USA > Kansas > Johnson County > History of Johnson County, Kansas > Part 6
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
wagon, and started from Piqua about the last days of September, 1856, fifty years ago. I drove through the states of Indiana and Illinois, crossed the Mississippi river at Rock Island, crossed the State of Iowa and northern Missouri, and there, crossing the Missouri river at Iowa Point, came south to Wyandotte county. I came to this Lone Elm camp ground, on the Santa Fe Trail in February, 1857, and located a claim, though the land was not yet open for settlement until May, 1858.
"In May and June, 1857, I broke seventy acres of the virgin Kansas soil on the Lone Elm camp ground. I also broke prairie sod from May till October, all over this part of Johnson county for parties who were locating claims. On the fourth day of March, 1858, I unloaded the lum- ber to build a cabin. It was only IOXII feet, with the ground for a floor, we lived in it for two years, and it was the first cabin erected in this part of the county.
"When I first came to Kansas it was occupied and held by the Indians ; the Wyandottes were located in Wyandotte county, the Shaw- nees partly in Wyandotte and partly in Johnson county, and the Dela- wares in Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties; while the Pawnees, Sioux, Cheyennes, and several other tribes occupied the lands farther north and west. I feel today that the advice of Horace Greeley was good and that in taking it I have not lived my life in vain. I have lived to see Kansas the center of the United States; to see her pass from the great American desert to the most fruitful soil in the world; from savagery to the highest point of our present civilization; and I feel proud to think that I have assisted in her advancement."
After Mr. Ainsworth's address, George Black read a letter from Will- iam Brady, one of the first county commissioners of Johnson county, as follows :
PIONEERS' EXPERIENCES ON THE OLD TRAIL.
"Mr. Newt. Ainsworth :
"Dear Old Friend-I learned through my daughter, Mrs. Susie Du Bois, of Kansas City, that you are to have an unveiling of the old Santa Fe Trail marker at Lone Elm, which was situated on your farm. The old tree stood at the branch just south of your house. I camped there myself on the night of November (December-note: As will be seen in the fourth paragraph of this letter, Mr. Brady fixes the date of his camp as the day following the Wakarusa war treaty, which occurred on December 8, 1855, a month later) 9, 1855. It rained all day on the 8th. I was coming from near Topeka, going back to Cass county, Missouri. It turned to snow about night, when we came to Lone Elm camp ground and there we struck camp.
"We had some loose cattle and two ox wagons. One of the wagons had bows and a sheet on it, and we took those off, stuck the bows in
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the ground, put the sheet on, made our bed under it, and had a nice place to sleep. Way in the night I heard the bell tinkling and thought it went north down the branch. I got up, put my boots and overcoat on, went out, but could not hear one thing. It was dark and spitting snow. I thought the bell was going north, as I supposed to the nearest timber. The grass was very tall and frozen so that it was very diffi- cult to travel. I kept near the branch as best I could as it was the only guide I had. The grass was so tall and frozen I sometimes fell down, but I got up and tried it again, and came as I thought to a smart piece of ground; it looked dark like it had been burned off. I stepped off into water up to my boot tops. I scrambled out and went my way.
"After going some distance I concluded I must be a mile and a half or two miles from camp. I stopped and listened, but heard nothing and I concluded I had best return to camp or I might get lost. I went back quite a ways and came to another piece of ground that looked smooth and covered with a skift of snow. I reasoned about it, and thought. "When I stepped in water before, it was dark like burned prairie but this is white,' and thinking it a skift of snow I stepped on it and went into a pool of water to my waist. I scrambled out on the bank and there I lost my way for the time and started due north again. I did not go north until I discovered that the wind was in my face again, and I knew that would not do, for I had left camp with the wind in my face, and as I was now going to camp I must keep the wind to my bark. I avoided all dark or light spots, and traveled in the grass. I found my way to camp all right though the distance back seemed far- ther than going away. I concluded then the cattle might go till day- light, and crawled in under the bows and sheet where my friend and little son lay. My outside clothes were frozen. I pulled off my boots, poured the water out of them and put them under iny head, pulled off my socks and wrung the water out of them, put them on again and crawled into bed with all my wet clothes on, except my overcoat. I was soon warm and sweating. Before I went to sleep I heard the bell tinkling close to camp. I slept good the rest of the night.
