Butler County Genealogy Trails Kansas Susan B. Allen Bio

Butler County’s Eighty Years ~ 1855-1935

by Jessie Perry Stratford

A History of Butler County Biographical Sketches and Portraits with Foreword by Rolla A. Clymer

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and Charles, under the loving care of his foster parents and the watchful eye of his own father and mother grew up.

In 1916 Filmore Mitchell died. In 1919 Mrs. Hulburt died. On May 4, 1920, Mrs. Mitchell became the wife of Mr. Hulburt—and the foster mother and step-mother and her own son. The honeymoon was spent on the Hulburt homestead. Then the couple moved to Syracuse where Mr. Hulburt still lives. Charles lives at Seminole, Okla.

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MYSTERY—SADIE BLOOMER

Forty-six years ago, in 1889, two-year-old Sadie Bloomer, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. Bloomer of Rosalia, Township, disappeared from the home of Mr. and Mrs. George Dudley, where she and her mother were paying a Tuesday afternoon call. Six days later, on Sunday evening, after a frantic search by every resident of eastern Butler County had failed to develop a clue, V. Piper returned to his home, one and one-half miles from where the little girl had vanished, and found Sadie crying on his doorstep and trying to push open the door. She was sunburned and thirsty, but the clothes she had worn when she disappeared were clean and untorn. Where had she been? No one knows the truth. The mystery probably never will be solved. A story of the incident is in one of Mrs. Corah Mooney Bullock’s scrapbooks. It relates that A. L. Edwards and H. Bloomer were hired by George Dudley to cut broomcorn in his place in Rosalia Township and Mrs. Edwards was hired to do the housework. On Tuesday, Mrs. Bloomer was visitng at Dudleys and in the late afternoon she and Mrs. Dudley left the children in charge of Mrs. Edwards and went to dig potatoes for supper, a mile from the house. When they returned, Sadie was missing. Mrs. Edwards told them Sadie had followed them, crying. One hundred men search all night. Mrs. Edwards was suspected and after she was questioned for some time, she said that she had killed the child, that its crying had irritated her and she had hit it with a stick, harder than she intended. She said she had buried the body in mud at the edge of a branch. When she led the crowd to the spot, and no body was found, the creek was dragged. Mrs. Edwards then said her husband had moved the body, where—she did not know. Both were arrested. The crowd searched several days and became a mob, wild for revenge. Ropes were placed about the necks of the Edwardses, thrown over a tree branch and the couple lifted twice from the ground, while the mob demanded that they tell where the body could be found. Only the pleas of Mrs. Bloomer to wait until the child was found, prevented the hanging. The search was resumed. The Edwardses were placed in jail in El Dorado for safe-keeping. The mob grew to 500 men, who gathered at the jail late Sunday afternoon, determined to lynch the two suspects. Early in the evening the sheriff received a message to find out the truth. His affirmation quieted the mob, but the parents had to bring the child to the downtown district of El Dorado, Monday, before many would believe she actually had been found. Even after Mrs. Edwards saw Sadie, she still insisted she had killed her.

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TOWANDA TORNADO

On the night of March 31, 1892, a tornado touched Towanda and nineteen other places in Kansas with a fury that suggested a cyclone, and at each place left behind dead or wounded.

When the tragic news was received in El Dorado, on April 1, many believed the report to be an April Fool’s joke. The Wichita Eagle said: “The greatest calamity reported is from Towanda, eighteen miles each of Wichita, on the St. Louis and San Francisco railroad. Towanda’s population yesterday numbered 300 souls. The village is in ruins. Only one house is undamaged. The dead are Dr. John D. Godfrey, physician; Herschel Cupp, 21-year-old son of Daniel Cupp, one of the eldest settlers of Kansas; John Bailey; six-year-old child of John Blake, merchant. Those fatally hurt—Miss Annie Robbins, 35, postmistress; Mrs. John Kerr; Earl Kerr, 11; Fern Maxwell, 8; C. L. Westcate, 80. The seriously hurt are: Willie Maxwell, Miss Lucy Poorbaugh, hip broken; Effie Kerr, Elmore Hall, Mrs. Cory, Mrs. Walter Mooney, William Mitchell, Mrs. George Cornelius, Mrs.

