USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > Kansas City > Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas. Historical and biographical. Comprising a condensed history of the state, a careful history of Wyandotte County, and a comprehensive history of the growth of the cities, towns and villages > Part 12
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thirty-sixth sections of each township for school purposes, ag- gregating nearly 3,000,000 acres of land, which it has been esti- mated can be made to yield a permanent school fund of $15,000,000. The fund is increasing rapidly. It is invested in good securities, and the interest is apportioned among the districts. But the main dependence of the common schools is the local tax which districts impose upon them- selves. The tax now assumed by districts is many times greater than the amount given by the State. The growth of the school sys- tem has so exactly kept step with the growth of the State as to show that it is a part of its very life. The reports of the first two or three years of the State history were so incomplete that they afford no fair basis of comparison. But we may take the report of 1866 and measure the subsequent growth with a good degree of accuracy. Then the school population of the State was 54, 725; now it is 532, - 010. The number of children enrolled in the schools was 31,528; now it is 403,351. The number of teachers employed was then 1,086; now it is 11,310. The amount paid then for teachers' salaries was $115,924; now it is $2,677,513. The value of school property was then $318,897; the value now is $8,608,202. The whole amount expended for public schools was $253,926; this sum has been in- creased to $5,265,613.86. There were 703 school-houses in 1$67; the number at this time is 8,196.
Besides the State schools and several private institutions, there are in Kansas some thirty colleges and universities, mainly under denom- inational control. These denominational institutions report an aver- age yearly attendance of more than 4,000 pupils, and buildings and other property valued at $1,700,000.
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CHAPTER IX.
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIES AND MATERIAL INTERESTS -A BRILLIANT RECORD-RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOP- MENT-AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS-MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISE- STATISTICS AND- PROSPECTS-CHARACTER OF POPULATION-SUCCES- SIVE AGGREGATES.
All happy peace and goodly government Is settled there in sure establishment .- Spenser.
LAVERY ruled the country thirty six years ago, but Kansas, from this standpoint, has been the Athene of the American States. Fearing that the birth of new States in the West would rob it of supremacy, the slave power swallowed the Mis- souri Compromise, which had dedicated the North- west to Freedom. The industrious North, aroused and indignant, struck quick and hard, and Kansas, full-armed, shouting the war cry of Liberty, and nerved with invincible courage, sprang into the Union. She at once assumed a high place among the States. She was the deadly enemy of slavery. The war over, she became the patron, as she had been during its continuance the exemplar, of heroism, and a hundred thousand soldiers of the Union found homes within the shelter of her embracing arms. The agriculturist and the mechanic were charmed by her ample resources and in- spired by her eager enterprise. Education found in her a generous patron, and to literature, art and science she has been a steadfast friend. Her pure atmosphere invigorated all. A desert disfigured the map of the continent, and she covered it with fields of golden wheat and tasseling corn. She has made the home of the poor man safe. She has ex- tended to women the protection of generous laws and of enlarged op-
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portunities for usefulness. In war she was valiant and indomitable, and in peace she has been intelligent, energetic, progressive and enter- prising.
In 1864 Kansas had not a mile of completed railroad. In 1870 it had 1,283 miles; in 1875, more than 1,887; in 1880, an aggregate of more than 3,104 miles. Up to November 1, 1886, there had been built, of main line and branches, excluding side-tracks, 5,323 miles. There were added by new construction 3,476 miles, making the total mileage completed up to January 1, 1889 (since when there are no obtainable statistics), 8,799 miles. The following is a statement of the different companies operating railroads in Kansas, and the number of miles operated by each within the State: Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company, 2,586.84; Burlington & Missouri River, in Nebraska, 259.15; Chicago, Kansas & Nebraska, 1,055.70; Dodge City, Montezuma & Trinidad, 51; Kansas City, Fort Scott & Mem- phis, 256.90; Kansas City, Clinton & Springfield, 23.10; Kansas City, Wyandotte & Northwestern, 157; Kansas City & Pacific, 125; Missouri Pacific, 2,179; Missouri, Kansas & Texas, 254; St. Joseph & Grand Island, 138; St. Louis & San Francisco, 437.84; Union Pacific, 1,151.23; Wichita & Western, 124.40. There is one mile of railroad to each nine and one-third square miles of territory in the State; five and one-half miles to each 1,000 population-doubtless a larger ratio of railroad mileage to population than exists anywhere else, in any country.
