The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county, Part 51

Author: Union Historical Company
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company
Number of Pages: 1068

USA > Missouri > Jackson County > The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county > Part 51

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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.

ber of other Frenchmen were residing in the French settlement near the mouth of the Kaw.

The first election in Kaw township, was held at the house of William John- son on the first Monday in August 1828, with Andrew Patterson, John Young and William Master, as judges, and James Jennings and Richard Hancock as clerks. The second was held on the first Monday in August, 1830, at the house of Michael Farnes, with Andrew P. Patterson, James Welch and William Lewis as judges.

Kansas City is in Kaw township, and now embraces about half of it within its corporate limits, the history of which embraces substantially the history of the township. This history will be found elsewhere in this volume. Westport was embraced in Kaw township until the establishment of Westport township in 1869, and its history might be said to belong to that of Kaw township. This history is also mainly embraced in that of Kansas City, above referred to, the two places having been always so nearly identical that the history of one must embrace the leading features of the other.

THE PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.

HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.

BY W. H. MILLER, SECRETARY BOARD OF TRADE.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

How Ancient Cities were Founded and . Built The Considerations Determining their Location- How Modern Cities are Built, and the Considerations Determining their Location-American Cities, how Located and how Built-Western Cities- The Importance of Transportation Facil- ities-The People who Determined their Location, and why-" Motion Follows the Line of Least Resistance."

The first efforts of mankind to build cities antedates history, hence nothing very definite concerning the circumstances and methods is or can be known ; but in the earlier ages of the historic era, when the race was divided into compara- tively small and warring factions, and afterward, when these factions grew to be powerful but not less warlike nations, cities were located by kings and conquerors and built by the people under their immediate supervision and direction. In those warlike ages a site of a city was determined mainly by the advantages of defense of the spot of ground selected, though the contiguity of fertile and pas- toral country seems not to have been entirely ignored; hence cities built in those ages were at once the capital and fortress of the king, while immediately surround- ing it was a country susceptible of supporting his subjects. No regard seems to have been had, however, to facilities for transportation, not even so much as would facilitate military operations, while trade, which consisted chiefly of ex- change between the people of the town and the adjacent domain, was entirely ignored. Exhanges between people of different dominions existed only as pillage.

In earlier periods, however, the conquering of one people by another, the combination of different cities under the same dominion and the necessities of military operations, seem to have caused more attention to be given to transpor- tation facilities in the location of cities. This was after the adoption of methods for utilizing the larger streams and the inland seas, and the erection of cities after that time seems to have been determined by the three principles of defensi- bility, contiguity of productive country, and facilities for water transportation, and hence were usually located on large rivers or arms of the sea. At least it was cities so located that in this period were most prosperous and became most famous.

These features continued to be the ruling factors in determining the location

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of cities until after the American Revolution. The cities of the United Stat built before that time were founded, not directly by royal hands, but by tho holding royal patents for that purpose, and the same features seem to have be observed by them, as were regarded by kings and conquerors for many previo ages in the Old World.

BUILDING CITIES IN AMERICA.

Since the Revolution, however, cities have ceased to be founded in the Ur ted States by authority ; the people have done it themselves, without supervisic or interference from government. , The sites have been selected by individua or companies; the grounds staked off, and the lots offered for sale. This don the balance rested with the people, and though the number of cities founded this country west of the Alleghany Mountains is almost infinite, each of whic was expected by its founders rapidly to become a great emporium, the peop have built but few. The popular choice among the many rivals that have pr sented themselves in every section has been determined by principles as well . ascertained as those of old, and as easy of definition.

CONSIDERATION OF TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.

