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History of Kansas
NOBLE L.PRENTIS
Gc 978.1 P91h 1692874
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02664 4630
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
Ye Olde Besk Sh. 203 EAST 4TH S1. 5-1 LONG BEACH, CALIF. 90'12 PHONE, (213) 436.4457
Kansas State Capitol, May, 1899.
A HISTORY OF KANSAS.
E
BY
NOBLE L. PRENTIS,
OF THE "KANSAS CITY STAR."
PUBLISHED BY CAROLINE PRENTIS, TOPEKA, KAN. 1899. .
COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY NOBLE L. PRENTIS, KANSAS CITY, MO.
PREFACE. 1692874
The attempt has been made, in preparing this volume, to give, within a convenient compass, the most interesting and material occurrences and events in the history of the rise of a great Free State from a wilderness. Harrowing details and discreditable happenings have been purposely omitted.
The story has been told as a record of courage and steadfastness, and increasing devotion to the princi- ples of human freedom and national union.
Events have been arranged, as nearly as possible, in the order of the years, with an occasional arrange- ment of the years in periods or groups, with no further classification or subdivision.
No attempt has been made to "write down" to the supposed intellectual capacity of children. Students old enough to enter upon the study of the history of an American State, it is believed, will find all the statements and conclusions comprehensible.
6
PREFACE.
It is to be hoped that the reader or student will consider this small and necessarily limited history of one State, as a help and introduction to the study of the history of the American Union, which should be the pride and privilege of every American citizen in youth and age.
NOBLE L. PRENTIS.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
PAGE
I. NATURAL KANSAS 9
II. FRENCH AND SPANISH KANSAS . 12
III. THE DISCOVERED COUNTRY
15
IV. THE GREAT HIGHWAY 24
V. THE INDIAN TERRITORY 31
VI. THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT
41
VII. THE BEGINNING OF GOVERNMENT
49
VIII. WAR AND RUMORS OF WAR
58
IX. A GLIMPSE OF LIGHT 65
X. THE LECOMPTON AND LEAVENWORTH CONSTITU- TIONAL CONVENTIONS 69
XI. EVENTS OF 1858 73
XII. THE WYANDOTTE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 77
XIII. THE TRAGEDY OF JOHN BROWN 82
XIV. LAST OF TERRITORY AND FIRST OF STATE
87
XV. THE FIRST LEGISLATURE 93
XVI. CRADLED IN WAR 96
XVII. QUANTRELL'S RAID
105
XVIII. THE CLOSING SCENE 110
XIX. PEACE AND HONOR 120
XX. BUILDING THE STATE 123
XXI. THE INDIAN WARS 133
XXII. IMMIGRATION 140
XXIII. THE CENTENNIAL YEAR
150
XXIV. EVENTS OF THE DECADE
156
7
8
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
XXV. AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS 164
XXVI. THE HAPPENINGS OF 1887 174
XXVII. A PROSPEROUS YEAR 180
XXVIII. 1889 .- THE DEVELOPING RESOURCES 188
XXIX. KANSAS AND OKLAHOMA 194
XXX
NEW POLITICAL FORCES 198
XXXI. THE LEGISLATURE AND CHRONICLES OF 1891 205
XXXII. ANNALS OF 1892 216
XXXIII. LEGISLATION AND OTHER EVENTS OF 1893 220
XXXIV. PASSING OF THE PIONEERS 231
XXXV. THE STORY OF 1895-96 240
XXXVI. THE YEARS 1897 AND 1898 248
XXXVII. KANSAS IN THE WAR 256 XXXVIII. EVENTS OF 1899 271
XXXIX. A CHAPTER ON CAPITOLS 277
XL. MAN AND NATURE 283
XLI. KANSAS LITERATURE 291
APPENDIX.