"We got up the next morning about daylight. The cattle were within a hundred yards of the camp, among some gooseberry bushes. We got a little breakfast and started on our way to Missouri, feeling all right. It was quite cold that morning ; just a little skift of snow. We had not gone a mile from camp before we were overtaken by a score or more of boys going home to Missouri. They had been up to the Wakarusa camp-the pro-slavery troops were encamped there. The free State party was encamped at Lawrence, and were fortifying them- selves as we came through here on the 8th. Both parties were expect- ing to fight on the 9th, but they did not. The boys told us that they
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
had compromised and there would be no fight, and that all the men from Missouri went home.
"I first saw Lone Elm camp ground in 1854 as I came back from looking at the country in Douglas county. The old tree was lying on the ground, the greater part of it being burned up. I remember seeing a waybill for emigrants to California, starting from Independence, Mo. The first points were Barnes' Spring, Big Blue, State Line or New Santa Fe, which is north of Stanley now. Next point was Lone Elm, then Bull Creek; there the Santa Fe Trail and the California Trail forked ; the Santa Fe Trail went on west to Black Jack while the California Trail went by Spy Bucks, Wakarusa, and the Devil's Backbone, on which the State university now stands, overlooking the city of Lawrence.
"Well, Newt., I wish I could be there and meet with some of the old friends who will be there, particularly Beatty Mahaffie and Colonel Burris, and probably many others. Give them my kindest regards. Yes, fifty-one years to the night before you have the unveiling of the marker, I had my experience at the Lone Elm camping ground. I am now in my seventieth year.
"Yours respectfully, "W. H. Brady."
Then followed short addresses by old settlers. Dan Ramsey, the first one introduced, had driven an ox team all the way from North Carolina and settled on the flower bespangled plains of Kansas when the Santa Fe Trail was the only artery of commerce between the East and the gol- den West. Mr. Ramsey had on exhibition an old ox bow that had come west with him from North Carolina, a curiosity to many of the younger generation.
Mr. Rutter, of Spring Hill, another pioneer who arrived in Leaven- worth in 1855, and who came to Johnson county in 1857, was the next speaker. He told the assemblage of his trip to Pike's Peak in 1859, when Council Grove was the last frontier settlement on the long jour- ney.
V. R. Ellis responded by telling of some of his early experiences and reminiscences of the Santa Fe Trail. Mr. Ellis has been a resident of this county for about fifty years, and has taken a great interest in the movement for marking the great old highway.
Jonathan Millikan, who boasts of building the first house in Olathe, and of having married the first woman in that town, was called upon. Mr. Millikan told of his first experience when he landed in what is now Kansas City, about half a century ago, describing the great Mexican freight trains that passed over the Santa Fe Trail in those days. These trains contained from twenty-five to fifty wagons, each wagon being drawn by six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve yoke of oxen, and on some occasions he had seen as many as twenty yoke of oxen drawing
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one wagon, and always huge swarms of flies following the meat that was being dried on the sides of the wagon beds.
Maj. J. B. Bruner, the next speaker, said he did not get here till 1865, but remembered the great trains on the Santa Fe Trail, also the unbounded generosity and hospitality of Newton Ainsworth, who at that time had just completed the finest house in the territory, and had invited all the boys and girls of the neighborhood, which at that time included Olathe, Spring Hill, Gardner, etc., to come in and help ini- tiate the house. "The girls of forty years ago" said the major, "were as sweet and pretty then as the girls are of today." The Major is authority on that subject, for he married one of the girls of forty years ago, and she has never gotten away from him.
AT LONE ELM SINCE FEB. 27. 8 5
J
7
ANTA
TRAIL
1822-18724 MARKED BY THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE
N. AI
RTH
STATE OF KANSAS 19063
LONE ELM CAMP GROUND 1822 -1872
SANTA FE TRAIL MARKER AT LONE ELM, AND N. AINSWORTH.
