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.

I am not given much to writing, especially to remembering things that at the time seemed ordinary, and therefore I fear I cannot write entertainingly of my early experiences. I came to Butler county in February, 1867, and on the way met Archibald Ellis on the Cottonwood river. He had already lived here some ten years, and encouraged me to come on down. I saw the McCabes near Sycamore Springs, old man Boswell on his farm at El Dorado and Ben King, then a grocer on the townsite of El Dorado. I also made the acquaintance of Frank and James Gordy and Sam Langdon.

I took my first claim on the Walnut below El Dorado, but in June, 1867, decided that the farm I now own on Little Walnut was good enough for me. It has made me a good home and I can truly say I made it with my own hands. In June, 1867, when I settled here, there were four families on Little Walnut, and there was decided freshness and newness about the country. I knew all of the early corners here—Dave and Henry Yates, C. C. Bowers, Lee Bottsford, Jack Brinley, Charles Tabing and Mr. Rankin. Then there weremany[sic] later ones like Sam Hyde, G. W. Packard, Peter Johnson, the Lambdin boys, G. A. Kenoyer, Captain Armstrong and many others.

I think we must have been a pretty good lot of people. We organized the Vigilantes, but had no cause to act. There was trouble down on Hickory Creek when Capt. Jack Armstrong was kukluxed, but we didn't regard that very seriously. I was with a party in 1868 that pursued and captured two Osage Indians who came into the county and killed two men. The Indians were raging because they were losing their territory by treaty(?) with the whites. They slipped in and finding Samuel Dunn and a man named Anderson camped two or three miles south of Douglass, shot them and cut their heads off. Dunn and Anderson were alone and unconscious of danger. The Indians, in addition to other plunderings, took $270 from Dunn, and a span of mules, and returned to their agency. Birney Dunn, G. D. Prindle, myself and a number of us pursued the two Indians, who surrendered to us and were taken to Topeka for trial. The court decided it had no jurisdiction and sent the prisoners back to this county.

On the return the sheriff and the Indians stopped over night with Nelson De Moss on South Fork of the Cottonwood and the Indians escaped. They were never recaptured or punished, I believe. This

illustrates one of the perils of the time. The great flood of immigration soon satisfied "Lo, the poor Indian," that he had no chance battling with the pale face and this, I think, was the last of their raids and depredations.

In the winter of sixty-eight the praises of the beautiful Walnut valley reached the ears of myself and family while at Topeka. We were not long in loading our earthly possessions in a wagon and setting out for the new land. With the night came my first experience in camp life. I tried to be romantic and to enjoy the beauties of nature; imagined myself walled in by the air, domed by heaven's blue, lit up by the eternal stars; my ear caught the sound of rustling leaves and rippling stream. I was soon brought down to the practical for, looking out in the twilight, I saw a large wolf. When supper was served our couch was arranged on the "ground floor," more substantial than comfortable. That would was no insomniac, so the time was passed painting pictures on invisible canvas, the principal figures being reptiles and wild animals. A newly married couple had joined us. They made their bed too near the fire. I ventured my advice about the matter. They treated it with derision, saying they had camped out before. In the night I detected an odor, and discovered that their bed was on fire. They smothered the flames, wrapped the fragments about them and again lay down to pleasant dreams.

The wagon at last stopped and the driver said, "This is El Dorado." My heart stood still and my tongue refused to wag, for my disappointment was great. I did expect to see a few houses in a place assuming a name suggestive of such possibilities. My little boy, looking into my face, said, "Mama, is this heaven?" He had heard his papa describe the country as a perfect paradise. I sat in that wagon, gazing at the little log store which I was told was Henry Martin's and that he was postmaster.

Mr. Bronson had purchased a claim in partnership with a bachelor. On it was a cabin. In his absence that bachelor had found a wife and she informed me that the cabin would not hold two families. A deliverer came, Jerry Conner, who offered us a temporary home in his cabin, which was gladly accepted. A number of bachelors were here and they seemed to almost venerate me and made me feel I was a special creation. After a couple of months this theory was dissolved by a woman passing on a load of hay; it was Mrs. William H. Thomas.