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William Mitchell, M. H. Hibbs, Walter Mooney and Myrtle Mooney.

JAMES MEAD’S STATEMENT

James R. Mead, Indian trader, interviewed by Wichita Eagle reporter in regard to the tornado said:

In the spring of 1863 I located at Towanda, by the big spring, as a convenient point from which to carry on my business of collecting furs from the hunters and the various Indian tribes of the plans and of the Indian Territory and also following my own favorite pastime of hunting. I found “Towanda” to consist of a big spring of pure water, a rude log school house on the hill, an unoccupied log house near the spring and the residence of C. L. Chandler and his family who occupied a story and a half hewed log house; he also had a small field fenced. Mr. Chandler also kept a United States post office, mails arriving and departing once a week, supplied from Cottonwood Falls by horseback service. There were two settlers south in the valley, and along the river was a heavy belt of oak and hackberry timber almost untouched by the axe. This was all there was of Towanda on June 1, 1863. During that month I erected a building which with its additions answered the various purposes of a trading post, dwelling, postoffice, church, wayside inn and Indian Agency, and soon became the general supply point and center of interest for the southwestern frontier and was widely known as “Mead’s Ranch.” In the spring of 1864 the Wichita and allied bands of Indians, refugees from their homes in the Indian Territory, settled along the Whitewater, Walnut and Little Arkansas rivers, to subsist on the buffalo. In the fall of 1864, the government sent an agent, Major Milo Godkins, who established his agency for these Indians at Towanda, occupying one of my buildings until the winter of 1867, when the Indians were removed to their old home on the Washita river in the Indian Territory.

During the summer of ’63, buffalo came into the valley about Towanda to graze. During the next four years Towanda (“Mead’s Ranch”) was the center of business activity and life such as the town which has since been built upon the hill above the sight of the old agency and trading post has not experienced. Here came the Indians in hundreds to exchange the fur robes and other products of the plains for coffee, sugar, flour, blankets, calico and the hundred other articles of use or adornment dear to savage life. Hither they came able to receive the scant rations of provisions and clothing issued by the government, and here came the battle-scarred warrior chief of the Kiowas, “Satanta,” and the great medicine chief o the Arapahoes, “Heap of Bears” to treat for the peace with the government of the United States, through the agent of the Wichitas. Here Colonel J. H. Leavenworth made his headquarters, and carried on his negotiations with the wild Indians which resulted in the treaty of Medicine Lodge; here also Colonel S. S. Smoot, of Washington, D. C., outfitted his party which surveyed the Osage lands from the Arkansas river west to Fort Dodge. At Towanda there of my children were born, and my wife died. I sold my ranch of 200 acres to Isaac Mooney, and removed to my present home near the mouth of the Little Arkansas. About this time a flood of immigration began to pour into the country and a stage and mail route was established from El Dorado. Mr. Mooney platted a townsite at Towanda, brought in a sawmill and set it up in the fine body of timber I had so carefully preserved; built a large stage barn and hotel near the big spring. Soon dwellings, stores, school house and church followed. With the departure of the Indian, the buffalo and the trading post, there also departed the freedom, romance and chivalry of frontier life. Nothing remained but dull, plodding toil.

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AN INDIAN SCARE

Excerpts from an article written in 1915 by Mrs. W. H. Avery: My husband and I and our 3-year-old son, Ulysses Sherman, settled in Clifford Township in April, 1868. Unloading our goods in the timber near the creek until four posts were driven into the ground, a few thin boards that we had brought in the bottom of the wagon were laid over the top as a protection from rain. Carpets and quilts were hung around three sides, while the wagon box with books and covers, filled the four sides and provided us with sleeping apartment. Our stoves, chairs and tables were put inside and we were “at home” to any who called.