Defensibility has ceased to be a consideration, for in the interior of the Un ted States we have had no foe that made it necessary. Contiguity to ferti country can scarcely be said to have exerted an influence, for this country is a fertile. Facilities for transportation, however, have exerted a very great and co trolling influence. Having never been a warlike people, and having a country wonderful and varied productiveness, the Americans are, of necessity, a produ ing and trading people. The chief consideration to such a people is transport tion, and the city or the proposed city, possessing this feature in the highest d gree, be it wagon roads, watercourses with keel or steamboats, or railroads, wi be most prosperous ; and the one that by such means, each in its age, has accon modated the country farthest into the interior has commanded the widest exter of trade. The history of interior cities is but a history of the development ( transportation in its different forms. Where we find that a place now almost ol solete was once more promising than its rivals, we will likely find that it had th best transportation of the kind then employed, but that in some subsequent phas some rival took the advantage and the lead. Indeed there are but few, beside our own city, that from the first have held the advantage over all rivals in a phases of transportational development, or that stand to-day more pre-eminent i this regard.

BY WHOM WESTERN CITIES WERE LOCATED.

The importance of facilities for transportation in determining the locatio and prosperity of cities cannot be better indicated than by a brief reference t the character, vocation and habits of the class of men who determined the loca tions of all our important western cities, though they did not actually build an of them. We refer to the pioneer traders, trappers and hunters who preceded th march of civilization from the Atlantic coast -a class now rapidly disappearin into tradition and history, because the wilderness, and the wild animals the loved to chase are gone, and the red men, their companions, associates and foe are rapidly going. Daniel Boone was the type of the American element in thi class, and also of the hunters who constituted a part of it; but the most of ther. appear to have been of French origin or descent. They were divided into thre distinct classes-hunters and trappers, traders and voyageurs. This latter class wer always in the employ of the traders, and it was their business to propel the wate craft which the traders employed in transportation. The hunters and trapper were sometimes independent and sometimes in the employ of the traders. The penetrated far into the wilds and explored the unknown regions. They were th

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HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.

true pioneers. The furs and skins procured by them were sold to the traders, or procured for them. The traders, originally independent but subsequently under the direction of the great fur companies, established posts far into the interior of the wilderness, to which they transported articles suitable for traffic with the Indians, and such supplies as hunters and trappers wanted, and at which they purchased robes, skins and furs, which they transported back to the borders of civilization. Irving's " Astoria" and " Booneville" give an excellent history of this trade, which, about the beginning of the present century, was immense, and extended all over the uninhabited parts of North America. The men engaged in it were a brave, adventurous class, for whom the wilderness and association with wild animals and wild men possessed more charms than civilization. With a few articles of traffic, a gun and perhaps a few tools for constructing traps, they pushed their way hundreds and even thousands of miles into the untrodden wil- derness, not knowing what moment they might fall in with some unknown ferocious animal, or some band of hostile savages. They put their canoes and rafts into streams and followed their course, not knowing to what falls or dangers they might lead. Their lives were a perpetual vigil, and they may be said to have lived with their finger on the trigger. In the beginning they confined their ex- cursions to a limited territory where the valuable fur animals were to be found. Here they spent their winters in solitude, and in the spring went with the pro- ceeds of their trapping to a trading post where they were disposed of and new supplies purchased, when they were off again into the solitude for another year. Subsequently they became the employees or agents of the fur companies, by whom expeditions of great magnitude and extended exploration were undertaken.

The traders were mostly French, and as they employed trappers as well as traded with them and the Indians, and as the fur animals were chiefly found along streams, their posts were usually located on them or near their confluence. The latter were deemed the most desirable locations, as they gave access to larger districts of country by keel boats and pirogues, and hence more easily commanded a larger trade. Their only means of transportation was packing on their own backs, or on the backs of horses, and light water craft which could be propelled in the rivers with pikes. The manifest great superiority of the latter method for conducting an extensive trade is sufficient explanation of their preference for the confluence of streams, as the latter gave them access to more than one valley and thus increased possibilities for trade. This explains, also, why the vicinity of Kansas City became so attractive to them when they came to know of it, as the sequel will show that it was ; for, from here they had direct access to St. Louis, their headquarters at the time they came here, and had also good command of the upper Missouri, Kansas and Platte River valleys, while it was but a short distance across the prairie country to the valleys of the Osage, Neosho, and Arkansas.

