USA > Kansas > Johnson County > History of Johnson County, Kansas > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51
.
228
HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
and they searched the house, but not finding him rode off. Two weeks later they came again and Mr. Wedd was in the house. He knew he dared not venture out, so slipped upstairs where his son, Charles, was sleeping on the floor. Charles was crippled with a white swelling and lay on the mattress on the floor. Mr. Wedd got under the mattress and Mrs. Wedd told the bushwhackers that he was not at home. After looking around they went outside to report, when, by accident, one of the men stumbled on the boots that Mrs. Wedd had thrown outside before they entered. On finding them they came back and told her that her husband was inside the house and that they were going upstairs to search. Ten or twelve of them went up and pulled Charles out of bed and discovered Mr. Wedd. He expected to be shot, but Mrs. Wedd begged the captain to spare him and they left, taking some things along, but leaving the pair of boots, as no one had feet large enough to wear them. Someone of the crowd said to another as they went out: "Don't let Wedd know who we are." Some of the men had masks on.
Two weeks later the raiders came again, and a mile south of the Wedd's shot two men, one man eighty years old, by the name of Nor- ton. They also killed Reese Langford, a neighbor. Mr. Wedd heard the shots and said to his wife: "Mother, did you hear that? I'll bet they've got old man Norton and Reese Langford." He had guessed right. Mr. Norton, so feeble he could not stand alone, was held up in the doorway by the ruffians while others shot him. His son got out of an upstairs window, slid down the chimney and crawled away in the darkness without being discovered. Mr. Langford was called out and told he was wanted at the barn, and as he stepped out on the porch was shot dead. As the ruffians left, one of them made the remark, "We'll get the third one before daylight," meaning Mr. Wedd. Again they went to his house but Mr. Wedd having heard the shots was not at home when they came. However, they stole a horse and a span of mules. Mr. Wedd asked a Mr. Boyle, an Indian neighbor, to go with him to Lawrence to hunt for them. The day they got there they found a man riding the stolen horse carrying a sack of flour. Mr. Wedd went up to him and said: "Get right off, you're on my horse. I can prove it." Mr. Wedd tried to prove his claim by the testimony of the Indian but this was objected to. Then Mr. Wedd told them he would bring witnesses from Olathe. While in Lawrence at this time a Red Leg rode up behind him and shot at him twice. Prior to this time, Mr. Wedd had hauled some wounded soldiers from the Missouri line to Olathe and refused to accept pay for his services, stating that in the future he might ask a favor. The officer in charge of Olathe's soldiers at that time was still there, and Mr. Wedd went to Olathe to see him. He wrote a note to the commander of troops at Leavenworth, where the mules had been transferred and sold to the Government in the meantime, saying : "Get them at any cost, whatever it may be," and
229
HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
gave the note to Mr. Wedd. Mr. Wedd then went to Leavenworth and in an hour had possession of the mules. While returning with his mules, three Red Legs passed him and the Indian, and Mr. Wedd, guess- ing that their intention was to kill him and take the mules, changed his route, going by Choteau's ferry, and arrived safely home.
Later he sold the team for $300. Mr. Wedd had this span of mules stolen three different times. Once he found them in an old house at Wea, near Bucyrus, and another time they came home with a sixty- foot rope to them.
Mr. and Mrs. Wedd celebrated their golden wedding July 3. 1896, with their seven children, grandchildren and a host of friends. Mrs. Wedd died December 1, 1908.
SOME EARLY DAY EVENTS IN JOHNSON COUNTY AND KANSAS.
(By John T. Burris.)
As to whether Judge Burris still remembers this period of Kansas his- tory his own account of it is the best evidence.
"I was elected to the Wyandotte convention as one of Johnson conn- ty's two representatives by a majority of but two votes." he said. "That shows how close Johnson county was on the question of slavery. My colleague was J. T. Barton, who was the caucus nominee of the pro-slavery party for president of the convention.
