USA > Kansas > Wabaunsee County > Early history of Wabaunsee County, Kansas, with stories of pioneer days and glimpses of our western border.. > Part 8
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That the will of the people might be expressed at the polls an election was called for March 6, 1866. At this election the vote stood:
For Alma 137 For Wabaunsee 112
Total vote. 249
Necessary to a choice, 125
The law, at that time, required the officers to move to the place having received the highest number of votes within twenty days but a session of the district court having been called for April 9th, a resolu- tion was passed by the board of commissioners postponing the date of removal to May 1. 1856.
But the legality of the vote being questioned and no steps being taken to move the records to Alma a petition was presented to the board Oct. 6, requesting that a new election be called. The prayer of the petitioners was granted and the date of the election set for Nov. 22, 1866.
The vote stood:
For Alma 142
For Wabaunsee 114
Thoes' Place 1 Wilmington. 1
Alma was again declared the county seat and the records moved over in time for the meeting of the board at the January session, 1867. The records were hauled over in two wagons and deposited in the new court house-the frame house known as the Kaufman building, one block east of the present site of the court house.
But other aspirants for the county seat sprung up. The Pottawa- tomio reserve had been opened for settlement (March, 1869) and settlers had taken advantage of the opportunity to secure the rich lands and comfortable homes for a nominal sum, A town had been laid out at
75
·
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
Newbury, the whole of Section 22, Township 11, Range 11 had been platted, with a square, containing 8 acres, in the center. The town company offered to erect a building and donate the use of the same for county purposes for five years and to deed the court house square to the county in case the county seat should be moved to Newbury.
Eskridge, with its one house was also an aspirant and offered simi- lar inducements, and the citizens of Alma met the situation by the offer of a stone court house, the title to which should vest in the county after twenty years' occupation.
At the January session, 1871, a petition to re-locate the county seat was granted and another election called for Feb. 7, 1871.
The vote at this election stood as follows:
Alma,
Eskridge, Newbury, Wabaunsee,
Alma, City,
103
5
. .
Alma, East Pre.,
49
15
·
Alma, West Pre.,
61
Wabaunsee,
SS
4
9
Rock Creek,
20
10
.
Elm Creek,
6
51
. ..
Dragoon.
3
75
29
Zeandale,
40
13
5
Newbury, West,
3
111
In the recapitulation of the vote the following figures appear in the records:
Alma, 369; Eskridge, 256: Newbury, 217; Wabaunsee, 2.
No place having received a majority of the votes cast another election was called for Feb. 21, 1871.
The vote stood:
For Alma.
For Eskridge.
Alma Pre.,
127
3
Alma, East Pre.,
55
23
Alma, West Pre.,
59
. .
Wabaunsee,
133
2
Rock Creek,
13
19
Elm Creek,
48
Dragoon,
3
106
Mission Creek.
23
26
Zeandale,
37
20
Newbury, East,
34
Newbury, West,
12
85
·
. .
Newbury, East,
·
43
. .
.
SS
2
Mission Creek,
. ..
Alma, 465 Eskridge, 429
Alma having received a majority of the votes cast was, for the third time, declared the county seat. Since the law requires a three- fifths vote to bring about a change, and a petition signed by two-thirds of the voters being necessary to call an election for the re-location of a county seat the question of a change is not likely to come before the people for years to come.
76
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
Item in Signal February 20, 1899: It is stated on good authority that a family living on the Snokomo being somewhat annoyed by the presence of a frog in the cellar were surprised one morning to find the butter already churned and ready for market. Investigation disclosed the fact that the churning had been done by the frog-in his efforts to get out of the churn. The agitation of the cream had churned the butter into an island on which the frog was calmly waiting for some- thing to turn up-monarch of all he surveyed-which in this case was a small fringe of buttermilk on the outer edge of the island, and the walls of the churn that held his frogship a prisoner. It is said that fabulous offers for the frog have been refused and that it will be trained to salt and print the product of the nocturnal churnings.
During the drouth of 1894, the people of Kansas, among other afflictions, were imposed upon by a lot of fakirs styling themselves rainmakers. Alma, not to be behind the times put forward the claims of Dr. Syntax. Of course the Doctor could furnish the usual testi- monials as to ability, experience, level-headedness and fair dealing. Failure to produce rain would cost nothing more than the net outlay for the chemicals used and the pittance of ten dollars a day extra for time engaged and insurance-on account of the imminent and con- stant danger of being blown up by the least oversight in mixing the chemicals used. But soon the windows of Heaven were opened, the floods came and the Doctor, with the rest, found himself out of a job. But the Doctor, being a man of expedients, moved to Oklahoma and married a widow-and never since has had cause to complain of a lack of useful and pleasant employment.
