USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its people, Vol. I > Part 4
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"June 26, 1804 .- We encamped at the upper point of the mouth of the river Kansas. Ilere we remained two days, during which we made the neces- sary observations, recruited the party and repaired the boat. The Kansas river takes its rise in the plains between the Arkansas and Platte rivers and pursues a course generally east till its junction with the Missouri, which is in latitude 38 degrees, thirty-one minutes, and 13 seconds. Here it is 3401, yards wide. though it is wider a short distance above the mouth. The Missouri itself is about 500 yards in width. The point of union is low and subject to inundations for 250 yards. It then rises a little above high water and continues so as far back as the hills or highlands which come within one mile and a half of the river. On the north of the Missouri river they do not approach nearer than several miles, but on all sides the country is fine. The comparative specific gravities of the two rivers is for the Missouri 78 and for the Kansas 72 degrees.
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The waters of the latter have a very disagreeable taste. The former has risen during yesterday and to-day about two feet. On the banks of the Kansas reside the Indians of the same name. On the 29th we set out late in the afternoon and having passed a sandbar, near which the boat was almost lost, and a large island on the north, we eneamped at seven and a quarter miles on the same side in the lowlands where the rushes are so thick that it is troublesome to walk through them. Early the next morning, 30th, we reached at five miles distance the mouth of a river coming from the north and called by the French Pettit Riviere Platt, or Little Shallow river. It is about sixty yards wide at its mouth."
FIRST FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION IN KANSAS.
Leaving the beautiful hills in what is now Wyandotte county be- hind the bold explorers proceeded on the journey up the Missouri river. On the morning of the 4th of July, 1804, at the month of a little stream which empties into the Missouri river, near where the city of Atchison now stands, the Stars and Stripes were flung out upon the breeze, a swivel gun boomed out its note of sovereignty and trimuph and the first Fourth of July Celebration was held on Kansas soil. All day long the little band rested and celebrated, no doubt contemplating what the future had in store for this fair land. As the sun was sinking low in the west the gun boomed again and the soil of Kansas was dedicated to freedom and the republic. Here is what is recorded in the Lewis and Clark journals for that glorious day: "The morning of the 4th was announced by the discharge of our gun. At one mile we reached the month of a bayean or creek coming from a large lake on the north side of which appears as if it had once been the bed of the river, to which it runs parallel for several miles. The water of it is clear and supplied by a small creek and several springs, and a number of goslings which we saw on it, induced us to call it the Gosling lake. It is about three-fourths of a mile wide, and seven or eight miles long. One of onr men was bitten by a snake, but a poultice of bark and gun powder
was sufficient to cure the wound. At ten and one-fourth miles we reached a creek on the south about twelve yards wide and coming from an extensive prairie, which approached the borders of the river. To this creek, which had no name, we gave that of Fourth of July ereek. Above it is a high mound, where three Indian paths center, and from which is a very extensive prospect. After fifteen miles sail we came to, on the north a little above, a creek on the southern side, about thirty vards wide, which we called Independence creek, in honor of the day, which we could celebrate only by an evening gun, and an additional gill of whiskey to the men."
CAPTAIN PIKE'S EXPEDITION.
Two years after Lewis and Clark had gone on to blaze a way across the plains and mountains, another gallant captain, leading twenty-two
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stalwart, fearless white men and some fifty Indian allies, started on another tramp across the plains. Among all the American soldiers who have dared to endure privations and dangers at the command of their country, many have commanded larger armies, and some have wrought greater things, but no one is better entitled than Captain Zebulon Montgomery Pike to place in history or to the encomiums of his own and succeeding generations. With a determination that over- came every difficulty, and a spirit that quailed at no danger. he pushed on across the prairies until he had reached the snow-capped Rockies and scaled the peak which stands as an everlasting monument to perpetuate his name. In what is now the county of Republie, in Kansas, he found at the Pawnee village the Indian had not learned that there had been a transfer of authority. The Spanish flag was still floating above the camp. A less intrepid man than Pike would have passed by with his twenty-two men, but such an action was not in keeping with the bold and loyal nature of the young captain. Without a moment's hesitation he ordered the emblem of Spanish authority to be hauled down, and, elevating the Stars and Stripes in its stead, he proclaimed the sovereignty of the republic.
