerably well. Where the inhabitants were mostly Free State, as in Lawrence and Topeka, conditions were reasonably satisfactory, but in localities like Atchison and Leavenworth, where the Law and Order party dominated affairs, the Free State inhabitants were forced to suffer many indignities and insults.

During the month of August, 1855, a negro woman belonging to Grafton Thomassen, who ran a sawmill in Atchison, was found drowned in the Missouri river. J. W. B. Kelley, a rabid anti-slavery lawyer, from Cincinnati, who became a resident of Atchison, expressed the opinion that if Thomassen’s negro woman had been treated better by her master she would not have committed suicide by jumping into the river. Thomassen was greatly angered at this personal illusion and deluded himself into believing that if he satisfied his own vengeance he would at the same time be rendering the pro-slavery party a service. He therefore picked a quarrel with Kelley and they came to blows, after which Thomassen’s conduct was sustained by a largo meeting of Atchison people. While it is said that Thomassen was a larger and more powerful man than Kelley, the people did not consider this fact, but rather considered the principle involved, and as a result they commended the act in the following resolution:

“1. Resolved. That one J. W. B. Kelley, hailing from Cincinnati, having upon sundry occasions denounced our institutions and declared all pro-slavery men ruffians, we deem it an act of kindness and hereby command him to leave the town of Atchison one hour after being informed of the passage of this resolution never more to show himself in this vicinity.

2. Resolved. That in case he fails to obey this reasonable command, we inflict upon him such punishment as the nature of the case may require.

3. Resolved. That other emissaries of this ‘Aid Society’ now in our midst, tampering with our slaves, are warned to leave, else they too will meet the reward which their nefarious designs so justly merit.—Hemp.

4. Resolved. That we approve and applaud our fellow-townsman, Grafton Thomassen, for the castigation administered to said J. W. B. Kelley, whose presence among us is a libel upon our good standing and a disgrace to our community.

5. Resolved. That we commend the good work of purging our town of all resident abolitionists, and after cleaning our town of such nuisances shall do the same for the settlers on Walnut and Independence creeks whose propensities for cattle stealing are well known to many.

6. Resolved. That the chairman appoint a committee of three to wait upon said Kelley and acquaint him with the actions of this meeting.

7. Resolved. That the proceedings of this meeting be published, that the world may know our determination.”

After the passage of these resolutions they were circulated throughout Atchison and all citizens were asked to sign the same and if any person refused he was deemed and treated as an abolitionist. A few days after this incident Rev. Pardee Butler, a minister of the Christian church, who was living at that time near the now abandoned townsite of Pardee, west of Atchison, about twelve miles, came to town to do some trading. Butler was an uncompromising anti-slavery advocate and never overlooked an opportunity to make his sentiments known. He had strong convictions backed by courage, and while he did not seek controversies, he never showed a desire to avoid them. He was well known in the community as a Free State man, and so when he came into Atchison after these resolutions were passed and the town was all excited about them it did not take him long to get into the controversy and he condemned in strong terms the outrage upon Kelley and also the resolutions which were passed. In the course of a conversation which he had at the postoffice with Robert S. Kelley, the postmaster and assistant editor of the Squatter Sovereign, he informed Mr. Kelley that he long since would have become a subscriber to his paper had he not disliked the violent sentiments which appeared in its columns. Mr. Kelley replied: “I look upon all Free Soilers as rogues and they ought to be treated as such.” Mr. Butler responded: “I am a Free Soiler and expect to vote for Kansas as a Free State.” “I do not expect you will be allowed to vote,” was Mr. Kelley’s reply. On the following morning Mr. Kelley called at the National hotel, corner of Second and Atchison streets, where Mr. Butler had spent the night, accompanied by a number of friends and demanded Butler to sign the resolutions, which of course Mr. Butler refused to do, and walked down stairs into the street. A crowd gathered and seized Mr. Butler, dragging him towards the river, shouting that they intended to drown him. The mob increased in size as they proceeded with the victim. A vote was taken as to the kind of punishment which ought to be given him and a verdict of death by hanging was rendered. It was not discovered until forty years afterwards that Mr. Kelley, the teller, saved Mr. Butler’s life by making false returns to the excited mob. Mr. Kelley subsequently was a resident of Montana and gave this information while stopping in St. Joseph with Dr. J. H. Stringfellow, the former editor of the Squatter Sovereign. Instead of returning a verdict of death by hanging Mr. Kelley announced that it was the decision of the mob to send Mr. Butler down the Missouri river on a raft, and an account of what followed is best given by Rev. Pardee Butler himself:

“When we arrived at the bank Mr. Kelley painted my face with black paint, marked upon it the letter “R.” The company had increased to some thirty or forty persons. Without any trial, witness, judge, counsel or jury, for about two hours I was a sort of target at which were hurled imprecations, curses, arguments, entreaties, accusations and interrogations. They constructed a raft of three cottonwood sawlogs, fastened together with inch plank nailed to the logs, upon which they put me and sent me down the Missouri river. The raft was towed out to the middle of the stream with a canoe. Robert S. Kelley held the rope that towed the raft. They gave me neither rudder, oar nor anything else to manage my raft with. They put up a flag on the raft with the following inscription on it:

‘Eastern Emigrant Aid Express.

The Rev. Pardee Butler again for the underground road;

The way they are served in Kansas: Shipped for Boston; Cargo insured. Unavoidable danger of the Missourians and Missouri river excepted.

Let future emissaries from the north Beware.

Our Hemp crop is sufficient to reward all such scoundrels.’

“They threatened to shoot me if I pulled the flag down. I pulled it down, cut the flag off the flag staff, made a paddle out of the flag staff and ultimately got ashore about six miles below.”

The mob was considerate enough to provide Mr. Butler a loaf of bread and permitted him to take his baggage on board, afterwards escorting him down the river for some distance.

When Mr. Butler landed he returned overland to his home near Pardee. On April 30, 1856, he again ventured to make his appearance in Atchison, where he says: “I spoke to no one in town save two merchants of the place with whom I had business transactions since my first arrival in the territory. Having remained only a few minutes I went to my buggy to resume my journey when I was assaulted by Robert S. Kelley, junior editor of the Squatter Sovereign; was dragged into a grocery and there surrounded by a company of South Carolinians who are reported to have been sent out by a Southern Emigrant Aid Society. After exposing me to every sort of indignity they stripped me to the waist, covered my body with tar and then for the want of feathers applied cotton wool, having appointed a committee of three to certainly hang me the next time I should come to Atchison. They tossed my clothes into the buggy, put me therein, accompanying me to the suburbs of the town and sent me naked upon the prairie. I adjusted my attire about me as best I could and hastened to rejoin my wife and two little sons on the banks of Stranger creek. It was rather a sorrowful meeting after so long a parting.”

The above incident gives some idea of the prevailing sentiment in Atchison county during the period beginning in 1854 and ending in 1857.

There was little chance of Free State settlers to avoid trouble except by discreet silence. It would not be just, however, to fail to disclose the fact that the Free State men also had their secret organizations. The Kansas Legion was a military organization for defensive purposes only. Its members were organized into companies, battalions and regiments and were officered and armed with rifles and pistols sent from the East. These organizations were the natural result of the secret pro-slavery organizations of Missouri and were known to exist to protect the Free State settlers against the attacks of the Blue Lodges, Sons of the South, and the Social Bands.

A man by the name of Pat Laughlin became a member of the Kansas Legion and was very active in organizing companies of that organization at different points in the territory. He subsequently became a traitor to his associates and gave out information to the enemy, thereby creating great indignation among his former friends whom he had betrayed. Later Laughlin and Samuel Collins, of Doniphan county, became engaged in a fierce altercation and friends of both parties to the dispute were present and armed. Laughlin shot Collins and killed him on the spot and was slightly wounded himself. This affair occurred October 25, 1855. No attempt was made by the appointed peace officers of the territory to bring the guilty parties participating in the Pardee Butler outrage or the murder of Collins to justice. Shortly after Laughlin recovered from his wound he secured a position in a store in Atchison and lived there for many years.

This condition of affairs could not long exist without an open rupture between the two opposing forces and from this time on there was a succession of personal encounters of wide significance, and in addition there was the war along the border in which Atchison county played a conspicuous but not a glorious part. The activities here at that crucial period were largely in the interest of the pro-slavery forces. It was at this juncture that the immortal John Brown appeared on the scene to begin his work of driving the slavery advocates from Kansas and making it and the Nation free. His first appearance among the Free State men was December 7, 1855, but he had been in the territory several months before that with his four sons. John Brown did not reach Atchison county during his stormy career in Kansas. The nearest he ever came was in 1857 when he passed through Jackson county with a party of slaves which he was taking from Missouri to Nebraska for the purpose of setting them free. In the historical edition of the Atchison Daily Globe of July 16, 1894, there appears the following short reference to this excursion:

“In 1857 John Brown made a trip from Missouri into Nebraska with a party of slave negroes which he intended to set free. His route was through Jackson county, Kansas, and up by where the town of Centralia now stands. A lot of the pro-slavery enthusiasts in Atchison heard of the affair and went out to intercept Brown. They came up with him near Centralia, but Brown had heard of their coming and captured the entire party. One of the men in the pro-slavery party was named George Ringo; afterwards he soldiered with Dwight Merlin in the Thirteenth Kansas and often talked of the trip to Merwin around their camp fires. Ringo says that James T. Herford was another member of the pro-slavery party, and a man named Cook was another. John Brown looked at Cook critically after the capture and asked his name. Cook said his name was Thomas Porter. “I believe you are lying. I believe your name is Cook and if I was certain of it I would kill you,” Brown said. Cook was one of the men accused of killing Brown’s son at Osawatomie, but Brown was not certain of his identity and let him go with the others. George Ringo says that Brown held a prayer meeting in his camp every evening and asked a blessing at every meal.

