USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume II > Part 40
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numerous fragments of an ancient type of pottery and there is evidence that these primitive people cultivated the sheltered bottoms along Shunganunga Creek.
In excavating for the abutments for a bridge on Clark's Creek, near Skiddy, Morris County, at the depth of about sixteen feet a sort of oven, fireplace or hearth of matched stones fitted together was uncovered some years ago. It rested upon a solid ledge or strata of rock, far below the present channel of the stream. On and around it were ashes, charcoal, bones, some flint artifacts and a small coin-shaped disk of metal like brass. Some seven or eight feet above the fireplace and about the same depth below the surface of the earth an oak-tree stump was found, where the tree had grown. It was a find that indicated great age.
About three miles north of Neodesha on the Verdigris River, the site of a pre-historie fort and village were found. It must have been a place of great importance, for nothing so extensive exists anywhere else in that part of the state. On the highest ground of the site two parallel lines of pits appear, the dirt from both lines having been thrown between the two lines of pits making an elevated ridge. The form of the fort is rather like a horseshoe, opening toward the east. Each of these pits were from one to two rods long. Many relics of flint and metal character have been found on this site.
Several mounds and ancient town sites near Lindsborg in McPherson County have yielded many specimens-especially one situated between two never-failing streams. Many flint implements of various colors have been found, which indicate either conquest or barter with distant tribes.
Large quantities of buffalo bones have been dug up from this old site, and it would seem that the buffalo were their principal article of diet; also many specimens of pottery were recovered, indicating that the inhabitants were skilled in some of the arts.
Along several streams falling into the Kansas River from the south like Gypsum, Holland, Turkey, Lyon, Clarke and other creeks in McPher- son, Saline, Dickinson, Morris and Geary counties, many pre-historic Indian villages flourished. From the fact that flint hoes, spades and other digging implements have been found, it is presumed that their ancient owners cultivated small tracts of land in the sheltered nooks of those streams.
Many old village sites have been found and explored along Wild Cat Creek in Riley County. When examined years ago, mounds of earth seemed to show where permanent earthen lodges once stood and many flint chips, knives, arrow and spear points have been gathered.
Near Broughton on the Republican River burial mounds were found along the bluffs and also near Milford, on Madison Creek.
In Geary County, about three miles north of Alida, an interesting excavation of former days can be seen. It was no temporary camp for, after probably centuries have passed, it is a well-defined earthwork. There are eight or more lodge rings from 25 to 40 feet in diameter. Near by are numerous depressions, probably the caved-in remains of ancient caches. The site was naturally well fortified by being on high
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ground with the Republican Valley and River to the east, School Creek . on the North and a deep depression on the west and must have been a noted stronghold.
Near Ogden, on the south side of the Kansas River, numerous burial mounds and evidences of ancient life have been found and explored, and large numbers of fine flint, bone and stone artifacts recovered,-all of which tell of the habits and customs of pre-historic Kansans.
On Walnut River in Cowley County, several mounds have been noticed, two of which were explored, and many articles found, such as grinding stones, bones, potsherds, charcoal, spear and arrow points. These were unearthed at a depth of six feet. These two mounds were 30 feet in diameter, originally 3 or 4 feet high and about 30 rods apart.
In Marion County, a large heap or mound of shells was found years ago; and on bluff's of Wolf Creek in Coffey County, numerous stone heaps have been found in which shells of muscles are mixed, such as are found so numerous in the Neosho River a mile away and which yield so many fine pearls even to this day. These heaps were possibly onee covered with earth, which the elements have washed away. At the foot of the bluff, a probable erematory and many flint arrow points were found,-some of which with fragments of pottery were several feet below the surface where large oak trees 4 feet in diameter had grown.
In Leavenworth County, on Pilot Knob Ridge near the Fort, six mounds in a line and about thirty feet apart have been found.
Probably the largest remains of the mound builders in Kansas are the five or more mounds near Edwardsville, Wyandotte County. While they are now about a half-mile from the Kansas River, the indications are that they once stood upon the bank of the ancient Kaw, or some other stream.