Within a month, we had a garden and had erected a little stone cabin.

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Dr. I. V. Davis and William Davis, bachelor brothers, three miles distant, were our nearest neighbors. John Wentworth and his father-in-law, Joseph Adams, lived five miles south. One afternoon a boy rode up in great haste, crying, “The Indians are coming any minute to kill all the settlers. Everybody is going to El Dorado.” We threw into a wagon what eatables were handy, bedding, a gun, and saddles, to use in case we should have to abandon our wagon and escape on horseback. We drove rapidly down the stream and joined the families of T. L. Ferrier, J. Carns, Jacob Green and James Jones, who had been warned in the same way. As we formed a procession of pale-faced women and frightened children, we thought of the stories we had read of Indian raids and imagined that our massacre would soon begin. Every eye was watching for the dusky foe.

At El Dorado we were welcomed to the long, low new building occupied by William Snow and family, where other settlers had stacked old-fashioned squirrel guns and Springfield rifles in the middle of a room. At night, beds were spread all over the floor and occupied by the women and children, while men stood guard. As the women learned afterward, there were only about a dozen loads of ammunition in the town. When morning dawned at last and the day wore on, we began seeing the humorous side of the scare. One woman, hurriedly leaving home, had insisted upon loading a keg of soft soap, but when several miles from home, discovered that she had forgotten her shoes and stockings and was wearing a child’s hood, while the summer sun poured upon her. My husband and Mr. Carns returned to the homestead to see if there were any signs of trouble, but the little homes were undisturbed and stock grazed peacefully upon the hills. However, we tarried one more night in El Dorado. Later we learned that Cheyenne Indians had passed north of us, near Marion, going to Council Grove to fight the Kaws stationed there.

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FOUND INDIAN TRUSTWORTHY

Under the caption, “A Happy Early Comer,” the late Mrs. Amos Adams, of Potwin, wrote an article which was published in The Walnut Valley Times, on March 13, 1896. Here are the excerpts:

Mr. Adams and I came to Kansas in October, 1866, and took a homestead at the confluence of Diamond Creek and Whitewater River. We made the journey to Kansas in a covered wagon. Mr. Adams had just returned from service in the Union Army the spring before, and his army life induced a love of adventure which probably turned his hopes westward. We were young and ambitious. A home, with comforts and conveniences, was our dream. Out of Kansas soil and under the beneficence of a Kansas sky we built such a home and were happy.

Our eldest child was not born until seven years after we landed on the Whitewater. Into that seven years are crowded my experiences with pioneer life. It was a period of privation and dangers, but not without the sweetest pleasures. Our first home was a rude log cabin, hurriedly built, without trace of skill. During the rainy season there were only two dry places under the roof—under the bed and the table! Many a night of slumber was passed under the bed instead of on it. I recall one night in particular. We were entertaining a cowboy. The rain was pouring in through the defective roof. Raising the table leaves, Mr. Adams and the cowboy found shelter there, while my couch was laid under the bed among the trunks and boxes containing our clothing. No clothing was removed and Mr. Adams had gone to bed with an egg in his coat pocket, an egg which he had found in the evening while doing the chores. When he arose in the morning, strange to say, the egg was unbroken. At this discovery the cowboy’s laughter became ungovernable.

During this time my household duties were few, simple and quickly performed. My chief occupation was herding cattle in company with Mr. Adams. We soon had a large number of cattle which ran at large, grazing all over Northwest Butler County. Soon I learned to use the side saddle and never had any hesitancy about mounting the wildest Texas bronco. I have battled in rain with many a stampede and rounded up the herd in a snow storm. Colored in memory, they seem happier days than they really were. In the spring of 1868, I became a school teacher. I passed the examination under Dr. Kellogg, then county superintendent, and taught a 3-months’ term in District Nine. It was the first term of school ever taught there

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and was all the school teaching I ever cared to do. My wages were $15 per month. My immediate successor was C. R. Noe, later editor of the Leon Indicator and regent of the State Agricultural College.