“One night when the Atchison party was in the custody of Brown, Brown asked Jim Herford to pray. ‘I can’t pray,’ Herford replied. ‘Didn’t your mother teach you to pray?’ Brown inquired. ‘She taught me to say, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” that was all,’ Herford answered. ‘All right,’ Brown said, ‘get down on your knees and say, “Now I lay me down to sleep.”’ Herford did as he was requested, being afraid to refuse and Brown soon rolled himself in a blanket and went to sleep.”

As the activities of Brown increased so likewise the activities of the pro-slavery forces increased under the leadership of Senator Atchison, of Missouri, and Dr. Stringfellow, editor of the Squatter Sovereign. The Squatter Sovereign, about which more will appear in a subsequent chapter, was published in Atchison and was largely supported by government advertising patronage. It was the leading pro-slavery newspaper organ of the territory. Senator Atchison’s activities were of the most pronounced sort. He not only urged his Missouri constituents to invade the territory in all their might and capture the Yankees, but he went himself. At Platte City, Mo., February 4, 1856, Senator Atchison made a speech which gives some idea of the language he employed in urging the people of western Missouri to join in the invading of Kansas. He said:

“I was a prominent agent in repealing the Missouri Compromise and opening the territory for settlement. The abolition traitors drummed up their forces and whistled them onto the cars, and whistled them off again at Kansas City: some of them had ‘Kansas and Liberty’ on their hats. I saw this with my own eyes. These men came with the avowed purpose of driving or expelling you from the territory. What did I advise you to do? Why, to beat them at their own game. When the first election came off I told you to go over and vote. You did so and beat them. Well, what next? Why, an election of members of the legislature to organize the territory must be held. What did I advise you to do then? Why, meet them on their own ground and at their own game again: and, cold and inclement as the weather was, I went over with a company of men. The abolitionists of the North said, and published it abroad, that Atchison was there with bowie-knives, and by God, it was true. I never did go into that territory—I never intend to go into that territory—without being prepared for all such kinds of cattle.

“They held an election on the fifteenth of last month and they intend to put the machinery of the State in motion on the fourth of March. Now you are entitled to my advice, and you shall have it. I say, prepare yourselves. Go over there. Send your young men, and if they attempt to drive you out, then, damn them, drive them out. Fifty of you with your shotguns are worth 250 of them with their Sharpe’s rifles. Get ready—arm yourselves; for, if they abolitionize Kansas you lose one million dollars of your property. I am satisfied that I can justify every act of you before God and a jury.”

All of the pro-slavery papers were open in their advocacy of an immediate war of extermination. The Squatter Sovereign in its issue just after the election of January 15, commenting on certain disturbances at Easton and a murder at Leavenworth, did not condemn what took place at Easton and had no word of apology or pity to offer for the murdered man. On the contrary it upheld those who committed the murder and gave them encouragement in their campaign of killing abolitionists. Dr. Stringfellow employed his violent rhetoric to give vent to his feelings and the opening paragraph of his leading editorial in the issue of the Squatter Sovereign he used the following language:

“It seems now to be certain that we will have to give the abolitionists at least one good thrashing before political matters are settled in this territory. To do so we must have arms; we have the men. I propose to raise funds to furnish Colt’s revolvers for those who are without them. We say if the abolitionists are able to whip us and overturn the government that has been set up here, the sooner it is known the better, and we want to see it settled.”

During the whole of the following winter preparations for attack and defense went quietly on. There was drilling along the border and disquieting rumors came from time to time of companies that had been organized and equipped to move into Kansas as soon as spring opened to uphold the rights of the Southerners.

Atchison county took a prominent part in the border warfare. The bold attitude assumed by the Free State forces in and around Lawrence; the Wakarusa war; the Free State elections, and the determination of the Free State party to convene their legislature in March, 1856, kept the partisan pro-slavery sentiment in Atchison in a constant tumult. In March large numbers of South Carolina emigrants, armed and equipped with the avowed purpose of enforcing southern rights in Kansas, arrived on all the incoming steamboats. Capt. F. G. Palmer, of Atchison, commanded one of the earliest if not the earliest company of these emigrants. Robert De Treville was first lieutenant. The home company had been formed prior to the arrival of the South Carolinians. Dr. John H. Stringfellow was captain; Robert S. Kelley, first lieutenant; A. J. G. Westbrook, second lieutenant, and John H. Blassingame, third lieutenant. Their arms were supplied from Ft. Leavenworth and by the last of April they were ready and waiting for the assault and the subsequent “sacking” of Lawrence. The whole countryside was aflame with the passion of war. By May 1 quite a large army of pro-slavery sympathizers was organized. The South Carolinian Company, from Atchison, was among the first to start the assault upon Lawrence and it was not long before “its flag was planted upon the rifle pit of the enemy.” Dr. Stringfellow was there and Robert S. Kelley, his able assistant on the Squatter Sovereign, was also there. In an account of the assault the following appeared in the Squatter Sovereign.

“The flag was carried by its brave bearer and stationed upon the Herald of Freedom Printing office, and from thence to the large hotel and fortress of the Yankees, where it proudly waived until the artillery commenced battering down the building. Our company was composed mostly of South Carolinians, under command of Capt. Robert De Treville, late of Charleston, S. C. and we venture the prediction that a braver set of men than are found in its ranks never bore arms.”

The Squatter Sovereign continued to be without fear the most bitter and uncompromising pro-slavery organ in the territory. Its watch-word was “Death to all Yankees and traitors in Kansas.” At a large mass meeting at Atchison, held in June, 1856, Robert S. Kelley, its assistant editor, was nominated as the “Commander-in-Chief of the forces in town,” but for some reason now lost to view Kelley declined the honor and it was passed on to Capt. F. G. Palmer who accepted it without remorse and without apologies. Senator Atchison was present at this mass meeting and made a speech, and so was Col. Peter T. Abell, afterwards president of the Atchison Town Company, and Captain De Treville, and others not so famous, and they all made speeches.

During that summer, because of the continued activities of old John Brown and the agitation which those activities created in the breasts of the pro-slavery sympathizers in Atchison, another military company was formed, called the Atchison Guards, of which John Robertson was the commander, who was so prominent in the Battle of Hickory Point, and Atchison county continued to take a prominent part in the border warfare which continued for sometime thereafter. During all of this time the Free State settlers of Atchison were very quiet and undemonstrative. They were not strong in number and aside from a few virile souls like Pardee Butler, they held their tongues and kept their own counsel. They were treated with scant courtesy and consideration by their pro-slavery neighbors, and it can be said to their credit that no set of men ever displayed greater self-restraint or suffered more for the cause of peace than the Free State settlers of this county. It doubtless unsettled their minds and disturbed their slumbers to read from time to time sentiments such as these taken from the Squatter Sovereign of June 10, 1856:

(Upper) Atchison Hospital. (Center) Atchison County Court House. (Lower) Y. M. C. A.

“Hundreds of Free State men who have committed no overt act, but have only given countenance to those reckless murderers, assassins and thieves, will, of necessity, share the same fate of their brethren. If Civil war is to be the result of such a conflict, there cannot be, and will not be any neutrals recognized. ‘He that is not for us is against us,’ will of necessity be the motto, and those who are not willing to take either one side or the other are the most unfortunate men in Kansas and had better flee to other regions as expeditiously as possible. They are not the men for Kansas.”

In another issue Dr. Stringfellow said:

“The abolitionists shoot down our men without provocation wherever they meet them. Let us retaliate in the same manner. A free fight is all we desire. If murder and assassination is the program of the day we are in favor of filling the bill. Let not the knives of the pro-slavery men be sheathed while there is one abolitionist in the territory. As they have shown no quarters to our men they deserve none from us. Let our motto be written in blood upon our flags. ‘Death to all Yankees and Traitors in Kansas.’ We have 150 men in Atchison ready to start in an hour’s notice. All we lack is horses and provisions.”

And then follows an exhortation from Dr. Stringfellow to his friends in Missouri to contribute something that will enable his constituents to protect their lives and their families from the outrages of the assassins of the North, and ends by stating that the war will not cease until Kansas has been purged of abolitionists.

