History of Montgomery County, Kansas, Part 1

Author: Duncan, L. Wallace (Lew Wallace), b. 1861, comp
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Iola, Kan., Press of Iola register
Number of Pages: 1162

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LEI

EX-GOV. L. U. HUMPHREY.

HISTORY

MONTGOMERY COUNTY,

KANSAS.

By Its Own People.

ILLUSTRATED.

Containing Sketches of Our Pioneers-Revealing their Trials and Hardships in Planting Civilization in this County-Biographies of their Worthy Successors, and Containing Other Information of a Character Valuable as Reference to the Citizens of the County.

PUBLISHED BY L. WALLACE DUNCAN.

IOLA, KANSAS: PRESS OF IOLA REGISTER, 1903.

Entered according to Ast c' Cor.press. in the yea- 1903. by L. Wallace Duncan .. in the office of the Labmaman of Congress. at Washington. D. C.

1 3HT

Preface

The history of Montgomery county reveals this locality as the spot where the Orage Indian made his last stand before the white man's advance in spreading civilization over the plains of Kansas. It was here that he was crowded off of the reserve traded him by the "Great Father" in 1×25. but which he had really occupied from the first years of the nine- teenth century. For at least fifty years he had been master of this domain and here much of the tangible history of the several bands of the tribe was made.

From the era of "squatter" settlement. the final treaty with the Red Man and the legitimate settlement by the white man. down through the organization and development of the county. the pages of this book are replete with events and incidents which mark the stages of advancement toward the splendid civilization of the present day.

The publisher of this volume and those who have rendered valuable assistance in the preparation of its descriptive part have realized the importance of the work and have. therefore. labored assiduously toward an accurate and reliable production. and one which shall not only be full and thorough as to substantial facts, but which shall serve as the basis of future publications touching the history of Montgomery county.

For the preparation of valuable articles for this volume we acknowl- edge our obligation to the following citizens of the county and commend their efforts to the confidence of the generations to come: Ex-Senator H. W. Young. Hon. William Dunkin and Hon. W. T. Yoe. of Independence ; T. F. AAndress. M. D .. of Liberty: Dr. T. C. Frazier. of Coffeyville : Hon. 1. R. Charlton. of C'aney ; and Miss Josie H. Carl. of Cherryvale. To the many citizens who have furnished information and extended other favors In the writers hereof we desire to express our appreciation and hereby extend to them the compliments of the literary board.

To .John S. Gilmore, of Fredonia, are we indebted for an important article for this work. properly placed to his credit. and we wish. publicly. to make acknowledgement of the same.

In the biographical department of the work are represented worthy citizens from every honorable walk of life. It was our wish that every

distinguished citizen of the county participate in the space alloted to this department. and while hosts of them have done so, some of them have denied us not only their story, but their substantial cooperation ; yet the merits of the book have not thus been impaired. Our accompanying illustrations represent pioneers, worthy people of a later day, and well known and historie objects of the county. These add interest and attractiveness to the book, on the whole, making the biographical and pictorial department by no means the least important features of the work

if this volume shall meet the expectations of its patrons and shall. in some measure, render them an equivalent for the confidence bestowed npon the enterprise. then shall we feel that our efforts have not been in vain.

THE PUBLISHER.

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY

KANSAS

CHAPTER I.

Organization, Location and Land Titles

During the carlier history of Kansas the territory which now consti- tutes Montgomery county formed a part of Wilson county. The latter county was created by act of the territorial legislature in 1855, but it was not organized until September 1864, at which time it extended from Woodson county to the south line of the state. Montgomery county was created by act of the legislature in 1867, a little more than half of the southern part of Wilson county being taken for the purpose. By the act of the legislature which created the county, its boundaries were fixed as follows :

"Commencing at the southeast corner of Wilson county; thence south with the west line of Labette county to the thirty-seventh parallel of north latitude: thence west with said parallel twenty-four miles; thence north to the southwest corner of Wilson county; thence east with the south line of Wilson county to the place of beginning."

This description depended entirely on the bounding of Wilson county, and, in 1870 the statute was changed to read as follows :

"Commencing at the southeast corner of Wilson county ; thence south to the south line of the state of Kansas; thence west along the south line of Kansas twenty-four miles; thence north to the sixth standard parallel ; thence east along the said sixth standard parallel to the place of beginning."

