I gave Mr. Reid the information he desired, but I do not know if he ever finished a canvass of “Old Bob.” Probably not—for it was my impression (from reading between the lines) that if and when it should be completed that I would be expected to approve it, in return for his compliment to me. Bob’s home town would have been the natural place to exhibit it. Albert was concerned most as to whether the stage-team driven by Bob at the time of the Indian attack near Cottonwood Springs, in which he killed three Redskins and wounded a dozen more, were horses or mules. I said in my story that “Ben Holladay gave him a gold watch for saving the stage and the four mules.” And this was Bob’s version of it. So I gathered that Mr. Reid had this incident in mind for his painting. Only recently, Dec. 10, 1950, the Topeka Daily Capital ran a story, with illustration of a canvass by Albert T. Reid, “Main Street—1873” of the Artist’s old home town, featuring his father’s four-horse stage coach on the takeoff from Concordia. The Capital article said the women’s organizations of Concordia were raising a fund of $1,500 to purchase the canvass.
Bob Ridley (Robert Sewall) brought his colorful record with him when he came to Wetmore. Here, he was just like everyone else—maybe a little more so. He took life easy, did not brag overly much about his past exploits. Early in his career as stage driver on the Overland Trail, he fell into the habit of helping a red headed girl wait table at Mrs. D. M. Locknane’s celebrated eating house just west of Granada, grabbing bites now and again from his plate in the kitchen, as he worked, all through the twenty minute stops—and when this got monotonous he pepped up matters by grabbing the redhead, all in one take. He married Cicily Locknane—and established her in an eating house of their own at a station in the Little Blue valley west of Marysville, while he himself continued driving stage. But the frequent Indian raids in that section soon sent Cicily back to her mother at Granada. Then, when there was no more stage driving, Bob and Cicily moved down from Granada to Wetmore. Their activities here have been noted in other articles. Robert Sewell died in 1884.
J. T. B.
The Overland Trail, along which the mighty traffic of the plains moved, was first laid out from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Kearney in 1849. The road was definitely established in 1858, with a weekly mail route from Saint Joseph to Salt Lake. In its settled state, the line ran daily from Atchison to Placerville, and Sacramento, California.
Prior to that the route through this section was used by gold-seekers, following the discovery of gold in California in 1849. It was used by emigrants, trappers, and adventurers coming from the East. Military stores from Fort Leavenworth to the posts in the northwest were handled over this trail. Also, freighting by ox-train was carried on extensively from Leavenworth to the Mormon settlements in the Salt Lake valley.
Mormons, too, may have traveled the road. And, as has been asserted in print, Mormons there might have been who camped in a clump of timber a few miles west of Atchison, causing it to be locally known as “Mormon Grove.” Straggling Mormons, maybe. But not the main exodus. Contrary to fixed assumption, the great migration of Mormons to the Salt Lake valley in 1847 did not pass this way. Driven out of Missouri, they went to Illinois; and again driven out of Illinois, they traveled through Iowa, crossed the Missouri river at Council Bluffs and did not touch ground on which the Old Trail was subsequently established until they reached the Platte valley at or near Fort Kearney. The offense that had so incensed the righteous citizens of Missouri and Illinois was flagrant polygamy.
The main group of Mormons camped for nearly two years in Iowa while Brigham Young, with a few of his disciples, went on farther west is search of a place outside the United States where he hoped they could carry on without interference. The Salt Lake valley was then in Mexican territory. But almost before Brigham’s people had become settled the war with Mexico was over and Brigham’s refuge was ceded to the “hated” United States. Then for years the enormous migration across the plains to California poured through the land of mormon.
Brigham didn’t relish that—and in the following decade he kicked up quite a disturbance. On every hand, he showed his hatred of all peoples not Mormon. He climaxed matters with the Meadow Mountain massacre. In 1857 the Mormons plundered and murdered an emigrant train numbering nearly 150 people. To be exact—a historical fact—120 men and women were slaughtered. Seventeen children under seven years of age were taken alive into Mormon camp. Also rumors, and some overt acts, indicated that the Mormons were planning rebellion. This bit of history is related merely to clarify statements which follow.
Now the Old Trail through this section came into active use again. General Albert Sidney Johnson’s army of 5,000 men, with a long ox-train bearing military supplies, was sent out from Fort Leavenworth to put down the so-called Mormon uprising. And, incidentally, that new mail route through here was to give quicker service between Washington and General Johnson. Prior to that, mail went to Salt Lake and the northwest forts monthly, out of Independence, up the Kaw valley.
All this business about the Old Trail happened of course before my day. True, I came into this country over the Old Trail—when traffic was at its peak—but I was too young to note much. Therefore, in compiling this article I must draw from memory of what I have read, of what was told in my presence, by old-timers after the closing years, together with what I have been able to pick up at this late date—and from what I really know about subsequent incidents that shall be given consideration. It is not alone the story of the Old Trail.