History of Atchison County, Kansas, Part 2

Author: Ingalls, Sheffield
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Lawrence, Kan., Standard Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1032

USA > Kansas > Atchison County > History of Atchison County, Kansas > Part 2

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).

CHAPTER II.

PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.

EVIDENCES OF PALEOLITHIC MAN-AN ANCIENT FORTIFICATION-ABORIGINAL VILLAGE AND CAMP SITES-THE INGALLS AND OTHER BURIAL MOUNDS.

How long the region embraced in Atchison county has been the home of man is not known, but the finding of a prehistoric human skeleton, com- puted by the highest anthropological and geological authorities to be at least 10,000 years old, in the adjoining county of Leavenworth, favors the pre- sumption that what is now Atchison county was occupied by man at an equally remote period. Evidences of a very early human existence here have been found at various times. Near Potter, in this county, the writer found deep in the undisturbed gravel and clay, a rude flint implement that unquestionably had been fashioned by prehistoric man, evidently, of what is known as the Paleolithic period. In drilling the well at the power house of the Atchison Street Railway, Light and Power Company, the late T. J. Ingels, of Atchison, encountered at a great depth, several fragments of fossilized bone, inter- mingled with charcoal, evidently the remains of a very ancient fireplace. About 1880, M. M. Trimmer, an Atchison contractor, in opening a stone quarry at the northeast point of the Branchtown hill, near the confluence of White Clay and Brewery creeks, in Atchison, unexpectedly encountered a pit or excavation, eighty feet long, sixty feet wide, and eighteen feet deep, in the solid rock formation of the hill. The surface of the hill is composed of drift or gravel, and the pit had become filled with this gravel to the original surface, thus obliterating all external evidences of its existence. The lower layer of stone, about six inches thick, had been left for a floor in the pit, and in the northwest corner this lower strata of stone for about four feet square had been removed. Water issued from the ground at this point indicating that a spring or well, or source of water supply, had been located here. A

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

careful examination of the place at the time showed unmistakably that this excavation had been made by human hands at a very early period and was probably used as a fortification or defensive work. Prehistoric excavations of this character, made in the solid rock, are common in Europe, but almost unknown in America, except in the cases of ancient flint and steatite quar- ries, and the absence of either in the Atchison formation, except an occasional flint nodule, precludes the possibility that this was just an aboriginal quarry. The Smithsonian authorities at Washington pronounced the work worthy of careful study, but unfortunately it was obliterated by the progress of the quarrying. Many weapons and implements of the stone age have been found in the vicinity of this pit.

Almost the entire surface of Atchison county, particularly where border- ing streams, presents various traces of aboriginal occupancy, from the silent sepulchers of the dead and the mouldy rubbish of the wigwam, to the solitary arrowhead lost on the happy chase or the sanguinary war path. In many places these remains blend into the prehistoric, semi-historic and historic periods, showing evidences of a succession of occupancy. For instance we find the Neolithic stone celts or hatchets, the Neoeric iron tomahawks; frag- ments of fragile earthenware, mixed and moulded by the prehistoric potter, and bits of modern decorated porcelain made by some pale-faced patterner of Palissy ; ornaments of stone, bone and shell; trinkets of brass and beads of glass, intermingled in confusion and profusion. These numerous relics of different peoples and periods, showing, as they do, diverse stages of cul- ture and advancement, warrant the opinion that Atchison county, with its many natural advantages, was a favorite resort of successive peoples from time immemorial. Favorably situated at the great western bend of the Mis- souri river and at the outskirts of which was one of the richest Indian hunting grounds in the great wild West, embracing and surrounded by every natural advantage that would make it the prospective and wonted haunt of a wild- race, it was a prehistoric paradise, as it is today, a irodern Arcadia.

The writer has personally examined hundreds of ancient Indian village, camp and workshop sites, and opened a number of mounds in Atchison county. The first ancient mounds ever opened in the county were on a very rugged hill known as the "Devil's Backbone," bordering Owl creek, and overlooking the Missouri river, in 1891. There were two of them, and they contained . stone sepulchers in which the Indians had cremated their dead. Other stone grave mounds have been opened on the farms of John Myers, on Independ- ence creek, in the northeastern part of the county; Maurice Fiehley, on

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

State Orphans' Home, Atchison, Kan.

