CHAPTER XXIX.
REMINISCENCES, CONTINUED.
MY FIRST NIGHT IN EL DORADO — MEMORIES — A HUNTING PARTY — DR. JOHN HORNER'S RECOLLECTIONS — SOUTHEAST BUTLER — EARLY TIMES — A STORY OF THE DAYS LONG GONE — MEMORIES OF PIONEER DAYS.
MY FIRST NIGHT IN EL DORADO.
By H. M. Logan.It was a crisp, cool evening in the fall of 1871, a bunch of us had ridden from Eureka, thirty-five miles, and no dinner. In our party were, just from the East, two tailor-made dudes, with yellow kids and cigarettes, I think, making their first trip West. As we were alighting from the old stage at the hotel, we were met by the usual crowd of onlookers, among whom was Frank Gordy, who seemed to take extra notice of the two dudes and I think, immediately made up his mind to give us tenderfeet a touch of Western life. Gordy is the man who once owned the original townsite. He had given the city a park, the ground where the court house stood, and had helped in many ways to boost the town, which seemingly had made him a privileged character. He could shoot up the town or anything else and I think the marshal was instructed to turn his back. He had been selling town lots and had money. He would often ride into a saloon, set up the drinks for the house, light his cigar with a $5 bill, then perhaps ride into some store where every one was supposed to dance to his music.
At the hotel the lamps were finally lighted, the dining room door thrown open and we all rushed in, hungry as bears. Almost before we got our napkins adjusted, there was an ungodly yell, a regular Indian war-whoop, and four shots from Gordy's revolver got the four lights, which not only left us in darkness, but almost scared to death, especially me. I knew I was shot somewhere, but didn't know where. There was a great deal of commotion. Everyone ran into everyone else. I got pushed into the stairway and kept going up, shaking like a leaf. I got into a room, almost too small for one to change his mind in, put the bed against the door, and with my clothes on got under all the covers to keep from getting shot again. I put the pillow on the top of my head. Still I kept shaking and wondering if there was anybody else killed besides me. I thought how foolish I had been to give up a good job in the G. Y. Smith dry goods store in Humboldt and come out here to get
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shot the first night. No, I never knew whether they buried the two dudes the next day or just rolled them into the creek, or they may have gotten away alive; if so, perhaps they are still going. Once when footsteps were passing my door I heard some one say, "Webloguamasigna," which in Indian means "a dollar and a half," but as I was not on to the Indian language then I suppose it meant just to add to my other pleasures, they would kindly get my scalp next. In order to be ready for them I got up. Say, reader, could you have seen big tears running down the back of my neck, there to mingle with the spots on the rug, I almost know you would not have laughed. I thought it almost enough to bring tears to the eyes of a potato. How many times would you have gone to sleep thinking that on the morrow, perhaps, your scalp would be dangling to Mr. Indian's scalp pole? Do you know of anything more pleasant to think about after you are dead? I almost know that was the longest night ever was since nights were invented. But why prolong the agony or even set this to slow music, for after a while everything became so very quiet that one could almost hear a gum drop. I must have gone to sleep, for the next thing I knew the sun was shining through the cracks. Part of the hotel was stone and part was boards. Perhaps they were short on boards, for they seemingly had left about fifteen or twenty minutes' recess between each board. But I smelled breakfast cooking and after a hasty toilet I got down to the first table, on which there were good boiled buffalo meat, dried buffalo jerk, hash, bacon, eggs and sorghum. When I asked for cream the girl told me the old cow had broken her lariat. We finally got some blue milk, which I think had been skimmed top and bottom. But everything tasted good, and I enjoyed my breakfast, after which we took a look at the town. It was small, but growing. In our rambles we passed the old school house, where later the noted William Allen White and chums did what they could to make life miserable for the old professor.
Across the avenue from where the Murdock home now stands was Boot Hill cemetery. About where the I. O. O. F. hall now stands a Mr. Sheets kept a wholesale liquor house, where the feeble minded assembled. There out in front Frank Gordy and his crowd were getting ready to pull off something. We got there just in time to hear Gordy say: "Now, gentlemen, we will entertain you a few minutes with some fancy dancing by this young galott, who has dared to come to El Dorado wearing a diamond and tailor-made clothes." Two quick shots from Gordy's revolver knocked splinters from the board walk near the young man's feet and the dance was on. I immediately thought it more pleasant back on Main street. Although I was not wearing diamonds or tailor-made clothes, I suddenly thought it best to go back to the hotel and write to my boy chum in the East. In that letter I remember of telling him at last I had got to where the cyclones fan the people to sleep, 'way out in Kansas.
