CHEROKEE COUNTY, KANSAS

Columbus Courier
Thursday ~ 15 April 1897

BOILED DOWN FACTS

Pertaining to the Resources and History of Cherokee County

The Topeka Mail and Breeze is publishing each week a column of "boiled down" matter pertaining to some of the important facts connected with the history and resources of Kansas counties. The counties are taken up alphabetically, and in the last issue of the paper Cherokee county was reached in the regular order. We omit our recollections "After Thirty Years" residence in the county for this week, to give place to these items from the Mail and Breeze, as the historical facts mentioned are along the line to which we have been directing attention and will no doubt be interesting to the greater portion of the COURIER readers.

The Mail and Breeze is in error however, in one or two of its historical facts. It has the founding of Weir City several years after Galena and Empire City was founded in 1873, or about the time the zinc works were located at that point, which was that year.

Again the first marriage license issued and the first marriage, is recorded as having occurred in November, 1876. The Mail and Breeze historian is away off on that fact. The moulder of this family journal had been a resident of the county for about nine months prior to November, 1867, and we know that there was a whole lot of "sparking" going on during that time for we had a hand in some of it. There was marrying and giving in marriage a long time prior to November, 1867, but the books at the court house don't show any record prior to the time to which attention has been directed. Another correction and we give way to the Mail and directed. Another correction and we give way to the Mail and Breeze facts. It was not the militia of the state that came down here to suppress the war between the settlers and the railroad company. Governor Harvey made a requisition on the president for United States troops and it was the regulars that were stationed here to maintain peace.

We copy from the Mail and Breeze as follows:

Cherokee county was originally called McGee by the legislature of 1855 in honor of W. McGee, a Missourian, who believed that slavery
was a divine institution, that Kansas abolitionists should be treated as the children of Israel treated the Amorites and Jebusites and the
balance of the outfit who originally occupied the land of Canaan. McGee was a member of the legislature, though he never had lived
and never did live in the state.

In 1860 the legislature changed the name of McGee to Cherokee. Freepoint was designated as the first county seat.

The area of Cherokee County is 589 square miles. Its population is now nearly 40,000.

Cherokee county has increased faster in wealth and population in the last five years than any other county in Kansas.

Cherokee county has a larger number of towns of 1,500 and over than any county in the state. Glena has a population
of 4,314; Weir City - 3,279; Columbus - 2,400; Baxter Springs - 1,647; Empire City - 1,529.

The total assessed valuation of property in Cherokee is $4,018.947. The real valuation is probably at least $13,000,000.

Although Cherokee county is principally noted as a mining district, it raised last year over $800,000 worth of farm products,
among which were 1,951,175 bushels of corn, nearly half a million bushels of oats and over 24,000 tons of prairie hay.

Cherokee is one of the best watered counties in Kansas, the principal streams being Neosho and Spring rivers, with Lightning
creek, Cherry creek, Fly creek and Tar creek as tributaries.

The timber belts along the streams in Cherokee county average half a mile in width and include such varities of timber as ash,
hackberry, hickory, maple, mulberry, oak, pecan, sycamore and black walnut.

The first settlement in Cherokee county by white men was made in 1842 by a company of soldiers, who established a fort on
Spring river.

The first settlement made by a white citizen in McGee, now Cherokee county, was made by J. Pickerell in Shawnee township,
in 1856.

The population of Cherokee county in 1860 was 1,501.

The first marriage license inssued in Cherokee county, was issued to Clark Johnson and Vienna Young, November 6, 1867.
The first marriage in the county was that of John N. Burton and Mary Wilson, which took place November 7, 1867.

Lead and zinc were discovered in Cherokee in 1872, though it was five years after before the first mine was sunk by two
miners from Joplin.

On October 6, 1863, occurred the battle and massacre of Baxter Springs, where a small force of less than fifty soldiers stood
off Quantrell's command. Several prisoners captured by Quantrell were shot down in cold blood and left for dead. A few not
killed at the first fire freigned death and escaped.

One of the first commissioners of Cherokee county was P. G. Noel, the well known resident of Topeka.

The first mayor of Columbus was Leland J. Webb, long one of the most prominent attorneys of Topeka.

The city of Baxter Springs, which was laid out in 1866, soon afterward was made the county seat. In a subsequent county seat election held for the purpose of moving the seat of government to the center of the county, Baxter Springs set the pace for other county seat
elections by casting more votes against the proposition than the total population of the town, including men, women, children
and dogs.

The first settler on the town site of Columbus was John Appleby, who located in February, 1868.

The first store was opened in Columbus by Dr. J. N. Lee, December 25, 1868.

The first house was built in Columbus by a gentleman with the euphonious name of Benjamin Franklin Gump.

