dip at hard-rock mining—and, paradoxically, “cussed” myself again. Less
mildly, however. Ah, that delving for gold—it is a dramatic game, a
business wherein the element of chance runs rampant and the imagination
is given unbridled play.
Bedeviled by Indians and highwaymen, there were perils and hardships in
travel along the Overland Trail in those days—but nothing, absolutely
nothing, slowed up the westward march. The race to acquire new wealth
was on! “Pike’s Peak, or Bust,” was the slogan! In swinging up through
Nebraska the Old Trail made a wide rainbow circle to reach Denver.
There was literally “a pot of gold” at the end of the rainbow! Gold,
glittering yellow gold! Nothing else in the wide world has ever stirred
men more deeply, driven them to greater tests of endurance, or robbed
them more swiftly of reason.
Still, gold changed the whole history of the country. It sent a mighty
migration of people across the continent, built a trans-continental
railroad, and established an American empire on the Pacific coast. And
gold—magic gold — was the life-stream of the old Overland Trail!
The Cherry creek placers were the first after the California discoveries
to attract the throngs of that gold-mad era. It was gold here in
mid-continent! Gold in Kansas! It was new business for the Old Trail.
The great bulk of western travel, with attending heavy commerce, was to
the goldfields.
Again, in 1863, when placer gold was discovered in the Alder Gulch
section of Montana, traffic on the old line became enormously heavy.
The three principal camps—Bannock, Virginia City, and Nevada—yielded
a hundred million dollars in placer gold. Twenty thousand gold-hungry
miners frantically worked the streams for the yellow metal, while
thousands more men were on the road to and from that Eldorado. They were
mostly from the East—men who had traveled the Old Trail through here.
Indians have been mentioned. They were notably troublesome at times,
especially in the buffalo country west of the Blue river. In that
territory there were four hostile tribes—Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche, and
Pawnee. The Indians had the Overland Stage line between the Blue and
Julesburg blocked for six weeks in 1864. Station-keepers, stage-drivers,
and travelers were killed; stations were burned and stage-stock stolen.
The congestion along the line extended back to Atchison. Numerous
itinerant outfits were detained at Granada.
Even in my time, on this side of the Blue, the sight of a red blanket
out in the open was enough to send a spasm of fear surging through
children, and adults did not feel any too comfortable. Always there
was that feeling that approaching Indians in numbers might not be our
Kickapoos, but hostiles from the other side of the Blue. Then there came
a day when our citizens were sure of it—no mistaking that band of four
hundred redskins for the peaceful Kickapoos!
It was a queer looking cavalcade — tall braves and Indians squatty,
squaws fat and greasy, bronze maidens passably “fair”; children,
papooses, ponies, and dogs galore — with luggage lashed on long poles
hitched to ponies in buggy-shaft fashion, with the rear ends dragging on
the ground. The Indian travois.
At four o’clock of a rather hot summer day, those Indians, unannounced,
made camp at the old ford near the edge of town. Two of our influential
townsmen—one professional, one artisan — invaded the Indian camp, and
through speech, signs, or somehow, gleaned the information that
the Indians were from Nebraska and were on their way to the Indian
Territory.
Come early bonfire-light that night, those two white men re-entered
the Indian camp. They took along a Scotsman’s “wee bit” of the Indian’s
“firewater,” but whether they unlawfully gave it to the braves or
drank it themselves, was cloaked in silence. The charitable townspeople
preferred to believe they drank it themselves—hence the mess. But the
best “kid” analysis at the time favored the belief that the trouble had
all come about through the white man’s ignorance of Indian etiquette—as
with respect to bronze maidens passably “fair.”
Those two white men were ejected from the Indian camp—not exactly thrown
out on their ears, but definitely dismissed. Expressed in Indian terms,
here was a tribe whose braves “no like paleface put nose in Indian’s
business.” In the telling, those two rebuffed men themselves did not
seem to care very much—but all through the night the town waited in
suspense. No exaggeration, there was needless apprehension. And may I
add that this episode did not react unfavorably against the future high
standing of those two influentials.
Traffic on the old dirt road, known as the Overland Trail, began in a
big way in 1859, when the powerful freighting firm of Russell, Majors,
and Waddell acquired the stage and mail business of John M. Hockaday,
who held the first mail contract. The road was given another big
boost when Ben Holladay, with his famous Concord coaches and four and
six-horse teams, came onto the line in 1861. Holladay took over the
stage and mail business of Russell, Majors, and Waddell.