This description seems to have meant exactly the same thing as the other, and yet neither of them is accurate, as the width of the county east and west, owing to the botchwork made in fitting together the surveys of the ceded lands and Diminished Reserve, is considerably more than half a mile above the twenty-four mentioned.

While all of the county except the three mile strip of ceded lands on the east side was still Indian land, and there was no treaty even pending

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.

for their cession to the United States, saving the Sturgis abomination, which was never ratified, the county was organized by proclamation of Governor James M. Harvey, on June 3d. 1869. It was claimed that at this time the county had the requisite population of 600, and whether this was true or not, the progress of events soon made it an accurate statement. Verdigris City was designated as the temporary county seat, and a board of county commissioners was appointed. For further details as to the early history of the county and the story of the struggle which resulted in the selection of Independence as the county seat. the reader is referred to the chapter on the political history of the county.

Location

Montgomery county now ranks as the seventh Kansas county in pop- ulation and, as shown by the United States census of 1900. forms a part of the largest confignous area west of the Mississippi river. having a population in excess of forty-five to the square mile. It is between twenty four and twenty-five miles in width east and west. and between twenty-seven and twenty-eight miles in length north and south. It is the third county west from the Missouri line, on the southern tier, and adjoins the Indian Territory on the south. Labette county forms its entire east- ern boundary and Wilson its northern, while on the west it adjoins Chautauqua and a portion of Elk. Neosho county corners with it on the northeast.

Les physical features and soil are extremely varied. The Verdigris is the principal river, entering its northern boundary and meandering across to its southern. The Elk enters the west line of the county and fornos another winding valley, emptying into the Verdigris about four miles northeast of the center of the county. The Caney ents across the southwest corner of the county. Besides these rivers there are dozens of creeks and runs with nich fine alluvial land adjoining them. in addition to the bottom lands of the rivers. Between the streams there are here and there rock-capped mounds and much high, thin, stony land, fit for little but pasture. Use is, however, now being found for the limestone that caps some of the mounds and outerops along the streams in the man nfacture of cement, while the shale that is abundant in the hills is extensively employed in the manufacture of vitrified brick. Taking her agricultural resources in connection with the abundant deposits of nat- ural gas and petroleum oil found in the earth hundreds of feet below the surface. and remembering that Montgomery is the only county on the south line of the state that lies wholly within the gas and oil belt. we are certainly justified in saying that nature has done more for her than for any other equal area in the state.

The section of which this county of such boundless resources and possibilities formis a part, was first a portion of the French domain in

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.

America, having been taken possession of by the Canadians, who drifted down the Mississippi to the gulf in 1682. Eighty years later it was ceded to Spain, by whom it was retained until 1800, when it was retroceded to France. In common with the entire area of Kansas, except a small frac- tion in the southwest corner, it formed a part of the Lonisiana purchase made by Jefferson in 1803, and has ever since been American territory, though little was known about it during the first half of the 18th century.

The first legislation in regard to this section appears to have been enacted in 1834. when all the territory west of the Mississippi and Arkan- sas was declared "Indian country," with the laws of the United States in force: and the country of the Osages was attached to Arkansas territory. In 1854 the territory of Kansas was organized and. in 1861, the territory became a state.

The country from which the present county was to be made still re- mained Indian territory. however. The Osage Indians were first found on the Missouri river, and. later, were forced down to the Arkansas. In 1808 they ceded their lands in Missouri and Arkansas to the United States government and went west. In 1825 they relinquished their lands in Kansas ,except a strip fifty miles wide along the south line of the state, beginning twenty-five miles west of the Missouri line, near the present eastern boundary of Labette county, and reaching west to an indefinite line extended from the head waters of the Kansas river, southerly, through the Rock Saline. This was the Osage reservation, which comprised the largest body of good land in Kansas, remaining unsettled when the civil war closed in 1865.