To prepare food, corn meal was fixed up in so many ways it lost its identity; dried pumpkin stewed and seasoned till it disclaimed relationship with its kind, and shorts was converted into brown bread that was not ashamed to meet its aristocratic Boston relative, the bean. My

honesty was severely tested too. Mr. Conner had secured a half bushel of potatoes for seed and whenever I looked at them, for safety, I repeated the proper commandment. How happy he made me by saying, "You can cook a mess of those potatoes, but carefully cut the eyes out.' They were about the size of walnuts. Our sleeping room also served as sitting room. When I awoke the first morning after arrival, a half dozen men were sitting around the fire place smoking and I didn't arise. About nine o'clock Mr. Bronson came in expecting breakfast. "Are you going to lie here all day?" he asked. "Yes," I said, "unless those men vacate." "We do not do that way here," said he, "we just turn our backs!"

In the spring of sixty-eight, El Dorado was platted. The first of July we moved into our house; it was fourteen feet square, set on four stones, lacked a door, windows, floor and roof. The rest of it was all right. We worked by evolution in those days, slow but sure. Every day a few shingles went on our roof, for they were divided up as fast as made.

In sixty-nine, one evening while sitting by my little three-legged stove, trying to keep it warm, for it was aged, there was a knock at the door and a gentleman, two young girls and a boy stood there. "Can you keep my daughters over night? I can find no accommodation here and they are very tired." One room and one bed. Looking again, I saw they were in mourning, and I felt they were motherless and in that wilderness. I made them comfortable in the only bed, my family reclining on the soft side of a hard wood floor. One of these young ladies afterward became the wife of Alvah Shelden, so long the editor of the Walnut Valley "Times." We sometimes really "entertain angels unawares."

About this time we celebrated our second Fourth of July. I was in a dilemma. My cook stove sat out in the prairie. It wouldn't bake, but Mrs. A. M. Burdett came to my relief. I went with her and we baked cake. In the absence of butter we used ham grease. How do you suppose we got it? It was very much like the children of Israel got their manna. Mr. Burdett and Mr. Bronson were riding on the prairie west of town and found a pile of hams (possibly lost by some freighter). They divided them and carried them home. The two families revelled in the ham, fried ham, boiled ham, and ham devilled, for some time. It was a Godsend and we accepted it as such.

The little slab real estate office of Bronson & Kellogg was the embryo of present "land advocate." Small papers issued at much expense were the instruments that slid the great American desert (located here by eastern emigration) far to the west, making it possible for the present real estate men to bring in excursionists by the car load, feed them at hotels and transport them over the country in easy carriages. The first farmers turned the sod and planted the trees that broke the drought and frightened the grasshopper back to his home on the plains.

The first physician rode over the country on horse back with saddle

bag. If the patient survived, Mr. Doctor took his pay in wild fruit or something like it; if he died he could look to the next world for pay but held no mortgage here.

The first lawyer dispersed Gladstonian eloquence over a Texas cow. At the termination of the trial he held either the horns or the tail while his client sat extracting the lacteal fluid. The attorney now is found milking the cow, while his client is holding her and wondering why this is thus.

The first evangelist labored hard and long, and one convert was the result; he secured that one by marrying her! The first preachers came, like the apostles of old, on foot. I am afraid they would be called tramps now. There was no creed-repeating automatom, dealing out ecclesiastical nostrums, nor did he carry a pitchfork of excommunication. He simply taught to love God and man, reaching alike the iron clad Calvinist and the agnostic Ingersolian; sowing the seed from which sprang these beautiful churches and all they represent. The first Sunday school was taught in the grove on the banks of the Walnut. I taught the Bible class and was neither a biblical scholar nor a church member. Many times I was confounded by questions. When wound completely up I would say I thought there were some things God did not intend for men to know and I thought it wicked to be prying into such things! I sowed the seed but do not know that it germinated.

The buck-board was in time followed by the stage, the stage by the railroad. The weariest years of my life were spent while waiting for the railroad. With that came all the elements of civilization, development and improvements and that most necessary commodity—money, without which little can be accomplished. I am glad I am done pioneering but I recall those early and humble days with keenest pleasure. I was younger then and cares had little hold on me.

