USA > Kansas > Sedgwick County > History of Wichita and Sedgwick County, Kansas, past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county, Vol. I > Part 14
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Levy was from Denver, had formerly been on the pay roll of the "Rocky Mountain News," and was considered a litterateur.
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Levy is now iu New City, connected with the insurance busi- ness. He was a member of the bar, was authority on "land titles," and if he had been forced to labor for a livelihood might have been a commercial lawyer and rendered valuable opinions of real- estate titles, but money came to him without effort, and his subsequent position as banker was the result of "natural gravitation."
In 1874 the Indians took the Southwest. Tip McClure, of Medicine Lodge, got one scalp, brought it to Wichita, and con- vulsed the country. Governor Osborn came to Wichita, and he and Levy "swung round the circle," and couriers sent after the governor struck a hot trail of "cough-syrup bottles" along the road, followed it up, and caught the majesty of the state. To those who knew Levy in the early day, he is the same individual. Though contact with yaller gold was said to harden and steel and steal the soul, its effect on Levy has been molecular. Levy was for years president of the school board and the Wichita National Bank, and his administrations were marked by prudence, economy and good schools. (If these two last sentences did not entitle me to a "line of credit" at Levy's bank, I shall rewrite them under the head of "errata," with corrections as to facts, not fancy-
" And send him down the alley of fame, Damned to everlasting shame.")
Levy's bank failed in 1894, and subsequently paid out in full. Levy and Colonel Lewis subsequently organized the State Savings Bank.
Levy, in early days, was the junior member of the firm of Steele & Levy, who were agents for the sale of the land grant lands of the A., T. & S. F. R. R. Co., and doing an abstract busi- ness where Sam Houck's hardware store now is. I remember one morning starting around to Levy's office to renew a note, and, to my surprise, the office was non est, it having been moved that morning before breakfast, across the street to the site subse- quently occupied by Tucker's restaurant, and now by the State Savings Bank.
That old office was to Wichita's political circles the "Hoffman House" of New York. National, state and county politics were discussed, local politics of the city were made there, and all things pertaining to the weal or woe of Douglas avenue were talked over.
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Greiffenstein, Sol Kohn and "Brother Maurice," N. A. English, Jim Steel and A. W. Oliver composed the cabinet that battled for Douglas avenue. The Occidental crowd was composed of Lank Moore, C. M. Garrison, Al Thomas, Hees and Getto, Hill and Kramer ; Munger, J. R. Mead, J. C. Fraker, and some lesser lights, with a strong second on Main street, between Douglas and First, in Commodore Woodman and Sam, father of Adrian Houck, and Amos Houck.
The United States land office was at the corner of Main and Second streets; J. C. Redfield, afterward justice of the peace, was receiver; C. A. Walker, afterward cashier of the Wichita National Bank, was chief clerk.
The land office was moved to the building where Henry Schad's harness shop was, on West Douglas avenue, now the American Express office, and great was the rejoicing among the Douglas avenue crowd.
The postoffice was on Douglas avenue, where Jesse McClees' hardware store now is, and the Occidental crowd secured its removal to the Occidental Hotel, and one morning Douglas ave- nue awoke to the fact that it had lost the postoffice. Great jollifi- cation at the north end. Douglas avenue assembled its chiefs at Steele & Levy's office and proclaimed war-war even to death. The air was pregnant with trouble. Gloom sat high-throned on each forehead. Vengeance was the only thought, and, meta- phorically, each man exclaimed :
"Blood shall manure the ground, And future ages groan for this foul act."
Soon afterwards the postmaster was removed and M. M. Mur- dock was appointed. He was editor of the "Eagle," and officed in the Eagle Block, over Wallenstein & Colin's store, now Boston Store, and all Douglas avenue went wild over the appointment. "Tears of joy chased each other down the cheek, froze ere they reached the ground, because it was discovered that the postmaster was neutral and intended to "split the difference" and settle at a half-way point on Main street, where Sam Tanner's book store now is. Murdock "kept the word of promise to our ear, but broke it to our hope."