The Pike expedition was to promote peace and friendship among the people of the plains. Ile was told to take the captive Osages in the cantonment of Missouri back to their tribe; then he was told by General Wilkinson to turn his attention to bringing about a perfect peace between the Kansas and Osage Indians, and lastly to effect a meeting and establish a good understanding between the Iatans and the Comanches. His instructions read :
"Should you succeed in this attempt, and no pains must be spared to effect it, you will endeavor to make peace between that distant powerful nation and the nations which inhabit the country between us and them, particularly the Osage; and, finally, you will endeavor to induce eight or ten of their distinguished chiefs to make a visit to the seat of government next September, and you may attach to this deputation four or five Panis and the same number of Kansas chiefs. A> your interview with the Comanches will probably lead you to the head branches of the Arkansas and Red rivers, you may find yourself approximated to the settle- ments of New Mexico, and there it will be necessary you should move with great circumspection, to keep clear of any hunting or reconnoitering parties from that province, and to prevent alarm or offense; because the affairs of Spain and the United States appear to be on the point of amicable adjustment ; and, moreover, it is the desire of the president to cultivate the friendship and harmonions inter- course of all the nations of the earth, and particularly our near neighbors, the Spaniards.
" (Signed) JAMES WILKINSON."
The story is familiar to all, of Pike's arrival, September 25th, at the Pawnee village, and the call for a grand council on the 29th. On that day the flag of Spain floated before the chieftain's tent. Standing here on the plains, a little handful of men, far away from their own
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
kinsman, faced 400 men of alien blood. Pike, armed with a sublime faith in God and his western mission, demands that the flag of Spain be taken down. It is a dramatie moment. He says every face was full of sorrow. The plain, unassuming band of Americans made but a tame impression on these children of the prairies, beside the memory of the gay chevaliers of Spain so recently departed; but the might of the spirit prevailed.
The manhood of Pike and his men struek a spark from the man. hood of the Indians, and an old man took the flag of Spain and meekly laid it at his feet. In its place he ran up the American flag, the symbol of our national life. The Indians put their faith in the strength and righteousness of men who came to them for the sake of brotherhood, rather than in the material grandeur and military display of Spain. And to-day there are a million and a half of people dwelling in harmony and plenty in the shadow of this sublime beginning.
Following in the wake of Pike went Major Stephen H. Long and other explorers, giving to Jefferson and other leading statesmen of that period some idea of the magnificent extent and possibilities of the empire that had been acquired for what would now be considered a paltry sum. a financial burden which could now be easily assumed by the least wealthy of all the states in this Union.
MAJOR LONG'S EXPEDITION.
The expedition headed by Major Stephen II. Long, under direction of John C. Calhoun, secretary of war, left Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, May 5, 1819, on board the steamer "Western Engineer," which had been construeted for the expedition. It consisted of a party of scientific men. The boat passed down the Ohio river, up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri, and up the Missouri to the mouth of the Kansas river. The report in part reads: "The 'Western Engineer,' being the first steamboat that had ever ascended the Missouri above Chariton, great numbers of the settlers were attracted to the banks of the river, on both sides, to witness our progress. Arrived at Ft. Osage, fifty-five miles by water from the month of the Kouzas, August 1st. This fort was established in 1808 and was then the most military
settlement. The party consisted of Mr. Say, examining and assembling the objects in zoology and its branches, classifying land and sea animals, insects, and partieular description of animal remains, and commanding the expedition ; Jessup, geologist, relating to earth minerals and fossils; Peale, assistant naturalist; Seymour, painter of the expedition, furnish- ing sketehes of landscapes, paintings of Indians and Indian scenes; Cadet Smith J. Dougherty, guide and interpreter; five soldiers, paek horses and provisions. Examined the river between Ft. Osage and Kouzas river, also between that river and the Platte."