The old chair, formerly Jerry Conner's, referred to in a late issue of the Daily "Republican" is still doing service, holding a warm place in the old pioneer harness shop, the first bank building in El Dorado, and it has seen its best days. The lumber was freighted overland from Emporia to build the pioneer shop. There were very few chairs in its class forty-five years ago in El Dorado township. The early settlers were not overburdened with furniture of any kind and most of the homes in El Dorado were furnished with the very plainest, often home made, furniture. Much of the necessary household articles were freighted in overland by emigrants.

The country was undeveloped at this time, and El Dorado was a little inland town of two or three hundred new settlers. The business

houses were nearly all one story frame shanties. There were only one or two two-story structures on the townsite. One of these structures stood where the Farmers and Merchants bank now stands. The upper part of the building was known as the Chicago hall, and it was here that public meetings were held. Another, Martin's general store, stood on the corner now known as the Haberlein building. The print shop of the late T. B. Murdock was in the upper rooms, and it was here that he put out the first issue of the Walnut Valley "Times." Through the agency of his paper Mr. Murdock urged upon the newcomers the beautifying of their homes by the planting of trees, etc.

Among the first of the early settlers to come here were Dr. Allen White, H. M. Johnson, Dr. McKenzie, Charley Selig, J. H. Betts and others. I remember that about this time Judge A. L. L. Hamilton made his famous walk from Florence to set stakes in the little inland town of the Walnut valley to make it his future home. The judge to this day claims that he rode in on the southwestern stage from Cottonwood Falls, but the other story is told on him.

The pioneers and young men of those early days had not time to sit around in rocking chairs, puffing a clay pipe, and the very few that did, had to use kerosene and tallow candle lights to see with, for the residents' residences and business houses that could sport two kerosene lamps were going some. The young men who came here forty-five years ago today with a firm determination to hew out of the, almost, wilderness, are now the backbone and sinew of the beautiful little city of El Dorado. While there was little time for play and plenty of hard work, yet they did find time for pleasure, such as it was. Their chief pleasure was the playing of harmless tricks, the tin canning of every strange dog that landed on the townsite. Every emigrant caravan passing through would have a plentiful supply of the felines. Conspicuous in this favored sport were Frank Frazier, Charley Foulks, J. H. Betts, John Donnelly, George Brockaway, Jimmy Decou and others. Bill Cain, who clerked for Frazier and Charley Foulks always managed to keep a supply of tin cans on hand. One afternoon when business was a little quiet, Donnelly, whose place of business was where the Walnut Valley "Times" now is, noticed a mule hitched out in front. The jokesters got busy and tin canned a man's dog. The dog ran out through the building and right under the mule. The mule scared and took hitchrack and all through the town, while the merchants flocked to their doors to watch the fun. The farmer threatened to bring a damage suit against Donnelly, but the bunch compromised by visiting Jim Thomas' and lining up to see who could get away with the most, feel the happiest and get home safely.

Jacob Decou who emigrated from Michigan and settled on a homestead in Fairview township, brought a big shepherd dog with him. Jake was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, and he soon found he was the only man in the township without a party, so he started out to hunt up and

organize a party of his kind in Butler county. He brought his Michigan dog to town and visited Frazier's corner. While being introduced, his dog was being canned. But the dog barked when we tried to attach the can, turned around, looked the bunch over and walked out of the store with the can tied to him and lay down in front of the store to sleep. But Jake got his Democratic organization, and as Frank Frazier always said, he was a good organizer. But he never could land any of the pie. He found Dr. Allen White, Vincent Brown, Archibald Ellis and others in ahead of him.

In those early days the little town seldom saw a show of any kind, only such as they put together for their own amusement. One time the first circus to pull off a show in El Dorado brought their skin games with them and some of the citizens fell into their trap. One man, after coming to town for the circus, made the remark that he had never seen a Texan steer play the game any better. He had been fleeced himself, but after several visits to the bank and a call on Attorney Gardner, the circus folks gave his money back, and he succeeded in running the whole circus bunch out of town. Money was a great thing in those days, and as we look back and recall the only few who are here now, we take pleasure to give the best part of the old room in the pioneer harness shop to the old chair that has seen its best days; because the chair is one of the writer's most cherished belongings, it is to him a reminder of his early days in El Dorado.