Among the first men to discover that Douglas avenue was the maintrunk highway, and that all else was tributary, was old Doc
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Thayer, the proprietor of the "Gold Rooms," a bon-ton place to play faro and poker. Then Al Thomas bought the Bitting corner lot and moved to it the old building now on the corner east of Greenfield's clothing palace. Next Houck Bros. and J. P. Allen abandoned Main street; then the Douglas avenue toll bridge over the river was made free, and for a brief season North Main street threw up the sponge. There was many a scrimmage, first blood on one side, then on the other. Commodore Woodman ral- lied his clans and succeeded in building a bridge across the river at the east end of Central avenue, and this affront was not wiped out until Douglas avenue elected Jim Steele county commissioner, regardless of party ties, religious bias or personal likes or dislikes. Jim, pursuant to his implied promises, proceeded to tear down the Central avenue bridge "eye-sore" and distribute it to the various townships in the county, thereby restoring to Douglas avenue its natural trade and offsetting the rage of the north end by the solidification of the agricultural classes who obtained bridges without higher taxes. Jim practically paraphrased the great poet, and acted on the motto :
Let all the ends thou aim'st to be Douglas avenue's, they God's and Truth's.
It may not be inappropriate to state that much chicanery is enveloped in the husk of "low taxes," even as "naked villainy is clothed with old odd ends stolen from holy writ."
I recall to memory some particularly sulphurous hours, when the stars put out their fires and gloom o'er the avenue seemed to glower; when the opening flower of prosperity was frost-bitten in May; when all rage before exhibited by the Rob Roys of the south end was as a whistle in an autumn hailstorm compared to the blast that echoed from the bridge on the west to the Santa Fe on the east. Douglas avenue had donated the court room and county offices to the county (the second floor over the old Eagle Block, now Boston Store). One morning the avenue "awoke and found it a joke, as the offices were still a'fleeting," and were located in the south room of the ground floor of the Occidental. "The sweet milk of concord was poured into hell," and the infant cottonwood boughs breathed a deep-mouthed refrain :
Over the land, scatter white sand,
To drink up the blood which shall presently flow.
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But the First National Bank failed, owing the county a big deposit, and the county got the building at the corner of First and Main streets, and used same for court house many years. The star of empire again tended southward, and seeming peace reigned once more in the future city of the great Southwest. It is the opinion of the writer that if Sol Kohn, "Brother Maurice," Jim Steele and "Dutch Bill" had still resided in Wichita and continued in close business relations, and had assembled their cohorts, the present court house would not be where it now stands. Douglas avenue has not yet forgiven "Dutch Bill" for moving north of the avenue, and when Greiffenstein abandoned Douglas avenue it was as if a modern Coriolanus, in a fit of pique, had determined to scatter the ashes of his former triumphs and over- throw the temples which his genius had builded.
Prior to his going north, "Greiffenstein stock," like gold, dur- ing the war, was 285; subsequently it was as Confederate cur- rency after the "silent man on horseback" had received the sword of the mirror of Southern chivalry under the "famous apple tree."
The men who builded Douglas avenue may forgive this move north, but they will never forget it or restore Greiffenstein to the pedestal in their esteem from which he fell when he crossed the Wichita rubicon and linked his future to the north end of the town. The names Greiffenstein, Douglas avenue and Wichita will ever be linked together.
For fear that the writer may be thought too partial to "Dutch Bill," let it be chronicled that William rented me an office when I had no money, and I would not be thought ungrateful. (See Twelfth Night, iii and iv.)
CHAPTER II.
As I recall the bar when I came to Wichita-i. e., the massive brow, the heavy jaw and capacious maw that lived by the law- it was composed of Henry Clay Sluss and James L. Dyer, who officed on the second floor front in a building on the corner of Main and First streets, which afterwards was "foreclosed" on by Sol H. Kohn and torn down and rebuilt on Douglas avenue, two doors east of the old "Eagle" office, and then occupied by Steele & Levy as an office, now owned by Governor Stanley. Charles Hatton was then Sluss' assistant. Dyer was ill and not in his
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office very much. On the north of the building, near the Main street corner, was a painted sign, three by four feet, and on a white field in large black, black letters, appeared :
BALDWIN & STANLEY, Attorneys at Law.
My recollection is that Stanley occupied the first room to the left on entering the hall overlooking Main street. The first time I remember meeting Oak Davidson was at Stanley's office on the last day of March, 1874, and he and Stanley were putting up an April fool joke on Mrs. A. H. Gossard, of Kansas City, Mo., who was then Alice Davidson, and a sister of Oak's.
