USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its people, Vol. I > Part 11
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Few of the leaders among the Wyandots reached an advanced age. Silas Armstrong was not quite fifty-six when he died; George I. Clark was fifty-six : Matthew Walker, only abont fifty, and William Walker, his brother was not over sixty-five at his death. John Sarahass and Matthew Mudeater were not over seventy. Next to Splitlog in age was Tanroomec, or John Hat, who was between seventy and eighty.
The leading chiefs of the Wyandots, from the time they settled in 1843, until they became citizens in 1855, were Frances A. Hieks and Tau- roomee. James Bigtree, James Washington, Sarahass, George Arm- strong, John Gibson, John W. Gray-Eyes, Henry Jacques, William Walker, Silas Armstrong, George I. Clark, Matthew Mudeater and George I. Clark. The first United States agent to the Wyandots, in Kansas, was Major Phillips, of Columbus, Ohio; interpreters, John M. Armstrong and George I. Clark. The second United States agent was Dr. Richard M. Hewitt ; the third and last, exclusively for the Wyandots Major Moseley. William Walker and Silas Armstrong were interpre- ters from 1849 to the elose of the agency.
The first wedding in Kansas was that of Abelard Guthrie and Qnindaro Nancy Brown. It took place in the cabin of George I. Clark, near what is now Third street and Armstrong avenne, early in the year 1844. Abelard Guthrie was a white man of education and refinement
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who had come west from Ohio with the Wyandots. lle was one of the founders of the town of Quindaro, which was named for his wife. She was a Wyandot of the Big Turtle elan, her Indian name being "Seh Quindaro," which has been translated to mean "Daughter of the Sun." She had an infusion of white blood, and the story of her ancestry is one of the most romantic in the history of the North American Indians.
The marriage of Hiram M. Northrup to Miss Margaret Clark was celebrated at the Methodist Episcopal parsonage November 27, 1845, by the Rev. James Wheeler, missionary to the Wyandots. The bride was a daughter of Thomas Clark, and, by marriage, Mr. Northrup became an adopted member of the Wyandots. He had come out from Ohio and had been living on the Missouri side, engaged in banking and merchandising with Joseph S. Chick. After the marriage he ereeted a log cabin near the present intersection of Eighth street and Minnesota avenne. It was there the young couple went to housekeeping, and it was there they lived during the remainder of their lives, though the old log house soon gave place to a more substantial residence. Mr. Northrup was a trusted friend and counselor of the Wyandots and made freqnent trips to Wash- ington in their interests. He was a banker in Kansas City. Kansas, up to the time of his death in the spring of 1893.
The certificate of the Northrup-Clark marriage was recorded at Leavenworth. The first marriage certificate entered on the record after Wyandotte county was organized was that of John Thrasher and Anna Berering. The ceremony was preformed by Byron .Judd, justice of the peace.
ROMANCES OF OLD WYANDOT FAMILIES.
Into the history of some of the old families of the Wyandots is woven many strange Indian romances of the early settlement of America, and the pages are filled with tales of deeds of daring.
When a young man Robert Armstrong, father of Chief Silas Arm- strong, and the cultured edneator, John Armstrong, was taken tempo- rarily into the family of a man who had no children of his own. One day he was captured by the Indians. Ile is said to have been a hand- some youth and, although he was made to run the gauntlet, his captors applied the lashes very lightly. He was adopted into the tribe in full fellowship and married Sallie Zane, whose father was English and whose mother was French; and from this union descended the Armstrongs.
Quindaro Nancy Brown, who married Abelard Guthrie and for whom the old town of Quindaro was named, was born of parents whose history was filled with romance. William Elsey Connelley, the histor- ian, in an address on "The Emigrant Indian Tribes of Wyandotte County," before the high school pupils in Kansas City, Kansas, in November, 1901, thus told the story of the Brown family, and also gave an insight into other old Wyandot families.