DESCRIPTION OF COUNTIES 301
ORGANIC ACT . 326
ADMISSION INTO THE UNION 332 CONSTITUTION 336
KANSAS TERRITORIAL OFFICERS-1854-1861 362
STATE OFFICERS OF KANSAS-1861-1899 363
KANSAS IN THE SPANISH WAR 369
A HISTORY OF KANSAS. -
CHAPTER I.
NATURAL KANSAS.
1. Character of Surface .- Kansas has been described by geologists as a part of the great plain stretching fron the Mississippi river on the east to the Rocky Mountains on the west. It is approximately 200 by 400 miles in extent, and should be looked upon as a block in the great plain, constituting an essential part of it, and not specially differ- ent from other portions lying on either side of it. The average elevation above sea level of the eastern end is about 850 feet, with Bonita, 1,075 feet above, as the highest point, and the Union Depot at Kansas City, 750 feet, the lowest. The northern boundary line rises steadily and uniformly westward from the Missouri river. The southern boundary rises and falls. At Coffeyville, the elevation is 734 feet, six- teen feet lower than at Kansas City. At the point of crossing the Flint Hills west of Independence, the elevation is 1,700 feet, declining to the westward. The elevation at Arkansas City is 1,066 feet. The lowest part of the State is where the southern line crosses the Verdigris valley. From Arkansas City, west, the ascent is gradual to the southwest corner. The western boundary varies slightly from north to south, but is between 3,500 and 4,000 feet above sea level.
2. Appearance to Observer .- The general effect is that of an immense prairie, rising westward into a very high prairie, but the appearance is not that of a flat and bound- less plain. The waters of the State, which generally flow eastward, have an average fall for the whole State of nearly
9
10
HISTORY OF KANSAS.
eight feet to the mile. Although the surface is a great plain sloping eastward, its minute topography is often rugged and varied; valleys 200 feet deep, bluffs and mounds with precipitous walls 300 feet high; overhanging rocky ledges and remnants of cataracts and falls in numerous
Scene on the Marmaton, Bourbon Co., Kan.
streams, giving a variety of scenery, are to be observed all over the eastern part of the State, and to even a greater extent in some portions of the west.
3. Effect on Kansas Literature .- All the natural fea- tures of this great rectangle; all the varying aspects of the earth, as touched by the shaping hands of the seasons; all
11
NATURAL KANSAS.
the shifting panorama of the skies; all the myriad voices of the winds; the shine of shallow, wide and wandering streams; the fringing trees that watch the waters as they pass; the lovely charm of each rocky promontory that looks ont upon the sea of grass, all these have proved to be the inspiring and informing spirit of Kansas literature.
4. Story of Kansas Nature Told in Prose and Verse .- In all that has been written in prose and verse since first the wide wilderness heard the cautious but advancing feet of the pioneer, the story of Kansas nature has been told. The reader of books written in, by, and for Kansas, will find the journals of the Kansas year, with the impressions made on the minds and hearts of eye-witnesses by sun and cloud, by drouth and rain, and calm and storm. Such readers witness the procession of the days of the Kansas year. Days when, as one has written, "the broad, wintry landscape is flooded with that indescribable splendor that never was on sea or shore-a purple silken softness that half veils half discloses . the alien horizon, the vast curves of the remote river, the transient architecture of the clouds, and days without clouds and nights without dew, when the effulgent sun floods the dome with fierce and blinding radi- ance, days of glittering leaves and burnished blades of corn, days when the transparent air, purged of all earthly exhala- tion and alloy, seems like a pure, powerful lens, revealing a remoter horizon and a profounder sky."
SUMMARY.
1. In the north the surface rises uniformly from Missouri river, while in the south it both rises and falls.
2. To an observer the surface is rugged and varied, and remnants of cataracts are found.
CHAPTER II.
FRENCH AND SPANISH KANSAS.
5. Kansas in Louisiana Purchase. - The present State of Kansas, with the exception of a small fraction in the southwest corner, which continued to belong to Spain, then to Mexico, and was finally ceded by Texas in 1850, formed part of the Louisiana purchase made by President Thomas Jefferson from Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France.