In Sluss & Dyer's office I first met Judge Campbell, then a resi- dent of El Dorado, and he was preparing an order for a special term of court, at which the great murder trial of Winner and McNutt was tried. Judge William Baldwin had an office, but I never knew where it was, unless it was adjoining the police judge's office, under the room afterward occupied by L. W. Clapp, and now by the Postal Telegraph Company, on First street. Albert Emerson was another legal mind. E. B. Jewett was probate judge and justice of the peace. Jacob M. Balderson was on Main street, second floor front of a two-story frame building, on the site of which is now standing the north of Walker Bros.' store. Old Bully Parsons was on the curbstone, and W. R. Kirkpatrick was over Houck Bros.' hardware store, in the building now occupied by Mueller, florist, on Main street. Judge S. W. Tucker and B. H. Fisher had an office on North Main street, second floor front, and I think the old Heller Building and 230 North Main street are on the same lot.
Moses Sampson Adams, of whom, even in the early days, Noble Prentis once said in Wichita, "What! 'Mose' Adams, of Leaven- worth ? He has been in Kansas a thousand years." Moses had an office on North Main street, near the corner of Second street, in a building on the lot now covered by the Getto building or Clement Block, owned by Ed Vail. Adams was a gentleman, of fair abil- ity, warm friendship, politically ambitious, and had some weak- ness which caused his fall; but to a young man, poor, green, friendless and obscure, he was "an oasis in a desert." He will ever be remembered by the writer as a kind-hearted gentleman
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who made him feel that patience and industry would bring fees and be crowned with final success.
George Salisbury, Albert Emerson and John Stanard were also here, and George Salisbury will have a more extended notice. M. W. Levy and James McCullough officed in Steele & Levy's offices, where Houck's hardware store is. Subsequently came Howett and Brewer, H. G. Ruggles, George H. English and H. C. Higginbotham. After this the deluge, whose names are legion, and space forbids naming all of them.
HENRY C. SLUSS.
Few men in the West have had the strong pull on public con- fidence enjoyed by Sluss since the date of his residence in Wichita to the present time.
His enemies have given him credit for his integrity, real ability and personal power; yet without that magnetism which always attends the footsteps and waits upon the fortunes of the tribunes of the many-headed multitude. He has been spoken of as one whose rind of austerity, when punctured, discloses that he has but little dignity, but his husk is not broken save to his personal friends and intimates. From the beginning of that time to which southwestern Kansas' memory runneth not to the contrary, Sluss has been the one man of the Southwestern empire whose fame has filled the mouths of the people. To what this is attributable, is a problem with two or three unknown quantities, and is not within the province of this reminiscence to solve. We state the simple fact. There are those who believe, others who affect to believe, that popularity is but evanescent; yet the fact remains that no other man has had such recognition of forty years of even such evanescent power among a people, and whether this power is real or fancied, cuts no figure on results. Like counter- feit greenbacks in Texas after the war, they passed readily and without discount because all men had 'em. (The public can have no interest in knowing what compensation I am to have from Sluss for this sketch, yet "I do expect return of three times the value of this bond.")
Tradition has it that Henry Clay Sluss came to Wichita by wagon, and at sunset reached College Hill, o'erlooking the coming giant, then in its swaddling clothes, and was so impressed with the sight that the gift of divination, by Hydromancy, was con-
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ferred on him, and it is said that he removed his dusty hat, wiped his "Bismarckian" brow, and exclaimed: "Thou art the realiza- tion of my sleeping fantasies, the extravaganza of my dreaming brains, rarest vintage, 'Nature and Fortune,' miraculous, peerless gem, have united in one homogeneous crystal to make thee great." He then turned to the teamster, with whom he was temporarily associating, his face pale as alabaster, the royal blood having in the momentary excitement abandoned his "graven front," and thus prophesied : "This royal infant, yet in its cradle, contains for Kansas a thousand blessings, which time shall bring to ripe- ness." In one hour more he had reached the "Buckhorn" Hotel, kept by Henry Vigus, near the banks of the Little river, at once announced himself a resident of Wichita, and in three days was an old settler.
Soon after, Sluss and M. M. Murdock formed the "David and Jonathan joint-stock company" which continued until Colonel Murdock was followed to his narrow, final home on the hillside overlooking the scenes of his mature manhood's ambitious strug- gles and labor, the situs of years of success and failure, triumphs and humiliations, and paid the last tribute that humanity can pay to a friend departed forever.