Land Titles

The white men wanted these lands and were bound to get them soon in any event, but the return of the soldiers of the Union to civil life in 1865 no doubt hastened the movement to send the Indians westward again and make homes and farms out of these fertile Sonthern Kansas valleys to which they held title. At Canville trading post in Neosho county on September 29th, 1865, a treaty was negotiated which became operative January 21st. 1867, by whose terms the Osages sold a thirty-mile strip off from the east side of their lands for $300,000. This strip embraced the counties of Neosho and Labette, and a fraction abont three miles wide along the east sides of Wilson and Montgomery counties. The contest between the settlers and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas and the Leaven- worth. Lawrence & Galveston railroad companies for the title to these lands forms one of the most interesting chapters in the history of Labette county. This contest also involved the three-mile strip on the east side of Montgomery county and interested a considerable per centage of its population. It was finally decided in favor of the United States, under whom a portion of the settlers claimed title, leaving those who had bought

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.

their lands from the railroad companies to seek to perfect their titles anew.

These ceded lands were eventually entered under the pre-emption laws and paid for to the credit of the Osage fund in the government treasury.

The same treaty which ent off these Osage lands on the east also slieed off a twenty-mile strip on the north, leaving the "Diminished Re- serve" but thirty miles in width, and as the territory narrowed the eager- ness to possess it became greater. The corporations had an eye upon it, as well as the settlers, and on May 27th, 1868, a little more than a year before the rush of immigrants began to fill the county, there was negotiat- ed on Drum Creek a treaty which for downright infamy outranks any other transaction in the history of the opening of the west to settlement and civilization. This treaty was known as the "Sturgis Treaty," and is liberally treated under the head of "Drum Creek Treaty" in this volume.

Owing to a discrepancy between the southern boundary line of the state of Kansas and the south line of the Osage Diminished Reserve, there was a strip of land along the south line of Montgomery county, varying between two and three miles in width, which was claimed by the Cherokee Indians, and which was eventually sold for their benefit several years later. Actual settlers were given a preference in the purchase of these lands, but those which remained were disposed of in any desired quantity, and at a price somewhat higher than the settlers were asked to pay.

Tand titles in the county were thus of four different kinds. The land- holder may find his chain running back to a government patent originat- ing in a purchase from the Cherokees or the Osages, and if the latter, it may be either of "Ceded" or "Diminished Reserve" lands. Or he may hold by virtue of a purchase from the state school fund commissioners. It was fortunate for the settlers, though, that for all except a small fraction of the area of the county, the contest between the corporations and the people was fought out before the lands were entered. They were thus freed from the long period of strife, the expense and the uncertainty which were the fate of their neighbors in Labette county and on the "Ceded" strip. The titles which they obtained when they paid the purchase price to the government and received their final receipts from the land office of- ficials, have never been called in question, and the courts have been resort- ed to only to settle individual and isolated cases of rival claims to proprietorship.

The original government surveys of the lands in the county, however, were made in a very careless manner, the section and quarter section corners often being many rods from where they should have been, and the surveys of the "Ceded" and "Diminished" lands were so loosely con- nected that in many cases there are quarter sections on the line between that have as much as forty acres more than the government deeds call for.

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.

CHAPTER II. Important Events The Drum Creek Treaty. The Elk River Valley Floods, The Volcanic Up- heaval at Coffeyville in 1894, the Reed Family Tragedy, Why Did Pomeroy Trust York ?. The County High School, and the Dalton Raid at Coffeyville.

The Drum Creek Treaty

BY JNO. S. GILMORE.

On May 27th, 1868, a treaty with the Osages was concluded on Drum Creek, Montgomery county. for the disposition of the Diminished Reserve, or thirty-mile strip. This was popularly called the Drum Creek treaty or the "Sturgis treaty." Wmn. Sturgis was the controlling spirit in its negotiation. By its terms the entire Diminished Reserve, comprising 8,003,000 acres was to be sold to the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad Co. for $1,600,000, or a fraction under 20 cents per acre. It was understood that Sturgis would be the indirect beneficiary of this stupen- dous wrong. The treaty was a premeditated, thoroughly planned and successfully executed fraud from its incipiency up to the stage of its submission to the United States Senate for ratification. It was even more-a brazen steal, so extensive as to be infamous-and the officials, politicians and leading men who approved or aided and abetted in the attempt to carry it out deserved to be buried so deep under popular obloquy that they would never again publically show their heads. The Indians were no doubt unduly influenced by the promoters and retainers of the L. L. & G. railroad company. The treaty commission, with special interpreters, Indian agents, and advocates of the scheme had gone into the Indian country accompanied by a detatchment of the Seventh U. S. cavalry commanded by Capt. Geo. W. Yates. (Yates and his troop went down to death with General Custer on the Rosebud, June 25th, 1876.) The commission composed N. G. Taylor, President ; Thos. Murphy, Geo. C. Snow. Albert G. Boone and A. N. Blacklidge, Secretary ; with three inter- preters. Those signing the treaty by way of attesting the signatures (X marks) of the Osage chiefs and their adherents were Alex. R. Banks, special U. S. Indian agent; Geo. W. Yates, Captain Seventh cavalry; M. W. Reynolds, reporter for commission; Charles Robinson, I. S. Kalloch, Moses Neal, W. P. Murphy, Win. Babcock and the interpreters, Alex Beyett, Lewis P. Chouteau and Angustus Captain. The first Osage X mark was under the title of JJoseph Paw-ne-no-pashe, White Hair, prin- .cipal chief, followed by the Indian names of 106 other chiefs, councilors

