USA > Kansas > Labette County > History of Labette County, Kansas, from the first settlement to the close of 1892 > Part 2
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CHIEFS.
Parties who have long been acquainted with the Osages tell me that to entitle a party to the position of civil chief, he had to have a mother of a chief-bearing family. The Beaver family, if not the only, was the prin- cipal one from whom the women came whose children were entitled to obtain the position of civil chief. There was not only a principal civil chief, but also the chiefs who led the bands in war; to this latter class Chetopa belonged. It is said he could not become a civil chief, not hav- ing a mother who produced a candidate for that position ; but he was the principal war chief, and when on the war-path outranked the civil chief. He was a great friend of Dr. Lisle. It was for him that the town of Chetopa was named. White Hair, who was the principal chief on the arrival of the first white settlers, was a man of great force and authority. He was born in Neosho county, about 1834, and died of consumption, at his camp on the Verdigris, December 24, 1869.Y
TOWNS.
The position of the chief's town, as that of the towns of the others, varied from time to time. Their improvements were not such as to make it impossible to change location when circumstances seemed to demand it. On a map of the Osage country, made in 1836 by John C. McCoy, who surveyed and ran the north line of the reservation, "White Hair Town" was located on the west side of the Neosho river, about one- fourth of the way from the north to the south boundary of the reserva- tion. A copy of this map, which was furnished to the St. Louis office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is now in our State Historical Society. Subsequently we find White Hair Town at a point farther down the river, but probably all the time it was somewhere in Neosho county. At the foot of the bluff north and east of Oswego, as well as at other points
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EARLY HISTORY.
within a few miles of Oswego, are still to be found unmistakable evi- dences of the sites of their towns, which must have been inhabited for very many years. Dr. W. S. Newlon has made something of a study of the subject of their villages, implements, etc.
BATTLE.
About 1837 there was a bloody encounter between a band of Cherokees under the command of Captain Rogers, who lived at the salt works on Grand river, and who was an uncle of Lewis Rogers of Chetopa, and the Little Town band of Osages, in a grove a few miles south of Oswego. About 100 of the Osages, embracing nearly all of the band, were killed. White Hair, who was then a small boy, and who afterward became the principal chief, was away from the band at the time, and was thus spared. The Osages were all drunk, and were butchered -men, women and children alike. This butchery was in revenge for an expedition that they had made down in the Cherokee country a short time before. Dr. Lisle has told me he got this information direct from White Hair himself, and also the same from a man by the name of Etter, who was with Cap- tain Rogers on the Cherokee side.
It is said that in 1862 or 1863 a band of Missouri rebels on their way to the western plains or mountains, were surprised by a band of Osages in what is now Osage township in this county ; the rebels were sur- rounded by the Indians, and all but two were killed. In regard to this matter I have no information except that which I get from the old settlers, who in turn claim to have gotten it from the Indians, or some one with them.
THE TWO BANDS.
Rev. Isaac McCoy in his history of Baptist Indian Missions, on page 358, says that the Osages lived on the Missouri in two settlements, and were known among Indians and those familiar with Indian affairs, as upper settlement, or people, and lower settlement, or people; and re- marks that the whites, who were ignorant of their language, fancied that one was called " tall people " and the other "short people." He says that this was the origin of the designation Great and Little Osages. Those designated the "upper people," which the whites took to mnean tall people, being the Great Osages, and those designated "lower people." supposed by the whites to mean short people, the Little Osages. He says: "In most of our treaties with the Osages they have been repre- sented as composed of two distinct bands, called Great and Little Osages : no such distinction in reality exists, or ever did exist. The supposition originated in the ignorance and awkwardness of traders among them."
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HISTORY OF LABETTE COUNTY.
This account was given in 1828, and seems to furnish a plausible theory of the origin of this designation ; but we must remember that these terms were used in our first treaty with them, in 1808.
CHARACTER.
I have not sufficient acquaintance with Indian matters to be able to attempt anything like a description of the Osages, or to assign to them the character to which they are probably entitled, but the facts of their history as we gather them from the reports of their doings, lead me to suppose that they were not of that savage and barbarous disposition which some have attributed to them, and which characterizes so many of the Indian tribes. I should rather say of them that they were expert cattle and horse thieves, and that among them a person's life was less in dan- ger than his jewelry and clothing.