My advent into the State of Kansas dates from May 10, 1872, having left my native State of New Jersey on the 5th in company with my mother, to visit a sister who came with her husband here in 1868, and who lives on the same farm that they settled upon then, about twelve miles from Topeka. The journey then seemed to the friends we left behind to be a very great undertaking and almost interminable and all said, "Why what do you want to go to Kansas for, it is a desert and a wilderness and you will be scalped by the Indians. I don't ever expect to see you come home again." And sure enough they didn't, for several years at least. In 1876 I visited the centennial in Philadelphia, which was my first trip east, for it was not very long after reaching here and during my visit in Shawnee county before a certain gentleman with long dark hair curling all around and hanging down on his shoulders and a broad brimmed black hat, having heard of my recent arrival here, put in an appearance at the door of my sister's house one day, and after being ushered in in a very hospitable manner as is the custom with Kansas, he sought to renew the old acquaintance of earlier days in my Jersey home and to tell the old, old story, which is ever new. Suffice

it to say that in October of that same year I came with the aforesaid gentleman as his bride to Butler county. We came by rail as far as the beautiful little town of Florence consisting at that time of perhaps a half dozen little houses all told, but it contained among those a hotel where we were compelled to spend one night, and such a night I shall never forget for it was one of horror as we could neither sleep upon the bed or upon the floor, owing to the unnumbered marauders, who chased us from one place to another until sleep was out of the question and we had to dress ourselves in sheer desperation and wait for daylight to come. When the morning came, and we were glad to see it, after partaking of a very frugal and meagre breakfast, the old stage coach with its four horses attached came lumbering up in which we were to resume our journey to El Dorado. It did not take us long to arrange ourselves and luggage and with the comforting thought that now at least we could get a peaceful nap, when our attention was called to a gentleman whom we found was to be our traveling companion, and was introduced to us as Mr. Black, who, by the way, is our own inimitable Judge Black and fellow townsman of the present day. There was one other occupant of the old stage coach that day that was much in evidence at times all along the journey. Thus was made our debut into Butler county. Many and great have been the changes since that time just forty-four years ago. But that thirty mile ride in the old stage coach still lingers in my mind. But as all things must have an end so it did, and about dark we were rewarded by having the town of El Dorado pointed out to us, and we at last reached our destination, and I think twenty houses would count everything on the townsite. And now the first thing that we anticipated was in store for us was a rousing big charivari as was the custom in those days, but instead of that a very pleasant surprise party had been planned for us at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ed Ellet who were living in the little home that had been built by our father, General Ellet, for them when she came here as a bride. I came here in the same capacity and a strange coincidence it is that myself and husband should occupy the same house after a lapse of so many years. But to return to the party. It resolved itself into a dance and as all were tripping the light fantastic toe, suddenly a lady, one of our number, tripped out of her white underskirt and without seeming scarcely to attract the attention of the dancers, gathered it up and threw it across her arm and on with the dance. In the early days Mr. Ed Ellet was joked about building his house out so near Towanda and asked if he would have his mail come to El Dorado or Towanda. For there was then what seemed to be a large tract of unoccupied land between his home and the four corners where our main streets now intersect. This lot now is the choice location upon the townsite. The first large surprise party is said to have been given at their house, (the question now arises, where did you put them?) the guests taking canned cove oysters, crackers and canned fruits, and Mrs. ElIett furnished the milk and home made cakes