Kansas is an agricultural State. It has not gold or silver, but it has coal enough for fuel. It is the farmer's and stockman's State. Its development simply shows what good old "mother earth," when in her happiest vein, can do. Agriculture is the most certain source of strength, wealth and independence. Commerce, in all emergen- cies, looks to agriculture, both for defense and for supply. The growth and prosperity of Kansas offer a striking illustration of what intelligent farmers, with a productive soil and a genial climate for their workshop, can accomplish, what wealth they can create, what enterprise they can stimulate. The following figures show the value of farm products in the State, for 1887 and 1888, combined, ranked in the order of importance as indicated by the value of each: Corn, $79,232,372; animals, slaughtered and sold for slaughter, $60, 426.55; oats, $24, 703,152; wheat, $17,857,264; prairie hay, $17,697,141; value of increase in live stock, $17,059,661; Irish potatoes, $12, 118. - 36; butter, $8, 782,248; millet and hungarian, $8,762, 418; sorghum,
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$4,900,744; tame hay, $4,787,646; poultry and eggs sold, $3,563, 180; broom corn, $2, 430,834; flax, $2,396,830; rye, $2,170,867; garden products marketed, $1,968,180; horticultural products marketed, $1,418,258; sweet potatoes, $1,090,623; milk sold, $1,050,988; wool, $885,424; castor beans, $487,441; wood marketed, $470, 736; wine, $299,577; barley, $206,141; cheese, $112,780; buckwheat, $87,874; cotton, $84,380; honey and beeswax, $836.37; tobacco, $77,940; hemp, $19,810.
Kansas is not distinctively a manufacturing State. Its prosperity is based upon the plow. It has, however, coal deposits equal to the needs of its population; valuable lead mines, and salt and gypsum in abundance. But the manufacturing establisments of the State are steadily increasing in importance as well as in number. In 1860 it had 344 establishments with a capital of $1,084,935, employing 1, 735 hands, and turning out products valued at $4,357,408. In 1890 there were reported to the State Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics 627 establishments, with a capital of $29,367,080, employing 14,477 hands, and turning out products valued at $51,442,801. There are in the State about 150 flouring-mills, with a capital employed of $7,000,- 000. The immense smelting works of Kansas are claimed to be the largest in the world. It is said that the annual product of the one gold and silver smelter is $18,000,000. It produces one-fifth of all the silver and one fifth of all the lead smelted in the United States. Five hundred men are employed and the wages paid them average higher than those paid by any other manufacturing institution in the United States. Beef and pork packing-houses, on an extensive scale, and requiring large capital for their operation, are carried on at sev- eral points in the State. It is the opinion of practical men who have given the matter careful study, that there are many lines of manufact- ures that may be profitably conducted in Kansas, and that sound policy requires not only diversified agriculture-the growth of a large variety of crops-but for the same reasons diversified industry-the turning of labor and capital into a great variety of channels. A mighty agri- cultural State promotes the wealth and independence of its citizens by the judicious establishment of manufactures. It is certain that the manufacturing interest will make a larger figure in Kansas history in the future than it has done in the past. An industry now being de- veloped is the production of sorghum sugar. Although in the experi- mental stage, it is developed far enough to demonstrate that sugar can be manufactured from sorghum at a profit; and, further, that Kansas
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is the best adapted for the production of sorghum cane for the manu- facture of sugar of any State in the Union, and will, in a few years, be a great sugar-producing State.
Society in Kansas is much like that to be found elsewhere. There are good, medium and bad people, such as will be found on any other portion of the globe. As a whole the people have less distinctive local characteristics than usually are seen in other States. The people are a mixture of all countries and all States, the New England element predominating. The generation born in the State reminds one much of the men who settled New England. The young Kansan is a repro- duction of the stern, silent, unflinching Puritan, who landed at Plym- outh Rock two and a half centuries ago, thoroughly westernized; the most American of the types of men our country has produced. The population in 1860 was 105,000; 1865, 137,000; 1870, 360,000; 1875, 509,000; 1880, 996,000; 1885, 1,147,000. In 1890 it surpassed the most sanguine expectations of the most enthusiastic well-wisher in the State.
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CHAPTER X.