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
Major Long in his report to the secretary of war, thus deseribes the scene at the month of the Kansas river, which he called "Kouzas:" "Between Fort Osage and the mouth of the Konzas river, a distance of about fifty-two miles, are many rapid places in the Missouri. We were able to ascend all these, except one. Without some difficulty we supplied our furnace with wood of a suitable quality. The forests of Missouri are filled with fallen trees, whose wood is soft and porous like that of the linden and cotton tree, and absorb much moisture from the ground.
"The mouth of the Konzas river was so filled with mud, deposited by the late flood in the Missouri, as scarcely to admit the passage of our boat, though with some difficulty we ascended that river about a mile, and, then returning, dropped anchor opposite its mouth. The spring freshets subside in the Kouzas, the Osage and all those tributaries that do not derive their sources from the Rocky mountains, before the Missouri reaches its greatest fullness; consequently the waters of the latter river, charged with mud, flow into the mouths of its tributaries, and there becoming nearly stagnant, deposit an extensive accumulation of mnd and slime. The Kouzas river has a considerable resemblance to the Missouri; but its current is more moderate and the water less turbid, except at times of high floods. Its valley, like that of the Mis- souri, has a deep and fertile soil, bearing similar forests of cottonwood, sycamore, ete., interspersed with meadows; but in ascending, trees be- come more and more scattered, and at length disappear almost entirely, the country at its source becoming one immense prairie."
FRENCHMEN OUR FIRST MERCHANTS.
The Spanish people, who came this way while the Indian country was under the dominion of Spain, were a lot of adventurers, dazzling with the splendor of military trappings, their minds filled with fairy- tale visions of cities with streets paved with gold, trees whereon golden apples grew, streams in which golden fishes swam and on whose banks children romped and played in golden slippers. They did nothing for the Indians-and less for themselves. The French did little to en- conrage the development of the soil, but they did establish the commerce of the Indian country.
After the visit of Bourgmont to the Kansas "capital," in 1724, nearly two hundred years ago, the Indians occupying this country had a place in the commercial circles of the French. So it was Kansas, an outpost of the progressive French and one of their frontier towns, where white men lived in houses and carried on business almost two hundred years ago. Here was a depot for all the commercial supplies of that day, the merchandise from distant France and the valuable skins and furs which were here stored for sale and exchange. It seems that
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the annual output of this first mart of trade in Kansas was one hundred bales or bundles of furs. When we realize that a bundle, or bale of furs represented 100 otter skins, 100 wolf skins, or 100 badger skins, or it might be made up of 40 deer skins, or 500 muskrat or mink skins, we can see that the trade at Kansas was considerable.
THE FUR TRADERS.
In the last quarter of the eighteenth century Pierre Laelede Siquest, with August and Pierre Chouteau, emigrated from France and settled in the Mississippi valley. They had an exclusive right from Napoleon to trade with the Indians of Louisiana territory. In 1799 a post was established near St. Joseph's and in 1800 another at Randolph Bluffs, three miles below the mouth of the Kansas river. The whole Chouteau family was engaged in the trade at the time the United States took over Louisiana territory in 1803. Previous to that time they virtually had a monopoly of the business. After the change of government, however, the monopoly was broken, government trading posts were established and the trade among the Western Indians increased rapidly; but the Chouteaus, pioneers, did a great business. The Missouri Fur Company was organized in 1808, with Manuel de Lisa at its head. Angust and Pierre Chouteau were among the eleven other members. Expeditions were sent out and posts were founded among the Indians of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Arkansas. The company was dissolved in 1812, but the Chouteans continued in business, organizing independent houses to prosecute the trade and also to outfit trapping and hunting, as well as exploring expeditions.