Pro-slavery committees from Doniphan, Atchison and Leavenworth counties were organized to call on their friends in the South for arms, ammunition and provisions, and a circular letter appeared in the Leavenworth Herald, and an urgent invitation was issued to all the pro-slavery papers to give the circular wide publicity. It read, in part, as follows:

“To our friends throughout the United States:

“The undersigned, having been appointed a committee by our fellow citizens of the counties of Leavenworth, Doniphan and Atchison, in Kansas Territory, to consult together and to adopt measures for mutual protection and the advancement of the interests of the pro-slavery party in Kansas Territory, this day assembled at the town of Atchison, to undertake the responsible duty assigned us; and in our present emergency deem it expedient to address this circular to our friends throughout the union, but more particularly in the slave-holding states. * * * * The time has arrived when prompt action is required and the interior of Kansas can easily be supplied from various points in the above named counties. The pro-slavery party is the only one in Kansas which pretends to uphold the Government or abide by the laws. Our party from the beginning has sought to make Kansas a slave state, only by legal means. We have been slandered and vilified almost beyond endurance, yet we have not resorted to violence, but steadily pursued the law for the accomplishment of our objects. * * * * We have proclaimed to the world that we recognize the principle of the Kansas Bill as just and right, and although we preferred Kansas being made a negro slave state, yet we never dreamed of making it so by the aid of bowie-knives, revolvers and Sharpe rifles, until we were threatened to be driven out of the territory by a band of hired abolitionists, brought up and sent here to control our elections and steal our slaves. We are still ready and intend to continue so, if our friends abroad stand by and assist us. Our people are poor and their labor is their capital. Deprive them of that, which we are now compelled to do, and they must be supported from abroad, or give up the cause of the South. The Northern Abolitionists can raise millions of dollars, and station armed bands of fanatics throughout the territory and support them, in order to deprive Southern men of their constitutional rights. We address this to our friends only, for the purpose of letting them know our true condition and our wants. We know that our call will meet a ready, willing and liberal response. * * * * Heaven and earth is being moved in all the free states to induce overwhelming armies to march here to drive us from the land. We are able to take care of those already here, but let our brethren in the states take care of the outsiders. Watch them, and if our enemies march for Kansas let our friends come along to take care of them, and if nothing but a fight can bring about peace, let us have a fight that will amount to something. Send us the money and other articles mentioned as soon as practicable, and if the abolitionists find it convenient to bring their supplies, let our friends come with ours. Arrangements have been made with Messrs. Majors, Russell & Company, Leavenworth, K. T.; J. W. Foreman & Company, Doniphan, K. T., and C. E. Woolfolk & Company, Atchison, K. T., to receive any money or other articles sent for our relief, and will report to the undersigned, and we pledge ourselves that all will be distributed for the benefit of the cause. Horses, we greatly need—footmen being useless in running down midnight assassins and robbers.”

The following residents of Atchison county signed the circular: P. T. Abell, chairman; J. A. Headley, A. J. Frederick, J. F. Green, Jr., C. E. Mason.

This circular was signed June 6, 1856, and was published in the Lawrence Herald of Freedom, June 14, 1856.

From this time forward the conflagration spread with ever increasing fury, and not only did the appeals for aid from the pro-slavery forces find immediate response, but likewise the anti-slavery forces throughout the whole North came to the rescue of the Free Soilers in Kansas, and during all of this great excitement Atchison county was the focal point of pro-slavery activities. The news of the “sacking” of Lawrence served to awaken the Nation in the North. It was at this time that Henry Ward Beecher, with all of the great eloquence at his command, advocated from his Brooklyn pulpit the sending of Sharpe rifles instead of Bibles to Kansas, and pledged his own parish to supply a definite number. And on and on they came to Kansas out of the North with determination in their hearts and Sharpe rifles in their hands, to help the Free Soilers in their battles against the forces of Atchison and Stringfellow and Abell. Then came Lane’s “Army of the North,” which sounded more terrible than it really was, following in quick succession the second battle of Franklin; the siege and capitulation of Ft. Titus, and the famous battle of Osawatomie. At last the mobilization of the forces of Atchison and Stringfellow not far from the outskirts at Lawrence in September, 1856, for the purpose of a final assault on that Free State stronghold, marked the collapse of the Atchison-Stringfellow military campaign. It was a critical hour for Lane. Old John Brown was there, and the citizens were ready for whatever might befall them, but further hostilities were averted by the action of Governor Geary on the morning of September 15, 1856, when he appeared in person in the midst of the Missouri camp several hours after issuing a proclamation for the Missourians to disband. He found both Senator Atchison and Gen. B. F. Stringfellow (brother of Dr. Stringfellow) there, and in the course of his speech severely reprimanded Atchison, who “from his high estate as Vice-President of the United States, had fallen so low as to be the leader of an army of men with uncontrollable passions, determined upon wholesale slaughter and destruction.”

When Governor Geary had concluded his remarks his proclamation and order to disband the army were read and the more judicious obeyed.

The troops thus disbanded, marched homeward. Those enlisting at Atchison returned to Missouri by way of Lecompton. This was the last organized military invasion from Missouri and ended the attempts of the pro-slavery forces to rule Kansas by martial law.

It must not be concluded, however, that the Stringfellows and other pro-slavery leaders in Atchison county were not law-abiding citizens. They believed in the institution of slavery, as many good men of that day did, and they had the same rights to peacefully enter the territory of Kansas and endeavor to make it a slave State under the principle of Squatter sovereignty, as Dr. Charles Robinson, and Lane, and John Brown did to make the territory a free State. It would not only be unjust to the memory of the Stringfellows and their compatriots, but unjust to posterity also to leave the impression that they had no semblance of justification, for many of their acts, which the impartial historian will admit, were very frequently in retaliation of wrongs and outrages suffered. The terrible stress and strain under which good men on both sides labored in those critical days led them to extremes, and in the midst of the discordant passions of good men, the bad men—those who are the lawless of every age and clime—flourished and their lawlessness only served to complicate the dangerous and ever threatening situation. Calm judgment may not have been lacking in the territory in and around Atchison and Lawrence in the days between 1854 and 1857, but if it existed at all it was lost in the riot of partisan feeling and did not evince itself until later.

Following the disbanding of the “Territorial” militia before Lawrence, General Atchison seemed to have somewhat recovered his composure and in an address to the troops after Governor Geary had retired, he said:

“As was well known to all present the gentlemen composing this meeting had just been in conference with Governor Geary, who in the strongest language had deprecated the inhuman outrages perpetrated by those whom he characterized as bandits, now roving through the territory, and pledged himself in the most solemn manner to employ actively all of the force at his command in executing the laws of the territory and giving protection to his beloved citizens, and who had also appealed to us to dissolve our present organization and stand by and co-operate with him in holding up the hands of his power against all evil doers, and who had also retired from the meeting, with a request that he would consult and determine what course would be taken. Now the object of the meeting was thus to consult and determine what should be done.”

General Atchison also impressed the meeting with the solemnity and importance of the occasion and said that it was time for men to exercise their reason and not yield to their passions and also to keep on the side of the law which alone constitutes our strength and protection. These words of General Atchison breathed a far different message than his strong language of a few years before and indicated more plainly than anything else the general trend of pro-slavery sentiment.

After the cessation of military movements in the territory, more or less peaceful elections, sessions of the legislature and conventions, at which constitutions were framed and voted upon, took place, and the work of preparing the territory to become a State went forward.

Four constitutions were framed before Kansas was admitted to the Union.

The Topeka constitution, which was the first in order, was adopted by the convention which framed it November 11, 1855, and by the people of the territory at an election December 15, 1855.

The Lecompton constitution was adopted by the convention which framed it November 7, 1857, and was submitted to a vote of the people December 21, 1857, and the form of the vote prescribed was: “For the constitution, with slavery,” and “For the constitution, without slavery.” As no opportunity was afforded at this election to vote against the constitution the Free State people did not participate in it. The Territorial legislature was summoned in extra session and passed it without submitting this constitution to a vote of the people, January 4, 1858, and at that election 138 votes were cast for it and 10,226 against it. In spite of this overwhelming vote against the constitution it was sent to Washington and was transmitted by President Buchanan to the Senate who urged the admission of Kansas under it, thus starting the great contest which divided the Democratic party, the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, and the final overthrow of the slave party. The bill to admit Kansas under this constitution failed, but a bill finally passed Congress, under the provisions of which the constitution was again submitted to the people August 4, 1858, with the result that there were 1,788 votes cast for it and 11,300 votes cast against it.

The convention which framed the Leavenworth constitution was provided for by an act of the Territorial legislature, passed in February, 1858, at which time the Lecompton constitution was pending in Congress. The Leavenworth constitution was adopted by the convention April 3, 1858, and by the people May 18, 1858.

The Wyandotte constitution was adopted by the convention which framed it July 29, 1859, and adopted by the people October 4, 1859. It was under the Wyandotte constitution that the State was admitted into the Union January 29, 1861.

