History of Butler County Kansas Genealogy Trails

HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTY, KANSAS

By Vol. P. Mooney

1916

Transcribed & Submitted by Sara Sluss

HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTY, KANSAS
By Vol. P. Mooney
1916

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 everyone 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

"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."

Now, in conclusion, I will say that forty-four times the Christmas fires have been kindled on the hearthstones of many happy El Dorado homes; forty-four times the meek-eyed daisies have struggled through the April snows and blossomed, faded and died; forty-four times the church bells have proclaimed an old year dead and New Year born since that long, long first night I spent in El Dorado, 'way back in 1871. All through these forty-four years of busy cares, of struggle and achievement, of hopes deferred and victories counted, my days have run in shadow and sunshine with more of practical fact than poetic dreaming, through it all I have learned to like the climate and the people; who have always treated me well. Then, too, here is where our babies were born and have grown to manhood and womanhood and taken their places in the world of affairs. So it is only natural for me to expect to spend the balance of my days in Kansas and perhaps I will eventually sleep that long, long sleep 'neath her blue sky and green sod, for, nestling 'mongst old apple trees on the brow of a hill that overlooks the beautiful Walnut river, we have a comfortable little home, where

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 anyone.

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 Teter's 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 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 Fowler 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, flaked 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.

SOUTHEAST BUTLER.

By M. A. Palmer.

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 comers here--Dave and Henry Yates, ,C. C. Bowers, Lee Bottsford, Jack Brinley, Charles Tabing and Mr. Rankin., Then there were many 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

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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.

EARLY TIMES.

By Mrs. M. E. Bronson (Mrs. C. E. Dickinson.)

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

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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

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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.

A STORY OF THE DAYS LONG GONE.

By James Dodwell of Wall Street.

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

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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
(23)

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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.

MEMORIES OF PIONEER DAYS.

By Mrs. W. H. Ellet.

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

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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 El1et, 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. Ellett furnished the milk and home made cakes

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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 anyone 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

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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, 1892 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

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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 vestige of a board could be found.