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.

and braves of the Big and Little Osage tribes. Of Indians signing the document who were known by many Montgomery county pioneers were Black Dog, Little Beaver, Nopawalla, Strike Ax. Wyohake, Chetopah, Hard Robe, Watisanka and Melotumuni (Twelve O'clock.) Little Bear was dead.

By the time this treaty reached the Senate the settlers on the reserve were aronsed and their friends throughout the State and many newspap- ers shared openly their feeling and espoused their canse. A determined fight was made against the ratification of the treaty, led by Hon. Sidney Clarke, Kansas' sole Congressman. Both Senators were silently for the robber measure. Senator E. G. Ross, a year later, reported it to the Senate so amended as to divide up the lands with other railroad companies, without adding to the price or making any provision for the interests or rights of the settlers. But Congressman Clarke did not relax in his bitter opposition. He brought to light the objectionable and unjust features of the treaty, stood for the opening of the reserve to actual settlers as the Trust Lands had been opened, and as a result of his protests and efforts and at his request General Grant, soon after becoming President, on March 4th. 1869, withdrew the treaty from the Senate.

Sidney Clarke framed and offered in the House the section in the an- nual Indian appropriation bill, approved JJuly 15th, 1870, which opened the Diminished Reserve to actual settlers only at $1.25 per acre. excepting the 16th and 36th sections, which were reserved to the State of Kansas for school purposes. After a two years' contest he had prevented the con- sunmation of the greatest swindle on Indians and settlers alike ever con- cocted in Kansas. The railroads, losing the rich prize which seemed almost securely within their grasp, combined in the campaign of 1870 against Clarke and defeated him for renomination for Congress.

At a council held on Drum Creek in September, 1870, arrangements were effected for the final removal of the remaining Osages to their new home in the Indian Territory, just south of the Kansas line. By the act approved July 15th of that year the President had been directed to make such removal as soon as the Indians would agree thereto. They went.

The Elk Valley Flood of 1885

After the grasshopper plagne of 1874-5 probably the worst calamity that has befallen Montgomery county since its settlement was the flood which swept down the valleys of the Elk and Verdigris on Friday, Sat- urday and Sunday, May 15th, 16th, and 17th, 1885. Perhaps the most comprehensive account of this disaster was the one published by the Star and Kansan, at Independence, on the Friday following; and it is from this account that the facts for this sketch are gleaned.

That fateful Friday was noted at Independence as a day of clouds

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.

and showers with heavy banks of cloud along the western horizon Toward night news came of a great storm in Elk county and that the railroad track had been washed away in the neighborhood of Elk Falls. No more trains were able to get through on the Southern Kansas line of the Santa Fe railroad in either direction, and on Saturday morning a re- pair train loaded with material for bridge building had gone out to the neighborhood of the bridge over the Elk at Table Mound. About half past ten o'clock a telegram was received from this train stating that lives were in danger and help was needed. All the available boats in the city were taken to the depot. and a little after noon the repair train, which had returned to Independence, started for the scene of danger with about a hundred and fifty men on board. A few minutes run brought the train to the locality of the flood, and at the southwest corner of Table Mound the boats were unloaded and started out over the waste of waters on their errand of mercy. Among those who risked their lives in these frail crafts, to resene those in peril. were Eugene B. White, Milton Gregory, Lewis Bowman and Elisha Mills.

