1904 Historical Report by Charles Green

TRANSACTIONS
of the
KANSAS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
1903-1904;

TOGETHER WITH ADDRESSES AT ANNUAL MEETINGS, MISCELLANEOUS
PAPERS, AND A ROSTER OF KANSAS FOR
FIFTY YEARS.

________________________________________________________

EDITED BY GEO W. MARTIN, SECRETARY.

VOL. VIII.

TOPEKA:
GEO. A. CLARK, STATE PRINTER
1904.

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HISTORICAL WORK IN OSAGE COUNTY.

By Charles R. Green,* of Lyndon.

I am asked to make a report of my historical work in Osage county to the Society. I never have made a written one before, and do so now with pleasure, hoping that others may be thus encouraged, when reading my report, to look up local data in their respective communities, as I have in mine, and afterwards live to reap some of the fruits of their labors.

I joined the Historical Society January, 1892, and have paid out some fifty to seventy-five dollars cash since then as dues, traveling expenses and board in attending the annual meetings of the Society, at Topeka. I own a printing-office, and have operated it entirely in the interests of historical work for six years, but still I do not seem to come under the class that, my brother editor does, who contributes his local newspaper to the Society, rides on his pass to the meetings, and thus, without dues, enjoys the same privileges that I do at so much cost.

In this time, as an active member of the Society, I have given many days each year in driving around over the country and taking down narratives from old pioneers' lips, gathering historical data, and copying from our county records hundreds of pages of valuable matter referring to our county affairs, to assist the pioneers in their memories. While our county-seat was on wheels the first twenty years of its existence, being in no less than three places, the records were well preserved. I was able to find, by diligent search in old boxes, nearly all the papers to establish my official early history of the county, which took the name of Osage in 1860.

The following named pioneers, many of them now dead or moved away, have thus contributed to my "bureau of historical data" in these twelve years.

In and around Lyndon, and year of coming to Kansas:

Allison's History of School District	Mrs. John Howe, 1868.
No. 62, 1870	Henry Howell, 1870.
William Allison, 1869.	Andrew J. Huffman, 1857.
George Antrim, 1878.	Jas. R. Humphrey, 1869.
Wm. J. Armstrong, 1884.	Archie Ingersoll, 1876.
Henry Austin, 1869.	Henry Ingraham, 1862.
Wells P. Bailey, 1866.	Horace W. Jenness, 1866.
Judge John Banning, 1855.	Henry Johnson, 1870.
Mrs. Elias A. Barrett, 1870.	Henry Keeler, 1870.
Sam. B1ack and son Walter, 1859.	James S. Kennedy, 1869.
James F. Blackwell, 1877.	Leander Kimball, 1859.
Judge Alex. Blake, 1870.	Henry Lamond, sr., 1868.
Solomon Bowes, 1857.	Dr. George Lash, 1868.
Moses Bradford, 1866.	M. L. Laybourn, 1872.
Joel H. Buckman, 1886.	Wesley A. J. Mavity, 1867.
Lucas Burnett, 1858.	George McMillan, 1869.
Mrs. R. H. Chittenden, 1879.	Geo. Miller, son of Abra. Miller, 1859.
Dr. David D. Christy, 1876.	Dr. G. W. Miller, 1856.
David F. Coon, 1869.	Capt. G. W. Morris, 1868.
W. A. Cotterman, 1870.	Warren W. Morris. 1869.
Charles Darling, 1866.	John W. Nicolay, 1866.
C. C. Deaver, 1871.	Mrs. Ellen Leavery Nibizer, 1868.
Fred Downs, 1869.	Edward Norris, 1870.
James K. Duff, 1871.	Elisha Olcott, jr., 1863.
G. Alec Fleming, 1883.	Prof. L.A. Parke, 1885.
L. D. Gardener, 1870.	Robert F. Patterson, 1876.
Flavius J. Glenn, 1857.	John Payne, 1871.
Wm. Gregory, 1870.	Soren Petersen, 1869.
Wm. H. Green, 1872.	Pete Peterson (of Dragoon), 1858.
Wm. Haas, 1868.	Robt. D. Pleasant, 1879.
Mrs. Benj. G. Hall, 1870.	Abram Primmer, 1878.
Monroe W. Heaton, 1877.	J. A. Reading, 1871.
John Hedges, 1869.	Lewis A. Reynolds, 1893.
James J. Henton, 1868.	Francis Marion Richards, 1856.
John R. Henton, 1869.	Mrs. M. W. Richardson, 1860.
Nelson Hollingsworth, 1872.	Wm. Rock, 1870.
Samuel H. Holyoke, 1857.	Ezekiel Rogers, 1887.
A. J. Roy, 1872.	Jesse Underwood, 1871.
Chas. W. Ruggs, 1869.	Mrs. Rachel Varner, 1869.
John Rynerson, 1866.	Matthew M. Waddle, 1876.
A. M. Sanderson, 1878.	Thomas M. Wallace, 1874.
Wm. H. Seever, 1863.	James M. Watkins, 1869.
Mrs. Sarah E. Shoemaker, 1871.	George Weber, 1867.
Jacob Smell, 1870.	James Wells, 1878.
James Smith, 1878.	J. Milt Whinrey, 1873.
James Hurd Smith, 1868.	Leivonia Pryer Whinrey, 1869.
Orlando S. Starr, 1869.	Horace Whitman, 1868.
William Stavely, 1878.	Prof. J. S. Whitman, 1868.
Mrs. Amanda Still, 1885.	George Wiggington, 1884.
Mrs. Julia Stonebraker, 1869.	Geo. M. Wilden, 1870.
Isaac Stump, 1870.	O. C. Williams, 1858.
Edmund Tarver, 1868.	Lewis T. Wilson, 1883.
Dr. Eber Topping, 1867.	Charles Woodward, 1868.
Silas B. Tower, 1870.	Robert H. Wynne, 1869.
Mrs. P. M. Tyler, 1866.	Mrs. Nancy E. Wynne, 1860.
David Uber, 1870.	James Yearout, 1867.