Sluss, in the Douglas avenue fights, was in a peculiar posi- tion, as he was the personal friend and attorney of the leaders of the north and south ends, but his conduct was satifactory to both sides, and he lost no friends by it.
It is not the purpose of these remarks to estimate any live or dead man, or to criticize character, but, as it may add a keener pang to Sluss in the hour of death to know that if I outlive him, an estimate of him will be published, and, like Cromwell's por- trait, I will "love the warts and wrinkles," as well as the noble forehead and lustrous eye. It is not the intention to write up the present or living men, but as Sluss had gone into a "cave" for five years when this was penned, he was made an exception.
CHAPTER III.
James L. Dyer, Sluss' partner, now judge of the City Court, when I first knew him, was supposed to be within a few months of death, but he was appointed receiver of the United States land office, and immediately gained a fair degree of health. Dyer, in
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the early day, was considered a metaphysical, technical, pro- foundly scholastic, keen lawyer; an authority on all legal ques- tions, and pre-eminently gifted in the knowledge of what did not constitute "usury." On the trial of a case one hot summer day, Dyer was once more confronted with the "irrepressible statutes" on usury. Judge Campbell, (afterward Dyer's partner), the nat- ural foe to "money-lenders," was on the bench, and he rode "Jim" for two hours, even as the fairy tales relate how witches ride brooms. Dyer's feeble physical condition at last succumbed in the struggle, and he was carried home. The action was con- tinued and later compromised. The real estate in controversy was the land known as Orme & Phillips' addition to Wichita. The debt sued for was $2,000, and the land is now worth $350,000.
Old "Bully Parsons" was a character Dickens would have delighted in. He could, in him, have embalmed for future ages a phase of attorneyship that is not recorded in history. Old Bully was suave-i. e., suaviter in modo. He was an embodiment of tranquilized, philosophical imperturbation. If possessed of emo- tions, he rarely disclosed them. The facts of the case (not the law) were his aim. If he had a case, and the papers were lost, no inquiry arose as to their whereabouts; a motion for substitution of papers was the remedy. He was distinguished by the outdoor practice of the law, and directed his mighty energies to the free instruction of witnesses in the art of how to state "a fact" so as to have the greatest weight. Sad as it may seem, he and Judge Campbell never won each other's respect, and on one occasion the judge offered to receive "Bully's" resignation as a member of the Wichita bar. Soon after this he left Wichita. He was indifferent concerning money matters, and was remembered after he left by many whom he had honored with his custom. He was about sixty-five years old, a splendid specimen of preserved humanity, white-headed, smooth face, blue eyes, frank in manner, and pos- sessed of a smile as childlike and bland as the heathen Chinee embalmed in immortal verse by Bret Harte. The only oratorical effort I ever heard of in connection with Bully was on one Fourth of July, during the cattle trade. He made the address to the American Eagle, and commenced :
"Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Texas Men." Whether this was a mere "break," a sarcasm, or a compliment, will never be known.
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CHAPTER IV.
Among the attorneys who herded with the contemporary pau- pers of A. D. 1874, yet was not of them, was one George Salisbury, who was descended from one Sylvester Salisbury, a soldier who died in 1680-whether B. C. or A. D., we do not know. At any rate, George reflected credit on his ancestor, and, had he remained in Wichita, he would be recognized not only as a lawyer, but also as an orator, if not as a private banker, as he was one to whom money came easy and stuck long. His dollars bred nickles as easily as a dead dog in August sun brings forth corruption. In his day he was the czar money-maker of the Arkansas valley. He was the realization of the "early-bird"-catching-the-worm theory. Gifted with untiring industry and a strong physical constitution, he was an engine that only needed a governor to keep it at its best work and on the track. He owned a two-story frame building situ- ated on the lot where Paul Eaton was, north of the corner of Main and Douglas; received $900 per year from the lower floor, had his office on the second floor, and lived in the back part.
Each day George arose with larks and bent his energies to earn money in the legal vineyard; each night when the sun sank to rest "like a ball of fire in the west," he was richer. It was said of him, though no doubt the allegation was the machination of his jealous competitors, that he never asked a client for money until one hour, or at the longest half a day, before a case was called for trial. This course caused the client to "hump himself" for money, when George whispered to him : "No money, no trial." It is said on one occasion a demand was made on a client, and the client, instead of getting money, got the ear of the court, Judge Campbell, and Campbell commanded George to go to the trial without a fee. George was formerly of the Lynchburg (Virginia) bar, a contemporary of John W. Daniel, author of "Daniel on Negotiable Instruments," and George always said "John's father wrote the book" and gave the name of it to "Jack" to help him along. George, in many well-contested cases, had wiped the earth with the said John W. Daniel.