6. Beginning of Political History .- The political his- tory of Kansas was set in the way of beginning on the April day in 1803, when Napoleon said, with passion and vehemence, as was his wont: "Irresolu- tion and deliberation are no longer in reason. It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, it is the whole colony with- out reservation."
7. United States Occupies Terri- Thomas Jefferson. tory. - The treaty which made Kansas American soil was concluded April 30, 1803, but St. Louis, and the province of Upper Louisiana, remained in the hands of the Spanish until March 9, 1804, nearly a year after. On that day Major Amos Stoddard, of the United States army, appeared at St. Louis, and acting as agent and commissary of the French Republic, received from Don Carlos Dehault Delassus, the Spanish Lieutenant-Governor, the formal cession of the province from Spain to France. The Spanish
12
13
FRENCH AND SPANISH KANSAS.
Regiment of Louisiana moved out, a detachment of the First United States Artillery marched in, the American flag was raised, and the next day, March 10, 1804, Major Stoddard began the rule of the United States under the title of commandant.
Coronado Crossing the Territory in 1541.
8. First American Ruler .- Major Amos Stoddard, who was the descendant of the great divine, Jonathan Edwards, and grand-uncle of Hon. John Sherman, of Ohio, was the first American ruler of Kansas He was a good man and brave soldier, and was mortally wounded in the defence of Fort Meigs, in Ohio, during the last war with Great Britain.
14
HISTORY OF KANSAS.
9. Evidence of Spanish Exploration .- The Kansas that belonged to Spain and France was not entirely unknown or unvisited. It is believed that Coronado reached the country from New Spain in 1541. Various French and Spanish parties marched to and through the country, in some cases erecting crosses in token of sovereignty. They met the Indians, the Osages, the Pawnees, and the Kansas or Kaws, sometimes in peace, sometimes in war, but these expeditions left no trace behind more than does the fish in the water, the bird in the air.
10. Few Spanish or French Names .- The French trappers and voyageurs gave names to a few of the streams and islands, but neither Frenchman nor Spaniard contrib- uted perceptibly to the nomenclature of Kansas; while to the east of the river in Missouri, French names will remain while water runs in the Chariton, the Femme Osage, the Pomme de Terre, the Moniteau and many more, in Kansas the' slight French occupation left few traces on the map. Neither do the Indians who inhabited Kansas seem to have been town-builders or name-givers. If the rivers of Kansas ever bore Indian names, the appellations of most have been changed, or so corrupted as to have become unrecognizable.
SUMMARY.
1. Kansas, except a small portion in the southwest. formed part of Louisiana Purchase.
2. The United States takes possession of Territory, March 10, 1804.
3. Coronado crossed the Territory in 1541.
4. A few points bear French names, given by trappers.
CHAPTER III.
THE DISCOVERED COUNTRY.
11. Lewis and Clark Expedition Planned by Jeffer- son .- With the acquisition of Upper Louisiana by the United States, came the spirit of enterprise and exploration. In the latter direction the new government set the example. Mr. Jefferson was full of interest and curiosity about the new empire of which so little was really known, and wrote with his own hand the directions governing the expedition which was to set out under Capt. William Clark, brother of Gen. George Rogers Clark, the conqueror of Illinois, and Capt. Merriwether Lewis, who had been the President's private sec- retary. He selected both these guides and leaders from personal acquaintance; both were Virginians, and from his own neigh- borhood.
12. Reached Kansas River. - The expedition reached the rendezvous near St. Capt. William Clark. Louis early in the spring, and before the Spaniards were willing to acknowledge the Missouri as an American river. After the formal transfer the expedition, on the 10th of May, 1804, started up the turbid Missouri, and on June 27th reached the mouth of the Kansas river, landed and made a camp within the present limits of Kansas City, Kan.
15
16
HISTORY OF KANSAS.