Former Burlingame pioneers interviewed or notes obtained from date of coming to Kansas:

Lucien R. Adams, 1856.	Ellis Lewis, ex-county attorney, 1872.
Mrs. Sophia McGee Berry, 1854.	Wm. H. Lord, 1855.
James Bothel, 1854.	Mrs. Isabella Rambe Mercer, 1856.
Joseph Bratton, 1854.	Frank M. Nelson, 1871.
Grandma Caruthers, age 97, 1860.	Mrs. Anna Todd Palmer, 1855.
J. M. Chambers, supt., 186-,	George W. Perrill, 1858.
History of first twenty school districts.	N. A. Perrill, 1858.
John H. Crumb, 1857.	Mrs. Mary Hoover Pratt, 1854.
Thomas R. Davis, 1856.	James Rogers (the historian), 1856.
George J. Drew. 1855.	Henry D. Shepherd, 1858.
Josiah Drew, 1855.	Mrs. H. D. Shepherd, 1857, daughter
Wm. J. Drew, 1855.	of Abial T. Dutton.
Mrs. Levi Empie, 1857.	John Smith 1854.
Judge Robert Heizer, 1858.	Ithiel Street, 1854.

Ridgeway, Carbondale, Scranton, "110," Valley Brook:

Lars Anderson, 1859.	Wm. Hupp, 1854.
Elijah S. Boreland, 1859.	Aaron Kinney, 1855.
Wm. Brown, 1858.	John Kinney, 1855.
D. B. Burdick, 1857.	George McCullough, 1858.
Wm. T. Eckart, 1857.	Isaac B. Masters, 1858.
Charles G. Fox, 1859.	Mrs. Geo. W. Metzler, 1869.
Ansel B. Hackett, 1857.	Charles Rubow, 1854.
Alvin Hamilton, 1870.	Judge John G. Urie, 1858.
Mrs. Hiram H. Heberling, 1855.	Capt. Robert D. Watt, 1854.
S. L. Heberling, 1856.

Osage City:

Dr. Albert C. Brown, 1871.	Charles S. Martin, 1866.
James H. Kibbie, 1865.	Horace E. Strong, 1857.
Sam Marshall, 1857.	Mrs. Nellie Norton Strong, 1856.

