USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its people, Vol. I > Part 14
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1884-5-Conneilmen, W. P. Overton, J. J. Hannan, M. B. Haskell, Frank Mapes, C. D. Montayne, William Clow, J. C. Boddington, Charles Dudley, Thomas C. Foster, Henry Horstman, Joseph Leaf, Theodore Schultz.
1885-6-Mayor, J. C. Martin ; clerk, John Warren; treasurer, F. S. Merstetter; attorney, R. P. Clark ; engineer, Everett Walker; street commissioner, N. J. Abbott ; police judge, J. D. Green; marshal O. K. Serviss.
Councilmen, W. P. Overton, Joseph Leaf, James Wheeler, E. A. Webster, M. B. Haskell, H. F. Johnson, Frank Mapes, G. W. Bishop, C. D. Montanye, R. F. Robison, William Clow and Charles IIilton.
CHAPTER X.
OLD QUINDARO.
FREE STATE BOOMERS STARTED QUINDARO-OTIIER RIVER PORTS OUT- DISTANCED-KANSAS MERCHANDISE LANDED THERE-A TOWN OF REAL LIVE MEN-WHAT KILLED OLD QUINDARO-EARLY KANSAS POLITICS- HOW QUINDARO LOST OUT.
Almost hid beneath a mass of ereeping, thick-leaved vines, inhabited by owls and bats and infested with snakes and insects, their gray stone walls crumbling and falling down from age and decay, are the ruins of old Quindaro, three miles above the mouth of the Kansas. Like some flitting mirage of a stormy, almost forgotten period, these old ruins are a grim reminder of a "future great" metropolis that, for the brief period of its life, was the most promising town on the Missouri river above St. Louis.
The history of Kansas contains no chapter more pathetic than that which tells of the rise and fall of some of the early towns. They exist today only in memory, or as ruins that stand as monuments to the mis- placed judgment of brave and loyal men. Their aim was to lay the foundation, on Kansas soil, for the gateway through which the tide of humanity and commeree was to forever flow from the east to west and from west to east. And there were nine of these "gateways" scattered like beacon lights along the Missouri shore in Kansas. They all flourished for a time in the territorial days of the fifties. Then in the early days of statehood in the sixties they fell one by one, as victims in the tragie conquest of development before those rival towns with which chanee and fate seemed to deal more kindly. Atchison, Leavenworth and Wyan- dotte survived. The latter, becoming a part of Kansas City, Kansas, shared the good fortune which the railroads brought and the "gateway" was builded at the place where the Kansas river, flowing through Kan- sas, joins the Missouri river. An old steamboat captain onee said of old Quindaro: "She was the rippinest, snortinest thing that ever happened while her paddles were workin', an' they wa'n't no bloomin' side-wheeler agoin' to eatch her when she was a-throwin' soap suds. But she struek a snag an' that was the end of her."
FREE STATE BOOMERS STARTED QUINDARO.
The towns of Kansas City, Leavenworth and Atchison were con-
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sidered pro-slavery ports. The Free State people wanted a "port of entry" of their own, for the emigrants from the east who were flocking to Kansas; so they started Quindaro. The land was purchased from some Wyandot Indians and in December, 1856, O. HI. Bassett, a surveyor, staked out the townsite. It had a long frontage on the river where the rocky shore afforded a permanent harbor which would not be affected by the shifting sands that so often changed the channel. It ran back across the stretch of bottom land and up the jagged bluffs for an average distance of three-quarters of a mile.
Three months after the townsite was laid out a big four story stone hotel, the largest in the country, was opened. It had forty-five rooms, it was full all the time and guests were sleeping on the office floor and in the halls. The boom was on. Free State people were coming with a rush. They were men of means. They put money into the town. Big stone business blocks and warehouses went up on the levee and frame dwellings were builded on the hills, many of them with the front ends standing on stilts. Great stocks of merchandise were brought to the place and a large trade was established with the interior. Churches were erected by the Methodists and Congregationalists. A stone school house was also erected, and the largest saw mill in Kansas was started up. It had a daily capacity for making sixteen thousand feet of lum- ber. There was a big wood-yard along the levee, and the enterprising town company threw in an extra cord with every cord bought for a steamboat. Along with the advancing civilization came a newspaper, the Chin-do-wan. The name signified "Leader," and it was well named. It was run by John M. Walden, now a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church at Cincinnati. When he got tired he turned it over to the Quindaro Town Company and it was run by Colonel George W. Veale, M. B. Newman and Vincent J. Lane.