BURYING-GROUNDS.
The mode of burial among the Osages was to place the corpse in a sit- ting posture on the ground, at most only in a slight excavation, and pile around it a heap of stones for its protection. When the early settlers came here many such graves were seen in which the skeleton was re- maining intact, and in some instances the flesh scarcely yet having en- tirely disappeared. There were a number of these burial-places located in this county -one in Neosho township, on the county line, one or more where Oswego now is, and others farther west.
TREATIES.
The treaty with this tribe in which our people are especially interested was concluded at Canville trading-post, nearly on the site, but a short distance east of the present station of Shaw, between Erie and Chanute, on the 29th of September, 1865. M. W. Reynolds was clerk of the com- mission which negotiated this treaty. When it reached the Senate its ratification with certain amendments was made on June 26, 1866. These amendments were accepted by the Indians on September 21, 1866, and the treaty as thus amended was proclaimed by the President and became operative January 21, 1867.
By the first article of this treaty a strip thirty miles in width on the east end of their lands was sold to the United States. This was after- wards known as the Osage Ceded Lands, and is principally embraced in the counties of Neosho and Labette.
By the second article of the treaty the Osages ceded to the United States in trust a strip twenty miles in width off the north side of the re- mainder of their lands. This was known as the Osage Trust Lands.
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EARLY HISTORY.
The remaining portion of their lands was thereafter known as the Osage Diminished Reservation.
On May 27, 1868, another treaty was concluded with the Osages, on Drum creek, which was commonly known as the Sturgis treaty, because of the controlling spirit of William Sturgis in securing its negotiation. By the terms of this treaty the entire tract included in said Diminished reservation, estimated to contain 8,000,000 acres, was sold to the Leaven- worth, Lawrence & Galveston R. R. Co., but supposed to be largely for the benefit of Mr. Sturgis, who had secured the treaty, at the agreed price of $1,600,000, or about twenty cents an acre.
By the time this treaty reached the Senate the settlers were aroused, and at once a determined fight was made against its ratification. Great credit is due to Congressman Clarke for the active measures by him inaugurated in the House to bring to light the objectionable features of the treaty. Its ratification was never secured.
By an act approved July 15, 1870, the President was directed to remove the Osage Indians from the State of Kansas to the Indian Territory as soon as they would agree thereto.
About the middle of September following, a council with the Indians was held on Drum creek, and arrangements agreed on for their final removal from the State. This removal took place within the following few months, since which time their home has been in the Territory just south of the State line.
JOHN MATHEWS.
John Mathews was a native, some say of Virginia and others of Ken- tucky, and at a very early day-usually given at about 1840, but the ex- act date is not known - he came among the Osages as a trader, and became their blacksmith. His name does not appear among those on the Gov- ernment roll of blacksmiths for the Osages in 1843, and if he had come among them at that time he had probably not secured Government em- ployment. His name appears among the Government blacksmiths for the Senecas and Shawnees in 1839, so it seems certain that between that time and 1843 he came among the Osages. He settled near the edge of the bluff in the east part of Oswego, where he maintained a trading-post and erected several buildings. These buildings stood partly on what is now block 61, and extended north across Fourth avenue and on to block 60. They were used by him as a residence, a place where travelers were entertained, for his store and warehouse, and for the care of his stock. The remains of the ruins of some of these buildings may still be seen in the street about 125 feet east of the northeast corner of the Park, on
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HISTORY OF LABETTE COUNTY.
block 52. He got water from the spring at the intersection of Fourth avenue and Union street. Mathews was a very popular man among the Indians. He had for his wife a full-blooded Osage, and raised a large family of children. He had an extensive trade, and is said to have ac- cumulated a large property, all of which was destroyed or captured at the time of his death. He had some fine stock, and kept a race-course just south of his residence. At the outbreak of the war he joined his interests with the Southern Confederacy, became a colonel in the Rebel army, and generally has the reputation of being engaged in the sacking of Humboldt, in August, 1861; but Dr. Lisle, who knew him well, says he was not with the force at the time of the occurrence of that event, and did not arrive there until after the raid of the place, and was in no wise responsible for it. After this the United States forces became very much exasperated at the conduct of the Rebels in the sacking of Humboldt, and determined to take speedy revenge. Mathews, being credited with having conducted the raid, was sought after, and those in pursuit de- termined upon his capture or death, and a party was organized to pro- ceed south and take him.