Quenemo Junction and Pomona:

J. C. Curry, 1877.	Josiah Middleton, 1866.
Mrs. Sarah Duvall, 1860.	Dr. David B. Moore, 1865.
Dr. E. B. Fenn, 1866.	John C. Rankin. 1865.
Robert G. Graham, 1868.	Mrs. Lida Saylor Fox, 1869.
John Krauss, 1871.	W. K. Thomas, 1869.
George Logan, 1858.	Henry Wiggans, 1855.

Arvonia, Olivet, Melvern:

Arvonia residents, 1873-'74.	Charles C. Judd, 1869.
Cyrus Case, 1869.	Henry Judd, 1856.
Charles Cochran, 1860.	Thos. B. McGregor, 1883.
Noble G. Elder, 1869.	Max Morton, 1870.
Wm. Francis, 1868.	Lemuel W. Powell, 1870.
Joseph G. Grant, 1872.	John Price, 1871.
Lewis Humphries, 1859.	Asher Smith, 1859.
James W. Jessee, 1866.	Lemuel F. Warner, 1860.
Robert Jones, 1872.

Santa Fe Trail:

Mrs. Elizabeth Clousing Eden, of Allen, Lyon county, 1861.

Jacob Van Natta, now of Burlingame, 1860.

Judge Robert Heizer, Osage City, 1858.

On the building of the Union Pacific railroad from Kansas City up the Kaw to Topeka,1863- 65, and incidentally various items of Delaware Indian history:

Mrs. Joseph Glimpse, Linwood, 1866.	Rev. A. M. Richardson, Lawrence, 1870.
Merlin C. Harris, Tonganoxie, 1865.	Thomas A. Shaw, Wyandotte, 1863.
John C. Hindman, Linwood, 1858.	John Tudhope, Linwood, 1866.
Capt. W. T. Hindman, Lawrence, 1858.	George C. Wetzel, Linwood, 1868.
Martin Kapp, Linwood, 1867.	Thomas Williams, Linwood, 1860.

John Brown days on the Pottawatomie:

Wm. H. Ambrose, Greeley, Anderson county, 1857.

J. N. Baker, Greeley, 1854.

D. Bradley Randall, Greeley, gives an excellent history of his youth in Ohio, 1840-'58, and civil-war history, 1871.

Quantrill raid matters:

T. J. Hadley, Kansas City, Mo., lieutenant in Fifth Kansas, 1863, 1856.

Henry Ingraham, Lyndon, Second Ohio volunteer cavalry, 1862.

George W. Hanes, Waverly, Coffey county, 1856.

In a several hours' talk with Lewis Kellerman, Burlington (1866), which I made notes of, he tells how in 1828 he was postillion on a horse railway from Baltimore to Frederick City, Md., later the Baltimore & Ohio railroad: was also a freighter on the United States national road, from Cumberland to Indianapolis. This talk was in 1901, shortly before his death, at the age of eighty-nine.

Mrs. Sarah A. Whistler, Stroud, Okla. (1847): Widow of Hon. Wm. Whistler, of Osage county, daughter of Julia Goodell, a Sac Indian, and John Goodell, a white man, interpreter for the Sac and Fox tribes, 1840-60. In several interviews when she was here, spring of 1903, visiting the Cappers, relative of hers, she gave me the genealogy of the Whistler family in Kansas and their history. She and her sister, Mrs. Fannie Whistler, Nedeau, of the Sac and Fox agency, have given me a good deal of Sac and Fox history in many interviews.

A total of 212 names and dates are given.

The presentation of these names and dates of their coming to Kansas does not reveal the fact that they have been pioneers of many early-day places otherwise than Osage county. But their narratives, often the work of a half-day to take down, or, if sent me by mail, the work of days for them to remember and write out correctly, introduced to us history on almost every phase of Kansas life and struggle since 1854 -- life on the plains, army life, the golden days of '49, the removal of the Indians from Kansas, and many other subjects too numerous to be mentioned.