In this last convention Atchison county played a very important part. Three members were sent from this county: Caleb May, to whom reference has been made before, a farmer, born in Kentucky, and residing near the now abandoned townsite of Pardee; John J. Ingalls, a lawyer at Sumner, who arrived in Kansas from Massachusetts, October 4, 1858, exactly one year previous to the adoption of the constitution by the people of the Territory, and Robert Graham, a merchant at Atchison, who was born in Ireland. John A. Martin, the editor of Freedom’s Champion, the successor to the Squatter Sovereign, at Atchison, was secretary of the convention.

Caleb May remained a successful farmer and leading citizen of the county for many years after this convention, subsequently drifting to the Indian Territory, where he died.

John J. Ingalls became United States senator from Kansas, where he remained for eighteen years, part of the time as president protempore of that body.

John A. Martin became one of the leading military heroes of Kansas, and served as governor of the State from 1886 to 1888. He played an important part as an officer of the convention, as also did Mr. Ingalls, who, Samuel A. Stinson says, was the “recognized scholar of the convention, and authority on all questions connected with the arrangement and phraseology of the instrument.” For this reason he was made chairman of the committee on phraseology and arrangements. Robert Graham was chairman of the committee on corporations and banking, and on the ballot to locate a temporary capital of the State Atchison received six votes. Topeka received twenty-nine and was chosen as the temporary capital and afterwards became the permanent capital of Kansas.

CHAPTER VI.
ORGANIZATION OF COUNTY AND CITY OF ATCHISON.

ONE OF THE THIRTY-THREE ORIGINAL COUNTIES—THE CITY OF ATCHISON LOCATED—TOWN COMPANY—SALE OF LOTS—INCORPORATION OF TOWN—EARLY BUSINESS ENTERPRISES—ORGANIZATION OF COUNTY—COMMERCIAL GROWTH—FREIGHTING—FIRST OFFICERS—FREE STATE AND PRO-SLAVERY CLASHES—HORACE GREELEY VISITS ATCHISON—ABRAHAM LINCOLN MAKES A SPEECH HERE—GREAT DROUGHT OF 1860—CITY OFFICIALS.

Atchison was one of the thirty-three original counties created by the first territorial legislature, which convened at Pawnee, July 2, 1855, and subsequently adjourned to Shawnee Mission, July 6, 1855, and was named for Senator David R. Atchison, United States senator from Missouri, concerning whom much has been said in previous chapters. The county was surveyed in 1855 and divided into three townships, Grasshopper township comprising all that section lying west of the old Pottawatomie road; Mount Pleasant township, all east of the old Pottawatomie road, and south of Walnut creek, from its confluence with the Missouri river to the source of the creek and a parallel line west to the old Pottawatomie road, and Shannon township, all that section of the county north of Mount Pleasant township. Subsequently, this sub-division was further divided into eight townships, now comprising the county, to-wit: Grasshopper, Mount Pleasant, Shannon, Lancaster, Kapioma, Center, Walnut and Benton. The county is located in the extreme northeastern part of Kansas, save one, Doniphan county, by which it is bounded on the north, together with Brown county, and on the west by Jackson county, and on the south by Jefferson and Leavenworth counties. It has an area of 409 square miles, or 271,360 acres.

The site of the city of Atchison, the first town in the county, was selected because of its conspicuous geographical location on the river. Senator Atchison and his associates attached great importance to the fact that the river bent boldly inland at this point. They felt that it would be of great commercial advantage to a town to be thus located, so July 4, 1854, after a careful consideration of the matter, in all of its phases, Senator Atchison and his Platte county, Missouri, friends dedicated the new town. They felt that they had located the natural gateway through which all the overland traffic to Utah, Oregon and California would pass. After they had settled with George Million, the first known white settler of the territory, and attended to other unimportant preliminaries Dr. J. H. Stringfellow made a claim just north of the Million claim, and with Ira Norris, James T. Darnell, Leonidas Oldham, James B. Martin, George Million and Samuel Dickson, agreed to form a town company, and they received into their organization David R. Atchison, Elijah Green, E. H. Norton, Peter T. Abell, B. F. Stringfellow, Lewis Burnes, Daniel D. Burnes, James N. Burnes, Calvin F. Burnes and Stephen Johnson. A week later these men gathered under a large cottonwood tree, near Atchison street, on the river, and organized by electing Peter T. Abell, president; Dr. J. H. Stringfellow, secretary, and Col. James N. Burnes, treasurer. Peter T. Abell, president of the town company, was an able lawyer, and a Southern man, with pronounced views on the question of slavery. But he was a man of judgment, and a natural boomer. He was a very large man, being over six feet tall and weighed almost 300 pounds. When he became president of the town company he was a resident of Weston, Mo., and lived there until a year after Atchison had been surveyed. Subsequently, Senator Atchison assigned his interests in the town company to his nephew, James Headley, who afterwards became one of the leading lawyers of the town. Jesse Morris also became a member.

The town company, having been regularly organized, the townsite was divided into 100 shares. Each of its members retained five shares; the balance of thirty being held for general distribution. Abell, B. F. Stringfellow and all of the Burnes brothers were received as two parties. Henry Kuhn, a surveyor, surveyed 480 acres, which comprised the original townsite. Mr. Kuhn and his son returned to Atchison forty-five years later, and for a short time ran the Atchison Champion. On September 21, the first sale of town lots was held, amidst great excitement and general interest. It was a gathering which had both political and business significance. Senator Atchison, from Missouri, with a large number of his constituents, was there, and Atchison made a speech, in which one reporter quotes him as having said:

“People of every quarter should be welcome to the Territory, and treated with civility as long as they showed themselves peaceable men.”

A View in Commercial Street. Looking East, Atchison, Kansas

Someone in the crowd called out, “What shall we do with those who run off with our negroes?” “Hang ’em,” cried a voice in the crowd. To this Mr. Atchison replied, “No, I would not hang them, but I would get them out of the Territory, get rid of them.” One version of the speech was to the effect that Senator Atchison answered his questioners by saying, “By G—d, sir, hang every abolitionist you find in the Territory.” But the best account of the meeting was printed in a Parkville, Mo., newspaper, and was reported by an eye witness, who said:

“We arrived at Atchison in the forenoon. Among the company was our distinguished senator, in honor of whom the new city was named. There was a large assemblage on the ground, with plenty of tables set for dinner, where the crowd could be accommodated with bacon and bread, and a drink at the branch, at fifty cents a head. The survey of the town had just been completed the evening before. Stockholders held a meeting, to arrange particulars of sale, and afterwards, as had been previously announced, General Atchison mounted an old wagon and made a speech. He commenced by mentioning the bountiful country that was beginning to be settled; to some of the circumstances under which a territorial government was organized, and in the course of his remarks, mentioned how Douglass came to introduce the Nebraska bill, with a repeal clause in it. He told of how Judge Douglass requested twenty-four hours in which to consider the question of introducing a bill for Nebraska, like the one he had promised to vote for, and said that if, at the expiration of that time, he could not introduce such a bill, which would not at the same time accord with his own sense of right and justice to the South, he would resign as chairman of the territorial committee, and Democratic caucus, and exert his influence to get Atchison appointed. At the expiration of the given time, Judge Douglass signified his intention to report such a bill.

“General Atchison next spoke of those who had supported and those who had opposed the bill in the Senate, and ended by saying that the American people loved honesty and could appreciate the acts of a man who openly and above-board voted according to the will of his constituents, without political regard or favor. He expressed his profound contempt for abolitionists, and said if he had his way he would hang everyone of them that dared to show his face, but he knew that Northern men settling in the Territory were sensible and honest, and that the right feeling men among them would be as far from stealing a negro as a Southern man would.

“When Senator Atchison concluded his remarks, the sale of town lots began, and thirty-four were sold that afternoon, at an average of $63.00 each. Most of those that were sold were some distance back from the river, and speculators were not present, so far as it could be determined, and lots that were sold were bought mostly by owners of the town. Prices ranged from $35.00 to $200.00.”

At this meeting the projects of building a hotel and establishing a newspaper were discussed, and as a result, each of the original 100 shares was assessed $25.00, and in the following spring the National Hotel, corner of Second and Atchison streets, was built. Dr. J. H. Stringfellow and Robert S. Kelley received a donation of $400.00 from the town company, to buy a printing office and in February, 1855, the Squatter Sovereign, which subsequently did so much for the pro-slavery cause, was born.