Col. W. A. Johnson, of Garnett, and Dr. George Lisle, of Chetopa, have furnished me the information on which the following account is based.
One detachment came down the river from Humboldt, and another from Fort Lincoln in Bourbon county, the two detachments expecting to meet near the mouth of Lightning creek. This force was composed of some enlisted men and many civilians who had not been mustered into the service, numbering perhaps two or three hundred, only a part of whom arrived at the place where Mathews was found. They were all under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Blunt. Among the civilians who were in the company were Preston B. Plumb, of Emporia, and W. A. Johnson, of Garnett. They marched down on the east side of the Neosho river, crossed the river at Rocky Ford, and came up and sur- rounded the house owned by Wm. Blythe on the west side of the Neosho. and just above the State line, being in what is now Cherokee county. The house was then occupied by Lewis Rogers. It was now just daylight ; Mathews had come from his home the day before, stopping at Dr. Lisle's in the evening to get something to eat, and then, on his way south, ar- rived at the home of Rogers after dark. The scouts had seen him go there, and the troops were reasonably certain that they had found the man for whom they were hunting. A demand was made that Mathews be delivered to them. The house was surrounded by corn and high weeds ; Mathews came out of the back door, partially dressed, with a
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EARLY HISTORY.
double-barrel shotgun in his hand ; he was at once riddled with bullets ; no one knew whose shot did the work. This was in the latter part of September, 1861; corn was then just getting ripe enough for use. That day a part of the troops returned to the Chetopa settlement and arrested all the men whom they found living there at the time, and took them to Math- ews's place, or Little Town, where that evening they were tried by court- martial. Among those arrested were James Bowles, George Ewers, Mr. White, Joel Combs, and Dr. George Lisle. It was ascertained that Combs was a government detective, and had been working up evidence to im- plicate some of the residents as sympathizers with the Rebel cause. Colonel Blunt presided at the trial, and Captain Brooks acted as clerk. After a full investigation, and all the testimony had been introduced, nothing was found implicating any of the parties arrested, and they were all discharged. They were allowed to remain under Government protection over night. and the next day they started for their homes under an escort to protect them outside of the limits, where they were likely to be molested by any of the troops. During the night one of the soldiers had exchanged an old broken-down horse for Dr. Lisle's animal, which was in much better condition, and it took a peremptory order from Colonel Blunt to induce him to deliver to the Doctor his horse when he was ready to start home. Before this party was out of sight the Mathews premises were set on fire and all destroyed.
Mathews had his burying-ground on the high land at the intersection of Union street and First avenue. A number of graves are still visible. Until within a few years there stood at the head of one of these graves a common sandstone with the following inscription cut thereon: "A. E. Mathes. Departed this life April 10, A. D. 1857. Aged 11 years, 7 months, 27 days." It will be noticed that in the name, as cut on this stone, there is no w. Several years ago the stone was broken down, and is now in the possession of the County Historical Society. Some of the writing is partially effaced.
The early white settlers continued to use this burying-ground for a year or two after the settlement commenced in 1865.
The following letter from the son of John Matthews is of interest, not only because of the information it contains, but a so because coming from one of the first children born to a white parent on the present site of Oswego. I wrote to the uncle referred to in the letter, but could get no reply from him :
"PAWHUSKA, INDIAN TER., Sept. 30, 1891.
"Nelson Case, Esq., Oswego, Kansas-DEAR SIR : I will try and give you all the information I can in regard to the old place. It was called
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HISTORY OF LABETTE COUNTY.
Little Town as far back as I can recollect. I was born in the year 1848. The stream west of town was named by the Osages; they called it En- gru-scah-op-pa, which means some kind of animal; then the French called it La Bette, which means the same thing. I do not know how large the farm was, but from the best information I can gather there were one hundred acres on the place where the town now stands, and if my memory serves me right, there were thirty acres in the bottom.