The American and British Governments have always maintained military posts on the frontier, for the protection of advancing settlement, yet they have never led, but always followed these men ; and military men in scientifically deter- mining the strategic advantages of locations for posts have always found the judgment of these pioneers unerring as to the points that held best command of the adjacent country, and have located their posts in the vicinity of the traders and where substantially the same advantages were secured.

The principle underlying these facts-underlying the law of transportation itself-is the long since observed universal physical law that " motion follows the line of least resistance." The movements of communities, classes and individuals whether in commercial, industrial, military, or social efforts, no less than of physical bodies, obey this universal law. All effort employs the methods, and follows the lines that most facilitate the attainment of its object, which is but another form of expression of the law that " motion follows the line of least resist- ance."

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HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.

CHAPTER II. EARLY EXPEDITIONS AND SETTLEMENTS.

The Fur Companies-The First Settlement at Kansas City-How and Why it was Made-In the Wilderness-The Entry of the Land-The French Settlement, and Life Among the French Settlers-The Advantages of the Place Recognized by Others-An Anecdote of Washington Irving.

The French element of the class of pioneers above referred to, settled Can- ada and the northwestern part of the United States, as well as the country about the mouth of the Mississippi River. They came into the upper Mississippi and Missouri Valleys in 1764, under the lead of Pierre Laclede Liguest (always called Laclede), who held a charter from the French Government, giving him the ex- clusive right to trade with the Indians in all the country as far north as St. Peters River. Laclede brought part of his colony from France, and received large ac- cessions to it in New Orleans, mainly of hunters and trappers, who had had ex- perience with the Indians. In the year 1764, this colony established itself on the west bank of the Mississippi River, and founded the present city of St. Louis. From this point they immediately began their trading and trapping incursions in- to the then unbroken wilderness in their front. Their method of proceeding seems to have been to penetrate into the interior and establish small local posts for trading with the Indians, and from whence the trappers and hunters were out- fitted and sent out into the adjacent woods. These local posts were many of them independent, but usually they were under the general management of par- ties in St. Louis. In this way, the country west and northwest of St. Louis was traversed and explored by these people at a very early day as far west as the Rocky Mountains, but of the extent of their operations little has been recorded; hence, little is known concerning the posts established by them. It is known, however, that such posts were established at a very early day, on the Chariton and Grand Rivers, in Missouri, and at Cote Sans Dessein, in Callaway county.

In the year 1799 a post was established in the Blacksnake Hills, near St. Joseph, and in 1800 one was established at Randolph Bluffs, opposite and three miles below Kansas City. The Indian and fur trade constituted the commerce of St. Louis for half a century, and when the Territory of Louisiana was ceded by France to the United States, in 1803, the population of St. Louis was all of this class of people, and the Indian and fur trade its principal interest.

Prominent among the men who were engaged in an extensive way in this trade, were Auguste and Pierre Chouteau, of St. Louis, who came from France with Laclede. Auguste had charge of the workmen who began the clearing of the forest for the city of St. Louis in 1764. Both at once engaged in the fur and Indian trade. Pierre was interested in the posts on Grand and Chariton Rivers, and it is supposed was the proprietor of the post at Randolph Bluffs, which ap- pears to have been under the immediate charge of Louis Bartholet, afterward known in the settlement at the mouth of the Kaw as " Grand Louis," in counter- distinction to his son, who was known as "Petite Louis." Both these Chou- teaus were afterward connected with the Missouri Fur Company, and the sons of Pierre, and Francois, with the American Company.

Probably the first white man who came into the territory of Jackson county was Col. Daniel Morgan Boone, a son of old Daniel Boone. He came to St. Louis in 1787, where he was warmly received by the trappers and traders. In a memoir of him written by the late Dr. Johnson Lykins, of this city, it is stated

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that he spent twelve winters trapping beavers on the Blue, spending his summers in St. Louis. He was married in the year 1800, when he abandoned trapping. After the settlement of the county he returned and located on a farm near West- port, where he remained until his death from Asiatic cholera in 1832.

THE FUR COMPANIES.