13. Independence Day at Atchison .- Proceeding up the stream, the different journals kept by the voyagers noted objects on either shore which may still be recognized by the description. On the 4th of July, 1804, the party landed at or near the present site of Atchison at noon, and made brief observance of their country's natal day. Among those who joined in this first Fourth of July celebration in Kansas, was George Shannon, a brother of Wilson Shannon, afterwards to be a Territorial Governor of Kansas. The party named a small stream near their landing place, Fourth of July Creek, and going on up Capt. Merriwether Lewis. the river four miles, called another Kansas stream Independence Creek, a name which it bears to this day. So the Fourth of July came to Kansas.
14. Expedition West to Pacific .- A few days later, and the boats had passed beyond the limits of Kansas, and the voyagers were on their way to the "land of the Dakotas," to the unknown springs of the Missouri, to the untrodden passes of the Rocky Mountains, to the far Columbia, on to the sounding surges of the Pacific, to return after two years, with but the loss of a single man in all the perils of the waste and wild, each voyager to his appointed fate- William Clark to live for many years a prosperous gentle- man and fourth Territorial Governor of Missouri, and Merriwether Lewis to die a mysterious death in a Tennessee wilderness.
15. Pike's Expedition Starts .- On July 16, 1806, two years and two months after the Lewis and Clark expedition had gone up the Missouri, another expedition left Bellefon-
17
THE DISCOVERED COUNTRY.
taine under the command of Lieut. Zebulon Montgomery Pike, a young and active officer of the United States Army, who, in the summer of 1805, had departed on an expedition to the head waters of the Mississippi. He had returned to St. Louis in April, 1806, and now, in July, was ordered on a mission destined to last longer, and to be fraught with more important consequences than he could have imagined.
16. Purpose and Route Planned .- His instructions were to take back to their tribe on the upper waters of the Osage river, some Osages who had been redeemed from cap- tivity among the Pottawatomies; then to push on to the Pawnee Republic on the upper waters of the Republican river, then to go south to the Arkansas, and to the Red river, interviewing on the way the Comanches.
17. Osage Village Reached .- Pike followed the Mis- souri, and turned into the Osage (a continuation of the Kansas Marais des Cygnes), at that time, and for long afterward, a waterway to southern Kansas and Texas. He followed that picturesque stream to the Osage villages near the present line of Kansas and Missouri. He met there a chief named White Hair, who survived to the present gen- eration of Kansas. Procuring horses at the Osage villages, Pike mounted his party of some twenty, officers and soldiers, and a number of Osages, and started to execute the remainder of his mission.
18. Beauty of Kansas Country .- Lieut. Pike entered Kansas in what is now Linn county, and kept on to the southwest, and climbing a high rise, came upon a sight which has delighted millions of eyes since his. "The prairie rising and falling in beautiful swells as far as the
Lieut. Zebulon Montgomery Pike.
19
THE DISCOVERED COUNTRY.
sight can extend." The party came to a high ridge, which Pike describes as the dividing line between the waters of the Osage and the Arkansas (which Pike spells Arkansaw) . Still marching westward, the party reached the Neosho, and crossing it followed the divide, as Pike says, between the Neosho and the Verdigris. On the 17th of September, going northward, they arrived at the main southwest branch of the Kansas river, the Smoky Hill, and, two days later, a large branch of the Kansas river strongly impregnated with salt.
19. Crosses Trail of Spanish Troops .- It was at about this time that Pike discovered that he was not alone in Kansas. He came across the trail of 300 Spanish troops. The Spanish authorities in New Spain, hearing from St. Louis of his departure, had sent Lieut. Malgares with a large party to intercept him. Malgares had gone down Red river, thence north to the Arkansas, and so on to the Saline, but the parties had missed each other. Lieut. Pike was destined to meet Lieut. Malgares later.
20. Pawnee Village .- Pike's party reached the Pawnee village on the 25th of September, 1806. The site of the village has been a matter of some discussion, but the latest investigation would locate it on portions of sections 2 and 3, township 2, range 5 west, in White Rock township, Republic county, Kan.
