A history of Kansas, Part 8

Author: Prentis, Noble L. (Noble Lovely), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Topeka, Kan. : C. Prentis
Number of Pages: 394


USA > Kansas > A history of Kansas > Part 8


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24


202. Governor Crawford and the Nineteenth .- Con- vineed that the Kiowas and Comanches were determined to keep up the fight, General Sherman called on Governor Crawford for a full regiment of volunteer cavalry. Gover- nor Crawford issued his proclamation on the 10th of Octo- ber, 1868, and on the 20th of October, ten days later, the regiment of 1,200 men was mustered into service at Topeka.


136


HISTORY OF KANSAS.


The regiment was called the Nineteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry. Governor Crawford, who had seen service in the Civil War as a Captain in the Second Kansas Infantry; Major in the Second Kansas Cavalry, and Colonel of the Second Kansas Colored Infantry, resigned the Governor- ship of the State on November 4, 1868, and assumed the command of the Nineteenth, the Lieutenant-Colonel being Horace L. Moore, who had commanded the Eighteenth Kansas in a previous campaign against the Indians, and the Major, William C. Jones, formerly of the Tenth Kansas Volunteer Infantry. The regiment left Topeka on the 5th of November, and on the 28th joined General Sheridan on the North Canadian, but at one o'elock on the morning of the 27th of November, General Custer had charged into Black Kettle's village on the Washita, killed 103 warriors, and captured fifty-one lodges and many horses and mules. The Indians fell back, and, on the 24th of December, surren- dered. The Nineteenth moved to Fort Hays in March, having kept the open field all through the severe winter, and in April was mustered out. This was the last call on Kansas for so large a force as a regiment to repel or pursue Indians.


203. Colonel Forsythe's Experience .- One of the thrilling passages of this Indian War of 1868, was Colonel Forsythe's fight with the Indians, beginning on the 17th of September. Barricading himself with his dead horses on an island in the north fork of the Republican, Colonel Forsythe held at bay, for eight days, a large force of Indians; his men living on the flesh of the horses. Colonel Forsythe was severely wounded; Lieutenant Beecher and Surgeon John Mooers were among the killed. A scout finally made


137


THE INDIAN WARS.


his way through the Indian lines to Fort Wallace, and brought relief, on the approach of which the Indians with- drew. It was one of the most desperate fights of the war, and its scene was not far distant from the Kansas line.


204. Indian Troubles of 1869-70 .- The still implac- able red man harried the borders of the State in the spring of 1869 and 1870, coming in at the northwest, and a battalion of militia was sent to the Republican, Saline, and Solomon valleys, and United States troops were employed in the same region.


205. Atrocities of the Cheyennes in 1874 .- In May, 1874, the Cheyennes committed murders in Ford, Barber, Governor Nehemiah Green. and Comanche counties, and threw the country into great alarm, and hundreds of settlers left their claims. Stockades were built, companies organized and armed. There was a skirmish between the Indians and the militia, in which four Indians were killed, but the Indians had still the best of the bloody account, since between June and the end of the year 1874, twenty-seven persons were murdered by Indians within the State.


206. Cheyennes Start for Their Old Home .- In the fall of 1878, a band of northern Cheyennes who had been removed to the Indian Territory, resolved to return to their former home. Taking their women and children, they started northward through Kansas. When the news of their departure reached Fort Dodge, a detachment left the Fort, and attacked them at the cañon of the Famished Woman's Fork. Lieutenant-Colonel William H. Lewis,


138


HISTORY OF KANSAS.


commanding the troops, was killed, and the Indians pro- ceeded on their way. As the Indians crossed several main lines of railway and many telegraph lines, information of their progress was constantly forwarded. The State Government sent arms to the settlers in the threatened country, but nothing in the way of assistance could be secured from General Pope at Fort Leavenworth. On the 30th of Sep- tember, the Indians appeared on the Sappa, in Decatur county, and committed fearful atrocities, but made their escape almost unmolested to the North. They were finally overpowered, and a number of those identified as having committed outrages, were sent, on demand of Governor Anthony, to Kansas for trial before the civil courts for murder and other crimes, but were never prosecuted. This raid, in which forty white persons were reported killed, was the last in Kansas.


207. The Indian in Kansas .- The Indian appears in the history of Kansas, a grim and un- happy figure. No gentle or attractive traditions remain concerning him. He appears squalid and degraded, or brutal and terrifying, a beggar or a bandit. For years he menaeed the border, fight- ing, with the ferocity of a wild beast, the advance of civilization. He was swept on and away from it, leaving Governor James M. Harvey. behind no eulogist to praise a brave foe, nor mourner for a generous enemy.