These mounds are about 5 feet high, 25 feet in diameter and stand fifty feet apart. Before the ground was cleared, these mounds were hidden by a growth of large oak trees, and all the surroundings indieate an ancient piece of work. Many stone and flint implements have been found near this place.
The Kansas mound builders were more migratory than those east and left few, if any, remains of walled defenses. They might properly be termed prairie mound builders to designate them from those who left more pretentious works.
One of the very important and unique archaeological relies of "Life in Old Kansa," is the ruin of an old pueblo twelve miles north of Scott City, Seott County. It has been determined by several competent scien- tists that these ruins are the long lost remnants of the pueblo El Quar- telejo, which were established about 1702 (some claim as early as 1650) by some adventurous Pueblo Indians from the Town of Picuries in New Mexico. Originally it was a stone and adobe building of 32 by 50 feet. and was divided into seven rooms.
Probably it was the first walled house ever constructed within the present borders of Kansas. In it were found stone, flint and bone imple- ments, mealing stones, potsherds, a quantity of charred eorn and other
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things used and found in an Indian pueblo of the Rio Grande, New Mexican type. Although most of the walls had been despoiled by early Scott County settlers,-who probably wanted the material-enough of the foundations remained in 1898 from which Profs. S. W. Willston and H. T. Martin of the Kansas University derived many interesting facts and recovered numerous relics. The result of their labors is found in The Kansas University Science Bulletin of October, 1909.
There is no evidence that Spaniards or other whites had anything to do with its construction or ever lived there, and it seems that the Pueblo Indian owners of El Quartelejo were soon persuaded by the Governor of New Mexico to return to their former home.
The honor of establishing the first white settlement and govern- mental center within Kansas is with the French, who as early as 1727 maintained a Jesuit mission station and built a fort and trading post among the Kansa Indians on the Missouri River prior to 1757 and called it "Kansas." The ruins of this old French fort and post were seen by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and are also described in Bougainville on French Forts and other early Canadian documents. (See History of Kansa or Kaw Nation.)
In Geary County, on a bluff overlooking the Republican Valley and about three and one-half miles northwest of Junction City, four mounds were discovered and opened in 1879 by Hon. John Davis, the owner of the land. They were arranged in a semi-circle eighty feet apart,-the largest being 30 feet in diameter and about 4 feet high and the others from 12 to 20 feet in diameter. They were mounds of sepulture, built of layers of stone and earth, and the remains of many bodies were found, which seemed to have been placed upon the original surface of the ground and the mounds built over them. Fragments of primitive pottery or urns with pipes, arrow and spear heads were found.
It would be interesting to know more about the original people who lived upon and around the old William Malotte farm a little east of White Church, in Wyandotte County ; for, there, over an extensive area, an ancient Indian town flourished in pre-historie times. Probably several cultures of aboriginals occupied it at different periods, which accounts for the large variety of relies found thereon. The late George U. S. Hovey, of White Church, during his many years of activity, recovered hundreds of fine specimens from this site, most of which were included in his large collection now in the museum of the Kansas University.
Among the sites of ancient Indian towns of the pre-historie period which have yielded up innumerable stone and flint artifacts is the one at Diamond Springs iu southwestern Morris County. This old site is known as the "Town of the Big Spring," for near its center an enor- mous spring of fine water bursts from the ground and makes a stream several feet wide. This site was discovered along in the '60s when the land of the David Rude farm was broken up. Since that time bushels of relies of stone and flint material have been recovered, but taken by so many people, no very complete collection has been kept together.
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This shows the unscientific method of many people, at different times, exploring a site.
Years ago, so much material was taken from this place that it was supposed to have been worked out; but, every year, as the soil is worn down, more relics are found. A workshop was disclosed with thousands of flint chips and fragments of broken artifacts. Probably the fine spring, the sheltering trees, and rich bottom nooks, along with a flint quarry near by were the causes that boomed this ancient town.