"I came to Olathe in 1858 from Washington county, Iowa, where I had home-steaded and practiced law since my return from the Mexican war. Kansas already had made three attempts to frame a constitution when in March, 1859, the voters of the territory, under an act of the legislature, declared for a fourth convention. The election of delegates took place June 7. I had been a Whig all my life, but the Kansas Dem- ocrats had proclaimed themselves an anti-Lecompton Free State party, and these were my views also. I accepted that party's nomination as delegate from Johnson county and was elected.
"The convention met in Wyandotte, now Kansas City, Kan., on July 5, and remained in session twenty-four days. I did not share the fear entertained by some that the convention stood in any danger from the lawless element that had terrorized the Free State population of the territory since the beginning of the struggle for supremacy here. Although the pro-slavery minority fought the constitution from the start to the finish and finally refused to sign it, when adopted there were no turbulent or violent scenes during the deliberations of the conven- tion. J. P. Slough, of Leavenworth county, was the leader of the minor- ity and a little more inclined to be combative than the others. He had been a member of the Ohio legislature and was expelled from that body
230
HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
on account of a fighting propensity, I believe. Once he threw off his coat in the convention and was going to 'lick' somebody, but the ser- geant-at-arms subdued him. Slough, however, was an able lawyer, and following an honorable career in the army, where he attained the rank of brigadier general, he became chief justice of the supreme court of New Mexico. Many others of the convention attained equal distinction. Samuel A. Kingman, of Brown county, became chief justice of the Kan- sas Supreme Court. Kingman was from Massachusetts and took a lead- ing part in the convention. Benjamin F. Simpson, of Lykins county, a lawyer from Ohio, was the first attorney general of the new State. W. R. Griffin, of Bourbon county, was the first superintendent of public instruction. John A. Martin, secretary of the convention, became the governor of Kansas. Better known, of course, to this generation, were John Ingalls and Edmund G. Ross. Ingalls sat for Atchinson county with Caleb May and Robert Graham. He was one of the younger men of the convention, but even then had begun to develop the oratorical powers that afterwards held the attention of the Senate, and the country. Very appropriately, he was chairman of the committee on phraseology and arrangement, and whatever literary merit the constitution may have is due to him. Ross was a printer and ran a weekly newspaper at Topeka. I do not recall what his special activities were in the conven- tion. At a later period when his vote in the Senate saved President Johnson from impeachment he clashed with public opinion in Kansas, and became a target for the most violent abuse. I have always believed, however, that he acted properly and from the purest motives.
"The Wyandotte convention met in a building that stood near the river. It long since has disappeared and I doubt if I could identify its site today. The sessions began at 9 o'clock and usually ended at supper time. Occasionally, however, night sessions were held. The lineup of the members was determined when the convention organized. The Free State vote of thirty-five was given to J. M. Winchell, of Osage county, for president, and J. T. Barton received the seventeen votes of the opposi- tion. The first thing the convention did when it got down to business was to accept the constitution of Ohio as a model. This was not ac- complished without debate. Some fifteen states of the Union were rep- resented in the convention, and opinion was greatly divided as to which one had the best organic law. Another question requiring early set- tlement was the boundary dispute. There was a strong movement to include in the new State that portion of Nebraska lying south of the Platte river, and a delegation from that territory appeared and asked to be seated. In the western part of the territory the county of Arapahoe had some claim to admission, also, but neither proposition met with approval.
"The constitution was voted on and adopted section by section as reported by committees. The debates were usually animated but short.
231
HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
Nearly everyone had something to say, but few long speeches were made. There was some lively discussion over the sixth section of the bill of rights, which excluded slavery, but more over the language of it than anything else, because there never was any doubt about the exclu- sion of slavery. That was what the convention had met for. As reported to the convention the language of the section was that of the ordinance of 1787 and used subsequently in the Thirteenth amendment that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whether the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist. The objection made was that imprisonment for crime was not slavery and that the words were meaningless-applied to Kansas, where slavery had never existed. The section as adopted was a compromise. The his- toric words were retained, preceded by the plain declaration, 'there shall be no slavery in this State.' An attempt to secure the suspension of the operation of this section for a year after the admission of the State marked the last stand of the pro-slavery men in the convention. The resolution was voted down twenty-eight to eleven."