The June previous El Dorado had almost been wiped off the face
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of the earth by a cyclone. The effects of it were still very much in evidence. I afterwards learned that shooting at the feet of tenderfeet to make them dance was Gordy's favorite stunt. But one day he bet on the wrong horse and met his "Waterloo," for when he commenced to shoot at Lish Cook's feet, Lish knocked him through a glass front. As Frank lost a part of his nose going through the glass, that ended the shooting business for poor Frankie.
I was soon given a position in a store and went to work. Almost in the center of the block was the old Red Light saloon, which was a very busy place both day and night, so I was told. But there came a day when the proprietor could no longer pay and his creditors seized his goods, which consisted of a lot of barrels, half barrels and kegs, all of of which contained more or less of the stuff usually sold over a Western bar. To save paying rent on the building until the goods could be sold, the officers got permission to put them in the basement of the store where I worked. For some reason best known to them, the sale of the goods was put off from time to time, but all summer long almost every one at the court house, from the janitor down to the judge on the bench, kept coming after the keys to see if the goods were keeping all right. In the fall when I saw them selling the empty kegs, I thought perhaps I had not done my duty by not taking my friends down in the cellar once in a while. But I was young then and had been used to telling the truth (part of the time). I supposed the goods were to be sold for the benefit of the creditors.
I will admit there are always more or less hardships to be endured in settling a new country. Although almost half a century has now gone to swell the greedy past and many changes have taken place, quite a number of the old landmarks still remain, around which cluster many pleasant memories. Of those early days we had much for which to be thankful. Then the old stage brought the mail almost every day and but few had to worry about their bank accounts. How different was the Kansas of the seventies to the Kansas of today, which is now the brightest star in the galaxy of States, and I believe the only State that ever harvested 181,000,000 bushels of wheat in one year, and now has 500,000 boys of school age who have never seen a saloon. How does that sound to the Eastern States that have such stringent laws that they won't allow a church to be opened within 400 feet of a saloon? No, their old saloon pays a license and has to be protected. Honest, now, don't their laws need fixing?
I often wish the old timers of the seventies could see the little city of El Dorado today, with her paving, white way, long shady streets, large, well-kept lawns and handsome, modern homes with their winding walks and vine-wreathed porches, where in early spring-time the honeysuckles, trailing low, stoop to kiss the drooping daisies. But, alas! only a few of the seventy-oners are here now. While a number of them have migrated to other parts, many, many old time, early day, never-to-
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be-forgotten friends have taken their last ride to the silent city and there they sleep, where all down through the coming years the summer breeze will ripple the grass on their graves, the sunbeams lovingly caress the grass-grown mounds and the winter snows cover them softly over. They have gone to that other clime, but
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"You have all heard of that land, On the far away strand, In the Bible the story is told; Where the storms never come, Neither darkness or gloom, And nothing shall ever grow old." |
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The vines are ever clinging, And the geraniums are ever fine; And the birds are ever singing For that old sweetheart of mine. |
MEMORIES.
By Elias Bishop.Requested to add my mite to the historical events of an early date of our county. I will say, on the spur of the moment, without time for premeditations. I hardly expect to interest any one.