and the jolly time of that party was the topic of talk for many weeks. Among that number might be mentioned the Gardners, the Foulks, the Fraziers and the Ellets as being contemporary. E. J. Hitchner, who was a guest at our surprise party and whom some may remember, was a partner with my husband on the ranch that was afterward my home for about three years previous to my arrival. He remained with us a short time and then in a few months decided he would return to New Jersey. He did so and became my successor in the same school I had taught just before coming west and in the course of time married my very best girl friend, thus showing how strangely circumstances adjust themselves. We moved the last of October, to our ranch which was twenty-five miles distant from El Dorado in a southeast direction and there we established our home, "we two." Our modest little home consisting of five rooms stood on quite an eminence overlooking the broad prairies as far as the eye could see, nothing but prairie, and a little line of timber skirting the streams. So different from the heavily timbered country of my own native land and yet I was in love with it and the spot for our home had been chosen by my husband because he had killed a deer there, which seemed to me to be quite romantic and odd. And although neighbors were few and far off and many a day I would not see any one but my husband and never a wagon passing, I think I can truly say I was not lonely. I busied myself in my work, trying to add a touch here and there each day to make our home more attractive and homelike and every new article of furniture or anything we added in those days seemed a great possession. What a pleasure in setting up a home of one's own. There is a new interest every day. Occasionally while at my work I would suddenly be startled by a sound or grunt, but never a knock, and upon looking up there would be standing perhaps by the door or window one, two, three and perhaps more, great, burly, big Indians wrapped in their gay blankets. One morning in particular do I remember an Indian came and seeing a little fat puppy running around the yard begged my husband to give it to him. He said "puppy-heap-soup." In the course of time and in the order of natural events, a little girl came to our house to make it her home, and two years later another, both of whom are now grown to womanhood and are now, as most of you know, identified with two of the pioneer families of Butler county. In two years again a son and heir was added to the family of Ellet and we called his name William after his father. He, too, has left the home nest and in true succession has established a home of his own with a life partner, both of whom commenced school days together and the school boy and girl flirtation ripened into an everlasting union.

What a dreary time it was for the pioneer up to 1875, which was a tremendous crop year following one of great drouth and devastation by grasshoppers. To the prosperous Butler county farmer of today the distress and privation of the early settlers here is not understood or realized. They tried the very souls of men or the people and few were

steadfast and remained to win the battle. There are few old landmarks left to show where some poor unfortunate had failed to make a success and in a fit of despondency deserted his claim, but they are mostly all gone now and replaced by the thrifty farmhouse with its shade trees around it and a fine large windmill and an orchard of good bearing fruit trees, and a splendid grove of trees planted in many instances for cool and refreshing shade under which cattle can shield themselves from our hot summer sun, all of which bears the stamp of thrift, improvement and industry.

Well do I remember when our first railroad reached El Dorado. I stood with Mrs. Ed Ellet on the porch of the little house which was then their home, and which has since been ours, and we hailed with delight the long drawn out whistle of the first engine that entered our town one beautiful summer evening. A friend was visiting us at the time from Topeka and standing with us exclaimed, "Oh, I am so glad. Now I will not have to make the journey to Florence in the old stage coach. It is called the El Dorado branch of the A. T. & S. F. and came into our own town on or about the first of January, 1877. Then, indeed, did we feel that we were being drawn nearer to civilization.

And well do I remember when the new town of Leon sprang into existence. It was founded in the fall of 1878 by Mr. C. R. Noe who in 1879 began the publication of the Leon "Indicator," and which, by the way, would be very interesting to know that the first two issues of it were printed on the "Times" press in El Dorado. Leon is said to be the fourth city in size in Butler county and is a thriving town of about 800 people and a credit to our county. It made a pleasant stopping place and diversion for us in our long journey of twenty-five miles in going back and forth from El Dorado to our ranch. We would often stop and refresh both ourselves and team then in better spirits. It is perhaps fresher in my mind than any other town because I watched it grow from its infancy and it seemed to be just where it was most needed. El Dorado, Augusta, Douglass, Leon, Whitewater, Towanda, Brainerd, Potwin and Chelsea and a number of minor towns constitute the principal ones of Butler county. Kansas has been called the home of the cyclone, but in later days, if Kansas can surpass some of the terrific ones that we hear of in the eastern states and along the coast I hope I may never see it. The early settlers will remember, however, the dreadful tornado of June 16, 1871, which was the year previous to my arrival, in which it is said more houses were blown down in El Dorado than were here in sixty-nine, and in which our friends, the late Dr. McKenzie and wife, lost a dear little one. Also the one which occurred on the night of March 31, 189?, which utterly destroyed the town of Towanda and laid so many homes desolate and several lives were lost. Nine, I think, were badly injured and some fatally. I remember standing one summer afternoon with my husband on our porch at the farm and while the sun was shining brightly and the rain falling heavily and glistening like

dewdrops, our attention was attracted to the strange aspect of the sky and we noticed about six miles distant up on Rock Creek we could see the dark and ominous clouds gathering and rolling and resolving themselves at last in the shape of a funnel come down until it touched the earth and seemed to scatter everything within its reach. It struck an empty house (fortunately) on the prairie and demolishing it, scattered it to the four winds until scarcely a vestige of a board could be found.

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