One of the largest trading posts of that period was on the Kansas river nearly twenty miles above its mouth at the site of Bonner Springs in Wyandotte county. It was called "Four Houses," so named from being built on the four sides of an open square, the trading houses of Francis and Cyprian Chouteau. They were built sometime between 1812 and 1821. Cyprian Chontean's trading house on the north side of the Kansas river at the old Grinter ferry, six miles west of the Missouri state line, also in Wyandotte county, was built for trading with the Delaware and Shawnee Indians. It was located at a point where the military road from Ft. Leavenworth to Ft. Scott crossed the Kansas river. John C. Fremont's expeditions in Kansas, beginning in 1842, were outfitted there. Another great trading post established by the Chouteaus was on the Missouri river at Fort Osage, thirty-five miles below the month of the Kansas river, which was a depot for sup- plies for the trade with the Osages. In 1825 the Chonteaus, or prop- erly, the American Fur Company, established an agency on the south side of the Kansas river in Wyandotte county, about one mile from the old Shawnee Methodist mission and seven miles from Westport.
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It was this house that became famous as an outfitting point for the expeditions across the plains over the old trails.
"THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT."
The reports of the explorations by the trusted representatives of the United States government, however, did not thoroughly satisfy all of the statesmen and leaders of the young republic as to the value of the Louisiana Purchase. There was in New England a sentiment of unfriendliness toward the west and a belief that the country then known as "the Great American Desert" was practically worthless. There was for many years continued opposition to every movement instigated to improve the country west of the Mississippi river. The people of the east had no faith in the possibilities of the western country. It was
regarded as a hopeless waste. Daniel Webster never believed in the west, and in the United States senate, in 1827, during a famous debate with Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, on the public land question, he bitterly opposed any step on the part of the government toward the development of "The Great American Desert." Webster was in con- stant opposition to Senator Thomas H. Benton, who had made the Trans-Mississippi country a study and its development his great aim in life. In one of his eloquent speeches in opposition to Senator Benton's advocacy of the policy of encouraging the settlement of western lands Webster said: "What do we want with this vast and worthless area, of this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds, of dust, of eaetus and prairie dog? To what use eould we ever hope to put these great deserts, or those endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their very base with eternal snow ? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of three thousand miles, rock-bound, cheerless, uninviting and not a harbor on it? Mr. President, I will never vote one cent from the publie treasury to place the Pacific coast one inch nearer to Boston than it is now."
Benton, however, lived to see the beginning, at least, of the ful- fillment of his great plans and purposes. As Jefferson had had faith in those intrepid explorers, Lewis and Clark, and Captain Pike, so Benton, with the knowledge he possessed of the vast country west of the Mississippi river, battled on-and won for the west. So it was that the Lewis and Clark expedition was the forerunner of the achievements of such explorers and travelers as Fremont and Gilpin and Bridger. These were the practical geographers of our country. What .Jefferson and Benton saw in visions, these saw with their eyes and touched with their feet.
The time had come when the United States government deemed it necessary to be prepared to sustain its authority. Colonel Henry Leavenworth was sent out in 1827 to establish a fort in the new terri-
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tory. It had been suggested that the fort be located on the Missouri river just below the mouth of the Kansas river. Colonel Leavenworth, however, rejected the location in the river bottom because it was too low and unhealthy for soldiers. lle went up the river and selected the present site above the city of Leavenworth, and for more than three- quarters of a century the place he selected has been one of the most important military posts in the republic.
The territory roundabout the mouth of the Kansas river, the ex- plorers say, abounded with game, which fact probably induced the son of old Daniel Boone, with the hunter blood of his ancestor running strong in his veins, to seek the place of farmer for the Indians, which led up to the further fact that the grandson of the great Kentucky hunter and Indian fighter was the first white child to be born on Kansas soil.
THE FREMONT EXPEDITIONS.
Colonel John C. Fremont made five trips aeross Kansas between 1842 and 1848, for the purpose of exploring the country west of the Missouri river. In June, 1842, he entered Wyandotte county on his first trip and fitted out his expedition at the trading post of Cyprian Chouteau, located on the Kansas river six miles west of the Missouri state line at the old Moses Grinter ferry at Secondine, now Muncie. He crossed over the old ferry and after leaving Wyandotte county went west through the counties of Johnson, Douglas and Shawnee. In 1843 his second expedition followed the Kansas river from Wyandotte. His third started from the same place, and pursuing a different route, returned over the Sante Fe trail. His fourth start was from Westport in October, 1848. following the Kansas river on the south side. The fifth and last was from Westport for the purpose of surveying, at his own expense, the Kansas Paeifie railroad, now the Union Pacific.