A book published in 1854, describing the trip through Kansas of two agents of the Kansas League of Cincinnati contained this pen picture of Leavenworth: "A squatter city has little resemblance to any other city; it belongs to a distinct genus of cities. This is a large and important one, as many hope, of Kansas, and, therefore, worthy of description. There was one steam engine; naked as when it was born; but at work sawing out its clothes. There were four tents, all on one street, a barrel of water (or whiskey) under a tree, and a pot on a pole, over a fire. Under a tree a tpye sticker had his case before him and was at work on the first number of the new paper; and within a frame without a board on side or roof was the editor's desk, and the "Notice" stating that the editor had removed his office from under the elm tree to the corner of "Broadway and Levee." This Broadway was, at that time, much broader than the streets of Old Babylon; for, with the exemption of the fort, there was probably not a house on either side for thirty miles."
77
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
A Hunter's Paradise.
It is difficult for the average citizen of Wabaunsee county of to-day to imagine a condition of things relative to game production, but a few short years ago as compared with the present surroundings.
In 1818 Captain Martin with three companies of United States riflemen encamped for the winter on Cow Island, a few miles above the present site of Fort Leavenworth, and during that winter the com- mand killed nearly three thousand deer, besides great numbers of bears, turkeys and other game.
In the fall of 1830 while McCoy's surveying party was camped on Stranger creek, but a few miles out of Fort Leavenworth, a herd of elk, estimated to number two or three hundred, was encountered and several killed.
Colonel Gilpin, speaking of "the Great Plains," of which he con- sidered Kansas as the major part, described the country as the home of infinite herds of aboriginal cattle peculiar to North America-buf- falo, wild horses, elk, antelope, white and black tailed deer, wolves, the hare, badger and smaller animals innumerable. He also described the Great Plains as swarming with poultry-the turkey, prairie chicken the sandhill crane and curlew; water fowl of every variety, the swan, goose, brant and ducks; birds of prey-eagles and vultures; small birds of game and song: wolves, panthers and wild cats.
On these the nomadic tribes of Indians subsisted from time im- memorial. From these he drew his supplies-his food, his lodge, fuel, harness, clothing and bed; his armaments, weapons and utensils. These were his sole dependence from the beginning to the end of his existence. The innumerable carniverous animals also subsisted upon them.
During the Mexican war when Doniphan's and Kearney's expedi- tions passed through Wabaunsee county-on the old Santa Fe trail- they encountered numerous herds of buffalo right in our own country and elk, deer and antelope were killed by the hunters every day.
Hon. P. G. Lowe in his address before the Kansas Historical Society, January 14, 1890, speaking of conditions as to game in 1853
EARLY HISTORY OF WABA UNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
says: "The buffalo range was a little west of a line drawn north and south through Fort Riley (established in 1853). East of that line were plenty of turkey, deer and other small game." Speaking of the plains he said that by reason of the perennial pastures the whole face of the country was a continuous park, where ranged the noble buffalo, the antlered elk., deer in the vallies, antelope on a thousand hills and smaller game everywhere.
The turkey roosts upon all the timbered creeks would astonish the best farmer's wife in America.
In 1853 Major Chilton's command found travel blocked with buffalo the whole distance from Cow ereck to Fort Atkinson (six miles west of Dodge City). Standing on any high point, as for as the eye could reach a vast moving mass could be seen, making the earth trem- ble with their tramping and bellowing. It was afterwards learned that the Kiowas and Comanches had actually tried to drive the buf- falo from the Smoky Hill south of the Arkansas-in which they were partially successful. The line of drive extended two hundred miles from east to west and they hunted and worked away on the north side of the herds until the great bulk of them drifted to, and across the river.
Colonel W A. Phillips, president of the Kansas Historical Society, said in 1890, in his address, that in 1866 he had seen several thousand elk in a single herd, and that he had seen immense herds of buffalo cover the landscape, and made it as black as ink, in the early summer time, as far as the eye could reach.
While the Kansas Pacific railroad was being built hundreds of hunters were engaged in killing buffalos, a few being employed by the grading gangs to supply meat for the contractors, but a greater num- ber killed the animals for their hides, leaving their carcasses to rot on the prairies. I have seen the ground so thickly strewn with the bones of dead animals that you could walk for hundreds of yards over the prairie and never touch foot to the ground.