" I do not know what white men settled near our place, but I can find out from my sister, who lives thirty miles west from here. From the best information I can find out, the place was settled by a man by the name of Augustos Chautau, in the year 1843, who sold it to my father, who started a trading-post there in the year 1849.
"I have an uncle by the name of Allen Matthews, who lives in Neosho, Jasper county, Missouri, who can give you more information than I can if you will write to him.
"Hoping this will help you in your work, I remain,
Yours,
W. S. MATTHEWS."
EARLY EXPEDITIONS.
The early surveyors and Indian agents made a number of trips through this country, several of which we have official accounts of. In Mr. McCoy's history of Baptist Indian Missions, at page 355, he says : "On the 17th [of November, 1828] we reached the Osage Agency, gave notice of our arrival to the Osages, and desired them to meet us in council. On the 20th we pitched our tents near the village of the chief called White Hair." And further along he says that on November 26, 1828, their ex- ploring party camped on the Arkansas at the mouth of the Verdigris river. Their journey in all probability took them through or near the present sites of Oswego and Chetopa. After making some surveys in the Territory, the party returned, and on December 14th were again at White Hair's village. He again speaks of crossing the Neosho into the principal village of the Osages on June 30th, on his way to Fort Gibson to establish certain boundaries between Indian tribes.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
The date of settlement of the first white person in this county is un- known; whether it was John Mathews or some of the parties in the neighborhood of Chetopa, I cannot say. The letters which I present herewith contain the most authentic information I have been able to gather on the subject, and I give them here as I have received them.
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EARLY HISTORY.
"PACTOLUS, BENTON CO., ARK.,.Dec. 1, 1891.
" Hon. Nelson Case, President Labette Co. Historical Society-DEAR SIR: In response to your request for some facts relative to early history, I will contribute the following.
"I came to what is now Labette county on January 17, 1847, and established a trading-post at the point where Chetopa now stands. I came from Spring Place, Murray county, Georgia. The name of that place was spelled with an 'h' at the end - 'Chetopah,' and meant four houses ; 'Che' in the Osage Indian language is house, and 'topah' is four. Chetopah had a town, and lived on the Verdegree river, west. or northwest of Chetopa town. He was only chief of his town. Each town had a chief and there was a principal chief over all.
"I found five white, or partially white, families there when I arrived. They were the widow Tianna Rogers and family, consisting of four sons- and three daughters, all grown, living about one mile north of Chetopa ; William Blythe, whose wife was a white woman; Finchel Monroe, who had a white wife ; Daniel Hopkins, a white man with a Cherokee wife ; and a white man named Tucker, who had a Cherokee wife. These families lived near Chetopa, on the Neosho river, below where the town is at present. In 1848 I married Sarah Rogers, daughter of Tianna Rogers; we had born to us three sons and one daughter. Two of my sons, John and Albert, live in the Cherokee Nation, ten miles from Chetopa. The other two children are dead. Tianna Rogers and all the family are dead.
"John Mathews, a Kentuckian, who had married an Osage woman, lived and had a trading-post at the point where Oswego now stands. He had been there some years when I came; he had a farm of about. forty acres in cultivation on the prairie. He had a good house standing on top of the bluff in the edge of the prairie ; there was a spring near it, just north and east of the house. His house was a framed house, with two stone chimneys, the framing timbers hewn out ; it was boarded up on the outside with boards split or rived out of burr-oak trees, then shaved and smoothed, and the house sided up and painted white. It looked quite nice compared with our log houses. His house was plastered on the inside, done in workmanlike style. All of the rest of the people lived in log cabins. I do not know how long he came before I did- probably several years. He was a heavy trader, and wealthy. He had one negro woman with him who was a slave, till he was killed. He had fine blooded race stock, with race-tracks south and west of his house, and between his house and his cultivated land ; he had fast horses. He
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HISTORY OF LABETTE COUNTY.
would take trips to Missouri, Kentucky, Texas, and other States, racing, and was very successful. Mathews had a good many horses and cattle.