Two hundred or more pioneer narratives, mostly by old people, who are invariably invited to commence with their youth and give a life sketch, give the historian material fresh from life and true as life itself. All honor to our fathers and mothers, who came here, fought the battles and endured the privations that now, a half-century later, make Kansas foremost in the van of states, and we live to enjoy. We will prize their stories in the years to come. So many of them, I notice, here passed away in the ten years. I preserve these notes and records of theirs with great care in my vault, where they are systematically filed in a large case, and where I can find them on short notice.

I have considerable historical data, drawn from personal examination of hundreds of books, pamphlets and manuscripts in the possession of our Kansas State Historical Society, during the eleven years I have belonged, mostly bearing on the Sac and Fox Indian history. The Mississippi band of those Indians was removed to Kansas in 1845, and to the Indian Territory in 1869. Weller county, in 1855, only had a narrow strip of two and one-half miles wide by twenty-four miles long of territory outside the Sac and Fox reserve, which covered all the rest of the county, and what few folks settled in it considered themselves a part of Shawnee county. It was never organized as a county until 1859, when a change of name to Osage, and the addition of a nine-mile strip from the south end of Shawnee, with a part of the Indian reserve thrown open a year or two later, brought the county into prominence. Superior was its first county-seat. To-day a barn and well are about all that are left of that once busy place. By close inquiry I have found a few of its former citizens.

In my field-work I have visited and made plans of the old Sac and Fox agency, established in the county in 1845-46. By considerable correspondence I have been able to get possession of the papers, some sixty, of the late United States Indian agent, Albert Wiley, who was the last agent of the Sac & Foxes here in Kansas, and who helped to select their reservation in the Indian Territory. I have to pay for their use, and return them as soon as convenient. I am engaged now in compiling the material of this ten years' gathering, along the Sac and Fox history line, into a suitable volume, that will be printed by some one of our book-making firms during 1904, a permanent monument, I trust, to the memory of our old Sac and Fox reserve pioneers, as well as to the old Sac and Fox Indians themselves.

When the Indians settled on this reservation, now embraced mostly by the counties of Franklin and Osage, about 1846,* they numbered about 2000. A visit to their present home in Oklahoma, November, 1903, by the writer, developed the fact that only 492 are living there now. Some returned in the early years of their Kansas experiences to their old hunting-grounds on the Iowa river, and purchased a little land, 1500 acres, in Tama county, where they yet live. This was contrary to the policy of the government, but in the confusion of the war days, change of parties, and the fact that they bought the land out of their own savings, and could not be lawfully dispossessed, allowed them to get permanently settled. They are known as the Mesquaka* band, and now number about 300. They are mostly the Fox branch of the tribe. Their most noted chief of the last century, Pow-e-shick, died here of good age, and was buried at the junction, before Kansas was made a state. Iowa has not only honored this chief, but many other of the Sac and Fox chiefs, by naming her counties and towns after them.

Another band of the Sacs and Foxes lives now upon the Nemaha river, in north-eastern Kansas and southern Nebraska. They removed direct from Iowa with the Ioway band of Indians to that place about 1837. I think now that there are less than 100 of the Sacs among them. Intermarriages, however, take place often between these widely separated bands. The Indians have caught on to the white man's ways, and, having plenty of money after their payments, they take the cars and make these trips speedily. They even go down to Old Mexico to hunt, where some of the Kickapoos live.

The Sac part of the tribe here in Osage county had a noted chief, Mokohoko, who, at the head of a following of some 100, more or less, refused to sign the treaty of 1868, to cede these lands to the United States. They had become attached to this Marais des Cygnes valley, and, like the Mesquaka band, of Iowa, they determined to stay here, and only by force were they removed with the rest of the tribe in 1869. They immediately returned from the new home. Some of the teamsters who hauled them down said the Indians beat them back here. In 1876 they were removed again, but the larger part came back the second time. Their houses were along the banks of the Marais des Cygnes, above and below Melvern, for ten miles. For the next ten years they were left alone, though they did not buy any land. Indulgent settlers tolerated them because they were honest, and the adults became good assistants at farm labor. In 1886, after Mokohoko's death, they were removed again, and guarded a year at their new home, until they got over their homesickness, and found the annuities paid them there a greater advantage than the half-vagrant life they led here. They are known there now as the Kansas band of Sacs and Foxes. I have many portraits and much history of these Indians who lived among us so long.