The town company required each settler to build a house at least sixteen feet square upon his lot, so that when the survey was made in 1855 many found themselves upon school lands. Among those who put up homes in 1854 and 1855 were James T. Darnell, Archibald Elliott, Thomas J. C. Duncan, Andrew W. Pebler, R. S. Kelley, F. B. Wilson, Henry Kline and William Hassett. The titles to the lands owned by these residents remained unsettled until 1857, when titles to all lands within the townsite and open to settlement were acquired from the federal government, and subsequently the title to school lands was secured by patents from the Territory, and in this way the town company secured a clear title to all lands which they had heretofore conveyed, and re-conveyed the same to the settlers and purchasers. Dr. J. H. Stringfellow, proprietor of North Atchison, an addition to the city of Atchison, employed J. J. Pratt to survey that addition in October, 1857. It consisted of the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section 36, township 5, range 20. Samuel Dickson, who was the proprietor of South Atchison, had that addition platted in May, 1858, and John Roberts, who was the proprietor of West Atchison, had his addition surveyed in February, 1858, a few months before Samuel Dickson surveyed South Atchison. C. L. Challiss’ addition was surveyed about the same time. Other additions to the corporate limits of Atchison have been made, and are as follows: Branchton, Bird’s addition, Brandner’s addition, Bakewell Heights, Batiste addition, Florence Park, Forest Park, Goodhue Place, Garfield Park, Highland Park, Home Place, Howard Heights, LaGrande addition, Lincoln Park, Llewellyn Heights, Lutheran Church addition, Mapleton Place, Merkles addition, Parker’s addition, Park Place, Price Villa addition, River View addition, Spring Garden, Style’s addition, Bellvue Heights, and Talbott & Company’s addition.

Atchison was incorporated as a town by act of the Territorial legislature, August 30, 1855, but it was not incorporated as a city until February 12, 1858, after which the charter was approved by the people by special election, March 2, 1858. In the fall of 1856, Atchison had obtained a great many advantages over other towns along the river, by a judicious system of advertising. The Squatter Sovereign printed a circular November 22, 1856, which was scattered broadcast. The circular was as follows:

“To the public, generally, but particularly to those persons living north of the Kansas river, in Kansas Territory:

“It is well known to many, and should be to all interested, that the town of Atchison is nearer to most persons living north of the Kansas river, than any other point on the Missouri river. The country, too, south of the Kansas river above Lecompton, is also as near Atchison as any other Missouri river town. The roads to Atchison in every direction are very fine, and always in good repair for wagon and other modes of travel. The country opposite Atchison is not excelled by any section of Missouri, it being portions of Buchanan and Platte counties, in a high state of cultivation, and at a considerable distance from any important town in Missouri, making grain, fruit, provisions and all kinds of marketing easily procured at fair prices; a matter of no small consideration to settlers in a new country.

“The great fresh water lake, from which the fish markets of St. Joseph and Weston are supplied, is also within three miles of Atchison.

“Atchison is now well supplied with all kinds of goods: groceries, flour, corn, meal, provisions and marketing of all kinds are abundant, and at fair prices. To show the compatibility of Atchison to supply the demands of the country, we here enumerate some of the business houses, viz: Six large dry goods and grocery stores, wholesale and retail; six family grocery and provision stores, wholesale and retail; one large clothing store; one extensive furniture store, with mattresses and bedding of all sorts; one stove, sheet iron and tinware establishment, where articles in that line are sold at St. Louis prices; several large warehouses sufficient to store all the goods of emigrants and traders across the plains, and to Kansas Territory; one weekly newspaper—The Squatter Sovereign—having the largest circulation of any newspaper in Kansas, with press, type and materials to execute all kinds of job work; two commodious hotels, and several boarding houses; one bakery and confectionery; three blacksmith shops; two wagon makers, and several carpenter shops; one cabinet maker; two boot and shoe maker shops, and saddle and harness maker shops; one extensive butcher and meat market; a first rate ferry, on which is kept a magnificent new steam ferry boat and excellent horse boat, propelled by horses; a good flat boat, and several skiffs; saw mills, two propelled by steam and one by horse-power; two brick yards, and two lime kilns.

“A fine supply of professional gentlemen of all branches constantly on hand equal to the demand.

“A good grist mill is much needed, and would make money for the owner.”

The first business house in Atchison was established by George T. Challiss, at the corner of the Levee and Commercial streets, in August, 1854. The National Hotel was not built at that time, so Mr. Challiss established a temporary camp, and his workmen were accommodated under an elm tree near the river. The Challiss store building was torn down in 1872. George T. Challiss and his brother, Luther C. Challiss, were clerking in a dry goods store at Booneville, Mo., in the spring of 1854. George T. Challiss returned to his old home in New Jersey on a visit, and upon his return, in August, he came direct to Atchison. He came by boat to Weston, Mo., where he met P. T. Abell, president of the town company, and Abell prevailed upon him to come to Atchison in a buggy, crossing the river here on George Million’s ferry. Mr. Abell donated Mr. Challiss the lot upon which he built his store, and he went to Rushville and bought enough cottonwood lumber to build it. When he arrived in Atchison, he had $4.50 in money, but later on borrowed $150.00 from his brother, Luther C. Challiss, at Boonville. He enjoyed a good business from the beginning, and carried a large stock of both dry goods and groceries.

The town of Atchison was the one big outstanding factor in Atchison county when the territory was organized, but at the same time that Abell and Stringfellow and others “were shaping up the town,” others were busy organizing the county. As the city was named for General Atchison, so likewise was the county at the time of its creation by the first Territorial legislature that assembled at Pawnee. The first board of county commissioners was selected and appointed by the Territorial legislature, August 31, 1855, and was composed of William J. Young, James M. Givens and James A. Headley. The first meeting of the board was held September 17, 1855, at the home of O. B. Dickerson, in the city of Atchison. At this meeting Ira Norris was appointed clerk and recorder; Samuel Dickson, treasurer; Samuel Walters, assessor. William McVay had received an appointment as sheriff of the county prior to the meeting of the board, direct from the governor, to fill the office temporarily until his successor was subsequently appointed and qualified. On the 18th of September, 1855, being the second day of the session of the first board of county commissioners, Eli C. Mason was appointed as sheriff to succeed McVay, and Dudley McVay was appointed coroner. Voting precincts were established in three townships preparatory to an election of a delegate to Congress, which was to take place the first Monday in October, 1855. At the October meeting of the board of county commissioners, block 10, in what is now known as Old Atchison, was accepted by the board as a location upon which to erect a court house. This property was offered to the county by the Atchison town company for the purpose of influencing the board to make Atchison the county seat. The conditions of the gift were that the court house was to be built of brick and to be at least forty feet square. In the following spring the town company donated fifty town lots, and the proceeds of these lots were to be used in the construction of the court house. In June, 1857, the court house was ordered built and it was to be two stories high, the first story to be of rock and the second story of wood. It was 24×18 feet square: however, the plans were subsequently changed, and, because of the gift of an additional fourteen lots by the town company, of a value of $6,000.00, a more pretentious building was erected in 1859, with a county jail adjoining it. Prior to the erection of the court house, there was a spirited contest between Mt. Pleasant, Monrovia, Lancaster and Sumner over the question of the county seat. In an election to determine the location, Atchison received a majority of 252 votes over all competitors for the county seat. The estimated total population of the county at the time was 2,745.

In the next few years Atchison grew rapidly and the dreams of Senator Atchison and his associates bade fair to be realized on a large scale. The population of the town was about 500, and yet there were eight hardware stores, twelve dry goods stores, eight wholesale grocery stores, nineteen retail grocery stores, and twenty-six law firms. The banking business was controlled by the contracting firms of A. Majors & Company and Smoot, Russell & Company. The Atchison branch of the Kansas Valley Bank was the first in the State to be formed under the legislative act, authorized February 19, 1857, with a capital stock of $300,000.00. In the act, John H. Stringfellow, Joseph Plean and Samuel Dickson were named to open subscription books. An organization was effected in the spring of 1858, and the capital stock of the local organization was $52,000.00. The board of directors was composed of Samuel C. Pomeroy, president; W. H. Russell, L. R. Smoot, W. B. Waddell, F. G. Adams, Samuel Dickson and W. E. Gaylord. There was considerable rivalry between Sumner and Doniphan at the time, and shortly after the organization of the bank, a rumor, which was supposed to have started in Sumner, to the effect that the bank was about to suspend, caused the directors to publish a statement of its condition, showing that its assets were $36,638.00 and its liabilities $20,118.00. S. C. Pomeroy resigned as president before the year was out and was succeeded by William H. Russell. The bank subsequently had its name changed by the legislature to the Bank of the State of Kansas. Mr. Russell, the second president of the bank, made his home in Leavenworth and was an active pro-slavery man, being treasurer of the executive committee in 1856 to raise funds to make Kansas a slave State. This bank continued until 1866, when it went into voluntary liquidation and its stockholders wound up its affairs.

One of the most important institutions in Atchison in the early days was the Massasoit House, opened for business September 1, 1858, in charge of Tom Murphy, a genial proprietor, who conducted it for many years. At the same time there were three other hotels in operation in the city. Reference has heretofore been made to the National Hotel, which was elected in 1855 by popular subscription. It was a plain log structure on the north side of Atchison street, just east of Second, overlooking the river. The Tremont House was a two-story frame structure at the southeast corner of Second and Main, and the Planters’ House was at the southwest corner of Commercial and Sixth streets on the site now occupied by the Exchange National Bank, but the Massasoit House was the leading hotel of this section and it was a substantial, somewhat imposing frame building erected at the northwest corner of Second and Main streets on the site now occupied by the Wherrett-Mize Wholesale Drug House. It was three stories high with a basement and was handsomely furnished. It did a large business and was the headquarters for the overland staging crowds. All the lines, which ran in every direction, out of Atchison at that time departed from the Massasoit House. It was a favorite place for political gatherings, and from its balconies many speeches were made by leaders of the political parties of that day. It at one time was the hiding place for a number of slaves who had been secreted in the hotel by their master. Horace Greeley, the famous editor of the New York Tribune, ate his first dinner in Kansas at this hotel, and Abraham Lincoln was a guest on the day that John Brown was executed at Harper’s Ferry.

