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REPORTED HANGING OF A KANSAS OUTLAW
The Marshall (Saline County) Democrat learns that Dr. Judson G. Stewart, who was tried by a court of inquiry in
Johnson County for the murder of Miles Carry, not long since, and acquitted of the charge was seen, a few days
after his release, hanging dead to a tree, near Rose Hill, Cass Conty. The same paper learns also on good authority,
that this Stewart was no less a personage than the notorious Dr. Jennison, the Kansas outlaw, who figured in the
Missouri border raid last November. (The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 6, 1861)
Salina, our far-western town, is said to be going ahead rapidly. Many buildings are going up, among them schoolhouses
and churches. (Freedoms Champion, November 22, 1866)
A Mr. Thorp, of Ohio, is organizing a colony in and near Cleveland for the purpose of locating upon lands in Saline
County, Kansas, about one hundred and seventy miles west of the Missouri border. (The Daily Memphis Avalanche,
March 25, 1869)
O O O O
LEFT SUDDENLY: Salina's City Attorney Creates a Sensation
March 1 - City Attorney Hutchinson created quite a sensation here by leaving the city very suddenly last night,
taking with him his 3 year-old-baby. His wife was prevailed upon to attend an entertainment, and while she was
absent he packed up his clothes and taking the child, departed for climes unknown. Before going Hutchinson filed
divorce proceedings, charging his wife with cruelty and neglect of duty. Mrs. Hutchinson was wholly unprepared
for the action of her husband and is deeply affected by the loss of her child. (Kansas Weekly Capital and Farm
Journal, March 3, 1894)
O O O O
Stole a Rolling Mill: Brookville Father and Son Accused of Taking Most Everything
Salina, Kan., Jan. 27. - Last evening John Warner sr., and John Warner, jun., were arrested at Brookville
by Constable Bishop upon a warrant issued from Justice Tuttle's court, charging them with grand larceny. If the
charges are true grand larceny is certainly an appropriate name for their crime, as it was on a grand scale - the
indictment including in their suspicious holdings a lengthened array of indiscriminate articles, including "one
rolling mill." Many of the articles are alleged to have been stolen from the Union Pacific Railroad company.
The defendants, who reside near Brookville, were committed to jail in default of bail.
(Kansas Semi-Weekly Capital, January 29, 1897)
O O O O
FATE PURSUED HIM
Peer S. Swanberg, who lives two miles east of Falun, is one of the most unfortunate of men. At the time of the
tornado in that neighborhood a few years ago his place was swept by the storm. Later he lost his wife and daughter.
Then he had his farm foreclosed by a mortgage company. On last Saturday the climax was capped by the destruction
of his home and all his household goods by fire.
Mr. Swanberg lost everything he had even to his and the children's clothing. Sheriff Forsse was circulating
a paper this morning soliciting aid for him. (Kansas Semi-Weekly Capital; 7/13/1897)
O O O O
KANSAS SOLDIER VOTE
Saline County Citizens Object to It s Being Counted
Republic Special
Topeka, Kas., Dec. 12 - T. L. Bond and H. N. Gaines of Saline County appeared before the State Canvassing Board
today and protested against the counting of the vote of the Twenty-third Kansas Regiment, now at Santiago. The
law says that the vote of absent soldiers must be forwarded to the Secretary of State by mail. The returns were
carried from Santiago by the Rev. G. D. Olden, a messenger appointed by the Governor.
This technical objection is raised because the vote from the Twenty-third elects J. C. Short, Republican, Superintendent
of Schools of Saline County, by two votes, while, if it is thrown out, Miss Mabel Marlin, Populist, will get the
office by five majority. If counted, the soldier vote will elect F. B. Hawes, a Republican, member of the Legislature
from Leavenworth by five majority, and if thrown out it leaves Dawes and his Democratic opponent tied. (The St.