The great dearth of any printing matter about our Osage county pioneers and early history of the county induced me, in 1896, to go into the publication of many pieces in our local newspapers, in order to arouse a greater interest in historical matters.

Our county has been one of great activity in politics. When Governor Humphrey was elected, November, 1890, Mrs. Mary E. Lease, then an obscure woman of Wichita, a day or two after election was invited here to Lyndon, and in a large mass-meeting, well represented from all over the county, she declared from the rostrum "that the tyranny of such Republican tactics as were then in vogue by the state of Kansas ought to be put down and that the new party, then known as the Farmers' Alliance in Osage county, or People's party, ought to march upon the state capital armed with pitchforks, scythes, and other handy implements of yeoman's toil, and take the state government into their own hands." From that time on, the next several years were hard ones for me to do any great good here in the public press, as a bitter political war raged, to the exclusion of all other matters. My best material was often in the ranks of the opposite party, where an unguarded word from me closed all historical talk and started politics. Through it all I avoided politics, and carried on my historical work in such a manner that to-day some of my best supporters of the work are what used to be known here as "Pops."

The publication of my books has been delayed, as I have seen up to this time no profitable market for my labor. Two books, "Annals of Lyndon," an edition of 240 copies, 400 pages printed, and "Early Days in Kansas," an edition of 200 copies, 215 pages printed, both octavo works, printed in my own printing-office, tied up in bundles, lie here in my library room, reminding me of about $300 in typesetting, paper and ink that I have expended, besides my labor as editor and printer for several years.

I have a large fire-proof room, well lighted, where I keep all my records, museum, and a library (at present numbering over 1500 volumes, along historical lines), and this enables me to get much of my reference matter, so necessary to a historical writer, right at home without delay; whereas, in the past I used to make two or more trips to Topeka yearly, often spending the whole week in the Historical Society rooms. Now, by a large correspondence with various societies, and an annual visit to Topeka, I get along very well. My requests for information from our Society are met as promptly as the nature of it and the force there employed admits. Thus, as a Kansas farmer, legitimately sticking to that as a livelihood, as I have prospered in this world's goods, instead of putting the money into another farm, I have invested it in this line of work, until in all its parts it equals the value of my homestead, and, at the age of nearly sixty, when one must begin to lay aside manual labor, affords me far greater pleasure and more agreeable work than that of the farm, where, in these late years, work has been so difficult to carry on from the want of laborers hunting farm work.

Coming to Kansas after the civil war, in which I participated three years as a member of the One Hundred and First Ohio volunteer infantry, I was so fortunate as to get appointed, at Wyandotte, May, 1867, a member of Gen. W. W. Wright's Union Pacific survey party, to make the preliminary survey of that railroad to the Pacific coast via New Mexico, Arizona, and Los Angeles, Cal. The Santa Fe now runs over the route we surveyed. Returning to Kansas in 1868, I commenced teaching my first school in Leavenworth county that fall, in the empty Delaware Indian trading store, at a station on the Union Pacific in the Kaw valley, about thirty-two miles from Wyandotte, known first as Journeycake, later Stranger station, and, in 1875, Linwood. Having met the Delaware Indians there the year before, and learning much history about them in my school teaching days up to 1874, I have in these later years interviewed many pioneers of that section, and recently visited the Delawares in their homes among the Cherokees, south of Coffeyville, Kan. I have made contributions of several articles to the Tonganoxie Mirror along these lines, whose columns have always welcomed such data. I have much unpublished matter about the Delawares.

Mrs. Lawrence D. Bailey, of Lawrence, widow of the late Judge Bailey,* of the supreme court first after Kansas became a state, has let me have for publication quite a good deal of his old papers -- printed ones. The judge was the president of Lyndon's first town company, later editor of a paper at Garden City. I compiled from his papers a 100-page octavo pamphlet, and issued a small edition entitled "Border Ruffian Troubles in Kansas." I have issued seven other pamphlets, all being prominent chapters in my books "Annals of Lyndon" and "Early Days in Kansas." One was a directory of Lyndon, Kan. -- a historical genealogical list of 3200 men, women and children for the years 1895-97 in an area of fifteen miles in and around Lyndon.

