A History of Kansas

by Anna E. Arnold

Quilting and husking bees, house-warmings, and camp meetings were other events of the early days. Since there were no telephones and since it was often days from one mail to another, pioneer families counted it a pleasure to “visit around” and exchange the news. Those were the days of real hospitality; the “latch-string hung out at every door,” and all were welcome to enter. No house was too small nor no food supply too scanty for the entertainment of friends or wayfarers. Those were the days, too, when the children often waited for “second table” or stood up to eat because there were not enough chairs for all; when the boys wore high-topped boots, the girls wore sunbonnets, and a calico dress was good enough for almost any occasion.

Buffalo Hunting. In the earlier years the buffalo hunt was one of the pleasures of the pioneers. In the fall parties of men with their teams and hunting outfits would set out for the buffalo range to secure a supply of meat for the winter. They were usually successful in finding not only buffaloes, but antelopes, wild turkeys, and occasionally elk or deer.

Extermination of the Buffalo. Remarkable stories are told of the great numbers of buffaloes still roaming our western prairies fifty years ago; stories of herds miles in width moving across the country. With the inrushing tide of immigration the buffaloes rapidly disappeared. Within little more than a dozen years after the close of the Civil War there were practically none left. This was not because they were used as food, but because they were killed for their hides. Large numbers were slaughtered and skinned and the bodies left on the plains. The hides were shipped east by carloads, where they were sold to make robes.

Pile of Buffalo Hides Ready for Shipment.

Selling Buffalo Bones. In a few years the prairies were thickly strewn with bleaching bones, and these, too, were gathered up and shipped east, where they were ground into fertilizer to be used on worn-out farms. These bones brought from six to ten dollars a ton, and money earned in this way served to tide many a homesteader through the winter. It has often been regretted that the Government did not take measures to restrict the killing of the buffalo, but the danger of extermination was not realized until too late.

The Trappers. A great deal of trapping was done, especially by the younger men. Often several of them would make up a party, and with guns, traps, and a winter’s supply of provisions start for a favorite trapping ground, where they would make a camp along some stream. Sometimes the camp was a tent, but more often it was a dugout in the bank with the front part made of logs. Along the streams they caught chiefly the beaver, the otter, the raccoon, and the wildcat, and on the prairies the big gray wolf and the coyote. The busy days were filled with the work of visiting the traps, caring for the pelts, chasing wild game, and keeping an alert watch for Indians. When spring came and they turned homeward to take up the work on the farms they often carried with them several hundred dollars’ worth of furs.

Coyote.

The Exodus, 1878-1880. The population of Kansas was gradually built up from many sources, but until 1878 there were not many negroes in the State. In that year there began in some of the southern states a movement among the colored people to migrate to western and northern states. So many thousands of them left the Southland that the movement came to be called “The Exodus.” It is not strange that the State famed for its fight for freedom should attract many of the ex-slaves, or the “Exodusters,” as they were called. During the years 1878-’80 several thousands of negroes arrived in Kansas. A few had teams and some farm implements, some had a scanty supply of household goods, but many had nothing at all and had to be given aid. A very few of them homesteaded land, others found employment as farm hands, and the rest settled in different towns of the State.