Following the adjournment of the convention Mr. Burris stumped Johnson county to urge the adoption of the constitution at the election which was held on October 4, 1859. On that day 15,951 Kansans went to the polls and the constitution was ratified by a majority of 4,891.
Judge Burris was born December 22, 1828, in Butler county, Ohio. when he was eleven years old, his parents moved to Kentucky and at eighteen he rode horseback to Washington county, Iowa, where a new home was made. At the outbreak of the Mexican war he enlisted and served throughout the hostilities. Returning to Iowa, he studied law and was admitted to the bar there in 1853. Two years later he was elected judge of the county court and served in that capacity two years, when he determined to seek a larger field in the new territory of Kansas.
After the adoption of the Wyandotte constitution Mr. Burris was elected to the Territorial legislature in 1860. When President Lincoln was inaugurated he went to Washington and was commissioned a ser- geant in Gen. James H. Lanes's company of Frontier Guards, which was detailed to guard Mr. Lincoln until the arrival of regular troops in Washington. For about three weeks in April and May, 1861, the com- pany was quartered in the White House. When the company was dis- banded President Lincoln appointed Mr. Burris district attorney for Kan- sas and he returned to the new State.
In the fall of 1861 he enlisted in the Fourth Kansas infantry, later reorganized at the Tenth Kansas volunteers, and served throughout the war. During Gen. Sterling Prices's Missouri raid he fought at Lexington, at the Big and Little Blue, Westport, Mine Creek and New- tonia.
"Price chased us from Lexington to Westport and we chased him from Westport to the Osage river," Judge Burris said in speaking of
232
HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
this period. "My family could plainly hear the cannonading at the Blue at our home in Olathe. I managed to get a telegram to them and they packed up and went to Lawrence, as did most of the inhabitants of the town. At that time I was doubtful of our ability to check Price's advance."
At the close of the war Judge Burris was again elected to the legisla- ture and was chosen speaker of the house. In 1866 he was elected county attorney of Johnson county, and three years later was appointed judge of the tenth judicial district. In 1870 Judge Burris again sat in the legislature for his district, which service was succeeded by two terms as prosecuting attorney of Johnson county. In 1879 he was returned to his old place on the bench of the district court. In 1907 he was returned to his old place as probate judge from which position he retired January II, 19II.
"I have been a busy man all my life," he said. "I have seen Kansas grow from a frontier territory, containing a handful of immigrants, to a great and populous State. That I had some share in laying the foun- dations for its greatness and prosperity is a source of great satisfaction to me in my old age. The Wyandotte convention did a great work. After all the years of strife and bloodshed, in the struggle of parties for control of the territory, this convention of young and untried men, assembled with a common purpose and made Kansas a free State. Nor did the service of these men end with the convention. Many of them went into the war and fought for the State and Nation. James G. Blunt, who was chairman of the committee on military affairs in the conven- tion, became a major general, the only Kansan to attain that rank during the war. Davis, Ross, Simpson, Ritchie, Hipple, Middleton, Martin, Nash, all served with Kansas regiments and won distinction in the field as many of them did later in civil life.
"The constitution produced by the Wyandotte convention has stood the test of half a century. Under it Kansas has found liberties secure and her material prosperity unchecked. I see no reason why it should not continue the organic law for centuries to come."
A PIONEER'S RECOLLECTIONS.
(By Newton Ainsworth.)
Fifty years ago this whole section was bald prairie. Deer and Indians: roamed wild and free. Fifty years ago last February I came to where Olathe now stands-there were three of us with a load of lumber to locate claims. We stopped on the high point where the monument now stands. Not a tree was to be seen, but the country was beautiful and the land looked good.
While we were looking around a man by the name of Charles;
233
HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
Osgood, who was camped on the branch north of where Olathe now stands, came up and asked us if we were looking for claims. We told him we were. Mr. Osgood had a survey plat of the county. He charged ten dollars for helping us to locate claims. We went four miles south to the Lone Elm Camp Ground and located, and I have lived there ever since.