In the open bottom and within a half mile seem to be the site of a terrific battle, in which the defenders of the town went out to meet the attacking forces. The contest was a hot one, for numerous arrow and spear points, of two distinct types, were found in large numbers, broken and scattered about, where the contending forces met and struggled. One type of these war relies is the same as found at the old town- being the ordinary blue flint of that locality. The other type, used by the invaders were arrow and spear points of a much better grade of material and workmanship. They were sharper, better pointed and made of varieties of agate, gray, white and red colored flint. It appears, however, that the attacking forces in that battle failed to take the town. As no pottery had been found here, it must have been occupied by a type of Indian different from many of the villages above noted.
It would be an interesting contribution to have a Kansas map of the location of the many known pre-historic Indian towns and villages,- only a few of which have been above mentioned. A true pre-historic town does not include those tribal centers where iron articles are found, such as knives, gun barrels, axes and numerous other implements which were furnished them by the whites. Such places are of comparative recent date and can be identified with some modern tribes of Indians. But of the ancient pre-historic towns,-the busy centers of aboriginal life and activity hundreds of years before the whites knew anything about Kansas,-it is not so easy to determine, when and by whom they were occupied, or what became of their inhabitants. And yet some of them have been so well explored that they have given up many impor- tant facts concerning the character and hustling qualities of our primeval Kansans.
In some instances, the more modern Indian village has been built upon the very site of an ancient town, about which the later occupants knew nothing in fact or by tradition. Upon some sites, as many as three entirely different types or cultures have been found, which show like the slicing down of a layer cake, and the investigations have proven that the implements of warfare, agriculture, etc., of each strata, were entirely different in character and workmanship and must have belonged to people living at different ages. This is perfectly natural, for the nomad was no tyro as a town boomer and in selecting a good town site was often more skilled than his white brother,-as proven by some of the great floods along Kansas valleys. The succeeding Indian town pro- moters were very liable to select the same points of advantage as their predecessors, even though the carlier town had been obliterated by the
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dust and debris of ages. It is from these pre-historic sites that we have found the countless varieties of stone and flint spear and arrow points and the many other interesting implements of war and peace, and where it is certain that people of different grades of intelligence lived long ages before the more modern tribes existed.
Thus we have seen that there are three principal sourees of informa- tion from which we derive our archeological or pre-historie knowledge eoneerning the first inhabitants of Kansas: (1) The scattered relics of man, his bones or workmanship, found here and there deep in the ancient drifts of river beds or resting in other hidden places, from which they are often thrown up to light; (2) The many aneient mounds and cemeteries along our valley slopes or upon slightly bluff promi- nenees, in which have been preserved the skeletal remains of a pre- historie people along with speeimens of the tools of warfare and industry they used; (3) The numerous old town and village sites which have yielded up such rieh harvests of stone and flint artifacts such as arrow and spear heads, axes and tomahawks, knives and scrapers, spades and hoes, mortars and milling stones, specimens of various types of pottery and store house eaehes, and now and then, unique emblems and symbols which seem to connect them with former ages of civilization beyond the seas.
These all speak volumes of the intense life and activity of a raee of early Kansans, who lived and died in a primitive but not indolent manner, along the rich valleys and upon the fertile prairies now occu- pied by the more perfect eivilization of modern times.
While much has been lost in the past by imperfeet and careless exploration and the laek of proper preservation of what we have found, yet, as time passes and our progressive age delves deeper and deeper into the earth by more extensive exeavation, new and startling facts will be revealed and our people will take greater interest in this topic. And why not ? For it is bringing to light much interesting pre-historic data, which is of so much value to the future historian, poet, seientist, and to all those students of ancient life in the Sunflower State.