OTHER RIVER PORTS OUT-DISTANCED.
By midsummer of 1857 Quindaro had every other city on the river well-nigh off the map. Shares of the town company's stock were popping out of sight. Speculative values in real estate were corre- spondingly high. They had auction sales of lots, and the lots brought one hundred and fifty to one thousand five hundred dollars, according to location.
The town was named for Mrs. Quindaro Guthrie, wife of Abelard Guthrie, vice president of the town company. He was a white man, native of Ohio and an ardent Free State advocate. He was the in- stigator and prime mover of the scheme and the town was laid out on Mrs. Guthrie's land. She was a Wyandot Indian. Her name, Quindaro, has been interpreted to mean "in union there is strength." It was a good name, for every man, woman and child who landed there went into the business of pulling for the town.
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When the demand came for a ferry, a ferry boat was put into serviet between Quindaro and Parkville on the Missouri side. Captain Otis Webb was in command and it was one of the finest ferryboats on the river. A stage line was opened to Lawrence. Then the Quindaro Town Company sent an agent to Cincinnati. He bought the "Lightfoot," a light draft steamer, and brought it up the river, and the company established a regular packet service between Quindaro and Lawrence up the Kansas river. The time eame when railroads were needed, and the Quindaro Town Company was into the game at the start. The Quindaro, Parkville & Burlington Railroad Company was organized to build a line to Cameron to connect with the Hannibal & St. Joseph. It was never built- but that is another story.
KANSAS MERCHANDISE LANDED THERE.
Nearly all of the merchandise for southern Kansas was landed at Quindaro. The outfit for the Emporia News, Senator Preston B. Plumb's paper, was taken off a steamboat at Quindaro. It was a great river port, often as many as six steamboats being tied up there at one time.
There were shrewd Yankees among those men of old Quindaro. The company comprised many of the most prominent men of the territory. They were men of large resources, infinite energy and wide acquaintance and influence. They had thrown themselves into the enterprise with a vigor, determination and shrewdness which in anything attainable would have insured suecess. They left no stone unturned to compass their end, and were so confident of the ontcome that most of them ventured their all in the undertaking. The members of the company gave the enterprise their personal attention and their personal influence, taking their own chances with the town to which they invited their friends and for which they solicited capital. And they knew something about the value of printer's ink. For instance, James Redpath ("J. R.") an- nounced in the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley's paper, that: "Gov- ernor Robinson is in Boston on business for Quindaro. As an example of 'great expectations' it was announced that one half million dollars had already been subscribed for investment in the town; that a hotel, a saw mill, a grist mill and a machine shop would be erected before spring, and a paper mill worth ten thousand dollars would be put up in May or .June."
A TOWN OF REAL LIVE MEN.
The late Richard Cordley of Lawrence, who landed there in the palmy days, wrote of old Quindaro and its boomers :
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"Many and various were the ways which these managers devised to bring the attractions of their city before the public. Correspondents of eastern papers, who were continually traveling over the territory at the time, were all sure to be taken to Quindaro. While there they were treated like princes, were shown all the fine points of the town and the brilliant plans concerning it. They naturally tilled their letters with Quindaro. Versatile and many-sided were these men of Quindaro. They had a political side and appealed effectively to the rising anti. slavery sentiment of the country. Were not Kansas City, Leavenworth and Atchison pro-slavery towns, controlled by border ruffian minions ? Were not the Free State men entitled to a port of entry of their own, where their friends could land without being insulted, and where they could depend upon fair dealing, and not be at the mercy of pro-slavery land sharks and speculators ?
"Then the members of the town company bad a religious side. They were concerned for the welfare of Zion. Like David, they wanted to provide a place
for the ark. The Independent, The Congregationalist and other great religious papers contained frequent correspondence, and long and well written articles, show- ing how all the great trade lines from the west converged at this point. What a center of religious influence it would be! How it might be made the very Fulerum on which the moral lever must be set to lift the west; the very 'Pou Sto,' so to speak, of western evangelism! The first Minutes of the Congregational Association contained the following statement in its Narrative of the State of Religion: 'There is a vigorous colony of Congregationalists at Quindaro, possessed of ample means to put in operation the oridinances of the Gospel. They have appro- priated $10,000 to build a church, and offer a liberal support to a minister.'
