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 5
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The first settler in Montgomery County was G. L. Canada, in 1866, at Claymore; the second was Daniel Wilson, in the northeast part of the county in 1866. Those who settled in 1867 were Zach- ariah Crow, Terwilliger and William Rutherford. Among those who came during the next year were John Russell, J. B. Rowley, Patrick Dagan, William Reed, William Roberts, Christian Greenough, John Hanks, H. W. Conrad, Alexander Duncan, J. A. Twiss, Col. Coffey, O. F. Johns, J. Roberts, T. C., J. H. and A. Graham, P. R. Jordon, G. W. and W. L. Mays, H. A. Bethuran, J. H. Conrad, Moses Roller. R. Stallcup, M. McGowen, R. M. Bennett, John Campbell, Jacob Thompson, Thomas Brock, J. Kappell, Levi Mann, Philip Waldron, N. P. Morgan, A. P. Patter, W. Sherill, J. Simmons, Rachel Greeno, J. Weddell, Mortimer Goodell, E. Goodell, D. R. B. Flora, R. W. Dunlap, John McIntyre, Mrs. E. C. Powell, Thomas C. Evans, Lewis Choteau, Brewer, Pierce, George Spece, Dr. Koutz and James Parkinson. No improvement of importance had yet been made, so that up to 1869 there were but few and scattered evidences of anything except Indian occupancy.
Morris is another of the counties which was opened to settlement by the great Santa Fe trail. Settlement began at Council Grove. J. C. Munkers, in Munkers' Creek, was the first settler elsewhere in the county.
In January, 1854 W. W. Moore came from St. Joseph and located in Nemaha County, in the proximity of Baker's Ford, on the Nemaha, some nine miles from Seneca. This point was afterward known as Ur- bana. It was near the center of immediately subsequent settlements. In February of the same year, Walter D. Beeles settled north of Moore's place, and in March, Greenberry Key, Thomas, John C. and Jacob B. Newton locating upon the Nemaha, somewhat to the south, in April. John O'Laughlin took a valuable claim on Turkey Creek. On July
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4 a meeting of the settlers was held at Urbana, to arrange for their mutual protection in their claims. John Castle was chairman, and George T. Bobst, secretary. At the time of this meeting, no settle- ment, except in the vicinity of the Nemaha, had been effected west of the Wolf River and Harding's station; the early settlement of Nemaha County, preceding the formal ceding of the Northern Kan- sas lands by the Indians, being due to the understanding that a twenty- mile strip along the valley of the Nemaha, and extending southward some ways, was "neutral land," to which the Indians had no claim.
The treaty by which the Osages relinquished the "ceded lands" to the United States was concluded September 29, 1865, and proclaimed January 21, 1867. Before the former date, in some of the townships of Neosho County, as now organized, quite a number of settlers had taken claims, in anticipation of the removal of the Indians. So far as ascertainable, the following-named persons were the first, or among the first: Dr. W. W. Hill (who came in 1851, and was killed in his own door-yard by a mob, November 1, 1866), Levi Hadden, Simeon W. and James A. Hadden, Solomon Markham and his four sons, J. L. Fletcher, S. Barbee, H. Schooley, Thomas Hadden, Darius Rodgers, Benjamin M. Smith, Thomas Jackson, S. E. Beach, T. R. Peters, M. Kitterman, William Box, David Lowery, J. C. Comstock, E. J. Pierce, W. I. Brewer, Renben Lake, Joseph Cummings, Henry and John Wikle, John Blair, George T. Shepherd, A. A. Ashlock, M. J. Salter, John Post, I. N. Roach, W. C. Dickerson, S. Rosa, M. L. and Frank Mc- Cashu, Dr. Dement, M. A. Patterson, J. L. Evans, I. M. Allen, John Johnson, D. T. Mitchell, P. Walters, R. Leppo, E. F. Williams, P. McCarthy, John C. Weibley, Capt. John Berry, J. A. Wells, A. H. Childs, James Hoagland, A. H. Roe, J. Naff and D. W. Bray.
Ness County did not settle very rapidly at first, but its few early residents were ambitious and enterprising, and very anxious to secure a county organization. In 1873, on the claim that the county had, by the assessor's returns, 600 inhabitants, a petition for an organization was sent to the governor. The county was organized October 23, 1873, O. H. Perry, Thomas Myers and John Rogers being appointed special county commissioners, and Charles McGuire special county clerk. It was disorganized in 1874, and reorganized in 1880.