About three thousand horses and mules were in the stage service. Eight
to twelve animals were kept at each station, which were spaced on an
average of twelve miles apart. At its highest the stage fare to Denver
was $125, and to Sacramento $225.
The Russell, Majors, and Waddell firm, with headquarters at Atchison and
Leavenworth, continued in the freighting business. This company employed
8,000 men, and was equipped with 6,000 heavy wagons, and 75,000 oxen.
At the same time there were about twenty other firms and individuals
freighting out of Atchison.
The Russell firm, with other interests, established the Pony Express in
1860. The route from St. Joseph to Sacramento, 1920 miles, was covered
in ten days—semi-weekly, at first. When the Civil war commenced, it was
changed to daily. In the service were eighty riders and 500 horses — not
ponies of the Indian class, but the best blooded horses that money
could buy. They had to be fast to outrace the hostile Indians. The
Pony Express, carrying first-class letters and telegrams only, lasted
eighteen months. Telegraph connection with the Far West was established
then. For a half-ounce letter a 10-cent Government postage stamp and
a dollar Pony Express stamp were required. The Pony Express charge was
much more at first.
Riders starting from St. Joseph and Sacramento simultaneously every
morning kept a constant stream going both ways—day and night. Like the
stage drivers, each rider had a given territory to make, with a change
of horses every twelve miles. The first lap was from St. Joseph to
Seneca. Lightweight riders only were used—mere boys they were. Don C.
Rising was a Pony Express rider. He made his home in Wetmore after the
close of the staging days.
The old road, with St. Joseph and Leavenworth as initial starting
points, had a junction at Kennekuk, one and one-half miles south of the
present site of Horton. On the St. Joseph branch were three stations —
Wathena, Troy, and Lewis.
Later, Atchison was made the starting point for the stage and mails. At
this time railroad service was extended from St. Joseph to Atchison—and,
on the west end, river service was had from Sacramento to San Francisco.
The first station out of Atchison was Lancaster, 11 miles. Then
Kennekuk, 24 miles; Kickapoo, 36 miles; Log Chain, 49 miles; Seneca, 60
miles.
From Seneca the line continued westward to Marysville. It crossed the
Big Blue river at Marysville, went up the Little Blue valley, crossed
over to the Platte valley, then up the Platte to Fort Kearney. At
Julesburg one branch turned south into Denver. The main line crossed the
South Platte at Julesburg, touched at Fort Larimer and Fort Bridger
in Wyoming. From Salt Lake it took a western course across Nevada to
Virginia City; thence over the Sierra Nevada mountains to Placerville
and Sacramento.
Considerable attention is given to the routing through Nemaha and Brown
counties. For historical purposes, it is important that this should be
done now while it is yet possible to trace the route with some degree
of accuracy. Only slight evidences of the Old Trail remain. Practically
everything obtainable now is a carry over from another generation,
hearsay. In a few years more all information pertaining to the old road
will have been relayed to a third and fourth generation, if not, indeed,
forgotten altogether, locally. There are people here now, some living
almost atop the Old Trail, who have never heard of it. There are none
living now who were adults then, and even very few who were children.
Albert Pitman, of Sabetha, aged 90, is probably the oldest person now
living who was in the Powhattan-Granada neighborhood during staging
days. Mrs. Martha Hart, E. J. Woodman, Volley Hough, Edwin Smith, and
Ed. Vilott, now living at McAlister, Oklahoma, were children.
Tracing the Old Trail, locally, we find: The road at first came almost
due west from Kennekuk across the Kickapoo Indian reservation, but
probably bent over into what is now Brown County, as it followed the
ridges. It crossed the Delaware at a point about eighty rods upstream
from the crooked bridge on the present south line of the reservation—the
Jackson-Brown County line. The Kickapoo reservation at that time
contained about 150,000 acres. It has since been diminished three times.
Now it is a block five by six miles in extent, thirty sections, 19,200
acres — with much of the land owned by the whites.
The first mission, built in 1856, was located on Horton Heights, inside
the present city limits of Horton. The site was marked by a red glacial
boulder on December 1, 1936 — 80 years after the Indian school was
established by E. M. Hubbard—the first school of any kind in Brown
County.