"All this and much more we had read before coming. The first feeling on landing was one of disappointment. But the people soon brushed this feeling away. They were all so enthusiastic and so confident that one soon began to feel ashamed of any such a thing as doubt. Everybody knew so well the ground on which the future of the town rested that all your questions were quieted and all your objections dissipated. They would point confidently to what had already been done. 'Here are stone warehouses, graded streets, dwelling houses scattered over the bluffs, and hundreds of people. All this has been done in six months. Now take your pencil and figure up what six years will do. Multiply the present by six, and then multiply that by two. Besides that we are accumulating resources all the while, and to-morrow will not only be as to-day. but more abundant.'
"At first the stranger was inclined to smile at their enthusiasm, but after a little he caught the contagion and was very likely to be the wildest man in the lot. In a few weeks he would be writing to his friends to ask them to lend him money to invest in Quindaro. So it happened that many a man, accounted a safe and careful business man at home, invested all the money he could raise or borrow in Quindaro real estate and felt himself rich in the purchase. In five years from that time he could not have sold his lots for the taxes assessed against them. These were not unseasoned 'tender fect' that were thus deceived, but men of business sagacity and large experience.
"There is nothing in human experience like this town-building madness. It is more contagious than yellow fever and more fatal than the Asiatic cholera. It attacks all sorts and conditions of men, and is no respector of persons. Good sense and simplicity are alike before it, business shrewdness and rural innocence are equally exposed to it. In this case of Quindaro, shrewd and cautious men caught the contagious madness, 'the delicious delirium,' and rushed wildly into what seems now to have been the most patent folly."
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WHAT KILLED OLD QUINDARO ?
It was argued by some that the location was uninviting, that it should have been built further down the river near the mouth of the Kaw. But whatever the cause, the war had something to do with its failure. The frequent raids of guerrillas and border ruffians in Kansas made property insecure. The lives of the Free Staters were imperiled. Many left for other parts, others joined the army, and only a few re- mained. Then when troops of the Second Cavalry were stationed there and the horses were stabled in the warehouses, there was little left to protect. The town went down. Steamboat traffic ceased; the rail- roads were built to Kansas City and Wyandotte; and that was the last of Quindaro.
There are only a few of the men of old Quindaro now living to tell the story. They are scattered here and there about the country. Joel Walker was president of the town company and Abelard Guthrie, who ran an underground railroad during the war, was vice president, while Charles Robinson, who was to be the first governor of Kansas after it became a free state, was treasurer. All three are dead. Samuel N. Simpson, secretary of the company, is the only survivor of the original officers. He is engaged in the real estate business in Kansas City, Kansas. George W. Veale, who was a big merchant in Quindaro and who was for many years tax commissioner for the Union Pacifie in Kansas, is a resident of Topeka. V. J. Lane, who recently suspended the publication of the Wyandotte Herald rather than let it fall into new hands, was one of those old boomers. Sam Smith, who was Governor Robinson's private secretary, lives somewhere in New England. R. M. Gray of Kansas City, Kansas, was one of the early comers. Samnel C. Pomeroy, afterward United States senator; Sylvester Dana Storrs, a member of the famous Andover band, which landed at Quindaro, and many others who had to do with the old town, have passed away.
But now-more than fifty years after-it appears that the logic of these men was not far astray after all. They lived and wrought before their time. Today the once rival village of Wyandotte, three miles down the river is a part of the great city of Kansas City, Kansas. I has reached out to the north and west and the little village of Quindar in the hills, back of where the original town stood, has been swallowed up. It is now a part of the Port of Entry, Kansas City, Kansas.
EARLY KANSAS POLITICS.
There was plenty of politics in Quindaro in the territorial days. Leavenworth county extended all the way down to the state line and embraeed all of the present county of Wyandotte. Naturally the politi- cians up there tried to run everything politically. One day in 1859 a crowd came down to Quindaro from Leavenworth to hold a Democratie
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rally. Charles Gliek, a brother of George W. Gliek, who was afterwards governor, was a favorite son of old Wyandotte. The Leavenworth fellows were jealous of Gliek and planned to keep him from speaking, but Glick fooled them. He slipped out into the crowd and asked an Irishman to call for him to speak.