Senator George H. Hodges, who assisted in putting the bill appropriat- ing $1,000 towards the purchase of the markers through the Senate, was called upon to say a few words. Mr. Hodges said he had immi- grated to this county at a very early and tender age, and had brought his parents with him in wagons; that when they had stood upon the eastern hills and looked out upon the undulating plains, they, too, like the Shawnee Indian, had given utterance to the adjective "beautiful." He thought that the star of empire that Horace Greeley had seen start for the West had stopped when it had reached a point over Kansas, and had continued to hover and shed its rays over this State ever since.
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
Mrs. John P. St. John was next called upon for a few remarks. She said that in her opinion some praise should be given to the Daughters of the American Revolution, those women who had by their efforts made possible the occasion they then celebrated, by their untiring endeavors and final success in having the historic old trail marked.
Uncle Beatty Mahaffie, the senior of all old settlers present, was next called upon, and though very feeble, responded with a recollection of long ago.
David P. Hougland, who has lived on the trail for about half a cen- tury, was the next speaker. He related some of the sights he saw in Kansas City when he first came west; how he had seen twenty mules trying to pull one wagon up what is now called Main street. His descrip- tion of the first pack mule he ever saw was humorous, as was also his story of his hunt for the man who had died of cholera and had been buried with $1,000 in gold secreted about his person. It was at Lone Elm that Mr. Hougland saw a great flock of blackbirds, and remembering the old nursery rhyme, of four and twenty blackbirds baked into a pie for a king, took his shot gun and killed fourteen, which he cooked with some bacon. That was his first meal on Lone Elm campground, and one that he would always remember. Newton Ains- worth says that the main reason why Hougland will always remember his blackbird dinner was because, after he had cooked the birds to a beau- tiful and appetizing brown, he stuck his knife into one of them and it sizzed like a bottle of champagne. He had forgotten to clean them.
Senator J. W. Parker recited a few amusing incidents he had run across in looking up the history of the old Santa Fe Trail ; how Rutter and Hovey, and two other young men at the time had advertised for wives in a Boston paper, and how they had received answers to their advertisements ; the correspondence that followed, and the result. The Senator then related the history of the trail so far as he had been able to find it, and from an old Government survey, on record in the county surveyor's office, he marked the original trail from its entrance into Johnson county at New Santa Fe across what is now Oxford, Olathe, Gardner and McCamish townships. No one really knew how far back the trail dated, but there was an old Indian tradition and other proofs which clearly established that along parts of its course, at least, there was a prehistoric, well marked and used highway to and from the South- west. The fitting-out point was at one time Franklin, Mo., later it was Independence, and still later Kansas City and Westport. Then the course of the trail was changed to come along the top of the divide, through what is now Mission township, thence on through Olathe and Gardner, intersecting the original trail at Bull Creek crossing near the present site of Edgerton. The Senator dedicated the monument to the care of the rising generation, admonishing them that the marker was placed in position not merely to mark the old trail, but to perpetuate
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the memory of those old hardy pioneers who braved the dangers of the great American desert in the early days, and who made possible the fertile farms and comfortable homes of today.
John T. Burris, the next speaker on the program, was in fine humor, and jollied the old boys who had advertised for wives when young, or who had married the prettiest girl in Johnson county forty years ago. He said that he had not come from Boston, nor North Carolina, nor Kentucky, but from Iowa, where he had captured one of the sweetest and dearest sixteen-year-old girls that ever lived. "Monuments," said the Judge, "are erected to perpetuate important events. The custom is by no means of modern date, but tradition ragards such a custom as andedating Biblical history." Judge Burris then spoke of some of the great epochs leading up to modern civilization and its constantly increas- ing superiority over the civilization of yesterday; of the great change in this country's progress at the close of the Mexican war, and how the Santa Fe Trail was made the great avenue of commerce between the Missouri river and the great West; of the coming of the railroad and the gradual passing away of the freighters and obliteration of the trail, until today it is but a memory.
A. Rebsamen. an old settler who had last Wednesday returned from a month's trip to California, was an interesting witness to the ceremo- nies .. The children of Lone Elm school and their teacher. Miss Rebecca Zimmerman, and the children of Clare school, with their teacher, Miss Nelle Zimmerman, took a prominent part in the exercises of the day, and with their songs raised the curtain of by-gone years, and gave the boys and girls of the Santa Fe Trail time a glimpse of the past-carried them back in memory's chariot to the days when they, too, were care- free and venturesome.