The sparsely settled condition of the county made visiting difficult. Our neighbors were few up to 1870, when immigration began to come in. Prior to that time we thought nothing of going ten or twelve miles on a visit. One afternoon we started about one o’clock for West Branch, a distance of ten miles, to visit neighbors. A dense fog hung over the hills and prairie and settled in the valley. It was impossible to see a great distance and the only roads were cattle trails. Starting out over the prairie west of the Whitewater we took a southwesterly course and supposed we were keeping it. Up hill, down hill, over ridges, through ravines of bluestem grass, taller than the corn grows, and across the prairie we galloped, but no West Branch and no cabins. Nothing but fog, bluestem and prairie. We soon knew we were lost, but went ahead. The fog partially cleared away and we rode up just at sundown to the hills west of the Whitewater, opposite to and not a mile from our own cabin. Just where we had been we shall never know, but we had ridden in a gallop for six hours and the ponies were jaded. We evidently had made a great circuit over the broad prairies to the northwest. Not discouraged we started anew and reached our neighbors after dark.

One of the sensations of pioneer life as the Indian scares. Reports of Indians on the warpath were frequently brought in and caused great consternation. Fire arms were abundant in every cabin. The Indian was the terror of the plains, but the fear in which he was held proved groundless in every instance. No depredations were ever committed in this part of the county after we came. The Indian’s chief offense against his white brother was stealing ponies. During the Indian scare of 1868, most of the people congregated in El Dorado and prepared for a united resistance. Not wishing to abandon our cattle we remained and, joined by a neighbor, fortified the cabin, cleaned, polished and loaded all the firearms and were determined to make the Upper Whitewater famous for a historic battle with the Red Man. A few Indians passed through, but were peaceable.

My experience is that the Indian is highly appreciative of kindness. When a friend he usually is a true friend. One of our neighbors was an Indian. He had settled with his family at the junction of Four Mile and the Whitewater, about five miles south, and was trying to take on some of the ways of civilization. He visited us frequently, and would bring game that he had killed. Hunting was his chief occupation, and he farmed a little, kept ponies, had dogs and played the “fiddle.” His name was Shawnee Jim. He was honest, a lover of justice, a believer in peace, and had an eye for the beautiful. He had learned to speak broken English and liked to talk about Go and the wonderful things that the white man could do. He would ask about various articles in the house and how they were made. When told, he would shake his head thoughtfully, sigh for his own benighted race, and say: “Oh! White man, he know heap.” There was a store above us on the Whitewater where “Jim” did his trading. When he first came, instead of following the road which passed our cabin, he would go around through the timber on his way to the store. When asked why, he said it was because he was afraid of scaring “white man’s squaw.” When assured that I was not afraid of him and would treat good Indians kindly, he would come to the house, and soon became our friend. He had a system of measures of his own and his method of calculation was astonishingly accurate. When he failed to receive full weight, he could always discover it on his return home. He often complained to us of the injustice done him and would shake his head and, apparently, get consolation by looking up to Heaven and saying, “White man’s God knows it.” In 1868 he moved to the territory. The ruins of his little cabin may yet be seen. Although an Indian, born in a wigwam, cradled in a deer skin and schooled in the ways of his nature, a Christian spirit, a gentleness, honesty and love of justice that would do credit to a white Christian were his.

In the years that we have lived in Kansas we have never had a desire to abandon our adopted state. The hardships undergone in pioneer life make the state all the dearer to us. I love the state and its history, its soil and sky and sunshine, its prairies and their products. All my children are Kansans and I have taught them to love their native state, to know its history and admire its distinguished sons.