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"Adam Brown was captured in Virginia by the Wyandots when a child; he was adopted and brought up by them. When grown, he married a Wyandot woman, by whom he had a large family, became a chief of the tribe and was a man of great influence with his people. His son, Mrs. Guthrie's father, married a Shawnee girl, who had a romantie ancestry. Abont 1760, a Jewish lad was arrested in London charged with clipping coins. It is certain that he was not guilty of the charge, for he was taken before one of those courts in the interest of those engaged in stealing and kidnapping British subjects and selling them into slavery in the American colonies. Samuel Sanders (that was the lad's name) was convieted and sent to Virginia and sotd into slavery. He broke away from his bondage and fled to North Carolina; there he became acquainted with Daniel Boone and accompanied him on a journey to Kentucky. Here he was captured by the Shawnee Indians, carried to the Scioto towns and adopted by the captors. He married a Shawnee woman; their daughter married the younger Adam Brown, and became the mother of Mrs. Guthrie.
"Among the most romantie incidents in all Ameriea we can class the ancestry of the Walker family, perhaps the most honored in all the modern history of the Wyandots. William Walker, Sr., was captured in Virginia when a child by the Delawares, sometime about the period of Dunmore's war. He was carried to the Delaware towns on Mad river, in Ohio, and adopted into the tribe. He chanced to go with some members of the tribe to Detroit, to visit the British commander of that post. Here he met Adam Brown, who had known his family in Virginia. Brown desired to get possession of him to bring him up in his own home, for their families had been friends. But young Walker was now a member of the Dela- ware tribe, and there was no law by which he could be changed from one tribe to another. The Wyandot chiefs proposed that their nephews, the Delawares, let the young man come and live with his uncles, the Wyandots, and the commander of the post would give the Delawares presents from the king's storehouse. This arrangement was agreed to, and young Walker became an adopted Wyandot. He lived in the house of Adam Brown until his marriage. His wife was a young
Wyandot girl of great ability and of fair education. And her ancestry was as romantic and strange as any ever described in tale or story. At the massacre of Wyoming, in the War of the Revolution, Queen Esther, an Indian woman descended from Madam Montour, took some twenty of the captured soldiers and settlers to a point some distance from the battle field. There she placed them around a large boulder, now known as 'bloody rock.' She then took a tomahawk and began to chant a death-song as she passed slowly around the helpless prisoners ; when she had completed the circle, she slew a captive. This was repeated untit every prisoner, except one who escaped, was slain by her hand. She had lost a son in a battle with the Americans the day before, and this was her revenge. Her daughter was then married to a young Irishman, James Rankin, who was born in Tyrone. Her name was Mary, and she was a devout Catholic and a woman of remarkable intellectual powers, in whose nature and characteristics the traits of her French ancestors predominated, in this respect being very different from her mother. She retained the name of her French family, and was married as Mary Montour. James Rankin was long in the service of the Ihudson Bay Company, and amassed a considerable fortnne.
"The young man, William Walker, who grew up in the house of Adam Brown, took to wife Catherine Rankin, the daughter of James and Mary Montour Rankin. £ Miss Rankin had been carefully educated in the best schools to be found in Pennsylvania, and she taught her husband to read both French and English. He pursued these studies until he obtained a fair education. He became a partisan of the Americans in the War of 1812, and about half the Wyandot nation followed him and Brown. The other half fought for the British.
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Among the children of William Walker by this marriage were Governor William Walker, Matthew R. Walker, Joel Walker and the wife of Charles B. Garrett.
"James Rankin, the brother of Catherine Rankin Walker, was in the service of Aaron Burr and Blennerhasset for years. Ile was sent to the Chickasaws and Choctaws to enlist them in ambitious schemes for a Western Empire; he labored among them six years, and was completely successful. He often said that if Burr had done his part, the whole scheme would have succeeded.
"And while I am speaking of romantic things connected with the Wyandots, I will mention the Zane family. The founder of this family came to America with William Penn, was one of the founders of Philadelphia, and one of the streets of the town still bears his name. One of his sons settled on the south branch of the Potomac, and had a large family. The Wyandots pushed even to these parts in their predatory forays, in one of which they carried away young Isaac Zane, took him to their towns and adopted him, and when grown gave him a Wyandot woman to wife. The Zanes of Wyandotte county are descended from him. His brothers founded Wheeling, West Virginia, and Zanesville, Ohio. His sister, Miss Elizabeth Zane, immortalized herself in the seige of Wheeling, in the old Indian wars."
THE HEROISM OF ELIZABETHI ZANE.
