History of Nemaha County, Kansas, Part 5

Author: Tennal, Ralph 1872-
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Lawrence, Kan., Standard Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 964

USA > Kansas > Nemaha County > History of Nemaha County, Kansas > Part 5

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).

"We saw many Mormons passing us on their way to the 'promised land.' In passing, the Mormons drained what we called Murphy lake, in the month of August, 1855. They were so hungry they drained the lake, caught and ate the fish. Forty in the party died. They were buried near the lake. Many of them had cholera. When they left the encampment they left behind them beds, wearing apparel and clothi- ing of all kinds scattered around. I saw clothing that was torn off the dead, three or four months after the Mormons left."

Of the children who arrived with Eli Williams, besides Mrs. Cox. three became fine Nemaha county citizens, of fifty years' and more standing: George, Boyd and Amon Williams.

Anton Wempe was the first store-keeper of Fidelity. He had a store there for several years, which he sold in 1892. The rural delivery put the Fidelity store out of business, as it did most of the solitary country stores. Fidelity church, however, was much older. Fidelity had a small church building back as far as 1866 to 1868. There was no resident priest for many years, a priest serving from Atchison, who just came occasionally, when weather or conditions generally, permitted. . In about 1893 the present, handsome Fidelity Church was built. From time to time it has been added to and improved, until now it is quite the handsomest of country churches nearby.

The father of the Wempe family, Hermann Henry Wempe, came to Nemaha county in 1858 to locate. They came by way of Atchison. While there a pickpocket robbed Mr. Wempe, senior, of his pocketbook and money. He continued to Seneca, however, and picked out a farm. on which he located. He brought his family out here in 1861. A few

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

days after they were settled he suddenly died ; that was the fifth of July, 1861. In the settlement of the estate Anton Wempe bought the shares of the other brothers and sisters in the homestead farm, and lived on it for many years. His youngest daughter has recently taken the veil at Mt. St. Scholastica in Atchison and is known as Sister Mary Mau- russ. A son is in C. C. K. Scoville's bank in Seneca.

CHAPTER VI.

- -

INDIAN HISTORY.

TRADITIONS OF GREAT DAKOTAHS-TREATY OF 1806-BELIEVED IN A "GREAT SPIRIT"-TREATY WITH THE GOVERNMENT-CEDED LANDS- POTTAWATOMIES-AUNT LIZZA ROUBIDOUX BARRADA-PAWNEE BUR- IAL GROUND-CHARACTERISTICS-VANISHED RACE-TREASURE RELIC -AN INDIAN TRAGEDY-NO RESIDENT INDIANS-A MODERN INCI- DENT-AN INDIAN BURIAL-MODERN CONDITIONS-RESERVATIONS- SOLDIERS PENSIONED.

By Alice Gray Williams.

Whom the Indians delight to call, "Soniskee," meaning "Our Good Red Mother."

The old Indian tribes had no written history. Their history was passed from father to son. From some of the oldest Indians now living I have gained the knowledge of Indian tradition, customs and life.

It is said by these Indians, and history bears them out in their state- ments, that the first Indians of Kansas were a part of the Great Dakotah Tribe, and that they came here with the great bands of Indians who mi- grated from the north of the Great Lakes. They wandered around for many years and finally settled on the Missouri river and its tributaries. They were called the Kanzas or Kaw Indians and the Osages. The Kanzas had as their territory the land from Nebraska on the north to Arkansas on the south and all west of the Missouri river. The Osages were to have Missouri and all the land along the Missouri and that along the Osage river, and part of their hunting grounds extended into Kansas.

For many years they dwelt in this manner, but they were unfriendly. Fair maidens were stolen from tribe to tribe, as they were not allowed peaceful marriage, and this alone caused endless trouble.

They spoke the same tongue, and their tribal affairs were managed in the same manner.