21. "Stars and Stripes" Replaces Spanish Flag .- The spot was made memorable. Pike had but sixteen white soldiers, his Osage allies he probably did not count for much, since he describes them as "a faithless set of poltroons, incapable of a great and generous action," but with his little force he overawed the sullen and hostile village. He
.
20
HISTORY OF KANSAS.
met in council 500 Pawnee warriors. He found the Spanish flag flying from a pole in front of the council lodge, and he ordered it lowered, and the American flag raised in its place. It was done, and the Stars and Stripes for the first time was given to the Kansas breeze. Regardless of the temper of the Indians, he remained in the neighborhood until the 9th of October, when he marched off in the direc- tion of the Great Bend of the Arkansas.
22. Party Divided at Arkansas River .- Arrived at the Arkansas, Pike divided his party. Boats were constructed, one canoe made of four buffalo hides and two elk skins, and a wooden canoe of green cottonwood, and in these Lieut. Wilkinson, son of Gen. James Wilkinson (under whose orders Lient. Pike had set out), six soldiers and two Osages embarked with the intention of reaching Fort Adams on the Mississippi. The party were soon obliged to abandon their canoes and make their way on foot, suffering greatly from the cold. Lower down the river, they made some wooden boats, and, greatly hindered by sand bars and by floating ice, managed to reach Arkansas Post in safety by the 9th of January, 1807.
23. Re-crosses Spanish Trail to Westward .- Pike, with the remainder of his party, now stood on the low, bleak shore of the Arkansas, in the last of October, with snow falling every day. Why he did not march south to Red river, according to his instructions, has never been made clear; instead, he moved up the Arkansas, climbing the long slope to the Rocky Mountains. The country was full of wild horses; Indians were met frequently, and again the Spanish trail was crossed that Pike had encountered in Northern Kansas.
21
THE DISCOVERED COUNTRY.
24. Mexican Mountains Sighted .- On the 15th of November, Pike saw something else. "At two o'clock in the afternoon," he writes, "I thought I could distinguish a mountain to our right, which appeared like a small blue cloud; viewed it with a spy glass, and was still more con- firmed in my conjecture, yet only communicated it to Dr.
Pike's Peak.
Robinson, who was in front of me, but in half an hour it appeared in full view before us. When our small party arrived on the hill, they, with one accord, gave three cheers for the Mexican Mountains."
1 25. Pike's Peak .- What Pike saw at first as a "small blue cloud," was the Great White Mountain of the Span- iards, the majestic eminence afterward called, in his honor, Pike's Peak. He measured the altitude of the mountain,
22
HISTORY OF KANSAS.
making it 18,581 feet above the sea, and made efforts to reach the mountain itself, but without success. Afterwards he records, "In our wanderings in the mountains it was never out of our sight, except when we were in the valley."
26. Pike Taken Prisoner .- These "wanderings" en- tailed fearful suffering from cold on the thinly-clad soldiers and the animals. Pike reached the west fork of the Rio Grande del Norte and built a stockade, and here he was captured by a party of Spanish soldiers, as an intruder on Spanish territory. His instruments and papers were taken from him, and the command were marehed as prisoners to Santa Fe, but were everywhere treated with kindness by the people. The escort, as it might be called, was com- manded for some time by Lieutenant Malgares, who had sought for Pike in Kansas. The young American officer, treated more as an honored guest than a prisoner, was taken to Chihuahua, then a fine eity of 60,000 inhabitants; thence he was taken to within three days' march of the American frontier and liberated, reaching Natchitoches, Louisiana, on the 15th of July, 1807, nearly a year after he left Bellefontaine.
27. His Death-Toronto .- After his return to his own country, he continued in the army, where his rise was rapid. In the thirty-fourth year of his age he was a brigadier- general in service on our Northern frontier, and we were at war with Great Britain. He planned and carried out an attack on York, now Toronto, Canada, on the 27th of April, 1813, and was fatally wounded at the moment of vietory. At his request, the flag of the captured garrison was placed beneath his head, and the chronicler of the time wrote, "He happily expired on the conquered flag of the foe."