The first actual settler in Norton County was Shelby D. Reed, in Centre Township, in April, 1872. In the fall of the same year Thomas Beaumont, Henry Gordon and Peter Hanson settled in the southern section of the county, near the Solomon River. Hanson
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opened the first farm in the spring of 1872, several months before he became an actual settler. The first families to make permanent set- tlement were James Hall's and Daniel C. Coleman's, on the Prairie Dog, twelve miles east of Norton; they came in 1872. During the same season Joel Simmons, W. E. Case, Charles and John Beiber, G. N. Kingsbury, Henry Oliver, Solomon Marsh, Charles Hilsinger and Joel Mott settled in the county. Soon after came Col. N. H. Billings, who became the first representative in the Legislature.
When Kansas was formed as a Territory, May 30, 1854, the only white settlers within the present limits of Osage County were two men living on One Hundred and Ten Creek, at the crossing of the Santa Fe Trail, and who had married Shawnees. Besides these, there were a few at the Sac and Fox agency. The first settler after May 30, 1854, was John Frele, who came with his family soon after that date, and stopped at the point on the Santa Fe trail where Burlingame now is. The only person living anywhere in the neighborhood was a Shawnee Indian, who had a cabin by a spring, in what is now the northern part of the above-named town. Frele bought this claim, and moved into the cabin. The next winter a son was born to Mrs. Frele. This was the first white child born in the county.
Osborne County's earliest settler lived near Twelve-mile Creek and, was drowned in the winter of 1820. Zara M. Hill made the first entry of land on the north fork of the river, between Downs and Bethany.
The first settlement in Ottawa County was made in May, 1855, by William Still, George Darling and a Frenchman named La Pierre, near the mouth of Coal Creek, but the Sioux troubles drove them away. The first permanent settlers came in 1859. They were S. M. Wright, E. W. Branch, Jacob Humburger, H. R. Little and Josiah Hocker. The first white women in the county were Mrs. S. M. Wright and Mrs. E. W. Branch, who located with their husbands in 1859.
Early events in the history of Pawnee County are thus recounted: In 1872 George B. Cox settled in Larned Township; a colony from Geneva, Ohio, settled in Garfield Township in May, 1873; Adams Peabody in Pleasant Valley Township, in 1873; Gallatin Brown in Brown's Grove Township, in 1875. Colegrove & Russell established a general store at Larned in June, 1872; E. W. Grover, at Garfield, in 1873; George B. Cox, at Larned, in 1872. In 1862 a post-office was established at the military post at Fort Larned.
The first settlement in Phillips County was made in 1869 by C. J. Van Allen, who pre-empted a farm east of Kirwin. He built the first
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log house in the county, and his father-in-law, Samuel Bales, the first frame house. Previous to this time, however, the Government sent Col. Kirwin (for whom the principal town in the county was named), who erected a stockade fort, just after the close of the war, to prevent the encroachments of Indians, and for protection of overland California emigrants. This stockade was abandoned by the Government with the advent of the early settlers. In 1870 the Indians became troublesome and the settlers built a stockade, in the east part of what is now Kir- win, for safety in case of an attack. The stockade was constructed of logs ten feet long, placed endwise in the ground.
William Martell, Antoine Tasier, Bazile Greemore, Francis Ber- gen, Robert Wilson, A. Higben, Joseph Truckee, O. H. P. Polk, Bap- tise Ogee, Mrs. B. H. Bertrand, Mrs. Joseph Bertrand, Mrs. Amable Bertrand, and Zoa Durcharm, were the earliest settlers of Pottawa- tomie County. They were here years before the passage of the Kan- sas-Nebraska bill. Robert Wilson took the first claim in 1853, on the land where now stands Louisville, and erected the first house in the county outside the Pottawatomie reserve. It was used as a hotel for many years. Judge Huggins and Dr. Sabin erected the first flouring- mill in 1856.
The settlement of Pratt County is recent. The first actual settler was A. J. Johnson, who located in the vicinity of Springvale, in the fall of 1873, the first man in the county to break sod and raise a crop. J. W. Black and A. Kelly also located in the southwest corner of the county. I. M. Powell was next, in September, 1875. The first male child in the county was born to Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Black, in September, 1875, and was named Pratt. The first female child in the county was born to Mr. and Mrs. I. M. Powell, in 1875.
August C. Blume, August Deitleff, Albert E. Lange, Charles Nast and Antone Stermer, five Germans, made the first settlement in Raw- lins County in April, 1875. When they came they saw a roving band of Cheyenne Indians. Three of these men remained in the county, the others returned East.
The first settlement in Reno County was made by Lewis M. Thomas, November, 1870; the second settler was J. H. D. Rosan; the third was John Hunt. In March, 1871, Rosan, his brother (C. W. Rosan) and Charles Street drove in a large herd of Texas cattle. Other settlers came in rapidly afterward.