These hunters received the small pittance of one dollar per head and many of these men would kill more than a thousand each during the season.
So outrageous was this wholesale slaughter that General Hazen in 1872 appealed to the government for authority to curtail the nefarious work but his appeals were in vain. The Indians were throwing every obstacle in the way of building and operating the railroad and the argninent was used that the killing of the buffalos was necessary to de- prive the Indians of their source of supplies, but the department failed to find in General Hazen an advocate of any such methods.
In January, 1872, while a train of cars on the Kansas Pacific was imbedded in a snow drift, a herd of buffalos gathered on the lee side of
79
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
the train for shelter from the storm. It was impossible to drive the stupefied animals away by shoutingand the locomotive whistle was no more effective. The animals huddled close together with bowed heads and their sides close to the cars waiting for the storm to pass over. Had the passengers been so disposed they could have killed the whole hard from the car windows. Many were frozen to death in their tracks near the train.
The illustration (Buffalo in the Sixties) hardly does justice to actual conditions as they existed in the sixties at points on the Santa Fe trail between the Cottonwood and Cimarron crossings of the Arkan- sas. Soon after the iron horse had penetrated the "Great American Desert" trains were compelled to stop that the immense herds of buffalo might pass.
In 1857 James L. and Haynie Thomson, father and brother of the author of this book, found plenty of buffalo near the Cottonwood cross- ing of the Santa Fe trail. The next year, Mr. Samuel Cripps, and brother Haynie, got all the buffalo meat wanted on Running Turkey creek. Here we found them two years later, although on account of the westward and southern movement of the herds we were compelled to go as far west as Cow creek before securing a load of desirable meat. We saw many small herds in McPherson county and my brother, Davis, killed a buffalo near the site of the present city of Mc- Pherson On Turkey creek hundreds of antelope scampered over the prairie, but little beyond the range of our rifles. The graceful ani- mals were filled with curiosity, showing but little signs of fear at our approach.
As to smaller game, chickens, turkeys and rabbits were plentiful here in '57 and for years afterwards. In 1859, my father killed three turkeys with a rifle, all at one shot.
In the winter of 1868 as many as twenty deer were seen on the Dragoon in one herd. Two years later Mr. Squire Cantrill saw ten deer in one bunch on the prairie about a mile north of his present resi- dence in Plumb township.
Mr. Sebastian Wertzberger was the champion deer hunter of the Mill creek valley, killing from five to twelve each year until the aggre- gate reached beyond the hundred mark. 1873 was the banner year, Sebastian killing twelve that season, besides wounding three he never got. Mr. Wertzberger shot his last deer in 1880. He has several pairs of fine buck horns as a proof of his prowess as a deer hunter.
Mr. Jo. Luty, who lived on the farm now owned by Herman Treu on the East branch, was fond of hunting but killed but few deer. On account of his love for the chase he sold his farm on Mill creek and moved to Montana.
In 1885 probably the last deer on West Branch was killed by the
80
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
section men at Volland. In the spring of '93 Mr. James Kettermann killed two deer on the Spieker place and three weeks later Mr. Louis Drebing killed another on the home place near Halifax, probably the last deer killed in Wabaunsee county.
As to small game, such as prairie chickens and rabbits, they were so plentiful in the early days that their presence in many cases was detrimental to the farmers' interests, although not a few were enabled to replenish their scant larders by conditions they saw no reason to deprecate.
While, at this period in our county's history, our people are not boasting of their game supply, jack rabbits are abuddant and the com- mon rabbit and quails are plentiful; a few flocks of chickens remain, and ducks at certain seasons, provide our amateur hunters with the means of diversion; although the country isn't the ideal hunting ground it was in years agone our nimrods haven't yet adopted the standard of their eastern prototypes and found sport in the slaughter of doves, meadow larks and pigeons-these are left to the care of boys who find in the plentiful supply an ample field for practice. .
But, if not now, Wabaunsee county in the past, as part of the Great American Desert, has been in truth, a Hunter's Paradise.
Mr. J. J. Mitchell, a member of the Eskridge bar, though emi- nently successful, his path was not always strewn with roses. On first entering upou his checkered career he had an office and in the course of time a client, but his library was built on the limited plan- limited in his case to the massive and well worn lids of the first edition of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, and a volume of the 1868 statutes. minus the binding, the index and a few other appurtenances there- unto belonging. Mr. Mitchell surmounted all difficulties and his success is of a kind that other rising young attorneys might well con- sider worthy of emulation.