"The meeting was going along smoothly," said V. J. Lane, who tells the story. "The Leavenworth speakers were coming on and off the platform when that Irishman began to call out, 'Gleek, Gleek!' The chairman of the meeting would hold up his hands to silence the Irish- man, but as one speaker would leave and another would take his place the Irishman kept up such a racket that the chairman finally motioned for Glick to take a seat on the platform. When the speaker finished Wyandotte's favorite son arose to deliver an address on the Democratic issues. He had uttered only four or five sentenees when that Irishman again howled, 'Gleek, Gleek !' The chairman arose and said :
" 'My friend, Mr. Glick is now addressing this meeting.'
"' 'That's a dom lie ! He is the man who asked me to call for Gleek.'
"And Charley Glick ran his hands through his hair and went on with his speech."
HOW QUINDARO LOST OUT.
George W. Veale, in an address before the Kansas Historical Society on his retirement from the presidency of the society, December 1, 1908, told how Qnindaro lost out. Mr. Veale said : "When the new coun- ty of Wyandotte was organized and Wyandotte made the county seat, Quindaro began to wane. The powerful influenees from the county seat began to be felt. Another sun had risen, the beams of which did not reach Quindaro. However, the prophecies of its free state friends failed to hold up the load of publie opinion in favor of the new county seat, and in spite of its commercial advantages Wyandotte grew but little during the war.
"Quindaro died easily ; no more struggles after the war. She has now however, an endearing monument upon her site, The Freedmen's University of Kansas (under the patronage of the state, and known as 'Western University'). It was at Quindaro that I raised my company of men for the war under the first call of the president for volunteers. I have my commission vet, dated April 29, 1861, signed by Charles Robinson, governor.
"The year 1859 was rather a quiet one, and 1860 was the dry year- so dry that in our part of Wyandotte county we did not get a mess of beans or roasting ears to eat ; it was all dried fruit from the state. The lower jaw of many of our citizens fell, and their faces became as long as the moral law. Many families left the territory, and most of those who stayed had to have help. The undaunted courage and staying quali- ties of those earlier settlers who remained and fought it out proved them the backbone of our future state."
CHAPTER XI.
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
FAMILIES THERE NINETY YEARS AGO-WESTPORT A GREAT TRADE . CENTER-WHEN THE TOWN WAS BORN-A REAL ESTATE BOOM-AN UNPROMISING TOWN-WHEN CHOLERA STRUCK THE PLACE-THIE FIRST MAYORALTY ELECTION-BENTON'S FAMOUS PROPHECY-A TRAVELING POST OFFICE-STEAMBOAT AND TRAIL TRADE-FIRST PUBLIC IMPROVE- MENTS-THE CIVIL WAR BROUGHT RUIN-RETURN TO PEACE-HOTELS ON THIE LEVEE-THE HANNIBAL BRIDGE HELPED-BENTON'S PROPHECY VERIFIED.
It would be difficult to write of the early history of Wyandotte county and of its cities and towns, without dealing with topies connected with the early times of the whole community comprising those settle- ments round about the junetion of the Missouri and Kansas rivers on both sides of the line which separates the two cities that bear the same name. Hence this chapter shall have referenee particularly to those things that have to do with Kansas City, Missouri, which is intimately associated in its early history with Kansas City, Kansas.
Daniel Morgan Boone, third son of the great pioneer, was probably the first white man to really appreciate the advantages of this neighbor- hood as a good place in which to live. He pushed his way out here in the early part of 1790. Though but eighteen years old, he left his home in Fort Hamilton, just west of Cincinnati, and after a thirty days' trip reached what was then the trading post of St. Louis. There he stayed a month or so, and then set out westward again, proceeding all the way to the "great American desert." Hle liked the looks of the western lands and it was because of his glowing descriptions of them that his father afterward emigrated to Boone county, Missouri. As for young Boone, he cleared a home place for himself near where Westport is now. And there he lived. And there he died full of years. And his body rests in an unmarked grave in the old Westport burying ground.
About the time the Boones were setting ont for Boone county, a Frenchman, Lonis Grandlouis, with his family, left the French village of St. Charles and came to what was one day to be Kansas City. His wife was the first white woman of the new settlement at the mouth of the Kansas river. As late as 1845 she lived in a log cabin in the bot-
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toms, abont where the Loose-Wiles factory is today. The Grandlouis family arrived here about the year 1800.
There was another woman, however, to question priority with Mme. Grandlouis. This was Mme. Berenice Chouteau. Whereas the Grand- lonises lived for three or four years after their first arrival at the present site of the Randolph bridge-and so scarcely in "Kansas City" -- the Chouteaus lived in a cabin on the Missouri river front in Kansas City, Missouri. The honors of being the first white woman are there- fore somewhat divided.