The second time I came out was the last of March, 1857, with lum- ber to build a corral. There was a load of stakes piled up to lay out the town. My best recollection is that the town was laid off the last of March or the first of April, 1857. One or two honses were built in the summer of 1857. Beginning with the spring of 1858, Olathe built up very fast, until the war, which stopped the growth for a few years.
During the war, in '62 or '63, the State militia was camped here. While the Price raid was going on at Westport, Mo., we dug a trench around the court house yard, about three or four feet deep, for breast- works, but were ordered to the front before we had to use them.
Since the war, Olathe and the country around, have had a wonderful growth, not surpassed by any part of the United States. What will it be in fifty years to come? Olathe will be a part of Kansas City and Kansas City will be among the largest cities in the United States. There is no city in the United States that has the agricultural backing that Kansas City has.
A STORY OF EARLY DAYS.
(By J. R. Thorne.)
In May, of the year of 1857, there might have been seen two boys. with ox teams, wending their way across northern Missouri, from the State of Ilinois, to the pains of sunny Kansas. One of the boys was twenty years of age, the other, a brother, five years younger. Corn was a dolar a bushel in Missouri, and the fact that the boys had narrow tracked wagons was evidence that they came from a free State, and the further fact that they were going to Kansas, made it very evident that they were going there to help make Kansas a free State. Therefore the Missourians would neither give them information nor sell them corn. However, it was only necessary to make their wishes known to the slaves along the route, and they were abundantly supplied with chick- ens, hams and corn.
They crossed the Missouri river at Westport Landing-Kansas City had not yet happened. There they met one Amos Fuller, who, like themselves, had no particular place in view other than Kansas. So. they followed the trend of immigration, and the best road leading into Kansas being the old Santa Fe Trail, the boys naturally followed it, with their new acquaintance, Fuller, past the site of Olathe, which, at
234
HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
that time was as yet unbroken prairie, whose tall blue-stem on its billowy surface nodded back a welcome. The coyote scampered across the plain, an occasional deer, scared from its noonday rest, might be seen fleeing to cover and wild turkeys came into the trail and trotted along behind the wagons in quest of food.
The caravan camped one night at Gardner, and O. B. Gardner, the man after whom the town was named, offered to locate as many as cared to locate in Johnson county. Accepting his offer, the boys and their friend Fuller were located on claims southeast from that town. The first summer was spent in improving the claim, building the cabin and breaking prairie. The price received by the boys for plowing fire guards and breaking sod on new claims was $5 for a single acre, and larger tracts were broken for $4.
Some men planted sod-corn the first year, and it grew nicely, but the Indian ponies, belonging to the Shawnee Indians, which roamed over the country by hundreds, preferred the green corn to the dry grass, and ate it. The winter of '57-8 was spent mauling rails and posts on Bull creek, with which to fence the claims. The older one of the two boys cast his first vote in '58, for the Topeka, or Free State, constitu- tion. A pony on each claim was almost indispensable and the only ones the Indians would sell were the ones that had been spoiled and had whipped the Indian out. Such ponies could be bought for $65; well- broke ponies sold for from $85 to $125. Having bought one pony for $65, and sold him for $85, it occurred to the boys that some money could be made in that way, so during the summer several ponies were bought and sold for a good profit, and others were broke to ride, for $5 each. The Indian would say: "Pony, heap bad, kill white man, Indian no can ride him."
The father of the boys, with the family, came during the fall of '57. During the fall of '58 the older of the two boys, with three men from Douglass county, went buffalo hunting in the central part of the State. While slipping up on a herd of buffalo, on Cow creek, on the present site of Hutchinson, the body of a white man was found, in a patch of sunflowers. He appeared to have been murdered by the Indians. Nothing was found on the body by which it could be identified.