I came to Butler county April 17, 1866, in company with two men and a boy who were hauling flour from Emporia to Mead's ranch, now Towanda. We struck camp at the George Danaldson ford on the Wal-
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nut at Chelsea postoffice, which I think has about held its own up to date. The next morning I was to quit my companions and hoof it over to the west branch, where father and family were located, but parting was not done until after the kid and I had a fight over a pair of yarn socks that grandma had given me ere leaving Iowa. While we were spatting noses, Old Uncle Ben Gordy rode into camp and inquired if there was a boy there by the name of Bishop. I says, "Yep, isn't your name Gordy?" I had known him eight years previous to this in Iowa. Well, that kid fight was off, but I got my socks. Mr. Gordy directed me to my folks. Gordy was father-in-law to Penrose Johnson, of the Johnson family that were drowned in a ravine near the west branch, six miles north of new El Dorado. Old El Dorado was three miles south. The mail bags were the only things to be moved up to the new town. At this time we had to go to Emporia to the mill. We would occasionally go to Mead's ranch for groceries. If Henry Martin got out of bacon, we could get bacon at the ranch for thirty cents per pound. Martin's little store was one-half mile south of James Teters present home. Sam Langdon brought two loads of groceries and his family and other belongings, and struck camp on a claim belonging to his nephew, William Cowley, about one mile north of Main and Central, in El Dorado. He began to display his goods in a way that didn't suit Martin, who came over and gave Sam ten cows and calves for his goods, with an understanding that Sam should hike. Sam hiked to Leavenworth, sold the entire bunch, doubled his former stock of goods, came back and set up shop in a log cabin belonging to Ben King. King had a homestead, a part now of El Dorado. Mrs. Langdon and myself sold goods, while Sam ran a freight wagon from Leavenworth. We sold red top boots that cost the firm $2.50 for $5; ten cents for a clay pipe, the same for a box of matches. We had considerable Indian trade. We could get our price for a blanket that took an Indian's eye. Martin meanwhile got up on his ear. He bought and located a saw mill near where the central bridge is now across West Branch. He sawed material and put up a store building on the southwest corner of the (now) city square. He moved his goods and began business in earnest. Ben King put up a board shanty, stretched a sheet across the center, stored his wife in one end and stacked up the other end with a few jars of candy, cigars and tobacco. A man by the name of Strickland bought a kit of blacksmith tools. Sam Langdon went out of the mercantile business and bought a stone hotel on the southeast corner of the city square and New El Dorado became an organized town, and Old El Dorado dropped out of history. New El Dorado progressed slowly, but kept pace with the wants of the people. Coal oil was two prices those days, twenty-five and thirty cents per gallon. We had not struck oil yet. This was a great stock country; stock roamed at will. After the herd law came into effect you could get a cow and calf herded for the season for seventy-five cents. There were many deer, antelope and other kinds of wild game and great numbers of buffalo west of Wichita.
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Butler county in an early date had many hindrances to progress. Indian scares (usually proven to be whites, I won't say men), that would send numbers up the branches yelling "Indians, run for your life." Many times the settlers would run to Emporia and leave their stock for the villians to drive off.
Of course, we had our share of grasshoppers, cyclones, floods and droughts and added to these the agitation of the county seat, but also came the good old bumper crops and withal the pleasures of the old times were greater than now.
A HUNTING PARTY.
By John L. Cupples.In 1873 buffalo were still plentiful within fifty to seventy-five miles of Wichita. It was a common thing for the people of Butler, Cowley and other neighboring counties to get out "on the plains," which then meant Kiowa, Harper, Pratt and Meade counties, and that section of Kansas, and there kill their winter's meat and make a few dollars besides from the buffalo hides (worth $3 each in Wichita) and wolf skins. The last of November, December and January were the best months, when the buffalo were still in fine condition and their skins were covered with the long hair that effectually protected them as they fed upon the bleak prairies. It was noble game and when we, like others, killed the animals we wasted much of the carcass, took the tongue, the hind quarters, the tallow, the hide and left the rest to the wolves. Many wolf pelts were taken by poisoning the wasted meat. The hind quarters would be hung up to freeze and used through the winter of "jerked"—cut into strips and put for a short period in boiling brine and then dried. Buffalo hunting was great sport, but in this case there was tragedy and suffering in it.
On January 16, 1873, Henry Martin concluded to take some goods and go to the Medicine river and trade with the Osage Indians. He loaded five wagons, those of Stephen Fowler, W. E. Smith, John Carpenter, Tom Lafferty and his own. Some young fellows decided to go along and hunt buffalo and have some fun. Dr. Sherrod Dutton with Henry Martin, Josh Holden with John Carpenter, Ed Fowler and his father and myself with Tom Lafferty. Sam Betts with W. E. Smith. McFarland and Alfred Comb went along with the teams. The first night we camped at Wichita. It began snowing, with increasing cold. By the time we got to Ninescah, it was cold and we concluded to camp. We undertook to double teams across the river with the loaded wagons. Martin started in first. The river was quite high and the team became unhitched in the middle of the stream. Martin jumped into the water to his waist. The river was full of slush ice. He righted the team and Dutton drove it out. We finally all got across and camped for the night.