In 1806 our Government helped them to make a peace treaty with each other which each tribe kept sacred, and then they combined forces against the hated Pawnees and the whites, who were intruding on their hunting grounds. Their depredations became so numerous and so

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

serious that the Government called a Council near the present site of Atchison on an Island called Ise Au Vache, or Buffalo Island. This council was a great affair. It is said that there were some 150 Kanzan and thirteen Osages there, representing their powerful and mighty tribes. Officers of the garrison were present. The Council was closed. Peace prevailed and the peace pipe filled with Kln-ni-ki-nick was smoked and the Indians kept their promises, and no depredations were ever commit- ted by them. These Indians believed in the Great Spirit, or Waconda, and they believed in life beyond the grave. They were honorable in their family life and were kind to their squaws and children. Let me say right here, an Indian never strikes his child. No whipping is allowed in their homes or schools. The women managed the household affairs and did the work, but be it said in the old time Indian life the squaws did the "bossing" around the wigwams, but had no voice in the affairs pertaining to the warpath, or to the lands, or their tribes. The first treaty between the United States and these tribes was made in 1815. In this treaty the past was blotted out and forgiven and these tribes recognized our Government and pledged their loyalty to it.

In 1825 the United States Government treated with them for the cession of their lands in Kansas and Missouri. In this treaty they ceded all of the lands in eastern Kansas: "Beginning where the Kansas River empties into the Missouri to the northwest corner of Missouri, thence to the Nodaway River, thirty miles from its entrance into the Missouri River; from there to the entrance of the Nemaha River into the Mis- souri to its source, which took in the present county of Nemaha. From here to the source of the Kansas River, then on to the ridge dividing the Kansas River from the Arkansas, and on to the west border of the Mis- souri and with that line thirty miles to the place of beginning."

The United States agreed to pay them $3,500 per year for twenty years, either in money or merchandise. In addition they were to fur- nish the cattle and hogs and farm implements, a farmer and a black- smith. Thirty-six sections of land on the Big Blue were to be sold and the money from that sale was to be kept for the use of their schools.

In 1846 the Kanzas and their neighboring tribes ceded all their lands to the United States Government.

From this time on they began to deteriorate. They were moved to Oklahoma and the climate did not agree with them there. I am told by the oldest Indians now living that there are now but a few poverty stricken ones left, of this once wealthy and powerful tribe, from which the fair State of Kansas derived its beautiful Indian name. Kansas in the Indian tongue means "Smoky."

At this time the Pottawatomie Indians had no home so the United States gave them this land of the Kanzas for their homes. It contained 576,000 acres.

The Pottawatomie Indians were in possession when our forefathers came here. They were peaceful Indians and their lands were the hunt-

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

ing and play grounds for the mighty southwestern tribes. Buffalo and deer were plentiful and the prairie was covered with rich grass.

These tribes were what was known as the "Horse Indians" because they had ponies. Many tribes had no horses at that time.

"Chama," meaning "grandma" in the Indian tongue, told me lier mother said that a day's ride west from the Missouri river, there were once some Ground Indians, who lived in holes dug-deep down and that they covered them over with poles and skins and that when these Indians left or were driven west that the covering dropped in, and so made the holes we call buffalo wallows.

Aunt Lizza Roubidoux Barrada, a great-granddaughter of Joseph Roubidoux, the founder of St. Joseph, says that when she was a girl and when Chama was a girl that the Pawnees came here a day's ride to the west of her home at the mouth of the Great Nemaha, and stayed and lived for several years, and fought the Iowas. She says the Iowas whipped them so completely, that they went away and never came to fight the Iowas again. A Pawnee burial ground is still pointed out to the visitor on the Iowa Reservation, on the Great Nemaha River. Skulls and arrow heads are found there to this day. Chama says that Iowas said the number of Pawnees were like the leaves upon the trees. The Pottawatomies were allotted and some of them took land of their own and some went to Oklahoma. Some went to a reservation in Jackson county, Kansas, where many of them still reside. G. W. Williams, who is one of the oldest settlers of this vicinity, says when he was a small lad many Indian tribes passed through Nemaha county visiting other tribes. Hundreds at a time could be seen winding along the trails, along the creeks. Sometimes there would be a bunch go into camp and hunt and fish and then, like the Arabs of old, would "Silently fold their tents and steal away." They were a silent people. Sometimes they would sing and dance their war dances to amuse the boys and girls who would call upon them.

The Indian is a very matter-of-fact person and does not often joke, yet sometimes he will play a little joke. I give a few of their jokes be- low :

"One lone Indian came to a house near Oneida and posed as a Big Medicine Man. The head of the family with whom he stayed had very sore eyes. The Medicine Man treated them all winter and suddenly left in the spring. The patient could see much better so he took the medicine to a doctor to be analyzed and the doctor found the stuff to be just plain water.