Speaking about setting a swift pace few towns have a record like Baxter Springs. Although never a town of more than 2,000
inhabitants, at an early period in her career the town had accumulated a bonded debt of nearly $200,000, or a little over $200
per capita. The taxes in consequence became so high that property owners began to abandon the town. A compromise of
the bonds at from 18 to 50 cents on the dollar was finally effected since which time the town has been reasonably prosperous.

The towns of Galena and Empire City were founded in 1877. Galena is now the largest town in the county, with Weir City
which was not founded for several years after, a close second.

The amount of zinc ore taken out of the mines in Cherokee during the first eighteen months after discovery amounted to a
little more than 8,000,000 pounds. Since then the product has risen to nearly that amount in a single month.

In addition to its other products, Cherokee county contains one of the finest quarries of sand stone in the United States.
The stone is susceptible to a high polish and furnishes a most beautiful and lasting building rock.

The coal veins of Cherokee county vary in thickness from one to five feet, many of them near the surface.

Cherokee county is made up of what is known as the Cherokee neutral lands, or more properly originally Osage neutral
lands. Prior to 1827 the lands belonged to the Osage Indians, but in that year a treaty was made with the Osage tribe
by the terms of which a strip of land in the southeast part of Kansas running north and south long the Missouri border
fifty miles long and twenty-five miles wide, was set apart as a barrier between the two races. Neither white or red men
were to be allowed to occupy this strip. This strip of land is now occupied by Cherokee and Crawford counties.

In 1833, the Cherokees, who had, in 1819, traded their Georgia lands for the lands they now occupy in the Indian territory,
made another deal with the United States by which they became possessed of this neutral strip of 800,000 acres. For this
land they paid the government $500,000. This land was held by the Cherokees until 1866, when so many squatters had
settled upon it that the Cherokees concluded they had better sell it to the government before it was all stolen. The land was
not sold out-right, but was turned over to the government with authority to sell for the Cherokee tribe. The secretary
of the interior was made the agent of the Cherokees and authorized to sell the tract to settlers in parcels of not over 160 acres
each at the rate of $1.25 per acre, or to sell the whole tract to one person at not less than $1.00 per acre.

General John C. Feemont undertook to buy this land at $1.25 per acre or for $1,000,000, but for some reason this trade fell
through and the lands were again placed on sale at $1.00 per acre.

On October 1867, James F. Joy, of Michigan, who had made the only bid at $1.00 per acre, became the purchaser of the whole
tract, except such pieces as had been taken by actual settlers prior to the treaty of June, 1866. These settlers were allowed to
buy their lands at the appraised value of from $1.50 to $4.00 per acre. Mr. Joy then established a land office at Fort Scott
and offered his lands for sale at an average price of $3.50 per acre.

Prior to the time the Cherokees made the treaty of August, 1866, ceding the lands to the United States over 1,000 families
had settled upon the lands. They were allowed to prove up their lands, paying the appraised valuation, but the story was
started that Joy purchase was a fraud, that the Cherokees had not title to the lands anyway, and trouble began for Mr. Joy.
Settlers leagues were formed and pleasant resolutions passed to the effect that if Mr. Joy's agent set up a land office in
Cherokee county they would hang him promptly, and at an altitude considerably greater than that attained by Mr. Hamen.
They also incidentally resolved that any settler who should purchase lands of Mr. Joy or his agents should be elevated in
a similar manner.

In 1868 the legislature of Kansas passed a concurrent resolution declaring that the Cherokee's never had any title to the lands
in question. It will be noted that then, as now, the Kansas legislature did not hestitate to tackle any question of tradition,
history of law.

In February, 1869, a mob of leaguers entered Baxter Springs and demanded of Captain Cox and W. B. Shockley, who were in
charge of the Joy land office, that they give up the papers of the office and emigrate or be hanged. These gentlemen put the
mob off with the somewhat attenuated story that they did not know the combination to the safe, and, strange to say, the mob
believed the story. At any rate, Cox and Shockley were not hanged.

In 1869 the Cherokee county war had got to the point where Governor Harvey was obliged to call out the militia. Four
companies in all were sent to the scene of strife.

The matter of the title the Cherokee lands was taken into the United States court, first in the circuit and afterwards in the
supreme court of the United States. In both courts the Joy title was sustained and the long continued Cherokee land war ended.

The case of Holton vs. Joy, decided in 1872, which settled the title of the rich lands of Cherokee county, is reported in 17th
Wallace. The opinion was delivered by Justice Clifford. The argument on behalf of the "leagurer" was made by Hon. Ben Butler,
and on behalf of Joy by Judge B. M. Curtis, who had been a member of the supreme court during the fifties and who
rendered the dissenting opinion in the famous "Dread Scott" case. His dissenting opinion, which disputed the position taken by
Judge Roger B. Taney, is a masterpiece of vigorous English and masterful defense of human liberty.

While it would not seem that it was a case in which the state of Kansas was directly interested, the legislature made an
appropriation of $2,500 to assist in paying the attorney fees of the settler's league.