DISTINGUISHED MEN OF KANSAS PAST AND PRESENT-SHORT BIOGRAPH- ICAL SKETCHES OF CELEBRITIES WIIOSE NAMES HAVE COME TO BE HOUSEHOLD WORDS-GOV. LYMAN U. HUMPHREY-SENATOR JOHN J. INGALLS-THE FIRST TERRITORIAL GOVERNOR-THE FIRST STATE GOVERNOR-THE FAMOUS "JIM" LANE-GOV. CRAWFORD-UNITED STATES DISTRICT ATTORNEY HALLOWELL-KANSAS' FIRST DEMO- CRATIC EXECUTIVE- SENATOR PRESTON B. PLUMB - "OTTAWA" JONES -CHIEF JUSTICE HORTON - A WELL-REMEMBERED STATE PRINTER-THE FIRST CHIEF JUSTICE-THE CHAMPION OF TIIE "HOME- STEAD LAW"-PROF. MUDGE-COL. ANTHONY-JUDGE BREWER- Gov. MEDARY.
SYMAN U. HUMPHREY present governor of Kansas, elected in 1888, was born in Stark County, Ohio, July 25, 1844, and served as lieutenant-governor before attaining to his present eminence. He left school at the age of seventeen to enlist in Company I, Seventy- sixth Ohio Volunteers. His war record is a flattering one, and he was promoted to first lieutenant, and for a time served as adjutant of his regiment. On retiring from the army, he entered Mount Union Col- lege, but shortly afterward became a student in the law department of the University of Michigan. In 1868 he was admitted to practice law in the several courts of Ohio, but soon afterward emigrated to Shelby County, Mo., where for a time he helped to edit the Shelby County Herald, a Republican paper. On arriving in Kansas, he opened a law office in Independence, and was one of the founders of the Independence Tribune. In 1871 he was nominated as the Republican candidate for the House of Representatives from Montgomery County, but was defeated. In 1876 he was again nomi- nated, in a district that had hitherto sent Democratic members, and
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elected. In 1877 he was nominated by the State Republican Central Committee, to fill a vacancy in the office of lieutenant-governor, with- out his knowledge, and in 1878 was re-nominated by the Republican State Convention for the succeeding full term, and elected by a ma- jority of over 40,000 over his Democratic opponent. His subsequent political career is well known. He was married at Independence, Kas., December 25, 1872, to Miss Amanda Leonard. Gov. Humphrey has contributed much toward the building of churches, and has been the friend of all religious enterprises. He is an effective public speaker, and an able editor. In person he is of commanding appearance and fine address. He has given much attention to literary subjects, is a great reader, and has a large library of standard works.
United States Senator John J. Ingalls was born at Middleton, Mass., December 29, 1833; graduated from Williams College in the class of 1855; was admitted to the bar in 1857; removed to Kansas in October, 1858; was a member of the Wyandotte Constitutional Conven- tion in 1859; was secretary of the Territorial Council in 1860, and of the State Senate in 1861; was a member of the State Senate of Kansas from Atchison County in 1862; editor of the Atchison Champion in 1863, 1864 and 1865; was defeated as anti-Lane candidate for lieu- tenant-governor in 1862, and again in 1864; was elected to the United States Senate, as a Republican, to succeed S. C. Pomeroy, and took his seat March 4, 1873, and was re-elected in 1879 and 1885. His term of service will expire March 3, 1891. Senator Ingalls was the son of Elias Theodore and Eliza (Chase) Ingalls, and on his father's side was descended from Edmund Ingalls, a Puritan, who emigrated from Yorkshire, England, in 1628, and, with his brother, Francis, founded the city of Lynn, Mass., in 1629. Mr. Ingalls was married, Sep- tember 27, 1865, at Atchison, Kas., to Miss Anna Louise Chesebrough, daughter of a prominent merchant. He is a Free Mason. During the war he was judge advocate and aid to Gen. George Deitzler of the Kansas Volunteers. He participated in the battles of Westport, Lex- ington and Independence, during the Price raid in 1864. He has always been radical, was an Abolitionist and "John Brown Repub- lican " in 1859, and cast his first vote for Fremont in 1856. Senator Ingalls takes high rank among the ablest of American statesmen-a man eminent for his literary attainments and distinguished as an orator.
