History of Atchison County, Kansas, Part 3

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

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In the summer of 1804 the famous "Lopisiana Purchase exploring expe- dition" of Lewis and Clark passed up the Missouri river, arriving at the south- east corner of Atchison county on July 3. They passed Isle Au Vache, or Cow Island, opposite Oak Mills, stopped at a deserted trader's house at or near the

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

site of Port William, where they picked up a stray horse (the first recorded mention of a horse in what is now Atchison county) and camped that night somewhere in the vicinity of Walnut creek. The next morning they an- nounced the "glorious Fourth" with a shot from their gun boat, and there began the first celebration of our Nation's birthday on Kansas soil. That day they took dinner on the bank of White Clay creek, or what they called "Fourth of July creek." Here Joe Fields, a member of the party, was bitten by a snake, and Sergeant Floyd, in commemoration of the incident, named the prairie on which Atchison now stands, "Joe Fields' Snake Prairie." Above the creek, they state, "was a high mound, where three Indian paths centered, and from which was a very extensive prospect." This, undoubtedly, was the commanding elevation where the Soldiers' Orphans' Home now stands. On the evening of the Fourth they discovered and named Indepen- dence creek in honor of the day, and closed the day's observances with "an evening gun and an additional gill of whiskey to the men."

A detachment of Maj. Stephen H. Long's Yellowstone exploring ex- pedition, under command of Capt. Wyley Martin, spent the winter of 1818- 19 on Cow Island, which now belongs to Atchison county, and established a post known as Cantonment Martin. This was the first United States mili- tary post established above Ft. Osage, and west of Missouri Territory. Dur- ing that winter Captain Martin's men killed between 2,000 and 3,000 deer, besides great numbers of bears, turkey's and other game. The troops that established this frontier post were a part of the First Rifle regiment, the "crack" organization of the United States army at that time. In July, 1819. Major Long arrived at Cow Island. His steamboats were the first to ascend the Missouri river above Ft. Osage. The next day Colonel Chambers and a detachment of infantry arrived. Thomas Say and his party of natural- ists, under command of Major Biddle, at about the same time crossed Atch- ison county en route from the Kansa Indian village where Manhattan now stands, and joined Major Long's party at Cow Island. Messrs. Say and Jessup, naturalists of the expedition, were taken very ill and had to remain at the island for some time. Col. Henry Atkinson, the founder of Ft. Atkin- son, and commander of the western department for more than twenty years, arrived at Cow Island shortly after Major Long. Maj. John O'Fallon was sutler of the post and Indian agent for the upper Missouri. On July 4, 1819, the Nation's birthday was celebrated on Cow Island. The flags were raised at full mast, guns were fired, and they had "pig with divers tarts to grace the table." On August 24 an important council with the Kansa Indians was

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

held on the island. An account of this council will be found in the chapter on Indian history in this volume.

One of the captains who was stationed on Cow Island-Bennett Riley- afterwards became a distinguished man in the history of this country. He was the man for whom Ft. Riley was named. He served with gallantry in the Indian country, the Northwest and Florida. In the Florida war he was promoted to colonel. In the war with Mexico he became a major-general, and was subsequently military governor of California. Col. John O'Fallon entered the army from Kentucky and fought in the Battle of Tippecanoe un- der Harrison, where he was severely wounded and carried the scar to his grave. He had a brilliant military record, and afterwards became one of the wealthiest and most public-spirited citizens of St. Louis.

Major Willoughby Morgan assumed command of the Cow Island post April 13. 1819. He was also a distinguished officer. When Contonment Martin was abandoned in September, 1819. it required a month to transport the troops from there to Council Bluffs on the steamboats.

One of these boats, the "Western Engineer," the first that ever touched the shore of Atchison county, was of unique construction, having been ex- pressly built for the expedition and calculated to impress the Indians. On her bow was the exhaust pipe, made in the form of a huge serpent, with wide open mouth and tongue painted a fiery red. The steam, escaping through the mouth, made a loud, wheezing noise that could be heard for miles. The Indians recognized in it the power of the great Manitou and were overcome with fear.