During the morning the waters had risen so high as to touch the sills of the iron railroad bridge over the Elk, and a gang of men were at work on the bridge dislodging the mass of corn stalks which had lodged against it on the upper side. Beyond the bridge, to the west, the railroad track was out of water as far as the trestle over the slough, and this strip was the only bit of dry land visible in the entire valley from bluff to bluff. On it were gathered a few cattle and hogs which had tled to it for their lives, and to which the waters were bringing the scattered ears of corn they had gathered. To the left of the railroad, chickens were seen roosting in the trees near a deserted honse. and still nearer a bunch of them had gath- ered on the upper ends of a pile of posts which projected a little above the surface of the water; and away to the north of the railroad were a number of horses which had been tied on the highest ground in the vicin- ity, but were still nearly covered by the waters.

Ii was not, however, until the writer climbed the slope of Table Mound and stood upon the rocky ledge that marks its outlines that he realized the extent of the calamity which had befallen the residents of these fertile valley lands. Up and down the river basin, as far as the eye could reach. there was water everywhere. Only a small fragment of a single wheat field showed above the flood in this entire rich valley district. Still the waters were dotted with trees and groves, while a fringe of timber marked the windings of the channel of the Elk; and houses and barns could be seen here and there. the highest of them with apparently not less than three feet of water on their first floors, and the lowest sub- merged to the eaves. Probably the watery area in sight from this point was not less than ten square miles in extent ; and at one place the width of the valley is scarcely less than five miles.

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.

In one instance a family refused to leave the house when the rescu- ing boat appeared, but when a second downpour came later in the after- noon they were fain to seek the shore. Some of the dwellers in the valley were landed on the west shore, having made one portage across the rail- road during the trip. There they were warmly welcomed by the neighbors gathered on the opposite mound, who could be seen from our side running across the grassy slope to meet them. And all this while the sullen roar of the angry waters rang in our ears and we had only to close our eyes to imagine we stood on the ocean's beach listening to its endless refrain. About us were the most lovely of our wild flowers, the graceful, nodding columbines and the crimson hued verbenas ; but above us the heavens were again gathering blackness and the inky pall of cloud along the western horizon was ever and anon illuminated by a vivid flash that left it blacker and more ominous than before; while below, in dozens of swift currents, the thick and noisome waters rushed onward unresting to the sea. Prob- ably no one who gazed in fascinated awe upon those thousands of aeres which at dawn had been covered with luxuriant fields of wheat, promising within a month a harvest of golden grain, and which were now buried from five to fifteen feet in depth beneath a swiftly flowing volume of water wider than the Mississippi, will ever forget the scene.

Meanwhile the panorama was not without an exciting and, what threatened to be, a tragic interlude. One of the boats-Bowman's it was said-ventured into the swift current setting under the trestle west of the iron railroad bridge . In a flash it was sucked under and upset, one of its occupants clutching the timbers of the trestle and being drawn out from above, while the other appeared on the bottom of the upturned boat as it drifted down stream. Fortunately he reached the fringing grove of the river channel unharmed, and was able to halt the boat there until another came to its rescue.

During the afternoon, the iron wagon bridge, two and a half miles north of Independence on the Neosho road, was swept down stream and, shortly after, the one on the Radical City road, a couple of miles farther west, went to keep it company. Sunday morning the flood was at its height in the Verdigris in the neighborhood of Independence, and the water to the northeast of the city had backed up as far as Pennsylvania avenue, just south of the railroad trestle. Rock creek on the south was also full and almost impassable, while the entire valley from the bluff at the east side of the city to the hills a mile away to the northeast, was one vast sheet of water. The railroad was washed away at a small trestle near the east side of the valley, and that afternoon the passengers coming in from the north were ferried over to the city by boat, among them being some returning visitors from the New Orleans exposition.

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History of Montgomery County, Kansas, Part 1

Author: Duncan, L. Wallace (Lew Wallace), b. 1861, comp Publication date: 1903 Publisher: Iola, Kan., Press of Iola register Number of Pages: 1162

Author: Duncan, L. Wallace (Lew Wallace), b. 1861, comp
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Iola, Kan., Press of Iola register
Number of Pages: 1162