Stranger creek, near Potter; George Storch, on Alcorn or Whiskey creek, just south of Atchison, and in several other places. The most interesting mound ever excavated in the county, however, was what is known as the In- galls Mound, on land belonging to the estate of the late United States Senator John J. Ingalls, on a bluff of the Missouri river, at the mouth of Walnut creek, about five miles below Atchison. This mound was discovered by Sen- ator Ingalls at an early day, and opened by the writer in 1907. It was fifteen feet in diameter, and was composed of alternate layers of stone and earth one on top of the other, the remains of several Indians being imbedded in the earth between the layers of stone. These remains were in a bad state of decay, most of the bones crumbling while being removed. The bones of each per- son had been placed in the mound in compact bundles, which seems to indi- cate that they had been removed from some temporary place of interment, perhaps from dilapidated scaffold burials, and deposited here in final sepul- ture. In some of the layers not only the bones but the rocks and earth were considerably burned, indicating incinerary funeral rites, while in others there were not the least marks of fire. The undermost layer, about three feet from

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

the top, was a veritable cinder pit, being a burned mass or conglomerate of charcoal and charred and calcined human remains, showing no regularity or outline of skeletons, but all in utter confusion. A solitary pearl bead was the only object that withstood the terrible heat to which the lower tier of re- mains had been subjected. In one of the upper tiers were the bones of two infants. With one of them was a necklace of small shells of a species not native here. With another bundle of bones were two small, neatly chipped flint knives, a flint scraper, a bone whistle or "call," several deer horn imple- ments, and a large flint implement of doubtful usage, known to archeologists as a "turtle-back," because of its shape. With another bundle of bones, and which they seemed to be clasping, were several mussel shells, badly decom- posed. One small ornament of an animal or bird claw, several flint arrow- heads, and some fragments of pottery, were also found. In one of the skulls was embedded the flint blade of a war-club. Thirty-one yards northwest of this mound was found another of less prominence. It contained a burned mass of human remains, covered with a layer of about six inches of clay, baked almost to the consistency of brick. Lack of space forbids a mention of many other interesting archaeological discoveries made in this county from time to time. Suffice to say that there is ample evidence that within the bor- ders of Atchison county there lived and thrived and passed away a consider- able aboriginal population.

CHAPTER III.

INDIAN HISTORY.

HARAHEY, AN INDIAN PROVINCE OF CORONADO'S TIME-THE KANSA NATION -BOURGMONT'S VISIT IN 1724-COUNCIL ON COW ISLAND IN 1819-THE KICKAPOO INDIANS.

There is nothing definite to show that Coronado ever reached the con- fines of what is now Atchison county in 1541, as some historical writers have seen fit to state, but there is a probability that the Indian province of Harahey, which the natives thereof told him was just beyond Quivira, embraced our present county and most of the region of northeastern Kansas. Mark F. Zimmerman, an intelligent and painstaking student of Kansas archaeology and Indian history, has given this matter much consideration, and is confi- dent that the Harahey chieftain, Tatarrax, immortalized in Coronado's chron- icles, ruled over this territory nearly four centuries ago. Until this fact is established, however, it remains that the Indian history of what is now Atch- ison county begins with the Kansa Indians in the early part of the eighteenth century. At the time of the Bourgmont expedition in 1724, and for some time before, this nation owned all of what is now northeastern Kansas, and maintained several villages along the Missouri river, the principal one being near the mouth of Independence creek, or at the present site of Doniphan. Here they had a large town. The writer made a careful examination and fully identified the site of this old town in 1904. The results of this explora- tion are given in a pamphlet entitled "An Old Kansas Indian Town on the Missouri," published by the writer in 1914. Another important village of the Kansa was located at the mouth of what is now Salt creek, in Leaven- worth county. Both of these historic villages were situated right near and at about the same distance from the present borders of Atchison county. There were several old Indian villages within the confines of Atchison county, as

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

already stated in the preceding pages, but whether they belonged to the Kansa or to the Harahey ( Pawnee) is yet a matter of conjecture.

One of these old Kansa towns, evidently the one at Salt creek, was the site of an important French post. Bougainville on French Posts in 1757, says : "Kanses. In ascending this stream (the Missouri river) we meet the village of the Kanses. We have there a garrison with a commandant, ap- pointed as in the case with Pimiteoui and Fort Chartres, by New Orleans. This post produces one hundred bundles of furs." Lewis and Clark, in 1804, noted the ruins of this old post and Kansa village. They were just outside of the southern borders of Atchison county, near the present site of Kick- apoo.