Cow Island has been a prominent land-mark in the West from a very early period. It was discovered by the early French explorers and called by them Isle au Vache, meaning Isle of Cow or Cow Island. It was so named because a stray cow was found wandering about on the island. It is sup- posed that this cow was stolen by the Indians from one of the early French settlements and placed on this island to prevent her escape. There is a co- incidence in the fact that the first horse and the first cow in what is now Atchison county, of which we have any record, were found in the same locality. The stray horse picked up by Lewis and Clark, mention of which is made on a preceding page of this chapter, was found almost opposite the upper end of Cow Island, on the Kansas shore. There is a tradition that the French had a trading post on Cow Island at a very early day.

In 1810. John Bradbury, a renowned English botanist, made a trip up the Missouri river, and was the first scientist to make a systematic study of

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HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

the plants and geological formations of this region. He touched the shore of what is now Atchison county, and in his book, "Travels in the Interior of America," speaks about the great fertility of our soil. He shipped the speci- mens collected on this trip to the botanical gardens of Liverpool, and no doubt many Atchison county specimens were included in these shipments. The next year H. M. Brackenridge, another explorer, came up the Missouri and made some observations along our shore.

Postoffice. Atchison, Kansas

The first permanent white settler of what is now Atchison county was a Frenchman, Paschal Pensoneau, who, about 1839, married a Kickapoo Indian woman and about 1844 settled on the bank of Stranger creek, near the pres- ent site of Potter, where he established a trading-house and opened the first farm in Atchison county on land which had been allotted him by the Govern- ment for services in the Black Hawk and Mexican wars. Pensoneau had long lived among the Kickapoo Indians, following them in their migrations from Illinois to Missouri and Kansas, generally pursuing the vocation of trader and interpreter. As early as 1833 or 1834 he was established on the Missouri river at the old Kickapoo town, later removing to Stranger creek, as aforestated. He became a very prominent and influential man among the Kickapoos. He long held the position of Government interpreter for that

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

tribe. After the treaty of 1854, diminishing the Kickapoo reserve, Pensoneau moved to the new lands assigned the tribe along the Grasshopper river, where he lived for many years. About 1875 he settled among a band of Kickapoo Indians, near Shawnee, Indian Territory, where he died some years later. He was born at Cahokia, Ill., April 17, 1796, his parents having been among the emigrants from Canada to the early French settlements of Illinois.

In 1850 the military road from Ft. Leavenworth to Ft. Laramie was laid out by Colonel Ogden. It crossed Atchison county, and over it passed many important expeditions to the Western plains and mountains, and to Oregon and California. Before this road was laid out as a Government high- way, the same route had long been traveled as a trail. It was a great natural highway, being on the "dividing ridge" between the Missouri and Kansas rivers. Charles Augustus Murray, Francis Parkman, Captain Stansbury and other noted travelers journeyed over this trail during the thirties and forties, and in the fascinating volumes they have left, we find much of interest per- taining to the region of which Atchison county is now a part. During the gold excitement in California this old trail swarmed with emigrants seeking a fortune in the West. The Mormons, the soldiers, the overland freighters, the stage drivers, the hundred and one other picturesque types of character in the early West have helped to make the history of this famous old branch of the "Oregon and California Trail" immortalized by Parkman.

During the days of Mormon emigration a Mormon settlement sprang up a few miles west of Atchison, and immediately east of the present site of Shannon, which became known as "Mormon Grove." The settlement was enclosed by trenches, which served as fences to prevent the stock from going astray, and traces of these old ditches may be seen to this day. Many of the Mormons here died of cholera and were buried near the settlement, but all traces of the old burial ground have been obliterated by cultivation of the soil.

CHAPTER V.

TERRITORIAL TIMES.

TERRITORY ACQUIRED FROM FRANCE IN 1803- ORGANIZATION OF TERRITORY --- KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT-IMMIGRATION TO KANSAS-TERRITORIAL GOV- ERNMENT-FREE STATE AND PRO-SLAVERY CONFLICT-FIRST ELECTION- SECRET POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS-BORDER WAR ACTIVITIES AND OUT- RAGES-CONTESTS OVER ADOPTION OF CONSTITUTION-KANSAS ADMITTED TO THE UNION.