The incident that placed the name of Elizabeth Zane among those of the world's heroines occurred in 1774, two years before the Deelara- tion of Independence was signed. A company of immigrants located on the Ohio river near the site of the present city of Wheeling, West Virginia. They built their log houses around a block house which served as a fort in which to take refuge when attacked by the Indians. It was called Fort Henry. 'Three years later they fled to the block house for safety, being attacked by a band of Indians. The siege lasted for several days, the settlers making a brave stand against a foe far superior in numbers. Finally the settlers' firing grew less. The Indians divined the cause, for they had been waiting for the settlers' supply of powder to give out. They became bolder and erept closer and closer towards the block house.
Suddenly Colonel Zane remembered that in his log house, two hun- dred yards distance, was a keg of powder. But who should go and fetch it ? Volunteers were called for. The response was like that at Santiago, more than one hundred years afterwards, when every man in Sampson's fleet volunteered to ride the Merrimac into the harbor to block it. Every settler in the block house volunteered. While thes were parleying, Elizabeth Zane slipped out from among the women and girls who had been casting bullets and loading guns for their husbands and fathers, and said : "No, you shall not go. Every man here has a wife and family dependent on him. I will fetch the powder. If I fail, your defense will not be weakened as it would be if you lost a man."
The men protested, but the young girl only became more determined in her resolve to brave the fire and the tomahawks of the Indians. She
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bounded out of the block house and ran swiftly to her brother's house, while the settlers imprisoned in the fort prayed for her safe return. Soon they saw her leave the hut, carrying the can of precious powder. It was heavy, but her strong arms bore it up and she made all possible speed baek to the fort. The Indians did not realize the meaning of her mission until she had almost reached the fort. Then with a wild yell they sent a volley of bullets after her. They whizzed past her head and some of them touched her clothing, but she pressed into the fort without receiving a single wound. And thus it was Elizabeth Zane who saved the day for the fort.
Now, one hundred and thirty-seven years after, the great-great- granddaughters of Colonel Isaae Zane-the three Conley sisters of Kansas City, Kansas -- are showing the same characteristics found then in Elizabeth Zane, by guarding the graves of their Indian ancestors in Huron Place Cemetery to prevent the despoilation of that sacred spot.
CAPTAIN PIPE.
Another romantie incident in relation to a Wyandot family is re lated by Mr. Connelley. "During the Revolution, Hopoca, or Captain Pipe, was chief of the Delawares. Ile was a brave and warlike man, and endowed with a fine mind. The histories of Ohio and the works of Heckewelder are full of references to him. He lived with his people, the Wyandots, on the plains of Sandusky. The Delawares here con- ceded the leadership and management of Indian affairs to the Wyandots, then under the rule of the great Sar-star-ra-tse, known in history as the Half King.
"The Christian Indians at Gnadenhutten were all Delawares, and were murdered in cold blood, men, women and children, by a band of Pennsylvanians under command of one Williamson. The government of the United States desired to drive the Wyandots from Upper San- dusky, for they were strongly in sympathy with the British, and an expedition, under command of Colonel Crawford, was sent against the Wyandot towns. Now the Delawares believed that Crawford had commanded the expedition that murdered the Moravians at Gnadenhut- ten, which was wholly wrong, as he had had nothing whatever to do with that horrible deed of blood. The campaign against Sandusky was a complete failure, and ended in disaster and ront. Colonel Crawford was captured, and Captain Pipe burned him at the stake in revenge for the murder of his Moravian brethren.
"Captain Pipe had a son who was also called Captain Pipe, and who married a Wyandot woman. From this union resulted the Pipe family in the Wyandot tribe. A little boy was captured by the Wyan- dots in one of their expeditions against the Cherokees, and, from the cir- eumstances of his capture, named Mudeater. When he grew up, he
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married a Wyandot woman and founded the Mndeater family of the Wyandots. One of the oldest and most honored families in Wyandotte county, that of the late Frank H. Betton, comes from the union of the Pipe and Mudeater families of the Wyandots."
All of the incidents relating to these old Wyandot families written by Mr. Connelley are found in his "Provisional Government of Nebraska Territory."
CHAPTER VIII.
WYANDOTS BECOME CITIZENS.
BURIAL PLACE OF THIE WYANDOTS-REMINISCENCES OF THE EARLY DAYS-(MRS. LUCY B. ARMSTRONG).