George had learned in his youth, and had memorized, the old adage, "A timid man has no business in court"; hence he was a lion in his claims. The first time the writer called on George
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Salisbury in his office, he was sorting dictionaries. He had about fifty unabridged ones and one hundred or more school diction- aries, and stated that he got them as a fee from a book peddler. When he went away from home on business or pleasure, he ex- pected to do, and usually did do, enough extra business to pay expenses. On one occasion the writer was in Kansas City, and, hearing a voice enough like George to be a twin, stopped and ascertained that it was George. It seemed he went to Kansas City and, being delayed, attended police court and "plucked a goose" for expense money.
George had, for about one year, when pressed to trial, con- tinued his cases on the plea that his wife "was in the way women are who love their lords." Common humanity permitted the case to go over, but after about one year had passed, S. M. Tucker called for an investigation by the medical profession. Tucker was a parent and had experience, and in the interest of science he desired an examination and report to the court.
George had for a tenant under his office a grocer. He also was possessed of a brother-in-law, who was about twenty-five years old, and a dependent on George for support. This creature was an habitual loafer at the grocery and an omniverous gour- mandizer. He was not, however, like an ostrich, willing to tackle everything, but confined himself to fruits, nuts and candies, and was dead gone on gumdrops, and helped himself without stint on account of his relationship to the landlord. The grocer, as a mat- ter of protection, obtained some croton oil at a drug store and dosed a layer or two of gumdrops in the brother-in-law's usual. candy jar. The loafer soon came in, took out some drops, and by chance went upstairs and generously divided his candy with his sister, Mrs. Salisbury. If any member of the Salisbury family at that time was in need of physic, relief was at hand. The first thought was that the family was poisoned, but soon the facts were known, and the military figure of George, with a double-barreled shotgun was seen prowling up and down Main street looking for a grocer.
George's description, next day, of the agony of his family, after eating gumdrops, would have caused the "round-heads" to break ranks and lie down and roll over. The gumdrop fiend soon left the city. George removed to Colorado, became a cattle- raiser, was a candidate for supreme judge on the Greenback ticket, and in 1887 sold his lot, twenty by forty-five, on Main
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street, for $20,000, and said to the writer hereof that he cleared $17,000 on the property.
George's lungs were unimpaired. Though it was said on one occasion that he had his lungs tested after orating for four and one-half hours on a nineteen-dollar law suit, he was leather- lunged-equal, in fact, to a blacksmith's bellows; ponderous in "logick," fertile in imagination, and his exuberant fancy sup- plied all lapse in proof, and to all this were united an untiring industry and a capacity for "shekel-gathering" the like of which hath not been seen in Wichita since George's shadow ceased to fall on Main street.
George's greatest forensic effort was in behalf of the liberty of the late Judge Balderston. In fact, this effort was not only his greatest effort, but it was the nonpareil effort of southwestern Kansas, and for vigor, lung power, length, and deafening ap- plause, all of which were crowned with success, has never been surpassed.
Main street was electrified one day by the news that Judge Balderston was about to shoot Commodore Woodman. The judge was arrested and the prosecution was in the hands of Stanley and private counsel, Sluss and Dyer. The remaining members of the bar were for the defense. A council of war was held in H. G. Ruggles' office, in the basement of the old county building, corner Main and First street. Before the examination commenced, it was demonstrated that the justice's office was not large enough for even the defendant and his multitudinous counsel, and an adjournment was had to the old Eagle Hall. The house was crammed full; examination occupied all day, and the "genius licks"-i. e., oratory-was concluded after supper. Salisbury had argued something over two and a half hours, on a motion, and was awarded the main speech in argument. The effort lasted not less than five or more than seven hours. It was said the classical quotations and recitations from poetry consumed at least two hours, but the mob, the populace, the city was with him. He was cheered enough to breathe inspiration into a corpse, but he needed no inspiration. Dyer closed the argument, but the mob had already recorded a verdict of "not guilty," and the justice bowed not to the submission to the decree of the people, and the illustrious defendant was bound over and then discharged. The effort of George's was for years the standard of comparison on the questions of length, breadth and thickness.
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