208. Election of State Officers .- On the resignation of Governor Crawford, the official duties of Governor were assumed by Lieutenant-Governor Green. In November,


-


139


THE INDIAN WARS.


1868, the following State officers were elected: Governor, James M. Harvey; Lieutenant-Governor, C. V. Eskridge; Secretary of State, Thomas Moonlight; Auditor, Alois Thoman; Treasurer, George Graham; Attorney-General, Addison Danford; Superintendent of Public Instruction, Peter Mc Vicar; Daniel M. Valentine, Associate Justice. Sidney Clark was re-elected Member of Congress. Kansas cast her electoral vote for Grant and Colfax.


209. State Printer Elected .- The Legislature of 1869 elected S. S. Prouty to the newly created office of State Printer.


SUMMARY.


1. The Indian raids of the 60's were many and atrocious. The most remarkable occurred in the Republican, Smoky Hill, and Solomon valleys.


2. Governor Crawford not only sent large forces to the field, but he organized the Nineteenth Regiment, resigned his position, and went himself to lead the regiment.


3. The Cheyennes, in 1874 and 1878, devastated three counties, and on their route to the North laid waste the country, and killed many people.


4. James M. Harvey was elected Governor.


5. Kansas cast electoral vote for Grant and Colfax.


6. S. S. Prouty elected State Printer.


CHAPTER XXII.


IMMIGRATION.


210. Dawning of the Era of Prosperity .- With the year 1870 the State of Kansas may be said to have passed through a sea of troubles, and emerged upon the shore of peace and prosperity.


In 1870 Governor Harvey was re-elected, with P. P. Elder as Lieutenant-Governor; William H. Smallwood, Secretary of State; A. Thoman, Auditor; J. E. Hayes, Treasurer; A. L. Williams, Attorney-General; H. D. McCarty, Super- intendent of Publie Instruction; David J. Brewer, Asso- ciate Justice. D. P. Lowe was elected member of Congress.


211. Census of 1870. The United States census, taken in June of that year, showed a population of 362,307. The increase in population of Kansas from 1860 to 1870 was 235.99 per cent. The average inerease for all of the States and Territories was 21.52 per cent.


212. Founding of State Institutions .- The end of the first decade of the State's history saw it provided with the most important State institutions. The Legislature of 1863 located the first State Insane Asylum at Osawatomie; pro- vided for the building of a penitentiary at Lansing; established a State University at Lawrence, and accepted the Act of Congress giving lands for an Agricultural Col- lege; accepted the cession of its lands from Bluemont College, at Manhattan, and the State Agricultural College


140


141


IMMIGRATION.


itself was organized July 27, 1863. The amount of land selected for the State University in 1861 was 46,080 acres. The Legislatures of 1863 and 1869 gave the State Normal School 38,400 acres; the grant to the Agricultural College amounted to 82,315 acres. The Legislature of 1864 located the State Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Olathe, and the Blind Asylum at Wyandotte. The year saw the State charitable and educational institutions thoroughly and efficiently organized, and ready for the great advances to be made.


State Normal School Building.


213. State House .- The State Government, which had occupied a brick building on Kansas avenue, erected by private parties in 1863, and known as the "State Row," abandoned these primitive quarters in the later days of 1869 for the newly completed east wing of the present Capitol, upon which structure work had fairly begun in the spring of 1867. The first Legislature to meet in the State's own house was that of 1870, James M. Harvey being the chief magistrate of the Commonwealth.


-


Chenucal


laboratory.


Science Hail.


Main Buildutg.


Gate & Drive Way.


· Domestico


Science.


State Agricultural Buildings.


143


IMMIGRATION.


214. State Institutions .- The State University, which dedicated its first building in 1866, in 1873 opened its main building, considered, at the time, one of the finest structures devoted to educational uses in the United States.


The State Normal School completed a new building in 1872. The State Agri- cultural College removed to a point nearer Manhattan in 1873. The State did not, in its earliest years, neglect the criminal and deficient population, since, between its organization and the year 1870, it expended over $400,000 upon Chancellor F. H. Snow, Uni- versity of Kansas. the penitentiary. The Insane Asylum, at Topeka, was added to the State institutions in 1875.


0 215. Election and Appointment .- Alexander Cald- well was chosen United States Senator by the Legislature of 1871. Mr. Caldwell resigned March 24, 1873, and Governor Osborn appointed Robert Crozier to fill the vacancy. The Legislature also re-elected S. S. Prouty State Printer.