The Wyandots at last came to the parting of the ways. They had improved their lands, established themselves in permanent houses, erected a church and a school, organized societies, instituted trade rela- tions with their neighbors and had established a system of civil govern- ment. Now they were ready to discard the ancient forms and customs of their forefathers and become loyal citizens of the United States. On January 31, 1855, a treaty was concluded in Washington under the administration of President Franklin Pierce by which the Wyandots relinquished to the United States the lands they had purchased, in 1843, from the Delawares, the object of the treaty being to enable the government to subdivide the lands and convey them to the individual members of the Wyandot nation in severalty. The treaty was signed by George W. Maypenny, as commissioner for the United States, and by the following chiefs and delegates of the Wyandots: Tau-roo-mee, Matthew Mudeater, JJohn Hicks, Silas Armstrong, George I. Clark and Joel Walker. The treaty is a model document reflecting a high order of statesmanship on the part of the Indians who framed it, right con- ceptions of justice, clearness of business judgment, as well as revelating their patriotie desires, their hopes and their ambitions. The first article of the treaty reads : "The Wyandot Indians, having become sufficiently advaneed in civilization and being desirons of becoming citizens, it is hereby agreed and stipulated that their organization and their relations with the United States as an Indian tribe, shall be dis- solved and terminated ; except so far as the further and temporary con- tinnanee of the same may be necessary in the execution of some of the stipulations herein, and from and after the date of such ratification, the said Wyandot Indians, and each and every one of them, except as herein- after provided. shall be deemed, and are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States, to all intents and purposes; and shall be entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities of such citizens; and shall, in all respects, be subject to the laws of the United States, and of the Terri- tory of Kansas, in the same manner as other citizens of said Territory ;
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and the jurisdiction of the United States, and of said Territory, shall be extended over the Wyandot country, in the same manner as over other parts of said territory. But such of the said Indians as may so desire and make application accordingly, to the commissioners herein- after provided for, shall be exempt from the immediate operations of the preceding provisions, extending citizenship to the Wyandot Indians, and shall have continued to them the assistance and protection of the United States, and an Indian agent in their vicinity, for such a limited period, or periods of time, according to the circumstances of the case, as shall be determined by the commissioner of Indian affairs; and on the expiration of such period, or periods, the said exemption, protection and assistance shall eease, and said persons shall then, also, become citizens of the United States; with all the rights and privileges, and subject to the obligations, above stated and defined."
The treaty expressly provided that the public burying ground of the Wyandots should be "permanently reserved and appropriated for that purpose." It also conveyed two acres to the Methodist Episcopal church and two aeres to the Methodist Episcopal church South. Four acres at and adjoining the Wyandotte ferry, across, and near the mouth of the Kansas river, were together with the rights of the Wyandots in the ferry, sold to the highest bidder and the proceeds of the sale given to the Wyandots. £ It provided for a survey of lands by the government and the listing of members and families who were to share in the distribution in the three classes:
"First, those families the heads of which the commissioners after due inquiry and consideration, shall be satisfied are sufficiently intelli- gent, competent and prudent to contrive and manage their affairs and interests, and also all persons without families.
"Secondly, those families, the heads of which are not competent and proper persons to be entrusted with their shares of money payable under this agreement.
"Thirdly, those who are orphans, idiots or insane."
Under the treaty, the council of the Wyandots were to appoint proper persons to represent those of the second class in receiving money due and payable to them, and also to be entrusted with the guardian- ship of those of the third class and the enstody and management of their rights and interests. Provision also was made for those Wyandots who desired to be exempted from citizenship and for continued protection and assistance of the United States, through the appointment of an Indian agent expressly for that purpose.
Soon after the signing of the treaty and its ratification by congress the surveyor general of the United States, John Calhoun. established an officer in the Indian village and proceeded to make a survey of the lands. The surveyor general's office was in a double log house at what is now the northeast corner of Fourth street and State avenue. After
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the surveys were completed and the Indians received titles to the lands allotted them they began, in the winter of 1856-7, to dispose of their lands to white settlers. Some of them, however, did not desire to leave the homes they had builded in Kansas and remained here as long as they lived to become a part of the citizenhip of the territory-afterwards the state-of Kansas. But the majority of the Wyandots sold their lands and went to the Indian Territory to take up new lands subject to pre-emption and settlement under the treaty.