The explorers who ascended the Missouri and Kansas rivers were «harmed with the landscape of hill and valley, though little did they know what the future held for it when in after years it was to be known as Wyandotte county. They found the general surface undu- lating, high bluffs rising on either side of the two great rivers meeting here, the valleys lying between those bluffs varying in width from one to two miles. In the valleys and on the uplands was a growth of timber reaching far back from the Missouri to where the prairie begins. All of the trees common to lands bordering on the middle west streams were represented-the oak, elm, cottonwood, walnut, honey locust, mulberry, hickory, sycamore, ash, and, along the ereeks and branches, elumps of willows. But unlike the great forests of tall trees in the territory lying between the Mississippi river and the Allegheny mountains through which the explorers passed on their way to the Indian country, the trees here were of a low spreading growth. Out of the hillsides gurgled
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IHISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
streams of clear, pure water, sometimes charged with life-giving miner- als, while branches and creeks wound their way down from the up- lands through the little valleys that grew wider and wider as they approached the river valleys. Few of these were pretentious streams, yet they were necessarily a part of Nature's plan of perfeet drainage.
SCENES OF RARE BEAUTY.
The explorers opened the way for the settlement of the Indian country. Their business chiefly was to treat with the Indians and to make maps and charts for their government. The real beauty of Kansas was not appreciated till the white men came this way. Note the joy that took possession of the Reverend John G. Pratt, missionary to the Delaware Indians in Wyandotte county as thus he writes of his impressions to Franklin G. Adams, under date of January 12, 1889 : "My first introduction to Kansas was in 1837. Leaving Boston in April with my wife we reached the then territory May 14th, being about four weeks in slow but interrupted travel. The territory at that time was in perfect quiet, and a most beautiful country it was. Coming from the Atlantic, my first look at an open green prairie on a sunny day seemed to be a look at the ocean, with which I was so familiar, but this was also Flora in her gayest attire, the eye was too limited in its capacity to take in sneh wide and far extended area of beanty-the like will never be seen again in Kansas. The coming of dwellers has spoiled all this. Though still the Sunflower state, the earlier dress was more comely-it was nature's beauty."
In 1853, Percival G. Lowe, of Leavenworth, went out with Major E. A. Ogden when Fort Riley was located, and here is his first impres- sion : "Of all charming and fascinating portions of our country, prob- ably there is none where nature has been so lavish as within a radius of one hundred and fifty miles, taking Fort Riley as the eenter. In rich soil, building material, in beauty of landscape, wooded streams and bubbling springs, in animal life, in everything to charm the eye, gladden the heart, yield to the industry of man-here was the climax of the most extravagant dream, perfeet in all its wild beauty and productive- ness; perfect in all that nature's God could hand down to man for his improvement and happiness."
The Reverend Charles Brandon Boynton made an exploration in the fall of 1854, which was published under the title "Journey Through Kansas." He says: "But the first hour's ride over the prairies of Kansas spread before us such a picture, varying every moment and beautiful in every change, as we had no previous conception of, and drew from us continued expressions of a delight that would not be suppressed. One can form no correct idea of the prairies of Kansas by a previous knowledge of those of Indiana and Illinois; and residents
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
in Iowa add the same remark of theirs. How, without the majesty of mountains or lakes, or broad rivers, and with so few colors as here are seen, such effect can be produced, is worthy the study of artists. It is a magnificent picture of God, that stirs irresistibly and inexpli- cably the soul of every beholder. Young and old, the educated and the unlearned, alike feel the influence of its spell, and each in his own language gives utterance to his delight and wonder, or stands breathless and mute. There are many scenes in Kansas that can scarcely be remembered even without tears. The soul melts in the presence of the wonderful beauty of the workmanship of God." Max Greene was another early-day explorer, in 1855. He also published a book, in which he says: "llere, through the exhilarating crystal air, on every hand are scenes of natural glory, the sublime of loveliness, whose only appropriate description would be a passionate lyric to flicker along the nerves like solemn harmonies of mighty bards."
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