FAMILIES THERE NINETY YEARS AGO.
In 1820 there was a strong tide of emigration from Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina to Missouri, but up to this time the settling had mostly been done by the French. For example, in 1820 most of the people at what was to be Kansas City were of five families, the Grandlouis, the Prudhommes, the Chouteaus, the Sublettes, and the Guinottes. But now came the Chicks, the Campbells, the Smarts and . MeDaniels, the Jenkins, the Lykins, the Riees, the Scarritts, the MeGees, the Gillises, the Mulkeys, the Gregorys, the Troosts and the Hopkins.
In 1823 there were two settlements -- one in the West bottoms, called "Kansasmonth," the other at about what is now Second and Guinotte streets. In these days Independence was growing and flourishing. It had a thriving trade and everything seemed coming its way. Its enterprising merchants established the first railroad in Missouri in the thirties, from their town to the river. For some reason this railroad did not pay and now even the route it took has been forgotten.
WESTPORT A GREAT TRADE CENTER.
It was about the time its railroad was fizzling that Independence began to realize it had a rival. Westport had been established in 1833, by John C. McCoy, four miles south of the river. And Westport grew at a famous rate. Trade ran to it as water runs down hill. And embryo Kansas City grew and flourished, too, as Westport Landing. It was a trading point in the state for the various Indian tribes west of the border, consisting of the Shawnees, Delawares, Kiekapoos, Ottawas, Chippewas, Peorias, Kaskaskias, Piankashaws, Weas (pronounced Weaws), Kansas and Osages, and the various wild tribes of the plains. A few years later came the Pottawotomies, Wyandots, Sae and Foxes and smaller bands. The western border of Missouri was now being rapidly settled and the trade of the new comers and the Indian tribes . made Westport a prosperous town. All articles of merchandise came into the country by steamboats on the Missouri river, and landed at Choutean's warehouse about two miles east to the north end of Grand avenne, near where Cleveland avenue intersects the river.
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WHEN THE TOWN WAS BORN.
In 1838 Kansas City, which was then known as Westport Landing, was located on the Missouri river one mile east of the state line. West- port Landing was, in 1838, a queer little hamlet, altogether on the levee-mostly between what is now Main street and Grand avenue. W. B. Evans had kept the first warehouse, in 1834-5. He had been sue- ceeded by P. M. Chouteau. In 1838 Gabriel Prudhomme died, and in settling his estate, in November of that year, the first steps toward the Kansas City of to-day were taken. Prudhomme had owned 256 acres, which would today be described as bounded by the river on the north, Cherry street on the east, Missouri avenne on the south and Broadway on the west. This land was sold at auction to a company, which bought it as a site for a town, paying for it the handsome sum of $4,220. Notice of this sale, and a tempting advertisement of the beauties of the land for home and business purposes, was published in the Liberty Far West and the Missouri Republican of St. Louis. The first town company was comprised of W. L. Sublette, Moses G. Wilson, John C. McCoy, William Gilliss, Fry P. McGee, Abraham Fonda. W. M. Chiek, Oliver Caldwell, G. W. Tate, Jacob Ragan, William Collins, James Smart, Sam C. Owens and Russell Ilicks. The "town of Kansas" was incor- porated, and on May 1, 1839, the first sale of real estate was held. The "town of Kansas," that was in due time to be the "City of Kansas," was thus put on the map.
A REAL ESTATE BOOM.
At this first sale but few lots were disposed of. There were knockers even then. They declared that it was preposterous to suppose that there would ever be a town built on such a corrugated piece of landscape as Kansas City's site presented. Besides, they urged, that the town had been irregularly incorporated; that certain very essential matters of legal detail had been overlooked; that a number of things had been done which really should have been left undone, and so on, and so on, at such length that the sale stopped. The courts upheld the knockers, and it was eight years before the next sale of realty in the "town of Kansas" came off.
At the first sale, however, when, whether regularly or irregularly the "town of Kansas" got its definite location and its name, the first lot was bought by W. B. Evans for $155. Lot No. 3 went to .J. H. McGee for $70; lot No. 5, to F. Kleber, for $52. These lands were sold on six years' time, interest at 10 per cent. As has been said, this sale of 1839 was interrupted by the knoekers. Nothing more was done until April 30, 1846, when another sale was held and 124 lots were sold at prices ranging from $25 to $341 per lot. The average was $55 the
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