And the relations of the two States have been indeed curiously interwoven—so curiously that I wonder the facts have not attracted more general attention and remark. Less than a month after the bill organizing the Territory of Kansas had become a law, Andrew H. Reeder, of Pennsylvania, was appointed the first Governor. At the first election ever held in the Territory, R. P. Flenniken, a Pennsylvanian, was the Free-State candidate for Congress. The first Free-State newspaper ever printed in Kansas was published and edited by George W. Brown, a Pennsylvanian. The first great seal of Kansas was designed by Governor Reeder, and engraved by Robert Lovett, a Philadelphia artisan. John L. Dawson, a Pennsylvanian, was the second Governor appointed for Kansas, but he declined. The first Free-State delegate convention ever held in Kansas was presided over by George W. Smith, a Pennsylvanian; and the resolutions adopted, constituting the first platform of the Free-State men, were mainly written by the deposed Governor Reeder. One of our first Territorial Judges was J. M. Burrell, a Pennsylvanian. The convention which set in motion the Free-State government organized under the “Topeka Constitution” had for its President William Y. Roberts, a Pennsylvanian; and at the election held that year, Andrew H. Reeder received a majority of the votes cast as the Free-State candidate for Congress. William Y. Roberts was elected Lieutenant-Governor under the Topeka Constitution. Capt. George W. Bowman, a Pennsylvanian—long a resident of this city—at the peril of his life and property took Governor Reeder out of Kansas. Hon. Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, introduced the first bill in Congress to admit Kansas into the Union under the Topeka Constitution.
The third Governor of Kansas, succeeding Governor Shannon, was John W. Geary, afterwards Governor of Pennsylvania. And he, like Governor Reeder, espoused the cause of the Free-State men before he had been in the Territory a week. He had been here only four days, in fact, when he ordered the Lawrence Company of Capt. Sam’l Walker, a Pennsylvanian, and one of the fighting leaders of the Free-State men, to be mustered into the United States service, and issued a proclamation ordering the invading Missourians out of Kansas. During the whole term of his service he was an earnest opponent of the outrages and crimes which were perpetrated upon the Free-State men. He was succeeded by Robert J. Walker, a native of Pennsylvania, who soon espoused the cause of the Free-State men; who induced them to take part in the election held in October, 1857; and who threw out the returns from Oxford and Kickapoo precincts and McGee county, thus giving the Free-State party control of both branches of the Legislature, and sending a Free-State Delegate to Congress.
The Grasshopper Falls Free-State Convention, held in August, 1857, at which it was decided to vote at the ensuing election, under the promise of Governor Walker that the vote should be free and fair, was presided over by George W. Smith, a Pennsylvanian. On the assembling of the first Free-State Legislature, in December, 1857, Cyrus K. Holliday, a Pennsylvanian, was elected President pro tem. of the Council, and George W. Deitzler, long a resident of Pennsylvania, and who came from that State to Kansas, was chosen Speaker of the House.
December 21, 1857, at the election held for State officers under the Lecompton Constitution, George W. Smith and William Y. Roberts, both Pennsylvanians, and the candidates of the Free-State men, were elected Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, respectively.
The last Territorial Legislature assembled in January, 1861, and it had native Pennsylvanians for presiding officers in both branches, W. W. Updegraff, President of the Council, and John W. Scott, Speaker of the House. The bill admitting Kansas into the Union under the Wyandotte Constitution was signed on the 29th of January, 1861, by James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania. And when the first State Legislature assembled, thirteen of its members and four of its officers, including the Speaker of the House, W, W. Updegraff, were native Pennsylvanians.
The connection of the sons of Pennsylvania with affairs in Kansas, political, military and industrial, has since that time been quite as prominent and as honorable. But I have no time to trace such details further. I can only add that of the officers commanding and the soldiers forming our gallant Kansas regiments and companies during the war for the Union, a very large proportion were native Pennsylvanians; of our civil officers, a United States Senator, a Governor, a member of Congress, a Lieutenant-Governor, three Superintendents of Public Instruction, and a number of other State officials, have been Pennsylvanians; and in every State Legislature there have been many members who were natives of the “Old Keystone State.” And, as Owen Seip would say, “the returns from Old Lehigh are not all in yet.”
The last accurate census of this State, taken in 1875, shows that 13,399 citizens of Kansas came from Pennsylvania. Only five States, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio, furnished a larger number of immigrants to Kansas. I think, however, that many more of our citizens are natives of the old Keystone State. The figures I quote do not show how many were born in each of the States, but only “where from to Kansas.” Of the citizens of Atchison county, 640 emigrated from Pennsylvania to Kansas. Only five States, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa and New York, furnished a larger number. I have no doubt that quite a large proportion of those who came from the Western States were originally from Pennsylvania.
Kansas is a young State. It was only seventeen years old last month, while Pennsylvania has rounded a full century of Statehood. Yet in 1542, just 140 years before William Penn landed on the shores of the Delaware, Francisco de Coronado, a Spanish commander of high rank, marched from Mexico through Kansas to its northern boundary. He was seeking gold and silver mines. He missed them. But he found, as he reported, “mighty plains, full of crooked-backed oxen;” and he wrote that “the earth is the best possible for all kinds of productions of Spain; for while it is very strong and black, it is well watered by brooks, springs and rivers.” This old Spanish explorer gave a very accurate description of the Kansas of to-day. But they didn’t receive his report in England, which probably accounts for the fact that Penn landed on the shores of the Delaware instead of sailing up the Mississippi and Missouri to Kansas.
Kansas was embraced in the grant of land made by King James I, of England, in the Virginia charter of 1609. Pennsylvania was embraced in the grant of land made by Charles II, of England, to William Penn, in 1681. But the French discovered the Mississippi in 1682, and from that date until 1763, Kansas was a French possession. It then passed into the hands of Spain. In 1780 Benjamin Franklin, then in Paris, set on foot negotiations for the purchase of Louisiana, which included Kansas. In 1800 the first Napoleon wrested Louisiana from Spain, and on the 30th of April, 1803, sold it to the United States. Pennsylvania remained an English colony until it became an American State.
A very old poetical legend explains how Pennsylvania came to be settled, in the statement that that—