Andrew H. Reeder, first governor of the Territory of Kansas, was born at Easton, Penn., July 12, 1807 He received an academical edu-
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cation at Lawrenceville, N. J., studied law and entered upon the prac- tice of his profession at Easton, where he rose to local eminence. He was married in 1831 to Amelia Hutter, of Easton, who died August 16, 1878. Only those who remember the excitement following the passage of the "Kansas and Nebraska Act," will be able to ap- preciate the responsibility attaching to Mr. Reeder's appointment as Territorial governor. The story of his stormy administration is told . in every history of the State. Those were days that tried other souls than his. Time has vindicated him, and his memory is honored. His escape from Kansas has furnished a theme for many a writer, and its dangers, adventures and excitements have been narrated from every conceivable point of view. After countless perils, he reached Illinois, May 27, 1856. His arrival in the free State occasioned the wildest excitement and enthusiasm. As he journeyed toward the East, at every principal town he was detained, and great crowds of people assembled to see him, to welcome him and to promise him protection from any attempt to return him to the Territory. The courage and skill with which Gov. Reeder had first withstood and then es- caped from the mobs of his enemies, caused him to be the hero of the hour in the North. At the close of the Fremont campaign, into which he entered heartily, he returned to the practice of his profes- sion at Easton. In 1860 he was a prominent candidate before the Republican convention for the vice-presidency. At the outbreak of the Rebellion, he was appointed brigadier-general by President Lin- coln. Not having been bred a soldier, he declined the appointment, publicly expressing the opinion that at his time of life, no man had a right to learn a new trade or profession, at the possible expense of the lives of other men. He promptly offered his services to the Gov- ernment, however, in any other capacity in which they could be made available, and was employed in various important services, not strictly military, during the war. His death occurred, after a short illness, at Easton, July 5, 1864. His memory should be revered by every citizen of Kansas as that of an honest and fearless magistrate, who gave to every duty his best intelligence and effort, and who, in trying times, was willing to risk life, if need be, rather than permit the per- petration of a wrong to the infant Territory over which he had charge.
Charles Robinson, the first governor of the State of Kansas, was born at Hardwick, Worcester County, Mass., July 21, 1818. He be- came a physician, and at one time had for a partner Dr. J. G. Hol- land ("Timothy Titcomb"). In 1849, soon after the gold discoveries
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in California, he set out for the newly discovered El Dorado, being surgeon of one of the early pioneer parties of California emigrants. On his arrival in California, after a short time spent in prospecting and mining, he settled, as near as the times and the surroundings would permit, at Sacramento, and there opened an eating-house. Trouble soon broke out between the squatters and a set of later spec- ulative comers who coveted their claims. The former held their claims under the United States pre-emption laws then in force, and elsewhere in the country universally observed; the speculators claimed title to the entire site of the embryo city by virtue of purchase from Capt. Sutter, who held a Mexican-Spanish title to 99,000 square miles of California land, the boundaries or location of which had never been surveyed or defined. The contest for possession, after vain endeavors on the part of the squatters to await the decision of the courts, cul- minated in an open war for possession on the one side and ejectment on the other. Dr. Robinson became the adviser and acknowledged leader of the squatters in their contest for their rights. The "squat- ter riots," as they were termed, resulted in several serious encounters, in which many were wounded and a few lost their lives. The most serious conflict resulted in the death of the mayor of Sacramento, on the one side, and the dangerous wounding of Robinson, on the other. Robinson, while still suffering from his wounds, was indicted for mur- der, assault with intent to kill, and conspiracy, and held a prisoner, pend- ing his trial, for ten weeks aboard a prison-ship. He was tried before the district court at Sacramento, and acquitted. During his imprison- ment he was nominated and elected to the California Legislature from the Sacramento district. He took a leading part in the legislative pro- ceedings of the succeeding session, and was one of the prominent sup- porters of John C. Fremont, who was elected as United States senator during the session. On his return to Sacramento, he published a daily Free-soil paper a short time. July 1, 1851, he left California and set sail for " the States." He reached his home in Fitchburg late in the fall of 1851, and there resumed the practice of medicine, which he continued until 1854 with great success. About the time of the organization of the Emigrant Aid Society, he published a series of letters concerning the Kansas country through which he had passed in 1849, which awak- ened a widespread interest in the unknown land, and drew the atten- tion of the managers of the organization to the writer as an indispen- sable agent for the practical execution of the proposed work of select- ing homes for Free-State emigrants, and otherwise carrying out the