"Cattle lived without being fed, and did better in the winter than in summer, for in the summer the mosquitoes and green-headed flies nearly ate them up. In the fall the pea-vine, and in the winter a winter grass and flag that grew around the lakes, made a good range for stock. Where you now have good farms we then had large lakes on which immense numbers of geese, ducks, pelican, swan, brant, and other fowl. flourished. We never fed hogs, but the hickory and other nuts furnished food that kept them fat. There were plenty of wild turkey, fish, ante- lope, deer, and other game; also honey-bees, wolves, panthers and other wild animals to hunt for traffic, and wild horses could also be caught on the prairie.
"There was a good deal of sickness, principally fever and ague, and no doctor within twenty-two miles; everyone had to be his own doctor. The winter of 1848-9, and also that of 1849-50, were unusually cold and severe. In the latter the snow was thirty inches deep, crusted on top, and stayed on the ground about six weeks. These two winters stock suffered a good deal, but other winters were not so bad, although I am of the opinion they were colder than they are since the country has set- tled up.
"The settlers lived by hunting and trading with the Osages, and other tribes of wild Indians that roamed over the country. The Cherokees claimed and extended their laws to the mouth of the Labette creek, un- til the south line of Kansas was established. The Osages lived in towns, usually along the streams, with one chief to a town. One town, called Little Town, was situated where Oswego now stands. Pah-Che-Ka, one of the chiefs of the Osages, lived at Little Town. White Hair was the principal chief of the Osages, and lived on the Neosho river six miles south of Osage Mission, and down the river; this was the largest town in the Osage Nation at that time.
"The Labette creek took its name from a Frenchman of that name who then lived on the creek nearly west of where Oswego now stands. He had a full-blood Osage for a wife. It is said he once lived opposite the mouth of Labette creek ; if he did it was before Dr. Lisle or myself saw that country ; when I knew him he lived on the Labette, southwest of Oswego. He was a very common old Frenchman.
"There are many things of note that happened in an early day, and in the first settling of that country, that I could tell, that I cannot write.
Yours, LARKIN MCGHEE."
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EARLY HISTORY.
"CHETOPA, KANSAS, August 1, 1:92.
"Hon. Nelson Case, President of the Historical Society -DEAR JUDGE : In compliance with your request for a statement in reference to matters connected with my first visit to Labette county, and settlement therein, I herewith comply.
"About 1850 I met a man by the name of Wilfred Cox, on a steam- boat on the Ohio river, on his return from the West to his old home in Pennsylvania. He was a school teacher, and had taught in various places, and finally reached Council Grove, in this State; thence he came down to Osage Mission with stockmen, and from there in one way and another got down to the Ambrose McGhee place, near where Chetopa now stands. This was sometime probably in 1847 or '48. He built him a canoe in which he floated down the river to Van Buren; after teaching school there and at other points in Arkansas he started back home, and it was on this return trip that I saw him.
" He gave me a full account of the Neosho river and its scenery, de- scribing the valley from north of the Labette to the McGhee place; he said it was the finest valley he had ever seen. I made notes of what he said, took a full description of the country, and made a sketch of a map. On this information I decided to make a trip as soon as possible to this country. On March 20, 1857, in company with Abraham Ewers, George Ewers and Samuel Steel, I started from my home in Powhattan, Belmont county, Ohio, for the Neosho valley, at the point last spoken of by Cox. I came on a steamboat to St. Louis, and from there to Osage City, Mis- souri, by rail; at that point we bought two yoke of oxeu and drove through. We came by the Quapaw agency, where Major Dorn, the In- dian agent, was located, with whom I had a conversation, and arranged to meet him a short time thereafter at Osage Mission to act as his clerk in the payment to the Indians of the funds coming to them from the Government.
"We crossed the Neosho river at Rocky Ford on the State line on the evening of April 17, 1857; there we camped near the residence of James Childers, who was a white man, and who had married one of the Rogers girls; he lived on the west side of the river, in what is now a part of Cherokee county. The next day he came with us to the present site of Chetopa, where I decided to locate, and where we encamped. After arranging with those who came with me to proceed to getting out logs with which to build, I started for Osage Mission to meet Major Dorn. It was now near the last of April; I clerked for the Major during the dis- bursement to the Indians of their funds. During this time I attended a meeting of the council of the Osage chiefs, held at that place, at which
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