KANSAS BANKS AND BANKING
The history of banking in Kansas is a story which has no moral or impressive warning bearing on the dangers of rash speeulation; the tak- ing of desperate finaneial chanees; unrestrained expansion indueed by exuberance of animal and intellectual spirits, and firm faith in the splendid future of the country, based for years upon nothing but faith ; for the outeome of the banking institutions of the state was, finally, beyond all predietions-and this, despite the faet that virtually for forty years there was at best but a very loose government supervision of them. The period of state supervision dates from 1897, and since that year the Kansas spirit, the Kansas energy and the Kansas progressiveness, like a stalwart horse of the plains, have been placed in harness and wisely regu- lated, without being broken or retarded for the best purposes of society.
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The Kansas spirit and the Chicago spirit have long been placed in the same class.
Several banks were established in Kansas before any law had been passed by the territory under which they could be operated. They were not called into existence by the development of agriculture, by the found- ing of communities and the growth of local trade, but rather by the great overland transportation and supply business which mainly centered at Leavenworth and Atchison, and which, during the Civil war, was supple- mented by Government work at the western forts.
When the banks were first coming into being, not only was the wild speculation in town sites at its height, but the territorial authorities had issued quite a quantity of serip to supply the dearth of a medium of exchange under which the settlers suffered, to meet the expenses of politieal movements and to serve as a protection fund against the anti- free soilers.
As was written by the late George W. Martin: "There were three issues of serip in territory days and, being without a redeemer, it is eurious to know what became of it. We have occasional inquiries to this day as to the value of this paper. There was first the Kansas State serip, issued to pay the expenses of the Topeka Movement. It was signed by James H. Lane, president, and J. K. Goodin, secretary. We have a piece of this serip for $20, issued to Timothy MeIntyre, a doorkeeper of the Topeka constitutional convention. He was one of the first settlers of Topeka. He was born in New Hampshire in 1819 and died in the State Hospital, of old age, November 10, 1910. The Chicago Tribune said there was $50,000 of this paper issued.
" Another issue was called the Kansas Protection Fund. We have a piece of this for $130, dated February 29, 1856, signed by C. Robinson, J. H. Lane, J. K. Goodin and George W. Deitzler. The full amount is stated at $23,858, and it was to liquidate losses during the invasion of December, 1855. Governor Robinson secured donations in Massachusetts to redeem $10,000 of this protection serip.
"Another issue is known as Free State warrants. We have two samples of this issue, one for $62 and one for $18, dated March 15, 1856, signed by George A. Cutler, auditor of state, and issued under act of March 15, 1856, defining certain duties of the auditor of state.
"The Historical Society also has, among its enrios, quite a number and variety of bank notes issued in Kansas from 1854 to 1862, repre- senting institutions at Leavenworth, Lecompton, Sumner, Lawrence, Atchison and Wyandotte. However, we find no mention of organized banks at Lecompton and Sumner."
For several years before the war numerous relief funds were being raised in New England and sent to Kansas-not only anti-slavery money (which has been estimated at a total of $250,000), but hundreds of thousands of dollars to assist Free Soil emigrants and relieve drought sufferers. In one statement of the New England Emigrant Aid Com- pany it is stated that $155,000 was expended in the Territory of Kansas, $100,000 of which Pomeroy used in the drought of 1860. Much of the
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balance was for town sites, sawmills and hotels. The Kansas National Committee, prior to January, 1857, when it dissolved, sent to Kansas about $200,000. A report adds : "One-half of this value probably reached its destination ; the remainder, during the disordered times of the summer and fall of 1856 was interrupted, destroyed or appropriated by the numerous bands of proslavery regulators who infested the landings on the upper Missouri, plundering Free State emigrants in the name of law and order."
It was in the midst of such chaotic conditions, the territorial Legis- lature of Kansas passed its first banking law. On January 29, 1857, an act was passed making it unlawful for any company or association to be formed for banking purposes, without authority from the Legislature. It was also made unlawful to subscribe for such purpose. The penalty for its violation was a fine ranging from $400 to $1,000, or imprisonment of from six months to twelve. The act establishing the Kansas Valley Bank at Leavenworth was approved on February 19th of the same year. It provided for branches at Atchison, Lecompton, Doniphan, Fort Scott and Shawnee. As an anomaly of nature, it may be stated that though the Leavenworth parent was never born, a vigorous son sprang into being at Atchison. Furthermore, the act made the branches entirely independent of the trunk!