The increase of the volume of any business and of the amount of capital employed in it, naturally leads to more extended operations and more systematic methods. It gives rise also to a tendency to concentrate into fewer hands. This was true of the fur and Indian trade as well as of all others. In 1787 this uni- versal tendency of business to concentrate led to an abandonment, to a large extent, in Canada, of the simple individual methods above described, and the organization of the Northwest Fur Company at Montreal. John Jacob Astor, of New York, having been for some time interested in the fur trade with others began business for himself in 1807, and in 1809 organized the American Fur Company. The year before this event, that is 1808, twelve persons, among whom were Pierre and Auguste Chouteau, residing at St. Louis, gave systematic shape to the trade of the Missouri valley by the organization of the Missouri Fur Company, of which, Manuel Lisa, a Spaniard, was the leader. Sometime pre- vious to this the Mackinaw Company was organized in the northwest in the region of the lakes. About 1809 or 1810 the Missouri, American and Northwestern companies began to push their expeditions across the Rocky Mountains about the head-waters of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, with a view of establishing a chain of posts across the continent, and they thus became . strong rivals. They made one expedition each and effected the desired lodgment, but, owing to the unfortunate killing of a Blackfoot chief, there arose a hostility on the part of those Indians which drove out the American and Missouri companies.

At this time there was another more northern company operating in the nothwest, known as the Hudson Bay Company. In 1810 Mr. Astor organized the Pacific Fur Company and undertook the Astoria enterprise, of which Wash- ington Irving has written such an excellent history. In 1811 the Mackinaw com- pany was bought out by the American and Northwestern companies, jointly, and its territory and effects divided between them. This year the American company sent a second expedition up the Missouri River under charge of Wilson P. Hunt, who was closely followed and strongly opposed by a second expedition of the Missouri company, under Manuel Lisa.

During the war of 1812, the Astoria enterprise failed, and it was some years before the American company again attempted extended operations in the far northwest. In 1813 the Missouri Fur Company was merged into the American, and in 1819 a branch house of the latter was established at St. Louis, under the general direction of Samuel Abbott. The Chouteaus and others who had been connected with the old Missouri company then became connected with it. Pierre Chouteau, eldest son of Pierre Chouteau, who came from France, was quite promi- nent in its operations, and his brother, Francois Chouteau, was also connected with it This company having inherited the posts and trade of the Missouri com- pany, occupied the territory included in Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, and extended also into Arkansas and the Indian Territory, although there were still a number of independent traders in this territory. After the absorption of the Missouri company, the American company began to make great efforts to monop- olize the trade of the southwest by rooting out the independent traders. In pur- suance of this, Francois Chouteau was sent into the country to establish posts and to bring the local traders into subordination to the company. At what time he first entered upon this work is unknown, but he was thus engaged for several years. Among the posts thus established by him, was one on the Kaw River about twenty miles from its mouth, known as the "Four Houses, " from the fact

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that it consisted of four log houses so arranged as to inclose a square court equal in size to the width of one of the houses. In other words a square was marked off and the houses built so that one end of each should be on one line of the square, the corners touching. This form of construction presented in each di- rection a defensible front equal to the length of two houses and the width of another.

FIRST SETTLEMENT AT KANSAS CITY.

In the spring of 1821 M. Chouteau was sent back to this country to establish a general agency for the posts he had established or connected with the company, from which supplies could be sent to the posts, and at which the proceeds of the trade could be collected. The extent of this trade was such as to demand an establishment of this kind nearer than St. Louis. The knowledge of the country he had already acquired enabled him to judge of the merits of different points for such agency, having in view always the advantage offered by each for extended operations by the methods of transportation then employed. At the Kawsmouth he had access by water to the entire valleys of the Kaw, Missouri, Platte and smaller tributaries, while it afforded the shortest land transit to the Indians of the plains and to the valleys of the Osage, Neosho and Arkansas. Hence, with that unerring judgment for which his class was peculiar, he selected this point and established himself in the bottom opposite Randolph Bluffs, about three miles below what is now Kansas City. This was the first recognition of the natural advantages of this angle of the river for a large distributive trade, and the actual founding of the interest which has since expanded into the varied and wide ex- tended activities of this city. He brought with him at this time about thirty men, all of whom were employed in the service of the company as courriers des bois or voyageurs, and through them he concentrated at his general agency herc the trade of the trans-Missouri country. His post at this point was in a sense a trading post for the Indians near by, but its distinctive feature was as a depot of supply and as a point of concentration for traders, trappers, hunters, and the interior posts. In the fall of the same year he brought his family to this post in a keel boat, which was towed all the way from St. Louis. The men who came with M. Chouteau, in 1821, were, with few exceptions, dispatched into the interior, where they established trading posts or traveled and traded among the Indians.