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
MR. GEORGE SUTHERLAND, Alma.
MR.'JOHN C. HENDERSON, Alma.
MR. A. M. JORDAN, Kuenzli Creek.
MR. AUGUST UTERMANN, Alma.
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
MR. JOHN Y. WAUGH, Eskridge.
MR. WILLIAM TRUSLER, Eskridge.
MR. LYNN M. CHRISTY, Eskridge.
MR. IRA L. MORRIS, Eskridge.
١
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
MR. ALDEN E. TRUE, Vera. Former State Senator.
MR. W. G. WEAVER, Alma. Former Clerk District Court.
.
MR. A. F. WADE, Keene. Former Representative.
4
MR. GEORGE L. CLOTHIER, Vera. Former County Superintendent.
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
MR. JOHN T. KEAGY, Alma. Former County Attorney, and Probate Judge.
DR. G. C. BEALS, Alma. County Health Officer.
MR. SAMUEL R. WEED, Wabaunsee. Former Representative.
MR. J. F. WILLARD, Wabaunsee.
١
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
. .
MR. J. R. HENDERSON, Alma. Former County Clerk.
MRS. J. M. JOHNSON, Harveyville.
MR. H. J. PALENSKE, Alma. Former Sheriff.
MR. JAMES E. JOHNSON (dec'd), AND WIFE, Harvey ville.
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
MR. MARION MEREDITH, Eskridge.
MRS. MARION MEREDITH, Eskridge.
MR. J. H. LAWLOR, Eskridge.
MRS. J. H. LAWLOR, Eskridge.
1
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
MR. HERBERT C. SHAW, Bradford.
MR. A. A. JONES, Bradford.
MR. E. STURDY, Bradford. Manager Freeman Ranch.
MR. W. J. HINSHAW, Harveyville.
١
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
MR. J. B. BARNES, Alma. Former County Attorney.
MR. GEO. G. CORNELL, Former Representative, and County Attorney.
M. W. CHILLSON, Alma.
!
-
MR. S. E. HULL, Alma, Former Sheriff.
1
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
...
MR. LOUIS HORNE (dec'd), Alma.
MRS. THERESA HORNE, Alma.
MR. FRANK OEHMANN, Alma.
MR. HENRY GRAVES (dec'd), McFarland.
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
MR. MARK SAGE, Mission Creek.
MR. HENRY RONNAU (Dec'd), Kaw Township.
MR. P. E. LEONARD, Alma, Superintendent County Farm.
.
MR. GEORGE FECHTER, Alma.
1
81
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
Pierre, the Capital !
That is what the dispatches said. To the average reader this item is of but little interest, but to the writer this opened up a revelation akin to that bewilderment that startled Rip Van Winkle on waking from his twenty years slumber.
In 1862 the country was shocked by one of the most atrocious In- dian massacres that it was possible for devils in human form to con- ceive. There was a general uprising of the confederated Sioux tribes, and known as the Minnesota massacre. But a large part of the settled portion of Dakota, Nebraska and parts of Iowa were visited by the . scourge of devastation at the hands of these human fiends who, in warfare, show no mercy, and have no respect for age, sex, or condition. At Spirit Lake, in northern Iowa, women and children were impaled on sharpened poles and subjected to every indignity possible for human fiends to perpetrate, until death came to the relief of those who had suffered tortures equivalent to a thousand deaths.
Though the powers of the government were strained to their utmost, yet the appeals of the distressed pioneer were not made in vain. In the spring of 1863, General Sully, with two regiments of cavalry, and a park of mountain howitzers, set out on an expedition against the hostile tribes.
Sioux City, Iowa, was the outfitting point. Sioux City at that time was about as large as Alma. It was a dull and sleepy town, but two regiments of volunteers and several hundred quartermaster em- ployes put new life into the dull village. But in a short time the little army moved on up the river past Fort Randall, on beyond the Crow Creek agency, and then to a point opposite old Fort Pierre. The river was low and the little stern wheel steamers made slow work of transporting supplies to the camp opposite Fort Pierre. So for nearly two months the present site of the newly chosen capital of Dakota was utilized as a camping ground for Sully's command. A mile below hundreds of Sioux Indians were encamped, and with them were several squaw men. Of these squaw men, several were chosen as guides to lead the command to the camp of their hostile brothers on the plains farther north. Among the guides was one that has since become famous as "Belden, the White Chief."