The Independence creek town, or what is generally referred to by the carly French as "Grand village des Canzes," seems to have been a Jesuit Mis- sionary station as early as 1727, according to Hon. George P. Morehouse, the historian of the Kansa Indians, who recently found in some old French- Canadian records of the province of Ontario an interesting fact not before recognized in Kansas history, that the name "Kansas" was a well known geographical term to designate a place on the Missouri river, within the pres- ent borders of our State, where the French government and its official church, nearly 200 years ago, had an imporant missionary center. Mr. Morehouse says : "It is significant as to the standing of this Mission station of the Jes- uits at Kanzas, away out in the heart of the continent, that in this document it was classed along with their other important Indian Missions, such as the Iroquois, Abenaquis, and Tadoussac, and that the same amount per mission- ary was expended. It was 'Kansas,' a mission charge on the rolls of the Jes- uit Fathers, for which annual appropriations of money were made as early as 1727. Here some of the saintly, self-sacrificing missionary pioneers of the Cross must have come from distant Quebec and Montreal, or from the far- away cloisters of sunny France. What zeal and sacrifice for others! Is it any wonder that the Kansa Indians always spoke reverently of the 'black robes,' who were the first to labor for their welfare in that long period in the wilderness."

Just when the Kansa Indians established themselves at the "Grand Vil- lage" at Doniphan, or at "Fort Village" at Kickapoo, is not known. The first recorded mention of a Kansa village along this section of the Missouri river is by Bourgmont in 1724. Onate met the Kansa on a hunting expedi- tion on the prairies of Kansas in 1601, but does not state where their villages were located. The "Grand Village" was an old one, however, at the time of

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

Bourgmont's visit. Bourgmont does not mention the "Fort Village" at Salt creek, as he surely would had it been in existence at that time, and it is he- lieved that it was established later, as it was in existence in 1757, as stated by Bourgainville.

As is a well known historical fact the Spanish attempted to invade and colonize the Missouri valley early in the eighteenth century. The French had come into possession of this region in 1682, and M. de Bourgmont was commissioned military commander on the Missouri in 1720, the French gov- ernment becoming alarmed at the attempted Spanish invasion. Establish- ing friendly relations with the Indians of this region in order to have their assistance in repelling any further Spanish advance was the object of the Bourgmont expedition to the Kansa and Padouca Indians in 1724. Bourg- mont's party, consisting of himself, M. Bellerive, Sieur Renaudiere, two sol- diers and five other Frenchmen, besides 177 Missouri and Osage Indians in charge of their own chiefs, marched overland from Fort Orleans, on the lower Missouri, and arrived at the "Grand village des Cansez" on July 7, 1724. Here they held a celebration of two weeks, consisting of pow-wows, councils, trading horses or merchandise, and making presents to the Indians, several boat loads of the latter, in charge of Lieutenant Saint Ange, having arrived by river route. On July 24 they "put themselves in battle array on the village height, the drum began to beat, and they marched away" on their journey to the Padoucas. The incidents of their march across what is now Atchison county, and other facts pertaining to this expedition will be found in the chapter on early explorations in this volume.

According to a tradition handed down from prehistoric times the Kansa, Osage, Omaha, Ponca and Kwapa were originally one people and lived along the Wabash and Ohio rivers. In their migrations they arrived at the mouth of the Ohio where there was a separation. Those who went down the Mis- sissippi became known as the Kwapa, or "down stream people," while those going up were called Omaha, or "up stream people." At the mouth of the Missouri another division took place, the Omaha and Ponka proceeding far up that stream. The Osage located on the stream which bears their name, and the Kansa at the mouth of what is now the Kansas river. Later they moved on up the Missouri and established several villages, the most northern of which was at Independence Creek. At about the close of the Revolution- ary war they were driven away from the Missouri by the Iowa and Sauk tribes, and they took up a permanent residence on the Kansas river, where Major Long's expedition visited them in 1819. They continued to make

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

predatory visits to the Missouri, however. They committed many depreda- tions on traders and explorers passing up the river and even fired on the United States troops encamped at Cow Island. It was to prevent the recur- rence of such outrages that Major O'Fallon arranged a council with the Kansa Nation. This council was held on Cow Island August 24. 1819, under an arbor built for the occasion. Major O'Fallon made a speech in which he set forth the cause of complaint which the Kansa had given by their re- peated insults and depredations, giving them notice of the approach of a mili- tary force sufficient to chastise their insolence, and advising them to seize the present opportunity of averting the vengeance they deserved, by proper concessions, and by their future good behavior to conciliate those whose friendship they would have so much occasion to desire. The replies of the chiefs were simple and short, expressive of their conviction of the justice of the complaints against them, and of their acquiescence in the terms of the reconciliation proposed by the agent.