For a long time the Republican River was the boundary line be- tween the white and Indian territory, consequently the early settle-
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ments of Republic County were the scene of Indian outrages. Daniel and Conrad Myers, the oldest settlers in the county, located February 28, 1861. During the most trying period of the early settlement, Conrad never left his claim, but Daniel sought a more safe retreat, and returned after danger had passed. During the war the Indians were very savage, and made many raids upon the settlers. They all proved futile; the frontier did not recede, but steadily advanced, until the Republican River became the boundary line. At this time the nearest settlement was in Cloud County, at Lake Sibley, which, however, was soon deserted on account of the hostile Indians. The nearest post- office was Manhattan, eighty miles away.
Rice County was settled in 1870, by John A. Carlson, Andrew John- son, C. S. Lindell, Angust Johnson, John E. Johnson, John P. John- son, O. W. Peterson, R. M. Hutchinson, A. J. Howard, J. E. Perdue and others. In the latter part of 1853 a Tennesseean, by the name of Samuel D. Dyer, was running a Government ferry at Juniata, about one mile below Rocky Ford, on the Big Blue, in Riley County. Soon after, the Government built a bridge at this point, but in 1855 it was swept away by a flood. Mr. Dyer, the first white inhabitant of Riley County, died in February, 1875. His house has been described as "one story high and two stories long."
The first settlers in Rooks County were ten persons engaged in the stock business, named James, Thomas, Joseph, John and Francis Mc- Nulty (brothers, originally from Massachusetts), Tunis Bulas, John Wells, John Powell, Seal Northup and Capt. J. Owens. They arrived in January, 1871, and all took the first claims made in the county, in what afterward became Stockton Township. With the exception of James McNulty and Capt. Owens, all became permanent residents. Soon after these settlers followed John Shorthill, in Lowell Township. Mrs. Robert E. Martin, who came with her husband and family in the fall of 1871, was the first woman who settled in Rooks County. Fol- lowing these early settlers came Thomas Boylan, Henry Purdy, S. C. Smith, M. M. Stewart, G. W. Patterson, Henry Hill, George Steele, John Russell, Lyman Randall, John Lawson, W. H. Barnes, George W. Beebe, the Dibbles, Parks and others.
The early settlers of Rush County found buffalo in abundance, and derived much of their living therefrom. F. E. Garner built the first frame house in the county. William Basham and P. C. Dixon came to Pioneer Township in the fall of 1870. Mr. Basham was the first white settler in the county. The first family was that of J. S. Temple-
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ton, who settled near the present site of Walnut City, now Rush Cen- ter, August 1, 1871. Samuel Alpha, son of Mr. and Mrs. Templeton, was the first child born in the county. James Corrall and Joseph Shaw Brown settled in Brookdale Township in 1871; A. Harvey and J. C. Young in Alexander Township, in 1872; A. Reiner in Ban- ner Township, in 1873; D. A. Stubbs and S. W. Taylor in La Crosse Township, in 1876.
Prior to 1869, Russell County was without a settler. In July, of that year, A. E. Mathews settled on a claim at the eastern edge of the county, about three miles southwest of Wilson. About that time coal had been discovered in that locality, and the object of Mathews was more to engage in coal mining than farming. He was the first white person to take up a residence within the borders of Russell County. In November, 1870, C. M. Harshburger, James Dorman, James Haight and Samuel Janes took claims on East Wolf Creek, and went into camp, and passed the winter hunting buffalo and antelope, of which there were plenty. These were followed in the winter of 1870-71 by C. M Hibbard, A. C. and Charles Birdsall, N. R. Cowan and John Deering, all of whom, excepting Deering, returned to their homes after selecting their claims. In 1869 some section hands, while at work on the railway, had been killed by Indians, and as roving bands of red men would frequently come to the county on hunting expeditions, Deering deemed it advisable to be prepared for all emergencies that might arise; and to make himself as secure as possible against any attack, he surrounded his shanty with a stockade made of logs, pierced at intervals with loopholes. The Northwestern Colony, of which Ben- jamin Pratt was president, was organized at Ripon, Wis., in January, 1871. Russell County was decided upon as the place to locate, and they arrived at Fossil Station, now Russell, on the 19th of April. There were about seventy persons in the colony, and among them five families. From the arrival of this colony may be dated the permanent settlement of the county. Another colony, but much smaller, from Ohio, located ten miles east of Russell, on the Kansas Pacific Railway, where they started a town named Bunker Hill. Settlers now began to come in and locate in different parts of the county.