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The next morning it was snowing and continued to all day, but we drove on and came to the Chikaskia river by night. It was late and we did not cross. The next morning there was a foot of snow and the river was frozen over. We stayed there that day. The next night was colder. In the morning we undertook to move and found the ice almost strong enough to hold a horse. We drove to the river and chopped a road through the ice. The weather began to turn warm and more snow came from the south. About noon the wind shifted to the north and by 2 o'clock there was the worst blizzard anyone ever saw. We were then on the divide between Chikaskia and the Medicine rivers. The wind blew so hard and the snow fell so fast we could scarcely see from one team to the other. The trail was covered with drifted snow so that no one knew which way to go, and could travel only the way the storm drove. Right at this time we fell in with five or six more teams, hunters from Cowley county. We stopped and held a council of war and concluded we could do nothing but wait until the storm ceased. This was about three or four o'clock in the afternoon. Most of the men were panic-stricken, but a few of us concluded we were not out there to perish. Some of the men covered their heads with blankets and laid down, seemingly indifferent to their fate. Several of us tried to get them to make an effort to protect themselves by moving, exercising, but they seemed lifeless, despairing. One man took an ox whip and whipped three men out of a wagon, where they had lain-down without even a cover on the wagon. Some partly unhitched the teams, which stood shivering and suffering in the storm and cold. One man unhitched the tugs and the team drifted off with the storm. The next morning we found that Henry Martin, Doctor Dutton, Stephen Fowler and Alfred Combs were badly frozen. We took sacks of ear corn and built a fire on a knoll where the snow had been blown away, and carried the helpless men to it and cared for them as best we could. We sent out a detail to find some place of shelter. They soon came to the cedar brakes of the Medicine river, where the deep canyons were full of dead dry cedars. We moved in there, leaving our wagons on the top of the brakes and taking our teams down into the canyon and stayed several days. Two of our horses died from exposure, which left and[sic] extra wagon. We doubled up and moved on, came into the "big timber" below where Medicine Lodge now stands. There were about 300 Indians camped there. We hunted four or five days, got all the buffalo meat we wanted and started back. Coming to the Chikaskia, we saw several buffalo cross the river. Steve Fowier became very uneasy about the buffalo; if we could only get across the river we could get some of them. Steve had his frozen feet done up in blankets. They were badly frozen. One of the hunters said: "Steve, get your gun and we will go down to the river and look at it." The river was running full of slush ice and there was no chance to get across on the ice. The hunter pulled his boots and stockings off and rolled his breeches up to his body and carried Steve
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across and got the buffalo. All of these men are still living except Martin and Sam Betts. Martin died from the effects of the trip and Sam Betts moved to Ohio and died some years afterward.
I neglected to say that the trip was not barren of financial results. Dutton was left behind on the Medicine river and traded the goods of Henry Martin to the Indians for buffalo hides, wolf pelts, tanned and manufactured furs, etc., and later came safely home. At one time we thought that Dutton would at least lose his hands from freezing. His fingers, hard as sticks, stood out like limbs on a tree. He told me he was as good as dead, but I took him out of the wagon to the fire and sought to cheer him. He told me to make some flour dough and wrap his fingers in it, which I did, tying strips torn from a blanket on over the dough. Strange to say, he recovered. Several of the men were very severely frozen, but escaped with their lives. Martin came home and survived for a month. The flesh from one heel sloughed away, gangrene set in and he died.
On this trip probably twenty buffalo were killed by our party. Lowler killer some. John Carpenter, who had no gun, killed one with a horse pistol. The Indians were after the herd as well as we and drove it on us. Carpenter was lucky to hit one in the back, breaking it. The Indians did not get a single buffalo. I do not mean to boast, but I got fifteen.
One evening we camped about sundown and while the men were caring for their teams I went to a deep canyon. I saw a monster buffalo feeding on the dead buffalo grass. I got to within thirty feet of him, as the wind was blowing from him toward me. I watched him quite a while as he ripped the trailing grass from the soil. When I shot he fell to his knees, then settled down with his legs under him, quivering in the throes of death. I discreetly approached him from the rear and jabbed him with my gun barrel. In an instant he was on his feet and after me. I jumped down a bank; he barely stopped at the brink and fell dead.