Louis Republic, December 13, 1898)
O O O O
BIG WHEAT YIELD
One Saline County Farmer has Nearly 43 Bushels Per Acre
Salina, Kan. - July 30 - Saline County has knocked the persimmon with one of the biggest yields of wheat per acre
of any county in Kansas.
Pleasant Valley township has the distinguished honor, and W. E. Boggs the pecuniary profits of raising 42.85 bushels
per acre of 62 pound wheat. This was the field that was reported a few days ago to have yielded 41 bushels to the
acre, but that was an estimate, and careful weight and measurement gives nearly two bushels more than that figure.
This is without doubt the best wheat harvested in Saline County. It only proves that Kansas soil is ready to give
returns in proportion to the labor and care put upon it.
A half bushel of this wheat has been selected by the Salina Mill and Elevator company to be preserved for the Kansas
Semi-Centennial exposition to be held in 1904. It may be beaten before that time but it will take mighty good farming
to do it. A sample is also on exhibition at the Farmer's National bank. (The Kansas Semi-Weekly Capital, July 31,
1900)
O O O O
Kansas Semi - Weekly Capital, February 5, 1901
SALINA AS A FRONTIER POST
By M.D.Sampson, Salina Republican
Thirty-four years in retrospect, so far as the life of the state, a nation or the world is concerned, is a long
span in history. What potent events may have occurred in that time; but in no country under the sun has the transformation
scene been more marked or startling than that which has taken place in KANSAS. That long ago, the writer a mere
boy, fresh from service in the army and the subsequent finishing touches of college life, came to Leavenworth and
on to the soil of Kansas and beheld for the first time this vast domain practically in its virgin wildness, with
the haunts and abodes of men confined almost wholly to the territory east of the Republican river. Samuel J. Crawford
was then Governor. James H. Lane, soon to take his own life, and Samuel C. Pomeroy, were Senators. Sidney Clarke
was the sole Representative in Congress, Thomas P. Fenlon, the brilliant young Irish attorney, was county attorney
of the county of Leavenworth, which is recalled by the fact that the writer was present in court one day and was
greatly impressed with the argument Tom was making for his client. Solon O. Thacher was judge of the district court
of Lawrence and John Hutchins a leading member of the Douglas county bar. The classic Mount Oread at Lawrence was
crowned only by an unfinished wing of the present principal structure of the State university. Wild strawberries
grew abundantly upon the hill and the drowsy note of cowbells was the common music in that vicinity, like the tinkling
of the mule bells down the mountain paths of Spain. Topeka was a frowsly, unkept village, to which the Kansas Pacific
railway was just finished. Here the overland stage route commenced and meandered across the balance of the continent.
The writer, with ne'er a shilling in his pocket, commenced his western pilgrimage on foot (not unlike the modern
hobo, although there was no railroad train to carry him.)
At the town now known as Silver Lake he spent the first night of his travels in the log house of a half - breed
Indian, where squaws, papooses, dogs, cats and the snores of sleepers were mixed up inextricable confusion in the
sole sleeping room of the house. With his eye fixed on the "Star of Empire" which was then making its
way westward, the writer arose unrefreshed by his night's "catnaps" and he plodded on early the next
morning. The fresh pure air and genial sunshine; the flower bedecked prairies, the singing of our melodious Kansas
birds; the castellated little hills bordering the river valley - then likened to the scenery of the Nile - all
these serve to freshen the human being and make the heart light of a young man blossoming into manhood, with high
hopes and ambition and all the world before him.