The first attempt at settlement in Saline County was that made by P. B. Plumb (now United States Senator from Kansas), Maj. Pierce and Mr. Hunter. This party, as early as 1856, came as far west as the month of the Saline River, where they projected a town on the south side of the river, to which they gave the name of Mariposa. The
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town grew to the dimensions of one log house above ground, and a well under ground, when it was abandoned, and Saline County was left without an inhabitant. The second session of the Territorial Legislature chartered, in 1856, a company that had been organized under the name of the "Buchanan Town Company," taking its name from the President of the United States, elected that year. A large tract of land was selected, a portion of which was set apart for a public square. Eight log cabins were erected by the company in 1857, two on each side of the square, and the town of Buchanan was now established. Only two of the cabins were ever occupied. The head of this enter- prise was Richard Mobley, who resided at Ogden, in Riley County, and who was a member of the Lecompton Constitutional Convention. He occupied one of the cabins with his wife and child, but the latter dying soon after, Buchanan was abandoned, and once more Saline County was left without a settler. Two or three years afterward the last vestige of Buchanan perished in the prairie fire's flames. In the spring of 1858 W. A. Phillips came to the Smoky Hill Valley in com- pany with A. M. Campbell and James Muir. On arriving at the Saline, they found that some one had put up a log cabin on the northeast bank of the stream, not far from the Government bridge, and close to the cabin was a hay stack at which some buffaloes were eating. On going up to the cabin they found it deserted. From the Saline, they pushed on up to the Smoky until they reached that point where the river turned due south, and here they drove their stakes, located a town site, to which they gave the name of Salina, and this was the first perma- nent settlement made in Saline County. In March, 1858, John and Goothart Schipple, brothers, being the party who had erected the log cabin on the bank of the Saline, returned and settled upon their claim, which they had only temporarily abandoned during the winter of 1857-58.
The first bona fide white settler in Sedgwick County was C. C. Arnold, who came in 1857 with a party of hunters, and remained in the county. Mr. Arnold came from Coffey County, and his companions were Ed. S. Moseley, Mr. Maxley, Thompson Crawford, Robert Dun- lap, Robert Durackin and Jacob Cary. Maxley and Moseley located a "ranch " or Indian trading post on the Little Arkansas, a short dis- tance above the present site of Wichita. The others built a cabin and cultivated a little land on what now constitutes William T. Jewett's farm on the Arkansas River, on the old town site of Park City. Their especial business was that of capturing buffalo cows and calves for
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eastern parks and traveling menageries. Maxley was drowned in the Kansas River in 1864. Moseley had previously taken a claim in Wil- son County, and, having entered it, moved into Humboldt, Allen County, and engaged in the butchering business. In the fall of 1863 or spring of 1864, he again became a trader and Nimrod; his last scene of active life being laid at Medicine Lodge and the surrounding country, and a short time after leaving Humboldt he was murdered by Osage Indians. Next in order, dispnting with C. C. Arnold the first settlership, was John Ross, a farmer, who, in 1860, settled upon what is now the Jewett farm, eight miles northeast of Wichita. Mr. Ross removed from Wilson County with his wife and children, built a house and began the work of a farmer. He was murdered in June of the same year by a band of Osage Indians. In the fall of 1863 J. R. Mead established a trading post on the site of Wichita, where he traded with the Indians for several years. This section of the Arkansas Valley, during the early days of Mr. Mead's residence, was the hun- ter's paradise. During a period of three weeks, assisted by two em- ployes, he killed 330 buffalo, saved 300 hides and 3,500 pounds of tallow, realizing from their labor the sum of $400, and killing, in addi- tion, considerable other game, including a large number of antelope and one elk. The first child known to have been born in the county was Sedgwick Hoover, whose parents still reside in Wichita Township. He was born December 23, 1869. The first marriage occurred in the winter of 1869-70.
Probably the first man that settled among the Indians in Shawnee County was Frederick Chouteau, who in 1830 started a trading post on Mission Creek, about two miles south of the Kansas River. During the same year Rev. William Johnson, of the Shawnee mission, began his missionary labors among the Kaws. In 1835 the southern portion of the Government farm was established in the valley of Mission Creek, and a portion of it was plowed by Maj. Daniel Boone, a grand- son of the famous borderman. Mission buildings were erected the same year. The Papan brothers, Joseph, Ahcan, Louis and Enberie, were Canadians, whose father came from Montreal and settled in St. Louis, in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Joseph, Ahcan and Louis married, respectively, Josette, Julie and Victoire Gonvil, half-breed daughters of Louis Gonvil, a French trader, and his Kaw wife. These three girls, by the terms of a treaty made in 1825 with their tribe, were each entitled to a section of land on the north bank of the Kansas River, their special reservations covering the present
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site of North Topeka and running west up the river. In the spring of 1840 Joseph and Ahcan, with their wives, moved from Missouri to one of these reservations, and were joined the following year by Louis and wife. In 1842 the Messrs. Papan established the first ferry across the Kansas River, long known as Papan's Ferry. It was just above the island to which the Topeka City reservoir is built, the southern landing being on the present farm of Mrs. Anthony Ward. The ferry was started to accommodate the travel between Fort Leav- enworth and New Mexico, but afterward became a favorite crossing for the California and Oregon traders and emigrants.