Kansas is as rich in historic lore and resources as any other region of the great West. George J. Remsburg, who has contributed two chapters of this history, has, with great care and accuracy, put into readable form an account of prehistoric times, Indian occupancy and the record of earlier ex- plorers in northeastern Kansas. It is a tale of absorbing interest to those who would go back to the dawn of civilization here and study the force and char- acter of men who paved the way for the developments that came after. To the intrepid Spanish conquerors of Mexico of the sixteenth century, and the hardy French explorers, two years later, we are indebted for the opening up of the Great American Desert, into which American pioneers, the century following, found their way. Thousands of years before these came. Atchison county had been the abode of hunting tribes and the feasting place of wild animals. Then came the ceaseless flow of the tide of civilization, which swept these earlier denizens from the field, to clear it for the "momentous conflict between the two opposing systems of American civilization. then struggling for mastery and supremacy over the Republic." It was in Kansas that the war of rebel- lion began, and it was in the northeastern corner along the shores of the Missouri river-in Atchison county-"that the spark of conflict which had irritated a Nation for decades burst into devastating flames."

It is a delicate task to convey anything approaching a truthful account of

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

the storm and stress of opinions and emotions which accompanied the organiza- tion of Kansas as one of the great American commonwealths, and the part played by the citizens of Atchison county in that tremendous work, but sixty years have served to mellow the animosities and bitternesses of the past, and it is easier now to comprehend the strife of that distant day and pass un- biased judgment upon it.

When the United States acquired from France, in 1803. the territory of which Atchison county is a part, slavery was a legalized institution, and many of the residents held slaves. In the treaty of cession, there was incorporated an expressed stipulation that the inhabitants of Louisiana "should be incor- porated into the Union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States, and in the meantime they should be maintained and protected in the free enjoy- ment of their liberty, property and the religion which they professed." Thus it came to pass for over fifty years after the time that vast empire was acquired from France the bitter contest between the anti-slavery and the pro-slavery ad- vocates ebbed and flowed, and amidst a continual clash of ideas and finally after the shedding of blood, Kansas, and Atchison county, were born.

It was in the Thirty-second Congress that petitions were presented for the organization of the Territory of the Platte, viz : all that tract lying west of Iowa and Missouri and extending west to the Rocky mountains, but no action on the petitions was taken at that time. December 13, 1852, Willard P. Hall, a congressman from Missouri, submitted to the House of Representa- tives a bill organizing this region. This bill was referred to the committee on territories, which reported February 22, 1853, through its chairman, William A. Richardson, of Illinois. A bill organizing the territory of Nebraska, which covered the same territory as the bill of Mr. Hall, was met by unex- pected and strong opposition from the southern members of Congress, and was rejected in the committee of the whole. The House, however, did not adopt the action of the committee, but passed the bill and sent it to the Senate, where it was defeated March 3. 1853. by six votes. On the fourteenth day of December, 1853. Senator Dodge, of Iowa, submitted to that body a new bill for the organization of the territory of Nebraska, embracing the same region as the bill which was defeated in the first session of the Thirty-second Congress. It was referred to the committee on territories, of which Stephen A. Douglas was chairman, on January 4, 1854.

It was during the discussion of this bill that the abrogation of the Missouri

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

Compromise was foreshadowed. The story of the action of Senator Douglas in connection with the slavery question has appeared in every history since the Civil war. It is neither necessary nor proper to dwell at length upon his career in connection with the history of Atchison county. However, it was follow- ing a bitter discussion of the slavery question that the bill was passed, creating Kansas a territory. The provisions of the bill, as presented, were known to be in accordance with the wishes and designs of all the Southern members to have been accepted before being presented by President Pierce by a majority of the members of his cabinet, and to have the assured support of a sufficient number of Northern administration Democrats, to insure its passage beyond a doubt. The contest over the measure ended May 27. 1854, by the passage of the bill, which was approved May 30, 1854. by President Pierce.

The act organizing Nebraska and Kansas contained thirty-seven sections. The provisions relating to Kansas were embodied in the last eighteen sec- tions, summarized as follow :

Section 19 defines the boundaries of the territory ; gives it the name of Kansas, and prescribes that when admitted as a State, or States, the said terri- tory, or any partion of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admis- sion. Also provides for holding the rights of all Indian tribes inviolable, until such time as they shall be extinguished by treaty.