An official examination of the books of the Atchison branch showed that 50 per cent of its authorized capital stock had been paid in and that the other terms of its charter had been complied with; so that it commenced business February 18, 1858, the charter of the Kansas Valley Bank having been repealed on the 3d of the month.
Three banks were incorporated by the act of February 11, 1858-the Lawrence Bank, the Bank of Leavenworth and the Bank of Wyandotte. The authorized capital stock of each bank was $100,000, which was to be divided into shares of $100 each, and the affairs of each institution were to be managed by a board of eight directors. Section 12 of the act provided that "whenever the directors of either bank shall deposit with the comptroller an amount of the state bonds of any interest paying state in the Union, or of the United States, equal in value to $25,000, at the current rates of the New York Stock Exchange, and shall satisfy said officer that they have on hand $2,500 in specie for the purpose of redeeming notes of the bank, then the comptroller shall countersign $25,000 of said circulating notes and return them to the president for use; and it shall then be lawful for said bank to use said notes as currency."
On February 7, 1859, the Legislature passed an act authorizing the establishment of savings banks, and under its provisions was organized the Lawrence Savings Bank.
But before any of the banks organized under the territorial laws conld be fairly established, except possibly the "Atchison branch," Kansas was admitted into the Union as a state (January 29, 1861). The status of those already authorized was in no wise altered, but, under the state government, the conditions under which other banks could be established were materially changed.
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The Wyandotte Constitution contained a provision that no bank should be established except under a general banking law, and that no banking law should be in force until after it had been submitted to a vote of the people at a general election and approved by such popular vote. The first State Legislature, which met in March, 1861, passed a general banking law containing the following provision: "Whenever any person or association of persons, formed for the purpose of banking under the provisions of this act, shall duly assign or transfer in trust to the auditor of this state, any portion of the public stock issued, or to be issued by the United States, or the stocks of the State of Kansas, said stocks to be valued at a rate to be estimated and governed by the average rate at which said stocks are sold in the city of New York, at the time when such stocks may be left on deposit with the auditor of state, such person or association of persons shall be entitled to receive from the auditor an amount of circulating notes of different denominations regis- tered and countersigned, equal to and not exceeding the amount of public stocks assigned and transferred as aforesaid."
Under the law, the stockholders were also required to give a bond to the auditor for an amount equal to one-fourth of the notes issued ; also a certificate to the effect that 10 per cent of the capital stock had been paid in specie, which was to remain as security in the vaults of the bank. No bank was to be authorized with a capital stock less than $50,000. Annual statements showing the financial condition of the bank on a date certain were also required. In the event that a bank should fail to redeem its notes on demand, they might be protested, and, if not paid in twenty days, the auditor of state was authorized to give notice that they would be paid out of the trust funds. Note holders could recover damages from the bank. The law ratified at the general election of November 5, 1861, by a vote of 4,655 to 2,807, but before it could fairly be tested Congress passed the National Banking Law, and the banks of Kansas which continued to do business under their old charters were con- fined to institutions of discount and deposit.
Notwithstanding that the State Supreme Court decided that the state could only authorize the formation and operation of discount and deposit institutions, which are in reality not banks in full application of the word, banks which carried on a general business were authorized by the Legis- lature, and the banking affairs of the commonwealth were rather loosely regulated until the passage of the Kansas General Banking Law of 1891.
Perhaps the most important measure passed within this uncertain period was that relating to the reception of funds by any official of the bank after he knew it to be insolvent. By act of March 12, 1879, it was made unlawful for "any president, director, manager, cashier or other officer of any banking institution, to assent to the reception of deposits, or the creation of debts by such banking institution, after he shall have knowledge of the fact that it is insolvent or in failing circumstances." The act also made it the duty of every officer, director, agent or manager of any banking institution to examine into the affairs of the same and, if possible, know its condition. Another act of the same date provided that
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