"An old Indian came to a settler's home almost naked. The children hunted up some old clothes and dressed him up and then the old fellow, who, it was thought, did not know one word in English, strutted around and said, 'Me heap big white man now,' and disappeared. He perhaps had been educated at some Mission school.

"Another time the Indians were eating when the white folks came (5)

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

and sat down with them to eat. They had beef for dinner, and some mutton roasted. One young fellow said : 'What kind of meat is this ?' The Indian at the head of the table said: 'Bow wow,' and the white man was puzzled, but it was just a joke pulled of by poor Lo.

"A white man and an Indian went hunting. The white man shot a deer, the Indian a turkey. The white man was tired and said, 'Oh, dear me.' The Indian promptly said, 'Oh, turkey me.' The Indian boasted of his turkey, thinking the white man boasted of his deer."

The games played by them on the ground where Oneida now stands were Indian ball and squaw ball for the women and girls. They meas- ured their strength with these games, each tribe always trying to be the winner. An Indian treasures his ball bat as he does his gun or bow and arrow, and always takes it with him on any visit he makes to other tribes.

But the old Indian has passed away and only the young progressive Indian is to be found here now. They are quietly living on their reser- vations.

There has been much written about the Indian. No nation has had so much written about them. They were so strangely picturesque. Their dress was beautiful, and their handiwork very primitive, yet so grand. They are a vanishing race, but their memory will be forever per- petuated in the names which have been given to our towns, counties, States, mountains, rivers and lakes. Though we have never had a reser- vation located here since we have had a county, yet Oneida, Nemaha county, Kansas, sounds sweet to us, and it is all Indian.

The Indians in Nemaha county were merely annoying. No one has ever told of trouble from them with but one or two brilliant exceptions. An occasional connection with Indian troubles came to Sabethans, how- ever. Joseph Prentice, a Sabetha farmer, unearthed a treasure a few years ago, resulting from an Indian raid of early times. The Indian trouble occurred in Nebraska. Prentice was an early day merchant. In the course of trades he came into possession of a Nebraska farm where the raid occurred. A story has been current for years, that when the In- dians attacked a party of emigrants on the way to fortune in the far West, a man named Wilcox buried a can of money on the farm. His brother searched the ground over for the money upon the death of the man who was wounded in the Indian fight. The farm, as a farming pro- position, had not been considered of much worth. But one day Joe Pren- tice determined to get something out of his trade if it took deep plow- ing and he plowed his ground deep. On a rather steep incline near the house he plowed up a rusty apple or tomato can. It was found to have $2,136.50 in silver and gold. Joseph Prentice said that the real lesson in this, is that "any farmer will turn up money if he plows deep."

Nemaha county was connected with a real Indian tragedy, although our own Nemaha county Indians did not commit the crimes. It was the Cheyennes who attacked Nemaha county travelers when they were

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

traveling to Colorado overland, in August, 1874 .. John German with his five daughters and one son, were in Chautauqua county traveling in their covered wagon to Colorado hoping to benefit the health of Cathar- ine. Catharine and the brother were driving the cows some distance in the rear of the wagon. As they came over a hill they saw the wagon at- tacked by the Indians, the father, mother and one sister were killed be- fore the horrified eyes of the boy and girl. The Indians saw them and killed the boy. Four sisters, Julia, Sophia, Adelaide and Catharine, were then carried by the Indians four days. with but one stop for food. Dur- ing their travels they passed a soldiers camp. Once two of the girls were left behind with two Indians and when the latter overtook the main band Adelaide and Julia were not with them. The older sisters thought they had been killed. But the Indians had simply abandoned them on the prairie to starve. Adelaide and Julia wandered over the prairie until they came to the soldiers' camp where they found an old blanket, corn and crackers, and for six weeks the little things lived on these abandoned scraps, with hackberries which grew plentifully and the clear spring water at hand. Later when the little round-eyed girls at- tended school at Sabetha, their playmates hung on every word of this ex- perience as they told it again and again. One night they awoke to find themselves covered with leaves. Doubtless some animal, already satis- fied as to appetite, covered the little girls for future use as he hoped. Finally they were discovered by soldiers, and were so dirty that the men would not believe they were white. The men wept when the tots told of their sufferings. Meantime Catharine and Sophia had been separated. the former accompanying the Cheyennes into New Mexico and Sophia going to Colorado with a band of Arapahoes. By the time Catharine reached the Texas border, she had lost track of time, and hope of recov- ery. But when she met Chief Stonecalf in Texas her hope revived for the great chief was grieved at the attack on her people. "I will try to take you home to your people," he said, "but it will take long, long." And he did. Not long afterward they began to move eastward. But it did take "long, long." The snow was on the ground. Many braves died of hunger. One night when they reached a canyon with good water and plenty of wood, Indians from other bands came straggling in and with them, to her happiness, came Sophia. In some way Sophia had heard of the rescue of the little sisters, and that General Miles was searching for the two older ones. Although the girls were not allowed to be together they were kept in the same camp. And a few days later Chief Stonecalf told them that the Indians had decided to give themselves up to the white chief and take the little girls back. When they reached General Miles' camp the Indians were lined up and the girls pointd out which ones were in the original band that killed their parents, brother and sis- ter. These Indians were sent to St. Augustine, Fla. General Miles took the guardianship of the girls for two years, when they were taken first to Lawrence and later to Leavenworth. In Leavenworth, Pat Corney