Also, there is confusion about the name of the stream spanned by the
crooked bridge. Some call it the Grasshopper, and others refer to it as
Walnut creek. It is neither. Lewis and Clark, explorers, named it the
Grasshopper in 1804. It was changed to the Delaware in 1875 by an act of
the Kansas legislature.
From that creek crossing, the trail followed the ridge to the old town
of Powhattan in section 33, Powhattan township—the same section on which
the East Powhattan school house is located, at the present intersection
of U. S. 75 and the new graveled highway now running 11 miles straight
east to Horton. The change station was on the northeast quarter, owned
by Henry Gotchell, who had charge of the station, and also the post
office.
My mother got her first letter written by relatives in Tennessee, at
the Powhattan post office. Her cousin, Gaius Cullom, a school teacher,
wrote: “Powhattan—why, that’s an Indian name! I am grieved to believe
my dear cousin Martha is residing dangerously close to wild Indians. Be
careful, my favorite, and don’t let those accursed aborigines get your
scalp!” Alone for the day with her three small children in her country
home, a year later, some such fears must have gripped my mother, when,
on approach of a meandering band of blanketed Kickapoos, she hurriedly
gathered up her brood and made a dash for the cornfield.
The old town of Powhattan—not to be confused with the present town of
Powhattan farther over in Brown county—which was established 11 miles
northeast when the Rock Island railway went through in 1886 — was in the
center of the northwest quarter of section 33. There was a store, hotel,
blacksmith shop, and numerous dwellings. Although regularly surveyed in
town lots, nobody really owned the land on which the town was located
at the time. It was held by “quatter’s rights,” in succession, by three
men—Peter Shavey, Riley Woodman, and C. C. Grubb. It is now a cornfield,
owned by Mrs. James Grubb.
From Powhattan, the line ran west across the Timber-lake and Cassity
lands. The Timberlake land is now owned by Mrs. Cora Jenkins. The road
then followed the ridge to Granada, passing from Brown county to Nemaha
county at that point.
In 1860 the Powhattan change station was moved to a point three miles
north. The change was made to take out a big curve and save mileage.
The new station was called Kickapoo. It was on Indian land near the
new mission on the west edge of the reservation. Noble H. Rising was in
charge. Later, he was a merchant in Wetmore; as was also W. W. Letson,
Express messenger.
Going back to the Grasshopper-Delaware crossing, the new line ran
northwest to the mission, crossing Gregg’s creek—now Walnut creek—about
midway. From the mission, the road crossed the Bill Garvin lands and
went almost due west to Granada, crossing Gregg’s (Walnut) creek again
downstream from the present bridge east of Granada. Joe Plankington
recently found a cache of rough “diamonds” in a hollow at the base of a
tree near this crossing. The “rocks” were supposedly hidden there by a
returning traveler, back in the sixties—probably a prospector afraid to
chance crossing the Kickapoo reservation, carrying his precious find.
NOTE—Since this article was printed in 1936, Joe Plankington tells me
that one of the old Kickapoos—Pas-co-nan-te, father of John “Butler
” —told him the Indians were stalking the traveler and that he,
Pas-co-nan-te, watched the wayfarer hide the rocks in that tree, many
moons ago. And Joe said the old Indian accurately traced the way — on
paper—tree by tree, from the Trail to the right tree.
And furthermore, Joe believes he has seen the scalp of the former
possessor of his rocks—and at the same time had his own hair standing
on end. Because of a slight favor by Joe, Pas-co-nan-te asked him if he
would like to see a scalp, and at the same time told a young Indian whom
Joe thinks was a grandson, to fetch one. When the scalp was laid down
where Joe could get a good look at it, Pas-co-nan-te grabbed Joe by the
“topknot” saying, “Maybe me show you how.” The knife the Indian held in
his other hand cut Joe to the quick—but the blood froze in his veins,
and not a drop was spilled. Then the old Indian said, “Me foolin.’ Me
know better now.” The young Indian told Joe, later, that he was pretty
sure the old Indians had killed the traveler.
Joe also says he sent one of the “diamonds” to a niece in Boise, Idaho,
and that the cutter who dressed the stone—for $25—pronounced it a
high-quality pigeon blood ruby.
The old stage drivers “bumped” into many exciting and some amusing
incidents. In the Far West “Hank Monk” held the record for fast driving
and tall stories. And fictitious or not, “Hank” was the ranking driver
in the West. Here it was Bob Ridley, Bill Evans, and Lon Huff—with Bob
well out in front. My cousin, Bill Porter, says his uncle Bill Evans
told this one. His run took him across the Kickapoo reservation.