There were present at this council 161 Kansa Indians, including chiefs and warriors, and thirteen Osages. It was afterwards learned that the dele- gation would have been larger but for a quarrel that arose among the chiefs after they had started, in regard to precedence in rank, in consequence of which ten or twelve returned to the village on the Kansas river. Among those at the council were Na-he-da-ba, or Long Neck, one of the principal chiefs of the Kansas; Ka-he-ga-wa-to-ning-ga, or Little Chief, second in rank ; Shen-ga-ne-ga, an ex-principal chief: Wa-ha-che-ra, or Big Knife, a war chief, and Wam-pa-wa-ra, or White Plume, afterwards a noted chief. Major O'Fallon had with him the officers of the garrison of Cow Island. or Contonment Martin, and a few of those connected with Major Long's ex- ploring party. "The ceremonies," says one account, "were enlivened by a military display, such as the firing of cannon, hoisting of flags, and an exhibi- tion of rockets and shells, the latter evidently making a deeper impression on the Indians than the eloquence of Major O'Fallon." A description of Major Long's steamboat, built to impress the Indians on this occasion, will be found in the following chapter on early explorations.

From the Kansa Indians our State derived its name. For more than 300 years they dwelt upon our soil. At their very advent in this region what is now Atchison county became a part of their heritage and for generations it was a part of their imperial home. .

By the treaty of Castor Hill, Mo., October 24, 1832, the Kickapoo Indians were assigned to a reservation in northeastern Kansas, which in-

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

Wards of the State of Kansas, State Orphans' Home, Atchison, Kan.

cluded most of what is now Atchison county. They settled on their new lands shortly after the treaty was made. Their principal settlement at that time was at the present site of Kickapoo, in Leavenworth county, where a Methodist mission was established among them by Rev. Jerome C. Berry- man, in 1833. There is said to have been a mission station among the Kick- apoos where Oak Mills, in Atchison county, now stands, at an early day, but nothing definite is known regarding its history, except that we have it from early settlers that an Indian known as Jim Corn seemed to be the head man of the band of Kickapoos that lived there, and that the white pioneers frequently attended services in the old mission house which stood in the hol- low a short distance southwest of the present site of Oak Mills.

During the time that the Kickapoos owned and occupied what is now Atchison county, they were ruled over by two very distinguished chieftains- Keannakuk, the Prophet, and Masheena, or the Elk Horns. Both of these

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

Indians were noted in Illinois long before they migrated westward and were prominently mentioned by Washington Irving, George Catlin, Charles Augus- tus Murray and other distinguished travelers and authors. Catlin painted their pictures in 1831, and these are included in the famous Catlin gallery in Washington. Keannakuk was both a noted chief and prophet of the tribe. He was a professed preacher of an order which he claimed to have originated at a very early day and his influence was very great among his people. He died at Kickapoo in 1852 and was buried there. Masheena was a really noted Indian. He led a band of Kickapoos at the battle of Tippecanoe. He died and was buried in Atchison county, near the old town of Kennekuk, in 1857. He was born in Illinois about 1770.

Important seats of Kickapoo occupancy in Atchison county in the early days were Kapioma, Muscotah and Kennekuk. Kapioma was named for a chief of that name who lived there. The present township of Kapioma gets its name from this source. Father John Baptiste Duerinck, a Jesuit, was a missionary among the Kickapoos at Kapioma in 1855-57. Muscotah was for a long time the seat of the Kickapoo agency. It is a Kickapoo name meaning "Beautiful Prairie," or "Prairie of Fire." Kennekuk was named for John Kennekuk, a Kickapoo chief, and son of Keannakuk, the Prophet.

By treaty of 1854 the Kickapoo reservation was diminished and the tribe was assigned to lands along the Grasshopper or Delaware river. Still later it was again diminished and they were given their present territory within the confines of Brown county.