Some idea of the magnitude of the merchandising that was carried on in Atchison in 1858 may be gathered from the fact that during the summer of that year twenty-four trains comprising 775 wagons, 1,114 men, 7,963 oxen, 142 horses, 1,286 mules conveyed 3,730,905 pounds of merchandise across the Rocky mountains and California. One single train that was sent out that year consisted of 105 wagons, 225 men, 1,000 oxen, 200 mules, fifty horses and 465,500 pounds of merchandise. During the latter part of 1859 and the early months of 1860, forty-one regular traders and freighters did business out of Atchison. During nine months of one of those years, the trains outfitted from Atchison were drawn by mules and cattle and comprised 1,328 wagons, 1,549 men, 401 mules and 15,263 oxen. The Pike’s Peak gold mines, which were discovered in 1858, and the prospecting in that region were the causes of the larger part of this enormous business. Denver at that time had a population of about 2,500, and was the center of the mining region around Pike’s Peak. In the period just mentioned, thirty-three of the trains that left Atchison were destined for Denver. One of these trains was composed of 125 wagons, carrying 750,000 pounds of merchandise. It extended from the levee on the river far beyond the western outskirts of the city. The outfit was managed by fifty-two men, twenty-two mules and 1,542 oxen. Several of the trains for Denver had from twenty to fifty wagons. One, sent out by Jones & Cartwright, had fifty-eight wagons and carried over 3,000 pounds of merchandise. Among the trains that left Atchison during the latter part of 1859 were, one for Santa Fe, N. M., another for Colorado City, Colo., two for Green River, Wyo., and four for Salt Lake City. The biggest overland outfit was owned by Irwin, Jackson & Company, who were Government freighters. During one season this firm sent out 520 wagons, 650 men, 75 mules and 6,240 oxen. This firm had a good contract for supplying the military posts on the plains, including Forts Kearney, Laramie, Bridger, Douglas, and Camp Floyd, a short distance from Salt Lake City. In addition to these larger overland staging concerns there were a number of lesser outfits sent out by private parties in Atchison, with one, two or three wagons each. Most of the freight conveyed across the plains in wagons was brought to Atchison in steamboats, which unloaded at the levee extending along two or three blocks, beginning at about Atchison street and running south. Very frequently loaded ox trains nearly a mile in length were seen on Commercial street, and some of the prairie schooners would be loaded with hardware or some other dead weight, drawn by six to eight yoke of cattle; and more wagon trains were loaded and departed from Atchison than from any other point on the Missouri river.

The act of the Territorial legislature of Kansas incorporating the city of Atchison was approved February 12, 1858, and it provided for the election of a mayor and councilmen. The charter was voted upon and accepted by the people at a special election held March 2, 1858, and the first mayor and council were elected at a special election March 13, 1858. The charter provided for an annual city election at that time to be held on the first Monday in September, and consequently the first mayor and councilmen of the city, elected in March, held their offices only until the following September. Samuel C. Pomeroy was the first mayor of the city, holding his office from March, 1858, until May, 1859. Pomeroy was one of the prominent Free State settlers and was one of its most popular citizens. His election as mayor was the result of the toss of a coin. A temporary truce having been effected between the Southerners and the Free State men, it was agreed that a compromise in local affairs would be beneficial to the community. By the toss of a coin the Free State men won the mayor and three councilmen, and the pro-slavery men had four councilmen. Pomeroy was named by the Free State men mayor. Pomeroy subsequently became actively identified with the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Association, in the distribution of aid to the stricken people of Kansas following the great drought of 1860, and it was largely because of his identification with this organization that he was enabled to place aid where it would do the most good, and he subsequently became one of the first United States senators from Kansas. When he was a resident of Atchison he lived at the corner of North Terrace and Santa Fe streets, but later he moved to a tract of land near Muscotah, and during the twelve years he was senator he claimed the latter place as his home. It was when he asked for a third term as United States senator that he was exposed on the floor of the State senate by Senator York, who arose in his place and, advancing to the secretary’s desk, placed $7,000.00 in cash thereon, which he alleged Pomeroy had given him to influence his vote. Many have always believed that Senator Pomeroy was greatly wronged by this act of York. Ex-Governor George W. Glick, himself a Democrat and a leading citizen of Atchison in the early days, was a very warm friend of Pomeroy and always expressed indignation when he heard Pomeroy abused, not only about his conduct in connection with the Emigrant Aid Association, but also in connection with his downfall politically. It was the contention of Governor Glick that Pomeroy’s fall was the result of a conspiracy and not because of general bribery. However, Pomeroy never rose to political prominence after this incident and ended his days in Washington, D. C., where he lived for a number of years prior to his death.

Associated with Pomeroy as the first mayor of Atchison, were the following citizens: John F. Stein, Jr. register; E. B. Grimes, treasurer; Milton R. Benton, marshal; A. E. Mayhew, city attorney; W. O. Gould, city engineer; M. R. Benton, by virtue of his office as marshal, was also street commissioner; H. L. Davis, assessor; Dr. J. W. Hereford, city physician. The board of appraisers was composed of Messrs. Petfish, Roswell and Gaylord. The first councilmen were William P. Childs, O. F. Short, Luther C. Challiss, Cornelius E. Logan, S. F. Walters, James A. Headley, Charles Holbert. John F. Stein, who was register, resigned his office in August, and R. L. Pease was appointed to succeed him. In the following August the city was divided into three wards, the first ward being entitled to four councilmen, the second ward to two, and the third ward to three. At the first meeting of the council, which was held March 15, 1858, an ordinance was adopted providing for a special election for the purpose of submitting a proposition to take $100,000.00 of stock in a proposed railroad from St. Joseph, Mo., to some point opposite Atchison on the Missouri river. The election was held and the stock was subscribed for. Mayor Pomeroy was appointed agent of the proposed road, which was to be known as the Atchison & St. Joseph Railroad Company. A further account of the development of railroad building from Atchison will occur in a subsequent chapter. The council at this session also fixed the salary of the mayor, and in spite of the freedom of those days, saloons were ordered to be closed on Sunday, and other stringent regulations were passed in connection with the liquor traffic. The first financial statement of the city, of date September 5, 1859, is as follows:

General city tax, 1858$ 5,927.70
Fines imposed by mayor’s court186.50
Dray and wagon licenses192.00
Dram shop licenses1,787.76
Beer house licenses101.33
Shows130.00
Billiard tables225.00
Registry of dogs50.00
Assessment on C street from River to Fourth3,381.00
Total$12,008.29
Amount of scrip and orders issued on general fund to December 15, 1858$ 6,317.17
Amount of scrip and orders issued on general fund to September 5, 18593,140.53
Scrip issued toward building jail1,675.00
Scrip issued for grading streets, curbing, etc.10,105.39
Total$21,238.09
General deficit$ 9,229.79

The fact that Mayor Pomeroy had strongly urged in his inaugural address the importance of grading and improving the streets of the city “especially Atchison, Second and Fourth streets, and the levee,” possibly accounts for the indebtedness of the city at so early a date. There was a general inclination among the citizens of Atchison to build a modern city in accordance with the standards of the times, and therefore they were anxious to follow the mayor’s advice to put their streets and alleys in order.

One of the most interesting and at the same time one of the most difficult tasks in tracing the settlement of a community, is to correctly catalogue the establishment of the first settler, the first house, the first business institution, and the first of everything, and it could with safety be said that this is not only an interesting and difficult task but it is well nigh an impossible one. This is not to be wondered at when we take into account the rush and confusion which always attend the settlement of a new community. However, it has now become an established fact that George M. Million was the first white settler in the Territory, with Samuel Dickson a close second. There was some dispute about who built the first house in the town of Atchison, but we have resolved all doubt in favor of Dickson, just as we have decided that George T. Challiss established the first business house. The Challiss brothers, George, Luther and William all played an important part in the very early history of the county. They were in business and in the professions, and they were all land owners, selecting the choicest tracts “close in” and holding onto them, none too wisely or too well, for their tenacity in this respect later resulted in their undoing. The leading lawyers in the county during those days were M. J. Ireland, A. G. Otis, Isaac Hascall, James A. Headley, A. E. Mayhew, J. T. Hereford, P. H. Larey, Joseph P. Carr and B. F. Stringfellow. Horton, Foster, Ingalls, and General Bela M. Hughes came later. Hascall carried a card in the Squatter Sovereign, advertising his legal headquarters as the Border Ruffian Law Office.