216. Election of 1872 .. At the election of 1872, Thomas A. Osborn was chosen Governor; E. S. Stover, Lieutenant-Governor; W. H. Smallwood, Secretary of State; D. W. Wilder, Auditor; J. E. Hayes, Treasurer; A. L. Williams, Attorney-General; H. D. McCarty, Superintendent of Public Instruction; Samuel A. King- man, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.


217. Increased Representation .- Up to the year 1872, the State of Kansas had but one Representative in Congress, the office being filled successively by Martin F.


Snow Hall 4. Natural History.


Told Chemistry Building.


Blake tali PhysioBuilding


11


Frustr till


tumler Machine( Shop.s.)


¿Spooner fibrer?


State University Buildings.


145


IMMIGRATION.


Conway, A. Carter Wilder, Sidney Clarke, and D. P. Lowe. Under the census of 1870, the State became enti- tled to three Representatives in Congress, and in November, 1872, D. P. Lowe, of Fort Scott, William A. Phillips, of Salina, and Stephen A. Cobb, of Wyandotte, were elected from the State at large.


218. Railways in Kansas .- On the 1st of September, 1870, the Kansas Pacific, originally called the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division, and begun at the Kansas State line in Wyandotte in 1863, reached Denver, being the first railroad to cross Kansas from east to west. The first loco- motive for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Com- pany, the "C. K. Holliday," reached Topeka in March, 1869.


219. Kansas Invitation .- With the construction of these railroads, with their enormous land grants to be dis- posed of, ensued several years of such "bold advertise- ment" as Kansas had never before received. The agents of the land departments of the great railroad companies visited Great Britain and the Continent; offices for the dissemination of information were opened in every impor- tant city in the United States and Europe. The buffalo head, the especial symbol of the Kansas Pacific, became visible in the most distant capitals; the advantages of the "Santa Fe" and its lands were set forth in all modern languages. All distinguished representatives of foreign nations were invited to join excursions through Kansas, and among these came the Grand Duke Alexis, of Russia, and his suite, and were welcomed by Governor Harvey and the Legislature at Topeka. The members of the press of the United States and of the world were cordially invited, and Kansas travelers, in remote- regions of Europe, often


146


HISTORY OF KANSAS.


found local communities greatly exeited and interested over the advent of a Kansas newspaper, describing the lands of the Great West ready and waiting for the settler.


220. Colonization .- A favorite method of disposing of the lands was in large tracts to "colonies." In 1871 the Kansas Pacific sold to a Swedish colony, in Saline county, 22,000 acres; to a Scotch colony, in Dickinson county, 47,000 acres; to an English colony, in Clay county, 32,000 acres, and to a Welsh colony, in Riley county, 19,000 acres. In 1873, George Grant, of England, pur- chased of the Kansas Pacifie Company 50,000 acres in the eastern portion of Ellis county, with the design of coloniz- ing English people of means.


221. The Mennonites .- With the addition of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company to the land-selling corporations, came vigorons efforts to induce emigration from Europe. Mr. C. B. Schmidt, on behalf of the company, traversed the Russian empire, carefully watched by the emissaries of the Government, and opened up com- munication with the Mennonite communities in Southern Russia, whose thoughts had been turned toward emigration to America by the proposed revocation, by the Czar's Goy- ernment, of the privileges under which their fathers had settled in Russia.


In August, 1873, five leaders of these people (kindred in race and religion to the founders of Germantown and other early German settlements in Pennsylvania) visited the counties of Harvey, Sedgwick, Reno, Marion and MePher- son, to select lands for a colony from Russia. The Legis- lature of 1874, mindful of the peaceful principles of the colonists, passed an act exempting Mennonites and Friends


147


IMMIGRATION.


from military duty. In September, 1874, 1,600 Mennonites arrived at Topeka from Russia. In October the Atehison, Topeka & Santa Fe Company sold them 100,000 acres of land in Harvey, Marion and Reno. The following summer they were living in their villages of Gnadenau and Hoffnungsthal, in Marion county, and located on their farms about.


222. Their Settlement .- In July, 1877, it was esti- mated that 6,000 Mennonites had settled in the Arkansas valley. Though for a time popularly called "Russians," they were Germans in language and lineage. They brought with them from Russia the apricot and mulberry. and also brought what they had retained in Russia, the German thrift, industry, and belief in popular and univer- sal education. They abandoned, after a brief trial, the village and "eommon field" idea under which they lived in Russia, and absorbed the American idea of individual ownership and control. They have taken part in all the business life of the communities amid which they came to dwell, they have become prominent in it, and have dis- tinguished themselves by their attachment to the cause of edneation, fostering higher schools of their own, and patronizing the State University and other educational institutions of the first rank. The Mennonite immigration continued for several years; the immigrants coming directly from Russia and Germany to the place where they would be.