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openly-avowed object of the society to make Kansas a free State under the conditions which the Kansas-Nebraska bill had prescribed. He thus became one of the first heralds of free-State emigration to Kan- sas, and designated to the society as the best objective point for a Free- State settlement in the Territory the land that lay along the bottoms of the Kansas River, near Lawrence. There the first party pitched their tents, and there Robinson made his own home September 6, 1854, at which time he with his family arrived; he being, with S. C. Pomeroy, the conductor of the second party of New England emigrants-it being the first made up of families who came for bona fide settlement. He chose his home on Mount Oread. He was the first governor chosen under the Topeka Constitution, and the first commander-in-chief of the Free-State militia. He held the organization with a skill and wisdom- peculiarly his own, as a final place of refuge for the Free-State men of Kansas, until, with growing strength, they could transform it into a valid form of government under the forms of law. The Wyandotte Constitution, under the forced recognition of Congress, having been adopted, he was, under its provisions, chosen the first governor of the free State of Kansas, and, in that position, organized under the laws the military forces upon a war basis for the final struggle, in which Kansas troops won fresh laurels and imperishable renown. For the cause of freedom in Kansas he suffered imprisonment, destruction of property, defamation of character, and all the minor annoyances which hatred of merit, political ambition, or internecine party strife could engender.
The date and place of the birth of Gen. James H. Lane are to-day in doubt. Holloway's History of Kansas disposes of the question of his birth and parentage as follows: "Gen. James H. Lane was born June 22, 1814, on the banks of the Ohio, in Boone County, Ky. His father, Amos Lane, cousin of Joseph Lane, of Oregon, was an emi- nent lawyer and a member of Congress. James' mother, who was a woman of superior intellectual and moral qualifications, superintended his early education. Always restive and unable to confine himself to books, he attained but the rudiments of school learning, even under the excellent tutorship of his mother." For a short time in his early manhood he engaged in mercantile pursuits, and did a small business in pork-packing in Lawrenceburg, Ind. In 1843 he began the study of law, and after a short course, was admitted to practice. In 1846, on the breaking-out of the Mexican War, he volunteered as a private and raised a company of men, of which he was elected captain. The
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company was assigned to the Third Regiment Indiana Volunteers, of which he was made colonel. His regiment, under his leadership, did honorable and distinguished service throughout the campaign of Gen. Taylor. At the expiration of its term of service, one year, he returned with his regiment, and was authorized to re-organize it for further service in the field, which he did, and it was mustered again into the service as the Fifth Regiment Indiana Volunteers. The speedy close of the war prevented it from winning further laurels in the field, after its re-organization. Soon after the close of the war and his return home, he was elected lieutenant-governor (1849), and before his term of office had expired (1852), he was elected as a member of Congress from the Fourth Congressional District of Indiana. He was also chosen one of the electors at large for Franklin Pierce as President,
during the same year. During the exciting debates which preceded the passage of the Nebraska Bill, and which developed the highest . forensic and argumentative ability, Col. Lane did not rise above medioc- rity, although an ardent advocate of the bill, which he supported by his votes through all its stages to its final passage. The passage of the bill rendered the re-election of most Northern Democrats, who had voted for it, extremely doubtful. Under the circumstances, Lane did not choose to hazard defeat at the hands of his late constituents, but determined at once to put in an early appearance in Kansas, there be- come one of the organizers of his party, and its leader in the future State. He arrived in April, 1855, and settled on a claim adjoining Lawrence, which continued to be his home up to thetime of his death. His claim cost the life of Gaius Jenkins, who contested it, and whom Lane shot dead June 3, 1858, while he was violently attempting to enforce his right, in common, to a well on the disputed claim. Lane was acquitted before a justice of the peace, and as no indictment was found against him, his case never came to trial in a court of record. For some three months after his arrival in the Territory, with con- summate tact, he felt his way, taking no positive ground beyond the point of safe retreat. During the months of June and July, 1855, the preliminary conventions, which foreshadowed the organization of the Free-State party, were held in Lawrence. Lane took no part in them, but decided that the time had arrived for the organization of the Democratic party, in order to counteract the force of the growing movement, which, if not checked, might draw to it a multitude of Free-State Democrats, whom it was essential to retain in the National fold. With this end in view, a meeting was held in Lawrence on
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