In addition to the names of merchants and professional men heretofore given, “Andreas’ History of Kansas” gives the following list: Grafton Thomassen, the slave owner, ran a sawmill. Thomassen’s name appears in the records of Atchison county in connection with land transfers as Grafton Thomason; Luther C. Challiss, who occupied a store on the levee, 45 by 100 feet which he filled with dry goods and groceries, and advertised “such an assortment as was never before offered for sale in the upper country”; Samuel Dickson, a merchant and politician and also an auctioneer, on the north side of C street; Lewis Burnes, M. P. Rively and Stephen Johnson carried stocks of assorted merchandise; A. J. G. Westbrook, a grocer, and Patrick Laughlin, who fled from Doniphan on account of the murder of Collins, the Free State man, was a tinner; William C. Null and Albert G. Schmitt operated a warehouse and carried a general stock of merchandise at the corner of Second and C streets; Charles E. Woolfolk and Robert H. Cavell had a large store and warehouse at the steamboat landing; George M. Million operated the Pioneer Saloon; John Robertson conducted a saddlery and harness business; Messrs. Jackson & Ireland were a contracting firm with a shop over Samuel Dickson’s store; Uncle Sam Clothing Store, at the corner of C and Third streets, was conducted by Jacob Saqui & Company; Giles B. Buck sold stoves on C street; O. B. Dickson was proprietor of the Atchison House; Drs. J. H. Stringfellow and D. M. McVay were the leading physicians; and it is interesting to note that Washburn’s Great American Colossal Circus, which was the first in Kansas, gave two exhibitions in Atchison, July 31, 1856. This aggregation carried three clowns, a full brass and string band and an immense pavilion, and many other novel and attractive features.

Fully fifty new buildings were erected during the spring and summer of 1856.

During this period in the history of the county, Free State people began to come into their own. They grew bolder, following the compromise with the pro-slavery citizens, over the question of the distribution of city officers and because of other concessions that were made by the pro-slavery citizens for the general good of the community. It was not strange, therefore, that some of the less tactful and politic Free State leaders should over-reach themselves at such a time. While the “Reign of Terrorism” under the Stringfellow regime was on, the Free State men in Atchison county considered discretion the better part of valor. They were very quiet, with few exceptions, of whom Pardee Butler was a conspicuous example, but they were nevertheless quite numerous in the county, and particularly was this the case in and around Monrovia, Eden and Ocena; in fact, there was an organization of Free State men in the county as early as 1857, and several quiet meetings were held that year; and at Monrovia a society was formed, of which Franklin G. Adams was the chief officer and spokesman.

Early in May, 1857, Senator Pomeroy and the Free State men bought the Squatter Sovereign from Dr. Stringfellow, and Mr. Adams and Robert McBratney became its editors. Mr. Adams was just as ardent a Free State man as Dr. Stringfellow was the other way, so the policy of the paper was completely reversed. Judge Adams was a lawyer and partner of John J. Ingalls for a while. He represented Atchison county in the constitutional convention that met in Mineola March 23, 1858 and which subsequently adjourned to Leavenworth. Caleb May, G. M. Fuller, C. A. Woodworth and H. E. Baker were the other delegates from Atchison county. Judge Adams was later one of the useful men of Kansas, and at the time of his death he was secretary of the State Historical Society, which position he filled with credit and honor for many years. On August 22, 1858, following the local compromise with the pro-slavery leaders, Judge Adams concluded the time was ripe to invite James H. Lane, the great Free State leader, to Atchison, to make a speech. He consequently served notice in his paper that Lane would be in Atchison October 19. As soon as it was generally known that Lane had been invited to speak in Atchison a number of the more rabid pro-slavery men concluded that the speaking would not take place. On the other hand, Judge Adams was just as determined that Lane would have a public meeting in Atchison. For the purpose of insuring order on that occasion Adams invited a number of strong and reliable Free State friends from Leavenworth to come up to Atchison and see that fair play was done. The invitation to the Leavenworth Free Soilers was accepted with alacrity and they arrived on the morning of the day Lane was billed to make his speech and brought with them their side arms as a matter of precaution. They made the office of Adams, Swift & Company their headquarters while here. Shortly after the arrival of the Leavenworth contingent and while sitting in his office Judge Adams noticed a crowd gathering on Commercial street, near Fifth. Suspecting that the crowd had gathered for no good purpose, Judge Adams and six of his friends started for the scene of what appeared to him to be a disturbance. On their way they met Caleb A. Woodworth, Sr., hatless and apparently in trouble. As Judge Adams stopped to make inquiries of Mr. Woodworth regarding his trouble somebody from the rear assaulted him with a heavy blow on the cheek. Instead of following the Biblical injunction he did not turn his other cheek, but swung quickly in his tracks and levelled a pistol at his assailant, who was accompanied by a crowd of his friends, all armed and with blood in their eyes. As Judge Adams was about to pull the trigger of his gun a friend of Judge Adams shouted, “Don’t shoot yet!” following which admonition all of the crowd displayed cocked revolvers and aimed them in the direction of Judge Adams and his crowd. Observing that the Free Soilers meant business, the pro-slavery men discreetly withdrew without further trouble, and the Free Soil men returned to the office of Judge Adams. It was then determined that the meeting should be an out-of-door one, and as they passed out into the street, again the pro-slavery advocates mixed freely with the Free Soilers. A. J. W. Westbrook, of the “Home Guards,” mounted on a prancing horse, rode among the crowd, flourishing a cocked gun, apparently seeking to kill Judge Adams at the first favorable opportunity. It has been doubted that Westbrook meant business, but his conduct had the effect of stirring up his followers who avowed that Jim Lane should not speak in Atchison that night. His threatening attitude apparently had the desired effect, for the Free Soil men decided that it was not necessary for the existence of their cause that Jim Lane should speak and therefore postponed the speaking. Judge Adams was not altogether pleased but he was finally prevailed upon to return home without attempting further trouble. Later in the day a party of Free Soil men met General Lane on the outskirts of the city, returning from Doniphan where he had been speaking, and prevailed upon him not to come to Atchison. This was not the first attempt of Lane to visit Atchison county. He was entertained at dinner in 1855 at the home of Dr. J. H. Stringfellow, whose house occupied the site where the home of Ex-Governor W. J. Bailey now stands. The fact that Lane was a guest of Dr. Stringfellow will appear strange to those who knew nothing of the Stringfellow family. While they were belligerent pro-slavery advocates, they were always high class men with decent instincts and therefore it would not be unusual for them to open their home to so violent an opponent of theirs as Lane was. The eastern papers, in giving an account of Lane’s entertainment at the Stringfellow home, stated that the dinner was a very elaborate one, including oysters, plum pudding, terrapin and champagne. Mrs. Stringfellow told E. W. Howe in 1894 that Lane came to the house about 11 o’clock in the morning attended by a body-guard of four men and inquired for Dr. Stringfellow. The Doctor was away at the time, but was expected about noon. The men said that they would wait, whereupon Mrs. Stringfellow knew that she would probably have them for dinner. Her girl was just getting ready to go somewhere on an errand and was asked to remain at the house. Dr. Stringfellow came in about noon and when the two men met in the yard Stringfellow asked Lane if he was not afraid to call at his house. “I am not afraid,” Lane replied, “to call on a gentleman anywhere.” This gallantry captured Mrs. Stringfellow’s admiration and she invited Lane and his body-guard to dinner, which, contrary to the report in the eastern papers, was a very simple one. Mrs. Stringfellow, in her interview with Mr. Howe, said that it was as follows: Coffee, hot biscuits and butter, cold pie, preserves and milk; no terrapin, no oysters, no champagne, no plum pudding. Lane called at the house on a matter of business and Mrs. Stringfellow said that Lane and his body-guard were very kindly genteel men. Two or three weeks later, when Mrs. Stringfellow was alone in the house, she saw a wagon pass in the road with three or four men lying down in it. Presently another wagon, similarly loaded, attracted her attention. Then came four men and a woman on horseback and several men on foot. The people came from down town, or from southwest of town. The circumstances were peculiar, and Mrs. Stringfellow climbed on top of a table and watched the men through the upper sash of a window. They stopped in a little glade northeast of the house, when the woman dismounted from the horse, took off the skirt and turned out to be Jim Lane. He stood beside the horse and talked possibly half an hour. Mrs. Stringfellow is certain the speaker was Lane, because she had seen him only a few weeks before, and he rode the white horse he had ridden when he stopped at her house, and the same four men composed the body-guard. Lane had threatened to make a speech in the town but had been warned not to, as he had been warned two years earlier. He made his speech in spite of the warning, but his audience was composed of his friends only. A half hour after Lane disappeared over the hill toward the farm then owned by John Taylor, some distance south of the Orphans’ Home, forty mounted southerners appeared looking for him. Mrs. Stringfellow knew John Scott, the leader, and told him of the incident. The men laughed and then gave three rousing cheers for Jim Lane, who had outwitted them.

Forest Park, Atchison, Kansas

While there was a tremendous traffic across the plains from Atchison in 1857, 1858 and 1859, and for a number of years later the “town was alive with business,” it is only fair to record that the town itself was not a thing of beauty and a joy forever, in spite of the efforts of Mayor Pomeroy and the city fathers who put the city in debt to the extent of $9,000, September 5, 1859, for public improvements.