The Kickapoos are a tribe of the central Algonquian group, forming a division with the Sauk and Foxes, with whom they have close ethnic and lin- guistic connection. The first definite appearance of this tribe in history was about 1667-70, when they were found by Allouez near the portage between Fox and Wisconsin rivers, in Wisconsin. About 1765 they moved down into the Illinois country, and later to Missouri and Kansas.

CHAPTER IV.

EARLY EXPLORATIONS.

CORONADO IN 1841- THE BOURGMONT EXPEDITION IN 1724-PERIN | LAC -LEWIS AND CLARK-FIRST FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION-MAJOR STEPHEN H. LONG- CANTONMENT MARTIN-ISLE AU VACHE-OTHER EXPLORERS-PASCHAL, PENSONEAU-THE OLD MILITARY ROAD-THE MORMONS.

Some historians (notably General Simpson) in their studies of the famous march of Coronado in search of the land of Quivira, in 1541, have brought the great Spanish explorer to the Missouri river, in northeastern Kansas. The more recent researches of Hodge, Bandalier and Brower, how- ever, have proven beyond question that Coronado's line of march through Kansas was north from Clark county to the Great Bend of the Arkansas river, and thence to the region northeastward from McPherson to the Kansas river, between the junction of its two main forks and Deep creek, in Riley county, where the long lost province of Quivira was located. Hence, it is no longer even probable that the great Spaniard on this famous march ever saw the Missouri river region in northeastern Kansas, much less to have ever set foot upon the soil of what is now Atchison county, as many have heretofore believed.

The first white men, of whom we have definite record, to visit what is now Atchison county, were those who composed the expedition of Capt. Etienne Vengard de Bourgmont, military commander of the French colony of Louisiana, who, in the summer of 1724, arrived at the Kansa Indian vil- lage wliere Doniphan now stands, crossed what is now Atchison county, and made several encampments on our soil. Leaving the Kansa village at Doni- phan on the morning of July 24, en route to the province of the Padoucas, or what is now known as the Comanche tribe of Indians, in north central

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

Kansas, Bourgmont and party marched a league and a half along what is now Deer creek, and went into camp, where they spent the day. The next day they passed Stranger creek, or what they designated "a small river," and stopped on account of rain, until the 26th, when they proceeded a few miles further, and again went into camp. A thunder-storm, lasting all the after- noon, compelled them to remain encamped here. On the 27th they reached a river, which was doubtless the Grasshopper or Delaware, about four or five miles below Muscotah, where they again camped, and, on the 28th marched out of Atchison county somewhere along the southwest border, in Kapioma township. This strange procession, besides Bourgmont's force of white men, consisted of 300 Indian warriors, with two grand chiefs and fourteen war chiefs, 300 Indian squaws, 500 Indian children, and 500 dogs, carrying and dragging provisions and equipments. The object of the expedition was to promote a general peace among, and effect an alliance between, the different tribes inhabitating this region. Shortly after leaving Atchison county, Bourg- mont was taken very ill, and was obliged to return to Fort Orleans, on the lower Missouri. He was carried back across Atchison county to the Kansa village, on a hand-barrow, and then transported down the Missouri in a canoe. Upon his recovery he resumed his journey to the Padoucas in the fall of 1724, coming back by way of the Kansa village and Atchison county. No doubt other French explorers, traders and trappers, visited this county at an earlier date than did Bourgmont, but information concerning them is vague and un- certain.

Perin du Lac, a French explorer, set foot upon the soil of Atchison county while on an exploring trip up the Missouri in 1802-03. In his jour- nal, published soon after his return to France, Du Lac mentions that "three miles below the old Kances Indian village they perceived some iron ore." As the "old Kances village" was the one already referred to as having been at Doniphan, the iron ore discovered by Du Lac must have been in Atchison county, somewhere in the vicinity of Luther Dickerson's old home, where the rocks are known to be strongly impregnated with iron Du Lac gathered some specimens of the Atchison county ore, which he must have lost, for he says in his journal: "I intended to have assayed it on my return, but an accident unfortunately happening prevented me."

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.

History of Atchison County, Kansas, Part 2

Author: Ingalls, Sheffield Publication date: 1916 Publisher: Lawrence, Kan., Standard Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1032

Author: Ingalls, Sheffield
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Lawrence, Kan., Standard Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1032