Whenever his stage would pass the Indian Mission the young Indians would
put on a demonstration — race their ponies around the stage, compelling
him to stop. Then they would ask for tobacco. Bill was always prepared
for them. On one trip out of Saint Joseph he had only two passengers
— mere boys, from the East. They said they were going West to fight
Indians, and they had the guns strapped on them to do it. Knowing how
the young Indian bucks would perform, Bill told his passengers that he
was now coming into Indian country, and was liable to be attacked—but
they, the boys, must not start shooting until he gave the word. It would
be suicidal for them to start the fight. He told them other reasonable
and some* highly unreasonable stories about the Indians. The boys were
expecting the worst. The young Indian bucks appeared as usual, and
circled the stage—yelling, screaming, yelling like assassins pouring out
of bedlam. Bill tossed his plug of tobacco out to them—then climbed
down from his high seat and looked in on the boys. They were down on the
floor, hiding. Before completing his run, the boys told Evans that they
were going to abandon the notion of fighting Indians. Bill said, “I told
them that I was sure they would change their minds after having one good
look at the Indians.” One of the boys said, “We didn’t really get a good
look at them—.” but we heard their blood-curdling yells, and that was
enough. The other boy said, “What I want to know is—how do we happen to
be alive?”
After the removal of the Powhattan change station, Henry Gotchell sold
to Riley Woodman. Woodman sold to C. C. Grubb, who came to section 33
in 1857. Grubb was postmaster after Gotchell. Mail was carried down from
Granada. Later, the Powhattan postoffice was moved to Wetmore.
Riley Woodman, father of E. J. Woodman, came in 1863. While the mail and
stage now went on the north road, some traffic still followed the old
line. In December, 1863, an ox-train transporting Government supplies
was snowed in at the Woodman place and remained there until March. In
the outfit were seventeen men, two saddle horses, and ninety-six oxen.
The Government paid Woodman one dollar a- bushel for corn—not an
excessive price, under prevailing conditions. But often freighters and
travelers were compelled, in emergencies, to pay ruinous prices for
feed. Scarcity and the high cost of provisions at times, also taxed the
travelers’ slender resources.
In 1860, the driest of all years in Kansas since the first efforts at
farming, nothing was produced. Potatoes, Mrs. Martha Hart tells me, did
not grow as large as hazelnuts. That year William Porter yoked up four
steers to his lumber wagon and drove them over into Missouri, where he
traded one yoke of oxen for provisions—and he didn’t get a burdensome
return load, at that. There was a little short slough-grass in the
lowlands, which the farmers cut with cradles and sold to overland
travelers at twenty cents a pound.
From Granada, the road went past the cemetery, touched at the Sneathen
Vilott farm, section 24, Capioma township; thence northwest to Log Chain
in section 19. From Log Chain the line ran northwest to old Lincoln,
section 13, Mitchell township—about one mile northeast of the State
lake—thence to Seneca. Granada and Lincoln were not change stations.
If the hills about old Log Chain could talk, doubtless one could find
a lot of story material there. While to my knowledge the only thing
to distinguish that station was the mud-hole that gave it its name, it
really has a colorful background. Rich in legendary lore and historical
fact, there is no telling what an enterprising artist might do in
painting the old picture over. It is said Abe Lincoln got as far west as
Log Chain. The land is now owned by Dr. Sam Murdock.
Nearly all the old-timers here took one or more turns at bull-whacking
across the plains. It was the only sure money “crop” for the pioneer
farmer. Usually one trip was enough. Fred Liebig, Henry McCreery, and
John Williams made several trips.
Fred Shumaker, father of Roy and “Hank,” who came here in 1856, was a
driver for the freighting firm that transported the stores for General
Johnson’s army. After the army had reached Fort Bridger, where it was
detained through the first winter, Shumaker was detailed as driver for
a guard sent on beyond Salt Lake to meet the army payroll coming in from
California. The safe containing the money was transferred to his
wagon. On that trip he saw, scattered about on either side of the road,
bleaching in the desert sun, the bones of those ill-fated emigrants who
lost their lives in the Meadow Mountain massacre. Fred Shumaker earned
enough money on that trip to pay for his first farm, which cost him
$1.25 an acre. He married Rachel Jennings, the sister of Zeke Jennings
who lived on a farm northeast of Wetmore for many years. She was
employed in the Perry hotel at Kennekuk.