Frank A. Root in his admirable book, “The Overland Stage to California,” published in 1901, has this to say in part upon his arrival here in November, 1858:

“It was in November, 1858, that I first set foot on the levee in Atchison. I stepped from the steamer, ‘Omaha,’ which boat was discharging its cargo of freight at the foot of Commercial street. At that time the place was a very small town. I took up my residence in Atchison the following spring, having this time come up the river on a steamboat from Weston where I had been employed as a compositor in the office of the Platte Argus. On landing at Atchison I had a solitary dime in my pocket, and, after using that to pay for my lunch, I started out in search of a job. A sign over the office which read: ‘Freedom’s Champion, John A. Martin, Editor and Publisher,’ attracted my attention. It hung above the door of the only newspaper office in the city at that time, but preparations were then being made by Gideon O. Chase, of Waverly, N. Y., to start the Atchison Union, which was to be a Democratic paper. I secured a place in the Champion office, beginning work the following morning. As I walked about the town I remember of having seen but four brick buildings on Commercial street. A part of the second story of one of them, about half a square west of the river, was occupied by the Champion. The Massasoit House was the leading hotel. The Planters, a two-story frame house, was a good hotel in those early days, but it was too far out to be convenient, located as it was, on the corner of Commercial and Sixth streets. West of Sixth there were but few scattering dwellings and perhaps a dozen business houses and shops. The road along Commercial street, west of Sixth, was crooked, for it had not been graded and the streets were full of stumps and remnants of a thick growth of underbrush that had previously been cut. A narrow, rickety bridge was spanning White Clay creek where that stream crosses Commercial street at Seventh street. Between Sixth and Seventh streets, north of Commercial street there was a frog pond occupying most of the block, where the boys pulled dog-grass in highwater, and where both boys and girls skated in winter. The Exchange hotel on Atchison street, between Second and the Levee, built of logs—subsequently changed to the National—was the principal hotel of Atchison, and for more than a quarter of a century stood as an old familiar landmark, built in early territorial days.

“Atchison was the first Kansas town visited by Horace Greeley. It was Sunday morning, May 15, 1859, a few days before beginning his overland journey across the continent by stage. He came through Missouri by the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad, thence down the Missouri river from St. Joseph on the ‘Platte Valley,’ a steamer then running to Kansas City in connection with trains on the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. It was in the old Massasoit House that Greeley wrote on Kansas soil, his first letter to the Tribune. During the latter part of the afternoon he was driven over the city in a carriage, John A. Martin being one of the party. The city was a favorite place of Albert D. Richardson, the noted correspondent of five eastern newspapers.

“It was at Atchison that Abraham Lincoln, on his first visit to Kansas, spoke to a crowded house on ‘The Issues of the Day,’ December 2, 1859, the date that old John Brown was executed in Virginia. Lincoln spoke in the Methodist church, which then stood on the hill at the corner of Fifth and Parallel streets. The little church was a frame building, dedicated in May, 1859, and overlooked a considerable portion of the city. The house afterwards became quite historic, for during the early part of the Civil war, the patriotic Rev. Milton Mahin, a stanch Union man, from Indiana, in a patriotic speech, soon after the Civil war broke out, had the nerve, and was the first minister of the Gospel in Atchison, to raise the Stars and Stripes over his house of worship.” D. W. Wilder, in his “Annals of Kansas,” one of the most wonderful books of its kind ever published, says that Abraham Lincoln arrived in Elwood, which is just across from St. Joseph, December 1, 1859, and made his speech there that evening. He was met at St. Joseph by M. W. Delahay and D. W. Wilder. The speech that Lincoln delivered at Elwood and at Atchison was the same speech that he subsequently delivered at the Cooper Institute, New York City, and was considered as one of the ablest and clearest ever delivered by an American statesman.

Atchison county was making forward strides at a rapid pace and the future held out every promise of prosperity, but in 1859 “a great famine fell upon the land.” It did more to depopulate Kansas than all the troubles of preceding years. The settlers in the Territory were able to fight border ruffians with more courage than they could endure starvation, and during all of their earlier troubles they confidently looked forward to the time when all of their political difficulties would be settled and prosperity, peace and contentment would be their share in life. During the years of 1855, 1856 and 1857 the citizens of the Territory were unable to take advantage of the then favorable seasons to do more than raise just sufficient for their immediate needs. During the next year immigration to Kansas was large and the new settlers had but little time, in addition to building their homes, to raise barely enough for home consumption, so in 1859 Kansas had only enough grain on hand to last until the following harvest. The drought commenced in June, and from the nineteenth of that month until November, 1860, not a shower of rain fell of any consequence. By fall the ground was parched and the hot winds that blew from the south destroyed vegetation and the wells and springs went dry. There were a few localities on bottom lands along the Missouri river where sufficient crops were raised to supply the immediate population, but over 60,000 people in Kansas faced starvation in the fall of 1860. Thirty thousand settlers left the Territory for their old homes, from which they came, abandoning their claims and all hope of success in Kansas. An endless procession crossed the border from day to day. About 70,000 inhabitants remained, of whom it was estimated 40,000 were able to go through the winter. As soon as the news of this situation reached the East, movements were inaugurated for the relief of the sufferers in Kansas. S. C. Pomeroy was appointed general agent of northern Kansas. He did much to raise liberal contributions in New York, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio, and the contributions were all sent to Atchison, from which place they were distributed to the different counties of the State. The total receipts of provisions for distribution up to March 15, 1861, were 8,090,951 pounds, and the total distribution at Atchison, exclusive of branch depots, was 6,736,424 pounds. In spite of all of this assistance over 30,000 settlers in Kansas that year suffered privation and almost starvation.

It was during this frightful travail that Kansas as a State was born. On January 21, 1861, Jefferson Davis and a number of other southern senators left the United States Senate and on that day the bill for the admission of Kansas under the Wyandotte constitution, which had been laid before the House of Representatives in February, 1860, was called up by W. H. Seward, and passed the Senate by a vote of thirty-six yeas to sixteen nays. One week later the bill came up in the House on motion of Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, who introduced the first bill for the admission of Kansas into the Union, and while the motion was out of the regular order, it was passed by a vote of 119 yeas to forty-two nays. On January 29 the bill was signed by President Buchanan, and free Kansas joined the Union.

The following are the names of the city officials of Atchison March 1, 1916: Dr. C. C. Finney, mayor; Victor L. King, city clerk; Walter E. Brown, city attorney; C. A. Wright, city treasurer; Frank S. Altman, city engineer; D. S. Beatty, police judge; William H. Coleman, chief of police; John Compton, fire marshal; Jerome Van Dyke, street commissioner; Owen P. Grady, meat inspector and license collector; Fred Stutz, sanitary sergeant; Frank J. Roth, building commissioner; John Compton, purchasing agent; Dr. T. E. Horner, city physician. Councilmen: Louis Weinman, president; first ward, Louis Weinman, F. F. Bracke; second ward, Joseph Schott, C. A. Brown; third ward, H. M. Ernst, John R. Schmitt; fourth ward, W. C. Linville, Fred Snyder; fifth ward, Fay Kested, Walter North.

CHAPTER VII.
TOWNS, PAST AND PRESENT.

SUMNER, ITS RISE AND FALL—OCENA—LANCASTER—FORT WILLIAM—ARRINGTON—MUSCOTAH—EFFINGHAM—HURON—OLD MARTINSBURG—BUNKER HILL—LOCUST GROVE—HELENA—CAYUGA—KENNEKUK—KAPIOMA—MASHENAH—ST. NICHOLAS—CONCORD—PARNELL—SHANNON—ELMWOOD—CUMMINGSVILLE—EDEN POSTOFFICE—POTTER—MOUNT PLEASANT—LEWIS’ POINT—FARLEY’S FERRY.

One of the most interesting subjects for the local historian is the rise and fall of town companies and towns, within the confines of Atchison county. Perhaps no county in the State, or for that matter, no county in the United States, has been immune from the visitations of town boomers. It is difficult in this enterprising age, with all the knowledge that we now have at hand, to understand how it was possible for anybody, though he was ever so enthusiastic, to conceive the idea that there was any future for many of the “towns” that were born in Atchison county in the early days. Yet, it is found that there was in the breasts of many promoters a feeling that Atchison county offered unlimited possibilities for the establishment and growth of towns and cities. One need only search the records on file in the office of the register of deeds in this county to discover numerous certified plats of towns which were born to blush unseen and waste their fragrance on the desert air. In some instances the records are quite complete and authentic, and contain much information with reference to the origin, growth and final decay of these nascent municipalities. In other cases nothing has come down to posterity, save the merest fragmentary data, of which the plat, containing the name of the town and of its organizer, its location and the number of blocks, streets and alleys, constitute the major part.

Reference has heretofore been made to the founding and the organization of the city of Atchison, which became and now remains the county seat of Atchison county. The city played such an important part in the early history of the county that its story has been woven into the general fabric of this history, and therefore further reference to the city of Atchison will not be made in this chapter.