DR. JOHN HORNER'S RECOLLECTIONS.
There are many things as well as many associates of my early days in Butler county that have passed beyond the vale of recollection. It is a long time to look back over and cull one's memory, and still there are many things not obliterated. Of such I will write as they now recur to men.
I came to Kansas in March, 1870, located my claim, went back to Humboldt, in Allen county, took out my homstead papers, bought a side of bacon, a half bushel of potatoes and a sack of flour, returned and took possession of my claim on March 25, 1870. By dark I had my wagon unloaded and the wagon cover stretched over my traps, except my side of bacon, which was placed on top of a pile of dry wood. I slept soundly
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through the night. In the morning when I went to prepare my breakfast I discovered that wolves had made away with my meat. I could see where something had been dragged over the burned prairie. I took the trail and after a while found a small piece of the side, covered with dirt and teeth marks. I cleaned it as well as I could and after going nearly a mile to the creek after water, had "flap jacks," coffee and broiled bacon for my breakfast.
A few days later it rained all day so hard that I could not get my meals, as I had neither house nor tent. Near evening, being very hungry, I took a few slices of bacon and a cup of flour and went to my nearest neighbor's house, G. P. and I. H. Neiman, and we had a sort of a union supper, they furnishing eggs and coffee and I the traditional "flap jacks" and bacon. I spent quite a pleasant evening. Bidding the boys "goodnight," I started for camp. The night was very dark. I went to where I thought the camp ought to be, but the blame thing wasn't there. I concluded that it had run away and started out after it, but after running around and over the prairie for several hours I gave up the chase and concluded to go back to the Neiman brothers' house and stay there the remainder of the night. Their house, like my camp, had disappeared and was nowhere to be found. I concluded that it was a night of revel for inanimate bodies and, being tired and almost frozen, I became reflective. A good comfortable home back in Illinois gradually came to my view; then a wife and three little fatherless girls began to appear in cycloramic form; then came along an old hay shed, that was real enough, for I crawled in, got under some rubbish and shivered till peep o' day, but did not sleep. Everything had got back to its proper place in the morning, and I concluded to stay a while longer, and am here yet. In those days we went to El Dorado or Towanda for our mail, to Cedar Point for our flour, and to Emporia for our lumber. Once I was out nine days for a load of lumber and it rained every day.
In the fall of 1870, all things had changed. Nearly every quarter of a section had an occupant and houses were quite numerous. We were the only ones at that time who had an organ, and on Sundays our home was usually overrun with persons, many of them very good singers, so the day was passed in singing Sunday school hymns and music. Once in the fall of 1870, we had twenty-five visitors and our store of supplies being about played out. my wife called me aside for advice. She said there was a little flour, a few eggs and a few squashes on hand. I told her all right, we would do the best we could under the circumstances. So we went to work to get the meal while the girls were to entertain the company. The following is the bill of fare: Corn coffee, water gravy, oaked squash, stewed squash, squash and batter mixed and fried, squash muffins, then at the head of the list for pastry came squash pie. All went away seemingly happy and well pleased. Wife said I was a "Daisy" and I guess I would have been dazed had it not been for the supply of squash.
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As we had no schools at that time our girls were required to have a lesson every day, my wife being the teacher and superintendent of household affairs, while I broke sod with a team of ponies and said bad words all day, and studied anatomy and physiology at night and recited to my wife.
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Pages 340-349,
Transcribed by Carolyn Ward from History of Butler County, Kansas by Vol. P. Mooney. Standard Publishing Company, Lawrence, Kan.: 1916. ill.; 894 pgs.
Locations:
A-H | I-Il | In-Iz | Kansas(A-D) | Kansas(E-J) | Kansas(K-R) | Kansas(S-Z)-Kz | L-M | N | O | P-Z |
A | B-Bn | Bo-Bz | C-Cn | Co-Cz | D | E | F | G | H-Har | Has-Hn | Ho-Hz | I | J | K | L |
M-Md | Me-Mz | N | O | P | Q | R | S-She | Shi-Sn | So-Sz | T | U | V | W-Whe | Whi-Wz | Y | Z