223. Russian Immigration .- In the years 1875-'76-'77 a large "Russian" immigration settled, under the auspices of the Kansas Pacific, in Ellis county. These people, divided into five settlements named after cities and towns in Russia; adhered to some extent to the village system, almost ni- versal among the agricultural population of Russia, and to


148


HISTORY OF KANSAS.


the Catholic faith, to which they have testified their devo- tion by building commodions and substantial churches. They have found Kansas a land of promise and fulfilment.


224. John J. Ingalls as Senator. - The Legislature of 1873 chose John James Ingalls as United States Senator as the successor of Samuel C. Pomeroy, first elected to the Senate in 1861. George W. Martin was elected State Printer, and re-elected by the Legislature of 1875.


225. State Election .- In 1874, Thomas A. Osborn was re-elected Governor; with M. J. Salter, Lieutenant- Governor; T. H. Cavanaugh, Secretary of State; D. W. Wilder, Auditor; Samnel Lappin, Treasurer; A. M. F. Randolph, Attorney-General; John Fraser, Superintendent of Public Instruction; D. M. Valentine, Associate Justice; William A. Phillips, J. R. Goodin and W. R. Brown were elected members of Congress.


226. Election of Senator .- James M. Harvey, who had served two terms as Governor of the State, was elected by the Legislature of 1874, United States Senator, to fill the remainder of the term for which Alexander Caldwell was elected, a portion of the term having been filled by Hon. Robert Crozier, by appointment of the Governor.


In 1874 Kansas, taking an account of stock in resources educational, noted that the school districts had grown in number, since 1861, from 214 to 4,181; the school popula- tion from 4,901 to 199,019. The number of teachers employed had increased from 319 to 5,043. The value of schoolhouses, which in 1862 was estimated at $10,432, was, in 1874, set down as $3,989,085. This increase was made from year to year, including the years of the Civil War, no year being marked by a falling off or a cessation of


149


IMMIGRATION.


growth, showing that the people of Kansas were not to be diverted by any vicissitude from the upbuilding of the common and public school, the hope and security of free government.


SUMMARY.


1. Dawning of better times.


2. The census of 1870 gives a population of 362,307 in Kansas.


3. The State institutions built during the first decade of Kansas as a State, were the Insane Asylum, the Penitentiary, the State University, the State Agricultural College, the State Normal School, the Deaf and Dumb Asylum and the Blind Asylum.


4. The State House was occupied for the first time by the Legis- lature in 1870, James M. Harvey, Governor.


5. Alexander Caldwell was chosen United States Senator in 1871.


6. Thomas A. Osborn was elected Governor in 1872.


7. Kansas became entitled to three Representatives in Congress under the census of 1870.


8. The Union Pacific was the first road to cross Kansas.


9. Kansas invited all the world into her borders.


10. John J. Ingalls was elected United States Senator in 1873.


11. Thomas A. Osborn was re-elected Governor in 1874.


12. James M. Harvey was elected United States Senator in 1874.


CHAPTER XXIII.


THE CENTENNIAL YEAR.


227. Kansas at the Centennial .- A feature of the great "boom decade," 1870-1880, was the participation of Kansas in the Centennial Exposition of 1876 at Philadel- phia. The Legislatures of 1875 and 1876 appropriated $30,000 for the exhibition, and a further sum of $8,625 to be devoted to a report of the State Board of Agriculture, · which should also contain an account of the Exposition. The women of Kansas manifested much interest in the part Kansas should take in the National celebration. For the $10,000 to which the building fund was limited, a frame house was erected in an excellent location, and therein, dividing the space with the State of Colorado, the State of Kansas made a memorable exhibition. The attendance, small at the opening of the Exposition, increased with its progress, and at the close became a rush. Among the visitors came Dom Pedro II, of Brazil, and his Empress, and with them a countless crowd of American sovereigns.


Every feature of the Kansas exhibition was a success, and a most admired map, showing by a star the location of every Kansas school house, is still preserved in the Capitol at Topeka.


228. Prizes Won by Exhibitors .- John A. Martin and George A. Crawford were appointed the National Centennial Commissioners for Kansas. The display owed its effect to


150


151


THE CENTENNIAL YEAR.


the taste of the arrangement, largely the work of Henry Worrall, of Topeka. Kansas received a certificate for the best collective exhibit; a first premium on fruit; a medal for a bound record book, exhibited by the State Printer, George W. Martin, and a prize for the best farm wagon, appropriate to the State where, by freighter's wagon and farmer's wagon, the "Star of Empire" has taken its west- ward way.