Section 20. The executive power and authority is vested in a governor. appointed by the President, to hold his office for the term of four years, or until his successor is appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States.

Section 21. The secretary of State is appointed and subject to removal by the President of the United States, and to be acting governor with full powers and functions of the governor in case of the absence of the gov- ernor from the territory, or a vacancy occurring.

Section 22. Legislative power and authority of territory is vested in the governor and a legislative body, consisting of two branches, a council and a house of representatives.

Section 23 prescribes qualifications of voters : giving the right to every free white male inhabitant, above the age of 21 years, who shall be an actual resident of the territory, to vote at the first election.

Section 24 limits the scope of territorial legislation, and defines the veto power of the governor.

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

Section 25 prescribes the manner of appointing and electing officers, not otherwise provided for.

Section 26 precludes members from holding any office created or the emoluments of which are increased during any session of the legislature of which they are a member, and prescribes qualifications for members of the legislative assembly.

Section 27 vests the judicial power in the supreme court, district courts, probate courts and in justices of the peace.

Section 28 declares the fugitive slave law of 1850 to be in full force in the territory.

Section 29 provides for the appointment of an attorney and marshal for the territory.

Section 30 treats with the nomination of the President, chief justice, asso- ciate justices, attorney and marshal, and their confirmation by the Senate, and prescribes the duties of these officers and fixes their salaries.

Section 31 locates the temporary seat of government of the territory at Ft. Leavenworth, and authorizes the use of the Government buildings there for public purposes.

Section 32 provides for the election of a delegate to Congress, and abro- gates the Missouri Compromise.

Section 33 prescribes the manner and the amount of appropriations for the erection of public buildings, and other territorial purposes.

Section 34 reserves for the benefit of schools in the territory and states and territories hereafter to be erected out of the same, sections number 16 and 36 in each township, as they are surveyed.

Section 35 prescribes the mode of defining the judicial districts of the territory, and appointing the times and places of holding the various courts.

Section 36 requires officers to give official bonds, in such manner as the secretary of treasury may prescribe.

Section 37 declares all treaties, laws and other engagements inade by the United States Government with the Indian tribes inhabiting the territory to remain inviolate, notwithstanding anything contained in the provisions of the act.

It was under the provisions of the above act that those coming to Kansas to civilize it and to erect their homes were to be guided.

Edward Everett Hale, in his history of Kansas and Nebraska, published in 1854, says, "Up to the summer of 1854, Kanzas and Nebraska have had no civilized residents, except the soldiers sent to keep the Indian tribes in

HISTORY. OF ATCHISON COUNTY

order ; the missionaries sent to convert them; the traders who bought furs of them, and those of the natives who may be considered to have attained some measure of civilization from their connection with the whites." So it will be seen that at the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, Atchison county was very sparsely settled.

All movements in the territory, or elsewhere, made for its organization, were provisional, as they were subject to the rights of the various Indian tribes, whose reservations covered, by well defined boundaries, every acre of north- eastern Kansas, except such tracts as were reserved by the Government about Ft. Leavenworth, and other military stations, but with the move for the organization of the territory came an effort to extinguish the Indian's title to the lands and thus open them to white settlers. One of the most interesting books bearing upon the history of Kansas of that time was "Greeley's Con- flict." He makes the following statement with reference to this subject :

"When the bill organizing Kansas and Nebraska was first submitted to Congress in 1853, all that portion of Kansas which adjoins the State of Mis- souri, and, in fact, nearly all the accessible portion of both territories, was cov- ered by Indian reservations, on which settlement by whites was strictly for- hidden. The only exception was in favor of Government agents and reli- gious missionaries ; and these, especially the former, were nearly all Democrats and violent partisans of slavery. * * Within three months immediately preceding the passage of the Kansas bill aforesaid, treaties were quietly made at Washington with the Delawares, Otoes, Kickapoos, Kaskaskias, Shawnees, Sacs, Foxes and other tribes, whereby the greater part of the soil of Kansas, lying within one or two hundred miles of the Missouri border, was suddenly opened to white appropriation and settlement. These simultaneous purchases of the Indian land by the Government, though little was known of them else- where, were thoroughly understood and appreciated by the Missourians of the western border, who had for some time been organizing 'Blue Lodges,' 'Social Bands,' 'Sons of the South,' and other societies, with intent to take posses- sion of Kansas in behalf of slavery. They were well assured and they fully believed that the object contemplated and desired, in lifting, by the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the interdict of slavery from Kansas, was to author- ize and facilitate the legal extension of slavery into that region. Within a few days after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, hundreds of leading Missourians crossed into the adjacent territory, selected each his quarter sec- tion, or a larger area of land, put some sort of mark on it, and then united with his fellow-adventurers in a meeting, or meetings, intended to establish a sort of Missouri preemption upon all this region."