THE BURIAL PLACE OF THE WYANDOTS.
In the heart of the eity, now occupying the place where the Wyan- dots erected their village nearly seventy years ago, is another city. It is a city of the dead wherein lie buried many members of the tribe or nation of Indians whose history is the most pathetic and poetic
IIURON CEMETERY, KANSAS CITY, THE BURIAL PLACE OF THE WYANDOTS.
of all the North American Indians. The burial ground, known as Huron Cemetery, comprises about two acres, rising to a height of about twelve feet above the level of the streets. It is almost surrounded by long rows of business houses and public buildings. Ever and always is the rush and roar of traffic around and abont, but they who sleep under the grass-covered mounds are undisturbed. The stranger often Vol. I-6
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pauses in his travel, surprised at the incongruity of the view with its surroundings. But to the resident and daily passer-by, to whom it is a familiar sight, it is an interesting thought that in that place are buried the people who made the first history of Kansas and of their own coun- ty and city. It is pleasantly shaded with natural forest trees, such as black walnut, elm and oak. Some of the smaller trees are covered with wild grape vines, and the place, in its neglected condition, has the ap- pearance of a primeval forest. It is picturesque, and, on account of its elevation, commands a good view of the surrounding city.
Many of the marble tombstones are crumbling and decaying, partly from neglect, partly from the effect of the gases and smoke from the neighboring buildings and industrial plants. Only a few of them are sufficiently preserved to enable one to read the inscriptions; so, with no records preserved, it becomes impossible to tell who are buried there. There are four family lots, however, in which there are beautiful monu- ments. Over the grave of the great and cultured leader, Silas Arm- strong, a costly and handsome monument bears this inscription :
SILAS ARMSTRONG, Died December 14, 1865, Aged 55 years, 11 months, 11 days. The pioneer of the Wyandot Indians to the Kansas in 1843. The leading man and constant friend of the Indians. A devoted Christian and a good Mason. He leaves the craft on earth and goes with joy to the Great Architect.
On another face of the monument are the following words :
ZELINDA ARMSTRONG, Born December 3, 1820. Died February 10, 1883.
Over the grave of George I. Clark, the last head chief of the Wyan- dots, is a tombstone with the inscription :
GEO. I. CLARK, Head Chief of the Wyandot Nation. Born June 10, 1802. Died January 25, 1858. Catharine, Wife of Geo. I. Clark, died January, 1858.
A beautiful shaft of granite rises above the graves of Hiram M. Northrup, adopted member and trusted friend and counselor of the Wyandots, and his wife, Margaret. Under her name is this simple tribute : "A true and faithful Christian and a noble wife."
Among others of the Wyandots buried there appear the names of Matthew R. Walker, Joel Walker, Charles B. Garrett, James Rankin,
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George Armstrong, the chief Francis A. Hicks, John Hicks, John W. Ladd. wife and daughter, Swan Peacock, James Washington and wife.
In the treaty of 1855, by which the Wyandots ceded their lands to the United States to be subdivided and deeded back to the members in severalty, it was the intent of the framers of that treaty to preserve forever the historic old burial ground. Article 2 of the treaty con- tains this provision: "The portion now enclosed and used as a public burying ground shall be permanently reserved and appropriated for that purpose."
Notwithstanding this clear and positive declaration, however, fre- quent attempts have been made in the last twenty years to sell this sacred plat of ground, and remove the bodies of the Wyandots buried there to the old Quindaro cemetery, which was given to the Methodist Episcopal church, now the Washington Boulevard Methodist Episcopal church, at the beginning of the Civil war when the denomination was divided. Senator Preston B. Plumb, in 1890, introduced a joint reso- lution in the United States Senate looking forward to the sale of the cemetery. In that resolution it was set forth that the cemetery was a nuisance and a majority of the Wyandots then living desired that their ancestors be removed to a more secluded place. The proposition was to improve the Quindaro cemetery, and it was estimated that the old Huron Place ground would bring $100,000. The resolution raised such a storm of protest from old citizens, members of the Wyandots and the descendants of Wyandots, that it was defeated.
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