82
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
That wasa desolate country then. Not a dozen ranches were in existence above Fort Randall. Fort Pierre, opposite the camp was not a government fort but merely a French trading post established by a Frenchman, no less wild than the Indians, for the purpose of trading with the Sioux. To "stand in" with the Indians was a matter of necessity, and the soldiers would as soon trust an Indian as these "Par- levoos." But there were no other guides and it was these squaw men or nothing, and to this day the members of the 6th lowa and 2nd Nebraska cavalry will insist that the ill success of the expedition was due to the treacherous guides.
Pierre, the Capital ! And only twenty six years ago the monot- onous noise of a military camp was only broken by the braying of hungry mules or the sound of the tom-tom wafted across the river from the Indian camps around the fort.
Pierre, the capital ! Pierre with its railroad facilities, and electric lights., and handsome school-buildings, and town lots selling at a thousand dollars per foot. What a change.
Where is Rip Van Winkle? Give him another shake.
"A mass of seething humanity."
"People driving in buggies over the hills north of town to look at property."
That is the way. the dispatches read. It is well to give Rip Van Winkle another shake. The wonders that would be unfolded might well cause the old fellow to turn in his grave.
Buggies in Dakota in 1863 would have been as much out of place as a bovine in a china shop.
The only property in that country in those days worth looking after was a man's scalp, and each one endeavored to take care of his own. But driving or riding over the hills to the north in those days would have been a risky venture.
In August, 1863, Sully's command formed a line of march of five columns and moved forward toward the supposed location of the vil- lages of the hostile Sioux.
General Sully, staff and body guard, followed by the mountain howitzers, formed the central column. On either side was a long line of wagons and and ambulances, and on the outside of these was a regi- ment of cavalry-the 6th Iowa on the right and the 2nd Nebraska on the left. A herd of beef cattle, guarded by a company of cavalry: brought up the rear.
In this manner for a distance of 600 miles, the command marched through a hostile country in which the house of a white man had never been seen.
Deer and antelope were frequently seen, and there were buffalo in plenty-and that it will be remembered was cast of the Missouri river.
1
83
EARLY HISTORY OF WABAUNSEE COUNTY, KAN.
At that time, where buffalo were found, Indians were not far away. The carcasses of buffalo, recently killed, was evidence that the Indian villages were near and that they were engaged in providing themselves with meat for winter use. -
On September 3, 1863, the command, with the exception of a bat- talion of cavalry, had gone into camp after a hard day's march. This batalion of cavalry was scouting in front and had come upon a village of 600 lodges of the hostile Sioux.
The chief scout, La Frombois, had returned to camp, and reporting the near proximity of the Indians, the two regiments were immedi- ately put under marching orders.
Never was the bugle call of "Boots and Saddles" obeyed with greater alacrity. The two regiments of cavalry had been recruited from among the pioneers of Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota, and many of the soldiers had lost friends or relatives in the terrible massacre of the year before.
It was but a few short moments from the time the call was sounded until 2000 cavalry and a battery of mountain howitzers were hidden in a cloud of dust raised in the direction of the hostile camp ten miles away.
The battalion of cavalry scouting for Indians in front of Sully's command was composed of several companies of the 6th Iowa. In that regiment was a company of gray horses, another one of black horses, etc. The black horse company was a part of the scouting battalion.
The Indians, who, by the way, had seen the advancing troops long before their village was discovered, had met the advancing column some distance from the village, and were quick to notice the absence of the white horses. This was evidence to them that only a part of the troops were in their immediate front. There being about four thousand , warriors in the village the younger warriors of the tribe were in favor of annihilating the band before the reinforcements arrived, while the older members, men with families in the camp, were opposed to doing anything that would jeopardize the loss of their property, or that would endanger the lives of their wives and children.
The Indians were not asleep. They had seen the scout, La Frambois, leave the command, and suspected that he had returned for the main body of the troops. As soon as this became known, run- ners were sent to the Indian village with orders to move camp with- out delay. In carrying out these orders no time was lost, and when General Sully, with two regiments of cavalry came up, there was but one tepee standing in the village. The others, with papooses, puppies and other household belongings, were strapped on the backs of the little army of Indian ponies ad were scattered for miles and making good time in the direction of a more healthful climate.
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