In 1848 Louis Catalon and James McFerson moved to the Papan neighborhood, and in 1850 Fred Swice and George L. Young became settlers in what is now Soldier Township. When the Pottawatomies were removed from the Osage to the Kansas River, the missionaries who had been employed among them followed them to the new location. The limits of their reservation were not very definitely fixed at first, and the Catholic mission of Father J. B. Hocken was located too far south, intrenching upon the Shawnee reservation, on the site of the present township of Auburn. The mission was established in the fall of 1847. About twenty log cabins were built and occupied by the Indians during the following winter, and deserted by them in the spring, when they removed farther north to their own reservation. These buildings served as homes for the Shawnees for several years, a part of them and 800 acres of land being purchased of them in 1854 by John W. Brown, the first white settler in Auburn. After 1854 settlement was quite rapid. August 11, 1854, Mr. Brown was joined by a party of settlers from Missouri.
Sheridan County is of recent settlement and organization. The first settler was a buffalo hunter, in 1874.
The first settlers in what is now Smith County were John Rhodes, J. K. Belk, Ambrose Oldaker, B. F. Myers, J. H. Johnson, and J. C. Morrisson, who came in the fall of 1870. The following season they were followed by Thomas Lane and Anthony Robertson, who brought their families; H. H. Granholz, H. Menshoff, L. Binman, J. Rider, J. Eldredge, Thomas Decker, James H. Decker, T. J. Burrow, H. F. Albright, Charles Stewart, T. J. Tompkins, W. M. George, Fred W. Wagoner. The first stone house erected was built in 1877 by Col. Campbell. The first woman who settled in Smith County was Mrs. Mary Peebles, who became a resident of Lincoln Township in the fall of 1870. Ambrose Oldaker, probably the first settler in the county,
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who made a home on Oak Creek, twelve miles north of Cawker City, removed to Washington Territory in 1880. The first homesteader in the county was Christopher Noggels, who took a claim on Beaver Creek in June, 1871. The first marriage was that of T. J. Burrow and Miss R. J. Dunlap.
W. R. Hoole settled upon the first claim entered in Stafford County in May, 1874. In June John Birbeck came and built a frame house, the first in the county. About the same time, Martin Fitz- patrick and James O'Connor entered claims, upon which they located, followed soon after by Elisha Williamson, Ed Williamson, F. Will- iamson, Abe. Lash and H. Campbell, all of whom settled in the northern portion of the county, while J. C. Stone, R. M. Blair, Jesse Vickers, E. B. Crawford, Ed Hadlock and W. Z. Nutting settled in the eastern portion of the county, and James Neeland and two or three others in the southwestern portion.
Early in 1869 John Degolia and A. Cadou built a ranch on Slate Creek, in what is now Sumner Township, Sumner County. April 9 J. M. Buffington crossed the Arkansas and built a house. May 16 Lafayette Binkley and John Horton came to Big Cottonwood crossing, where Oxford now stands, and built the log trading store later occu- pied by John Hardman. Other settlers came soon after. These were among the pioneers. Settlement was quite rapid in most parts of the county.
The first settler in Trego County was B. O. Richards, who located at a place named Coyote, near the present site of Collyer. At that time Richards was a railway employe and kept a boarding house, but subsequently took a claim and tried farming, but failing at this he went into stock raising. Richards, however, was not the first man in the county to attempt farming, the credit for this belonging to J. R. Snyder, who came in 1877. The settlers in the county who had pre- ceded the Chicago colony in 1877, were J. C. Henry, Harlow Orton, Earl Spaulding, J. K. Snyder, D. O. Adams, George Brown, George McCaslin, George Pinkham and Peleg Richards. When Mr. Warren went to the county in the fall of 1877, for the purpose of establishing a colony and founding a city, there went with him W. S. Harrison, George Barrell, F. O. Ellsworth, Thomas Peck and C. W. F. Street, all of whom located upon claims in different parts of the county. The following year witnessed a rush, and the Government land office was besieged by large crowds daily, who wished to enter claims.
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