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ROUNDABOUT ITEMS

From the Walnut Valley Times files of the week August 20-27, 1885:

El Dorado has 5,000 inhabitants.

The Methodists have bought a $1,600 lot and will build a costly building next spring.

Three editors cater to the reading tastes of the citizenry—T. B. Murdock, Alvah Shelden and T. P. Fulton.

Augusta Gazette wants the farmers of Butler County to give a peck for each acre of corn growing in their fields toward a monument to Grant. At 25 cents per bushel about $8,000 might be raised out of the county’s 130,000 acres.

Benton has a population of 700—two hotels, 30 business houses, two churches and a new school house.

Brainerd now has 180 buildings, 43 for business. It has 100 children in its school district limits and about $700 is raised toward a $1,200 church. The population is 500 and the town is ten weeks old! J. T. Anderson and Robert Long have a lumber yard there and are selling lots of building material.

Olin Meacham will publish a paper at Latham next week, having been given a bonus of a lot on Main Street and $145 cash.

Clara Hazelrig will teach the winter term in Rosalia.

Rumor says that Dr. Edwin Cowles has the plans and specifications all drawn for the building of a fine brick residence on Merchant Street. (Note: Dr. Cowles’s daughters, Misses Ollie and Clara Cowles live in this home.)

J. H. Wishard expresses the opinion corn will not be less than 25 cents a bushel this fall. He has 70 acres which he is sure will yield 50 bushels to the acre.

The marriage of Miss Addie Ramsey, daughter of Colonel and Mrs. A. C. Ramsey, and Howard Patrick of Kansas City, took place on the 23rd wedding anniversary of the bride’s parents.

D. R. Blankenship, of Rosalia, is a candidate for county commissioner.

City schools will open September 7. Teachers will be Ida Capen, Fannie Hull, Josie Wilson, Mae Schmucker, Kate Furlong, Agnes Grove, Cora Battin, Dell Patton, Mrs. J. Richardson, Dora Montgomery and Stella Long.

Potwin’s mineral springs are creating quite an excitement.

Beaumont is neither on a mountain nor in a valley or near high or low water mark. Dr. J. A. Hutchinson has founded the Beaumont Times.

Regarding a teachers’ institute in 1883, The Times said:

Many changes have been made in Butler County since those 245 earnest young men and women, among whom were embryo authors, attorney-generals, lawyers and educators, studied methods of teaching in an institute held in the summer of 1883. The Ow building on Central Avenue was being built. A stone hotel, El Dorado House, was on the site where the Citizens State Bank stands. Country schools often had fifty or sixty pupils. Teachers’ wages were from $30 to $60 a month and they did the janitor work. Although there were no automobiles or movies, the young people had good times. A general get-together meeting was held soon after the institute began and this was a trying ordeal for the timid boys and girls. Cora Battin, now Mrs. C. W. Ewing, whose kindness and grave is remarked by all who know her, took special interest in the timid and awkward young folk. It is said that every bashful swain would have fought for her at the drop of a hat. Cass (Cheap Charley) Friedberg, of the Boston Store, offered a prize of a sewing machine that summer for the girl who was voted the prettiest young woman. Ada Smith, of Douglass, was the winner. This incident recalled that her sister, a lovable girl, married James Woodward of Douglass, and moved to Chandler, Oklahoma, where both were instantly killed in a cyclone in April, 1897. Nannie Stamper Bierer and Nannie Daniel Ellis, of Chelsea, were the organists and lent their talent in the programs during the summer. Walter A. Phipps owned the only Prince Albert coat in the crowd.

William Allen White, then at the tender age of fifteen years, was among the students. He is remembered chiefly as the short stubby boy, who ever studied or kept still and who was petted and made over by all the girls. The only indication of greatness that his classmates saw in him in those days was his restless disposition and his penchant for constantly asking questions entirely foreign to the business in hand.