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

Immediately following the passage of the territorial act the immigration of Missourians to Kansas began, and, indeed, before its final passage the best of the lands had been located and marked for preemption by the Missourians. This was true, apparently, in the case of George M. Million, whom the rec- ords disclose was the first settler in Atchison county, after Kansas was made a territory. Mr. Million was of German descent and came to the vicinity- of Rushville in the hills east of Atchison from Coal county, Missouri, prior to 1841, where he was married to Sarah E. Dixon before she was fifteen years old. In 1841 Million occupied the present site of East Atchison as a farm. At that time the bottom land just east of Atchison was covered with tall rushes and was known as Rush bottom. The town of Rushville was originally known as Columbus, but the name was subsequenly changed to Rushville because of the character of the country in which it was located. During the winter Million eked out his livelihood by cutting wood and haul- ing it to the river bank, selling it in the spring and summer to the steam- boats that plied up and down the Missouri river. Sometime subsequent to 1841, Million built a flat-boat ferry and operated it for seven or eight years and did a thriving business during the great gold rush to California. He accumulated considerable money and later operated a store, trading with the Indians for furs and buying hemp, which he shipped down the river. In June, 1854, he "squatted" on the present townsite of Atchison, and built a log house at the foot of Atchison street, near his ferry landing, and just op- posite his cabin on the Missouri side of the river. Following Million, in June, 1854. came a colony of emigrants from Iatan, Mo., and took up claims in the neighborhood of Oak Mills. They were F. P. Goddard. G. B. Goddard, James Douglass, Allen Hanson and George A. Wright, but the actual set- tlers and founders of Atchison county did not enter the territory of Kan- sas until July, 1854. On the twentieth day of that month Dr. J. H. String- fellow with Ira Norris, Leonidas Oldham, James B. Martin and Neil Owens left Platte City, Mo., to decide definitely upon a good location for a town. With the exception of Dr. Stringfellow they all took claims about four miles southwest of the present city of Atchison. Traveling in a southwesterly direction from Platte City the party reached the river opposite Ft. Leaven- worth and crossed to the Kansas side. They went north until they reached the mouth of Walnut creek. "and John Alcorn's lonely cabin upon its banks." They continued their course up the river until they came to the "south edge of the rim of the basin which circles around from the south line of the city, extending west by gradual incline to the divide between White Clay and

HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY

Stranger creek, then north and east around to the northern limits of the city." It was at this point that the Missouri river made the bend from the north- east, throwing the point where Atchison is now located, twelve miles west of any locality, north, and twenty miles west of Leavenworth, and thirty-five miles west of Kansas City. When they descended into the valley, of which Commercial street is now the lowest point, Dr. Stringfellow and his com- panions found George M. Million and Samuel Dickson. Mr. Dickson fol- lowed Million to Kansas from Rushville, and while there is some dispute as to who was the second resident in Atchison county after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the best authorities lead to the conclusion that to Sam- uel Dickson belongs that honor. Mr. Dickson erected a small shanty near the spring, which bore his name for so many years, on the east side of South Sixth street, between Park and Spring streets. His house is described as a structure twelve feet square, having one door and one window and a large stone chimney running up the outside. As soon as Dr. Stringfellow ar- rived he at once commenced negotiations with Mr. Million for the purchase of his claim. Mr. Million, apparently, was a shrewd real estate speculator and only surrendered his claim upon the payment of $1,000. Dr. String- fellow considered this a very fancy figure for the land, but he and his associ- ates were firm in their decision of founding a city at this point on the Mis- souri river and they gave Mr. Million his price. The organization of a town company which followed will be discussed in a subsequent chapter of this territory.

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History of Atchison County, Kansas, Part 3

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