The monument is a rough boulder of Oklahoma red granite, one side chiseled smooth, and the inscription, "Santa Fe Trail, marked by the Daughters of the American Revolution and the State of Kansas, 1906," cut thereon. The boulder is set on a concrete foundation into which is sunk a marble slab bearing the words, "Lone Elm camp grounds, 1822- 1872."
THE SANTA FE TRAIL.
Written by Ed Blair on the dedication of the marker on the Santa Fe Trail at Lone Elm, Johnson county, Kansas.
Fifty years-'Twas a prairie then And the deer roamed wild and free;
Fifty years-I see it again As it appeared to me.
The old trail runs where the barn stands now,
The trail was here long before the plow,
(5)
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
And we drove ox teams with sometimes a cow, In the days that used to be.
Fifty years-Yes I lived here then
And a lively place 'twas too.
Wagons for miles with their fearless men Coming and passing from view.
On the wagon covers, "Pike's Peak.or bust !" Yes, the fever was high for the yellow dust Just a lot of grit and then their luck to trust, For those that won were few.
Fifty years-'Twas a camping ground Where the trees now cast their shade, And the faithful oxen rambled around And rarely if ever strayed,
And the camp fires burned each night of the year In the pastures there and the cornfields here, Yet I slept each night with never a fear, And many the friends I made.
Yes, fifty years-What a striking change
From the way we do things now, No less these farms from the boundless range Or the way we sow and plow The sickle is gone and the binder's here, But the sickle still to my heart is dear,
But I look in vain for the roving deer And the prairie chicken now.
Fifty years-Ah, I love to know That the old trail shall remain, That the markers tell in the years to go Where the ox team crossed the plain Of the men who travelled the toilsome way But few are left to tell it today, But their march was Progress on its way, And its glory ne'er shall wane.
RECOLLECTIONS OF A BULLWHACKER. (By William Johnson.)
My talk at this time will have to be more explanatory than anything else. The things that we used than and now have changed as well as words. Words that were used in earlier times to express a certain meaning, today convey quite a different impression. The word "trail" as used then, in regard to a route, meant about what we would now
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
call a "patch," and often a very dim one. At that time they were fur- ther designated as "foot trails" or "mule trails," meaning that the "foot trails" a man could travel but a mule couldn't, or that a mule could travel but a wagon couldn't. When the route became plainer and larger so it could be traveled by wagons it became a road.
At the time of which I speak, during the later fifties, there were two main routes across what we then called the "plains." The southern route, which was the Santa Fe route, went from the Missouri river in a general western direction passing through Council Grove and on until it struck the Arkansas (as we called it), river about Great Bend and then followed up the river to the mouth of the Purgatorie (pronounced Pick- etware) river to Trinidad, then crossing the Raton mountains and on by way of Fort Union to Santa Fe.
The northern route run from the Missouri river in a general north- west direction, striking the Platte river a little east of Fort Kearney, and then following up the river. The outfits bound for Fort Laramie, Salt Lake, California, and Oregon, usually followed the Platte about the mouth of Pole creek and followed up that stream. The Denver outfits continued up the Platte to their destinations; some of them, however, took what was known as the "cut off," leaving the Platte at the mouth of Bijou creek, by so doing saving quite a distance.
I have seen a good many pictures of Government wagons that were used on the plains. These were made by some officer or soldier, who was artist enough to use a pencil, and naturally made pictures of what was around him. Bullwhackers, as freighters were called, were artists in the use of a whip or gun, but knew very little about the pencil ; con- sequently no pictures of freight wagons.
The principal difference of the Government wagon was the body or box of the Government wagon was always paneled-the freight wagons never were. The Government wagons always had iron axles while the ox-freight wagons had wooden axles, the wheels held in place by linch- pins. The Government wagons had straight ends, while the freight wagons' end was longer at the top than bottom. The Government wag- ons were.shorter than the freight wagons.