At a later date, 1825, M. Chouteau's younger brother, Cyprian, joined him here and soon afterward built a trading house on the south side of the Kaw River about opposite the present site of Muncie. A few years later he was joined here by another brother, Frederick, now living at Westport, in this county, and after- ward they removed their post about eighty miles up the Kaw River.

In 1826 there was a flood in the rivers which washed away M. Chouteau's houses opposite Randolph Bluffs and caused great loss. A part of the stock was taken to Randolph Bluffs; he sent his family to the Four Houses, and soon after- ward rebuilt his house, but this time higher up and on higher ground, which is now embraced in what is known as Guinott's Addition to Kansas City. This place became well known as "Chouteau's Warehouse," and was the landing place for large amounts of freight for Indian trade, and for the trade with northern Mexico, which subsequently sprung up here.

M. Chouteau subsequently entered the land on which his house stood, thus becoming a permanent resident. He continued here until he died in 1840, and his aged wife and his son, Pierre M. Chouteau, still reside in this city.

Soon after the flood above referred to, the men who came with Mr. Chouteau in 1821, and others of the same class, who had been living among the Indians and in the mountains. began to gather here with their families, to settle, and thus established that wonderful French settlement, which, for a quarter of a century, existed here. This settlement was never very large, probably never exceeded a

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few dozen families, but it was always important as the headquarters of a very ex- tensive trade.

Of the location made by the people little is known, but Louis Bartholet (Grand Louis) settled on the bottom north of the junction of Fifth and Bluff streets and at a point now near the middle of the Missouri River. Calise Montardeau settled at the foot of Delaware street, and opened a farm of a' few acres on the hill, the center of which was about the present crossing of Fourth and Delaware streets. Louis Uneau settled at about the foot of Main street, and Louis Roy, whose son afterward established the first ferry across the river at this point, settled on the low lands a little below the foot of Grand avenue. Besides these there were a number of others who were known in the Kawsmouth settlement after Americans began to come into the adjacent country, but whether they came with M. Chouteau, or afterward, is not known. Among these were Gabriel Prudhomme, Gabriel and Louis Phillabert, Clement Lessert, Benedict Raux, Pierre La Siberte, Louis Tromley, Benj. Lagotrie, John Gray, Maj. Dripps, Louis Tourjon, Louis Ferrier, M. Vertefeuylle, M. Cabori and John Le Sarge.

IN THE WILDERNESS.

At the time this general agency was established it was practically in the heart of the western wilderness. Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois were but sparsely settled, and still contained all the indigenous Indian tribes. The ad- mission of Missouri into the Union was pending, and was not consummated until afterward. At the time of its admission the State had a population of but 66, 586, mostly along the Mississippi. The population of St. Louis was but 5,500. The Indian title to the country south of the Missouri River had been extinguished soon after the establishment of Fort Osage in 1808, except twenty-four miles along the western border. The Indian title to the country north of the river and west of a line running due north from the mouth of the Osage River, had been extinguished in 1815, and settlements had been made in Saline county in 1810, in Cooper in 1812, in Lafayette in 1815, in Carroll and Ray in 1816, and in Jack- But these were the merest outposts-the son, east of Fort Osage, in 1819.

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The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county, Part 51

Author: Union Historical Company Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company Number of Pages: 1068

Author: Union Historical Company
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company
Number of Pages: 1068