Bill and Ben Porter, who came here first in 1856—left, and came again in
1858, drove oxen for a transport company hauling Government supplies. On
one trip, the company feed supplies ran short out in Wyoming and most of
the stock died. The train was hauling corn to the northwest forts, but
it could not be used, even in emergencies like that. A guard was left
with the train while waiting for fresh oxen to move it. The weak cattle,
still able to travel, were taken back to Leavenworth. It was a bitter
cold winter. The drivers protected themselves as best they could from
the Arctic blasts in snow drifts.
Wagon trains of the larger outfits consisted of twenty-five wagons, five
yoke of oxen and a driver for each wagon — with wagon-boss, assistant
boss, and herder.
My Uncle Nick Bristow and Green Campbell took a turn at bull-whacking
for that major freighting firm—Russell, Majors, and Waddell. But imbued
with the spirit of the times, they forsook the bulls for the more
exciting business of panning gold. My uncle’s exploits have been
mentioned. In other articles I have referred, with no little degree of
pride, to the Campbell mining success—he having gone from here into the
West in company with my uncle—and then, too, he “schooled” one connected
with my own efforts in the mining game. That we failed to duplicate his
enviable success was no reflection on that able tutor.
This, however, has never been in print. Green Campbell made his first
money at mining in the Cherry creek diggings — $60,000. He spent most of
it while in that camp. He told my mining partner, Frank Williams, that
he spent his money rather too freely, in the customary way of that
period, at old Auraria. It was money he very much needed later. With
only $1,500 of his stake remaining, he went to the Alder Gulch diggings
in Montana. At Bannock he and a partner, Mart Walsh, located claims
which sold for $80,000. Walsh, a merchant at Muscotah in the early days,
at one time owned 600 acres of land north of that town. He died in a
county home in Oklahoma, penniless. He was a brother-in-law of Mrs.
William Maxwell, of Wetmore.
Later, Green Campbell made his big fortune, millions, in lode mining in
Utah and Nevada, which, since his death has, largely, been kept intact
by his wife and two sons, Allen and Byram — his second family — now
living at 705 Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, California. The first boy was
named for his father, who, in the halls of Congress, was the Honorable
Allen G. Campbell. The other boy was named for Campbell’s partner in
the famous Horn Silver mine—August Byram, of Atchison. There was a girl,
Caroline.
Given space, I could make of this in itself a very interesting story.
Green Campbell’s second wife was Eleanor Young, a reporter on a Salt
Lake newspaper, and daughter-in-law of the famous old Brigham himself,
who hated all peoples not of the Mormon faith. It is not recorded that
the lady said to her man, like Ruth of old, “Thy people shall be my
people, and thy God my God.” But the inference is, she did. Campbell did
not go Mormon. Indeed, he was poison to the saints after he contested
the election of his Mormon opponent, Bishop Cannon, and took unto
himself the Canadian’s seat in Congress after it had been occupied by
the alien for nearly two years.
Several of the old stage drivers, after closing days, married and
settled down in Wetmore. Robert Sewell married Cicily Locknane; Lon
Huff married Clara Rising; Bill Evans married Kate Porter. Through
their activities on the stage line, and breathing the free atmosphere
of frontier life, these men were all moulded pretty much into a like
pattern. Good story-tellers all, they lent themselves to the occupation
without stint. Jovial and courteous at all times, they shunned
work—unless it be with horses. Lon Huff drove the hearse for the local
undertaker. He had a black team for adults, and a team of white horses
for children.
Robert Sewell, the outstanding character, known on the plains as “Bob
Ridley,” owned a livery stable here. Shall I tell the auto-minded young
sprouts that the livery stable, now in the discard, was an enterprise of
the horse-and-buggy days—a place where rigs were kept for hire?
Sewell’s wife, Cicily, ran a hotel. Her mother, Mrs. D. M. Locknane,
had conducted a famous eating house just west of Granada during overland
days. Those two early-day enterprises of the Sewells were known as the
“Overland Livery Stable,” and the “Overland Hotel.” Bob Sewell had a
record of killing three Indians and wounding a dozen more in a running
fight near Cottonwood Springs. Ben Holladay gave him a gold watch for
saving the stage and four mules.