I will make a slight description of a freight wagon. The front wheels were 3 feet 10 inches high, the hind wheels 5 feet, the box was 3 feet 10 inches wide, 12 feet long at the bottom, 16 feet long at the top, with side boards 5 feet high, with wooden bows fastened to the box with staples, over these bows went the wagonsheet ; an ordinary man could just about stand up under the sheet. These wagons were usually loaded from sixty to eighty hundred. Such a thing as a brake or a lock on awagon was not known in this country at that time. We used a lock chain fastened on the side of the box; this chain went around the fellow and fastened with a toggle. When you wanted to lock the wagon, you had to stop to put the chain in place, and the same when you wanted to un- lock it.
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
A large portion of the freight hauled at the time of which I speak, was Government supplies largely consisting of corn, flour and bacon, most of which was purchased near the Missouri river. I remember one peculiar phase of the freight contracts: The freighter was responsible for shrinkage but not for leakage, hence it was not very uncommon for wagons loaded with corn, if a rain came up a day or two before reaching their destination, to have the sheet blown off and the corn a little damp, and sometimes a whiskey barrel was found to be only half full.
A train consisted of twenty-six wagons, twenty-five for freight and one mess (or, as we called it grub) wagon, five and six yoke of cattle to the team, one wagon-master, one assistant wagon-master and one extra hand. These three were mounted on mules and the only mules there were in a full train, twenty-six drivers and two night herders. A good many freighters did not furnish night herders. A train usually traveled from sixteen to eighteen miles a day.
Alex Majors demanded of his wagon-masters that they do no travel- ing on Sunday, and to allow no swearing among the men. Neither order did I ever know to be carried out, in fact, a wagon-master, after he had been out a month, hardly ever knew when Sunday came, but he usually laid up one day in the week because he found his cattle did better, but usually he laid up one-half day at a time.
Uusually a train commenced yoking up about daylight or soon after and traveled until about 9:00 or 10:00 o'clock and then stopped for breakfast, remaining in camp until about 3 o'clock and then traveled until dark or nearly so, when we got our supper, never eating but two meals a day.
In regard to provisions-grub, we called it,-we had bacon, bread and coffee, beans enough to have about one mess a week and enough dried apples for a mess once in two weeks. We usually started with some sugar but I never knew it to hold out the trip. One time I had a barrel of pickles. Sometimes in driving up the cattle a man would kill a jack-rabbit. This was his individual property, but he usually divided it. Once in a great while someone would kill a deer, antelope or buffalo. This always went to the mess of the men who killed it unless there was more than one mess could use. If so, it was divided among the others. I never knew any of the freighters to furnish a man just to hunt. The Mexican trains always furnished hunters. The bacon furnished us was always the heaviest that could be bought, the sides often being five or six inches thick. This was cheaper than other meat, besides furnishing us more shortening for our bread. Our bread was made with flour, bacon grease, salt, soda and water (at this time baking powder was unknown, at least to us), and baked in an oven set over a small fire of buffalo chips with more fire on the lid. All of this sounds strange with the unlimited varieties of canned goods at the present time, but at that time the only canned goods on the market were a very few
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ILISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
peaches, cove oysters, and sardines, and from a train-owner's view, they were altogether too rich for a bullwhacker's blood. But I never knew of a case of dyspepsia on the plains, neither do I remember a time when a bullwhacker wasn't ready to eat when grub pile was called.
We lived out of doors all the time, sometimes for months at a time without being in a house, sleeping in our blankets and buffalo robes on the ground, sometimes waking up in the morning covered with snow. I never had a tent, nor do I remember of seeing one with a freight outfit, and I don't think I ever had a lantern.
The word "outfit," as herein used, meant everything, consisting of men, wagons, stock, provisions and mess-kit. We also used the word "outfit" in another way. A great many of the men, when hired, had nothing but the clothes they had on; they were taken either the day before or the day the train was ready to start, to some store, where the owner of the train had made arrangements, and allowed to purchase such things as they needed, such as blankets, clothing, tobacco, knives, or anything in reason. These things were charged to them and entered in the train book, and taken out of their wages when they were paid off.
The men were generally hired in two ways: So much a month for a round trip, or a larger amount per month and take their discharge when the train was unloaded.
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