229. Centennial Year in Kansas .- The Centennial year was marked in Kansas by the mildness of the season with which it opened, with the ground unfrozen and blue- birds singing in January and February.


The people throughout the State evinced a revived interest in the history of their country and their State. The Fourth of July, 1876, was celebrated with enthusiasm, and seventy- five newspapers published local histories.


230. Calamity of 1874 .- There is no rose without its thorn, and the ten wonderful years for Kansas, 1870 to 1880, were broken by one year of calamity, 1874. In that year the drought came after the wheat harvest, and the grass- hoppers became a burden. As a spectacle the approach of the winged destroyers was sufficiently terrifying, and the destruction of vegetation was complete. A special session of the State Legislature was called, but concluded that relief from the State treasury was impracticable, and that the locusts must be met by issues of county bonds.


231. Relief .- In this juncture a State Relief Committee was organized, composed of well-known and responsible citizens of the State, who issued an address to the "citizens of Kansas and the people of the Eastern States." This committee received and disbursed money and goods to the


152


HISTORY OF KANSAS.


amount of $235,000. This was the last "grasshopper inva- sion," and probably the last "aid campaign" in or from Kansas. Owing to the conduet of "unauthorized, irrespon- sible and mercenary parties," against whom the State Com- mittee raised loud but ineffectual warning, the word "aid" became quite as unpopular in Kansas as the word "locust."


232. The Hoppers Depart. In the early spring of 1875, the young locusts hatched out in large numbers in Kansas and ereated mueh alarm. They evineed, however, a delicacy of constitution unknown to their hardy, northern progenitors, and on taking wings they took flight to the northward, in time to allow late planting, and the season which followed was one of the most fruitful in the history of the State.


233. Election of 1876 .- In 1876 George T. Anthony was elected Governor; M. J. Salter, Lieu- tenant-Governor; ThomasII. Cavanaugh, Secretary of State; P. I. Bonebrake, Auditor; John Francis, Treasurer; Wil- lard Davis, Attorney-General; A. B. Lemmon, Superintendent of Publie In- struction; David J. Brewer, Associate Justice. William A. Phillips, Dudley C. Haskell and Thomas Ryan were elected Gov. George T. Anthony. to Congress.


234. The Exodus .- In the spring of 1874, it was noted that parties of colored people were emigrating to the State from the South, the larger number from Tennessee. These immigrants located in southeastern Kansas, and engaged in growing cotton. A settlement was also formed in Morris county.


153


THE CENTENNIAL YEAR.


In the spring of 1879 occurred the rush from the South, to which was given the name of the "Exodus," and the "Exoduster" for a time became a prominent figure in Kansas. Great numbers of black people, men, women, and children, arrived by rail at Parsons, from Texas, and on steamboats at Wyandotte and Atchison. The later comers represented the ex-slave population of Tennessee, Missis- sippi, and Louisiana. They were set ashore with their scanty household goods, strangers, houseless, foodless, but seemingly cheerful and uncaring. Their story soon became the talk of the country, and a Congressional committee was formed to investigate the "'Exodus," and many witnesses were summoned from Kansas.


In the meantime, the "Exodusters" cared for themselves, and were cared for. Meetings were held in Lawrence, Wyandotte, Leavenworth, and Topeka, to take measures for their immediate relief. A Freedman's State Central Association was formed, headed by Governor St. John. Money and goods were received, $2,000 coming from Chicago, and $3,000 from England. In Atchison the colored people came generously, with the whites, to the rescue.


235. Settlement of the Negroes .- In the late fall of 1877, "Exodusters" gathered from Topeka and other points, and founded the town of Nicodemus, in Graham county. With but three horses in the entire settlement, the people in the spring put in wheat and other crops, with hoes and mattocks, and in the harvest pulled the grain with their hands. The men afterwards walked to eastern Kansas and to Colorado in search of work, and the women "held down the claims." The "Exodusters" formed little suburbs in the cities where they collected, and "Tennesseetown," in Topeka,


154


HISTORY OF KANSAS.


is a relic of the "Exodus." The entire body was absorbed in the laboring population of the State. These immigrants conducted probably the first successful attempt of the freed people to occupy, under the Homestead Law, the public lands of the United States. They came to Kansas not by invita- tion or offered indueement, but moved by an impulse to seek security in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.




Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.