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

became their guardian, and a few years later Catherine married Amos Swerdfeger, a brother of Mrs. Corney. They removed to Granada town- ship, Nemaha county, and later to Sabetha, where the younger girls were graduated from the Sabetha schools. Mrs. Swerdfeger says, "When we reached the soldiers' camp all the soldiers were lined up and cheered us. I still feel a lump in my throat when I think of it. I thought I had never seen such white people, they looked as white as snow. My being so accustomed to red people was why they looked so white and pretty." Mrs. Swerdfeger lives in California now. Julia is Mrs. Brooks, also of California; Mrs. Frank Andrews lives in Berwick, Nemaha county, and Mrs. Albert Feldman, near the Nemaha county line in Richardson county, Nebraska. They are Adelaide and Sophia.

Nemaha county never had any resident Indians. The Kickapoos on one side of the county are in Brown county, the Sac and Fox tribes have always been in Jackson county. It is possible that the twenty miles on either side of the Nemeha river, having been exempted from Indian claim, resulted in the Indians never taking up a residence in the county, for the Nemaha runs north and south near the center of the county, which is forty miles wide. But the Indians have always made frequent and invariably friendly calls on their white Nemaha neighbors. The lat- est call happened within a few months of this writing and is an interest- ing illustration of the Indians' acceptation of modern conditions and his endurance of the primitive at one and the same time.

Lucette Goslin, the little six-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Goslin, of the Indian reservation located in Jackson county, was brought to the Sabetha hospital by her mother. The child had been swinging, while she had in her mouth a small wheel from a toy train of cars. The wheel became lodged in her windpipe and she was taken to the Sabetha hospital for its removal, under the modern, advanced surgical conditions and surroundings suitable for her surest recovery. Mean- time Mrs. Goslin, the mother took a room at a hotel. During the night she gave birth to a baby. The next morning she got up, wrapped the new little papoose in approved Indian fashion, visited her little daugh- ter at the hospital and returned to her reservation, with the new mem- ber of her family. But the little girl remained at the hospital a week longer to recover from her throat trouble.

The Indians in northeastern Kansas were generally peaceful and friendly. It is recalled that sixty years ago a son of Tohe, an Iowa chief, whose reservation is still at White Cloud in Doniphan county, was buried with honors, and many white friends attended to mourn with the Indian brothers the loss of "a good Indian." He was buried in a sitting posture on the surface of the ground upon the top of a high hill, with his face to the setting sun and bows and arrows, a war club and a pipe near him, to cheer and protect him on the Long Journey. His pony was shot and buried beside him. They were covered over with a mound of earth, a white flag raised and charms placed around the mound. Doni-

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

phan county is filled with such mounds and is a veritable mine for In- dian collectors. But not one such Indian mound is known to exist in Nemaha county.

Today it is an annual event for Nemalia county people to press the self starter of their automobiles and spin over to the Kickapoo Indian reservations for the powwow of the Indians. Each year the powwow becomes more and more like American events. The best baseball games of northeastern Kansas are played on these occasions by picked Indian college boys who attend school at Carlisle or Haskell and whose parents live on the reservation. The "Squaw ball" and Indian ball games, how- ever, remain very interesting events, and old and young Indians from six years to sixty enter both games.