In the spring of '59, the boys entered the employ of Majors Russell & Waddle, a firm then freighting across the plains, for there were no railroads west of the Mississippi river. The first trip for the boys was from Ft. Leavenworth to Ft. Laramie. A wagon train consisted of twenty-five wagons, loaded with freight, and one called the mess wagon, loaded with food and clothing for the men. The wagons were drawn by six yoke of oxen to the wagon or 312 head of oxen to the train, and thirty-two men were a full company. The train, when loaded, traveled from fifteen to eighteen miles a day, and when coming back, empty, traveled about twenty-five miles. For fuel for campfires the men
235
HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
depended entirely on buffalo chips. They hung sacks on the sides and under their wagons, and gathered fuel as they traveled, so that when rain came there was always a supply of dry fuel on hand. At one time, when traveling along the south fork of the Platte river, in Nebraska, they came upon a tract of ground, 100 miles from any timber, a prairie country, but covered with pine knots, the pine logs having decayed, leaving only the knots. How they came there is a mystery.
The cattle subsisted entirely on the grass, grazing, watched by four herders at night, though when in an Indian country, or during a storm, the whole force of men was kept on duty. During the spring and fall of the year the train encountered numerous herds of buffalo. And sometimes the herds were so large that it was necessary to park the wagons "V" shaped, with the point of the "V" facing the herd, the cattle kept in the wagon corral. Enough buffaloes were shot to make them divide and go right and left of the wagons, and to look over the herd, it looked possible to walk on the backs of buffalo for miles. Such herds were sometimes two or three days in passing. The second trip was from Ft. Leavenworth to Ft. Kearney, the third from Leaven- worth to Salt Lake City, each time coming back empty. The fourth trip across the plains was in 1860, the year of the drought, as often referred to, in Kansas. This time the train loaded and started from Westport, for Santa Fe, New Mexico. At Bent's Fort. afterwards called Ft. Lyons, when the train reached there, it was learned that the place had been surrounded for some time by the Indians, who had been very bad during the summer. A man from the fort had been sent to Pawnee Fork, for troops. He thought, by leaving in the night, he could get away and the Indians would not follow him, but they did. He rode all night and at daylight hid himself and horse in a clump of willows, on the bank of the Arkansas river, to rest, during the day, having ridden forty miles from the fort. He was tired and soon fell to sleep. When he awoke, several Indians were between him and his horse; he had left his two revolvers in the holsters on his saddle. They shot him full of arrows, killed him, as they supposed, scalped, and left him. Sometime after they had left him he came to life. After many efforts he was able to rise and crawl on hands and knees to the water where he bathed, drank, and after many days crawled back the forty miles to the fort, where, when the train reached there, he was be- ing doctored by an Indian squaw, with herbs and roots. His wounds healed and he came back to the states with the train, on its return trip. The last trip across the plains was made in 1860, when the firm loaded the train with general merchandise, for miners, then mining gold and silver in southern Colorado. Prior to this time, only supplies for the fort were freighted, and this last trip bankrupted the company. The train was snowed in in the Ratton Pass, in the Trinidad mountains, the cattle were brought out and the train taken to its destination, the
236
HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
with the wagons to guard them and subsist on bacon, deer meat, bear meat, Mexican beans and Taos flour. About June, of the next year, the cattle were brought out and the train taken to its destination. The goods sold and the train returned to the states. Immediately upon the return to the states, the younger of the two boys, first mentioned, enlisted in the Second Regiment, Kansas infantry. During the winter in the mountains, time was spent in hunting and exploring. An Indian burying ground was found a few miles from the camp. The bodies were wrapped in the skins of deer and buffalo and lashed in the tops of small cedar trees.
On nearing Peacock's ranch, on the last trip out, it was seen that the ranch was in ruins; a party was seen leaving in an opposite direction, as the train appeared. Old Setank, a Kiowa Indian chief, with Mexican Joe, his interpreter, and a party of Indians, rode to the ranch and asked Peacock to go up on his dugout roof and see if any Government troops were in sight, and while looking, they shot him, scalped him, and killed and scalped four others. There was one sick man in a room off from the main building, with a buffalo robe hung over the door. The Indians thought he might have smallpox and left him alone, but set fire to the house, thinking to burn him or kill him as he came out. The train, approaching, scared the Indians away and the sick man crawled out.
After coming home from the last trip, the older of the boys re-fenced the farm, which had been run over by prairie fires, took care of the small harvest and enlisted in the Twelfth Kansas and served three years. Both of the boys came home from the war, settled on their farms in Johnson county, married, reared families and are "standing up for Kansas."
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.