23
THE DISCOVERED COUNTRY.
28. Prominent in Kansas History .- The name of Zebulon Montgomery Pike forms a part of the history of Kansas, and should be mentioned with honor, because he was the first intelligent American explorer of the interior of Kansas, and the first to raise the flag of the United States within its present borders, and the first to record observations of the Great Plains country of which Kansas is a part. His journal was published in this country in 1810, and an abridgement afterward published in London, and the story of natural Kansas was thus spread about the world.
29. Papers Preserved at Larned .- A few years since many of the papers of General Pike, including the precious scrap on which were written the last words he addressed to his wife, were still carefully preserved by his niece, the venerable Mrs. Sturdevant, of Larned, Kansas.
30. Long's Expedition .- The expedition of Pike was followed by that of Major Stephen H. Long, who, in 1819, ascended the Missouri in the first steamboat, the Western Engineer. Pike's narrative, however, continued to be for a long time the most complete account of the regions em- braced in Kansas, Colorado and Northern Mexico.
SUMMARY.
1. Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark expedition across Territory.
2. Fourth of July, 1804, was celebrated at Atchison.
3. Pike's expedition crossed Territory in 1806.
4. Spanish soldiers had not yet been withdrawn.
5. Spanish flag was lowered and the Stars and Stripes raised at the Pawnee village. Supposed to be in what is now Republic county.
6. Pike's Peak was sighted at 2 o'clock, P. M., November 15, 1806.
CHAPTER IV.
THE GREAT HIGHWAY.
31. Kansas Receives Eastern Boundary .- By the organization of Missouri as a State of the Union, Kansas, which was before without form as part of Lonisiana, received an eastern boundary. The west line of Missouri, as first established, followed a meridian line north and south drawn through the mouth of the Kansas river at Kansas City to the Iowa line. This line was really a line between white settlement and Indian occupation. The portion of Indian ground between the Missouri line and the Missouri river was ceded by the Sacs and Foxes in 1836, and became a part of the State of Missouri under the name of the Platte Purchase, and the Missouri river became the boundary, but Kansas remained Indian ground.
32. Limitation £ of Settlement Theory .- It seems to have been con- sidered that the Missouri was the limit Kit Carson. of possible white settlement. Pike had written of Kansas in his journal in 1806, " From these immense prairies may arise one great advantage to the United States, viz .: the restriction of our population to certain limits, and thereby a continuation of the Union. Our citizens being so prone to rambling and extending themselves on the frontiers, will, through necessity, be constrained to limit their extent on the West to the borders of the Missouri and Mississippi, while they leave the prairies, incapable of cultivation, to the wandering aborigines of the country."
24
25
THE GREAT HIGHWAY.
33. Prediction not Realized. - The prediction of Pike was not destined to be realized; it was rendered impossible of accomplishment by the Louisiana Purchase. Under French or Spanish rule the ramblings of citizens on the frontiers might have been restricted, under American rule it was impossible that a great habitable and tillable area in the heart of the country should remain a wilderness devoted to wild beasts and wilder men. The signal to the buffalo and the savage to move on, was really given when the treaty of Paris, ceding Louisiana, was signed. Missouri continued to fill up with settlers, mainly from Virginia, Kentucky, Ten- nessee and North Carolina, and the settlers extended them- selves toward the western border.
34. Interest Aroused in New Mexico .- Pike, in his narrative, had described the ancient city of Santa Fe, the oldest city in the present United States. He was the first not only to give intelligible account of Kansas, but of Colo- rado, New Mexico and the northern provinces of Mexico, then New Spain. Pike's relation aroused interest in those countries, and many individual attempts were made to open up commercial intercourse between the Missouri border and Santa Fe. These attempts generally resulted in disaster. The Spanish Government repressed all such, and desired no intercourse.
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