These pamphlets seem to keep up interest best in the people s minds about our historical work, and in no wise detract from the prospective sale of my historical books.

*Charles R. Green was born November 8, 1845 at Milan, Erie county, Ohio. His father followed farming in Wakefield and Clarksfield townships, Huron county, where the subject of this sketch was raised, the eldest of ten children. He obtained such education as possible in the neighborhood. In the fall of 1861, at the age of sixteen years, he tried to enlist as a soldier in the Fifty-fifth Ohio regiment but he was rejected because of his age. In the summer of 1862, after the sevens battle, he succeeded in getting into company A, One Hundred and First Ohio. Nine enlisted from Clarksfield, Green s home town. Four were killed and two wounded. Judge E.W. Cunningham, of the Kansas supreme court, was one of the nine. Green was the only one of the nine to serve his time and return home with the company, although he was wounded three times in the Battle of Chickamauga. Upon his return from the war, he attended school for two years. In April, 1867, he settled in Kansas, at Lenape, in Leavenworth county. After a couple of months at this point he moved to the state-line bottoms in Kansas City, Mo. In the summer he joined a surveying party and made a trip through New Mexico and Arizona to California. In a year he returned by Panama and Old Mexico. He taught school in Leavenworth county and farmed some. He returned to Ohio and spent six years there. In 1880 he settled in Osage county, Kansas. December 28, 1869, he was married in Tama county, Iowa, to Miss Flavia Barbour, a playmate in childhood, who died March 21, 1883 leaving six children. He married Miss Annie Kring November 17, 1887. Mr. Green resides two miles south of Lyndon.

*Mr. Green, in a letter dated February 20, 1904, says regarding the removal of the Sacs and Foxes of the Mississippi to Kansas: They left Iowa in the fall of 1845, traveling to Brunswick, Mo., on the Missouri river; thence Keokuk, during the winter, came up the Wakarusa, south of Lawrence, where the tribe had permission from the Shawnees to camp, and where they mostly stayed during the season of 1846. During this time John Beech, the agent, was arranging about the buildings for the agency, which in the 50 s was known as the Greenwood Sac and Fox agency, on the Marias des Cygnes river, several miles southeast of Pomona, Franklin county. This was on the eastern boundary line of the Sac and Fox reservation. The Goodell family, interpreter, remained at Brunswick two years. Many of the tribe went via other tribes, visiting and hunting a year to two, but Moses Keokuk said, in 1883, that over 2000 came out with his father. Before leaving Iowa they numbered 2400 or more.

*This word is spelled Muskwaki in Royce's Indian Land Cessions in the United States, and Mus-qua-kie by Horace M. Rebok in his pamphlet on the tribe, 1900.

*Lawrence D. Bailey was born August 26, 1819, at Button, Merrimack county, New Hampshire. His ancestors came from Yorkshire, England, in 1638, and built the first woolen factory in America, at Rowley, now Georgetown, Mass. He was educated in Franklin, Unity, Pembroke and Atkinson Academies, but he never entered college. He read law, and was admitted to the bar July 9, 1846. He practiced at various points in New Hampshire until December, 1849, when he started for California by way of Cape Horn. He spent four years in California lumbering, gold digging, and practicing law, and editing a Whig paper called the Pacific Courier. He returned to New Hampshire in the fall of 1853, and practiced law. On the 2d day of April, 1857, he arrived in Kansas, and settled on a claim in Douglas county, near Clinton. In the following September he moved to Emporia, and opened a law office -- the first in southwestern Kansas. In 1858 he was elected to the territorial legislature from a district known as the nineteen disfranchised counties. He was elected associate justice of the supreme court of Kansas in 1859, under the Wyandotte constitution, and reelected in 1862, after statehood, for six years. In 1863 he assisted in organizing the State Board of Agriculture, and was its first president, for four successive terms, and in the same year established the Kansas Farmer. He had much to do with establishing the state Normal School. He became a large farmer, and, in 1870, located the town of Lyndon. He afterwards became a resident of Garden City. He died in October, 1891.

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Contributor Unknown

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