But so late as 1884 it was more than a couple of hours' run over to the reservation. C. H. Isely, of Spring Grove, tells of a trip made to the reservation from his farm near Sabetha in the month of August of that date. The drive part way was even then across the open prairie, through unfenced lands, which now are worth from $100 to $200 an acre. The care and conduct of the Indians were criticised by Mr. Iseley at that time, a condition which is vastly improved now, except for the fact that the worst road in northeastern Kansas runs through the Government lands on the reservation. It is said it is the only section of the State without a road drag. The farms of the Indians themselves, however, were well kept in 1884, and are today.

About this time Congressman Morrill endeavored to get a bill through Congress removing the Kickapoos from Brown county to Wis- consin. It failed. Occasionally the matter is brought up for discussion but nothing done. The Indians are peaceable, well behaved neighbors, as industrious as many of their white friends, and people generally see no reason why they should be taken from the home of their fathers and placed elsewhere.

The first pensioning of soldiers of the State militia emanated from this district through Congressman Morrill. Mr. Morill asked to have three soldiers pensioned who lost their legs through freezing when called out by Governor Osborne to quell an Indian uprising in the southwest- ern part of the State in 1873. He finally secured fifty dollars a month for the three men, establishing a precedent that it was the regular sol- dier's duty to enter such fights and that if State soldiers were injured they should be rewarded.

CHAPTER VII.

TRANSPORTATION.

EARLY DAY METHODS-THE OX TEAM-EARLY TRAILS-ADVANCEMENT SLOW-RAILROAD "TALK"-BONDS VOTED-ST. JOSEPH AND DENVER -ST. JOSEPH AND GRAND ISLAND-ROCK ISLAND-MISSOURI PACIFIC BRANCHES-HOW THE RAILROADS AFFECTED TOWNS-"RAILROADS ON PAPER"-AUTOMOBILES-ST. JOSEPH AND GRAND ISLAND THE PIONEER RAILROAD-A TRADING POST-FREIGHTING-FERRY ON THE BIG BLUE-GOVERNMENT LAYS OUT A MILITARY ROAD-CALIFORNIA EMIGRATION-STAGE LINES-MARYSVILLE, PALMETTO AND ROSEPORT RAILROAD-OTHER RAILROAD COMPANIES. -

Driving from her home in Nemaha county to St. Joseph over the smooth dragged roads in her high power motor car in October, 1915, a Nemaha county woman, who barefooted had herded cattle and sheep on her father's farm in pioneer days, recalled the mode of travel to St. Joseph at that time. She was rushing along at thirty miles an hour, secure in the knowledge that within three hours she would reach her destination with time for rest and lunch before listening to the Boston Symphony orchestra, which, by a special car, had come to the western city to give a concert.

"When I was a little girl," she said, "we took three days to make this trip by ox team. Father and one of the big boys always went, and usually they tucked one of us little girls in for the pleasure of the trip. With our yoke of oxen we started across the prairie, paying no atten- tion to roads, merely going in the general right direction by the short- est cuts. If we came to an obstacle, we simply drove around it. The oxen made about two miles an hour, sometimes two and a half, but rarely that. It took us three days to go. We camped by the road at night, and, of course, took plenty of food to keep us going and coming. as it was doubtful where we would find food to spare en route. A night's rest and the day spent in buying dry goods and the necessary things to keep us the balance of the year, and we started from St. Jos- eph on our return trip. And now here I am spinning over the same road in an automobile at thirty miles an hour. The railroad train, which we then thought beyond our dreams of acquisition in our

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

wooded, hilly country, is now too slow, and we would rather stay at home than take the boresome ride of three hours by train."

The ox team was the general mode of travel in the early days. Many a Nemaha county family recalls traveling from Ohio, Illinois, even Pennsylvania, by ox or mule team. White Cloud in Doniphan county, sixty or seventy miles away, was an Indian mission. Food, clothing and furniture and necessities were taken to White Cloud on the old Missouri river side-wheeled steamboats. One Nemaha county woman recalls that her mother needed more furniture to comfortably accomodate her growing family. With mule team they started out with two children and wagons to drive to White Cloud, over hill, valley, prairie and unbridged stream, to bring home the needed furnishings. The trip was an event, and the furniture was safely brought back to the delight of the waiting children at home.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Nemaha County, Kansas, Part 5

Author: Tennal, Ralph 1872- Publication date: 1916 Publisher: Lawrence, Kan., Standard Publishing Company Number of Pages: 964

Author: Tennal, Ralph 1872-
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Lawrence, Kan., Standard Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 964