It was not long before he came upon the train of a Mr. Angel of Leavenworth, who had been awarded the government
survey in the west half of Kansas, then a complete wilderness. The writer was kindly received and made part and
parcel of the surveying party, which in the course of a day or two arrived at Manhattan. Here the writer remained
about six months following his trade. Here he formed acquaintances which became lifelong friends very dear to his
heart. Judge James Humphrey had just entered upon the practice of his profession, having but a few years before
given up his avocation as a hod ? carrier and entered upon that study and application which subsequently made him
famous as a Kansas lawyer. Ristine and Spilman, two young lawyers from Crawfordsville, Ind., had just located
at Manhattan. Spilman subsequently became judge of the district court - one of the best judges in the state, and
in high mindedness in his profession stood sans peur et sans reproche. Nehemiah Green, subsequently Lieutenant
Governor and finally succeeding Crawford as Governor, who became colonel of the Nineteenth Kansas regiment during
the Indian war of 1868, was then pastor of the M. E. church at Manhattan.
J.H. Pillbury, a good and well intentioned man, was editor of the Manhattan Independent, and Colonel E. C. Manning
editor of the Kansas Radical. "The college on the hill" was then a struggling Methodist institution under
the presidency of the Rev. Joseph Denison. It subsequently became the property of the state and the nucleus of
the State Agricultural college.
While in Manhattan the writer met Bayard Taylor, who was then taking the stage route west to Denver as correspondent
of the New York Tribune. He also met the late Colonel W. A. Phillips, dressed in a shabby suit of black surmounted
by a rusty silk tile, who expatiated with earnestness and enthusiasm upon the prospects and location of the smart
town of Salina, which he founded near the junctionof the Saline and Smoky Hill forks of the Kansas river. The writer's
attention was then first called to the possibility of Salina becoming the chief city of central Kansas by one who
had already won fame as a correspondent of the New York Tribune during the territory's troublesome times and as
a colonel in the army. At the time the writer met the colonel in the Manhattan hotel expatiating as aforesaid he
was unconscious of the advocate's distinguished career; and from his peculiar attire, mode of speech and manner
of praising the town he had founded, he mistook the colonel for what would be known in these days as a "professional
boomer" and was a little shy in pulling up stakes for the westward. Subsequently, when the writer learned
who the man was and what he represented, prejudice was removed and his continuous thought was turned towards the
young and growing town in the west.
One cold morning in February 1867, the writer found himself with three others embarked in a stage coach for the
west. Arriving at Ogden the stage coach hauled up at a brewery, where the passengers were allowed a chance to fill
up on stuff which might have been anything else but beer and would answer any other cognomen. Ogden was a thriving
town then.
At Junction City a long stop was made. Junction was then becoming a Sodom and Gomorrah in wickedness, and about
the only good man in the place by common report was Deacon George W. Martin, famous as a courageous, wideawake
newspaper man, who was battling against the toughs who then walked about town carrying white handled revolvers
and using them very carelessly.
Westward from there a wilderness of untilled and yet fertile soil was seen on every hand. And at what is known
as Detroit the Lamb Brothers boarded the coach, to do a job of fiddling at a dance in Salina. At Mud creek, where
Abilene is now located, Tim Hersey kept a hostelry. The structure was a dugout and game and biscuit and coffee
were served to the stage passengers. This was a relay station. And somewhere about there was the railroad terminus,
the road being operated only by construction trains.
The shades of night were falling fast when the stage coach drove up to the Salina tavern, which was then out
a story and a half structure, with three sleeping rooms and as many beds in a room, which were expected to accommodate
six or more sleepers. The beds were fair enough for pioneering days; so too was the fare, provided the guests were
satisfied with an unvarying menu three times a day. The straggling village of four or five hundred people had a
few of the comforts and luxuries of the east, but contained men of grit and enterprise who were determined to do
their part in carving out a shapely empire from the howling wilderness of Kansas. The monotony of a pioneer village
was varied by the startling incidents of the hunt and Indian warfare, which after this span of years at times overwhelm
the memory with the glow which distance or the lapse of years lends to all adventure. The Indian forays became
as common as shots on the firing line. Salina was never in actual danger from the visits of the red men who were
on the warpath, and yet the warriors were so unpleasantly near that they were the cause of great alarm, especially
to the feminine portion of the community. I believe the nearest approach was near Bavaria, a station seven miles
west of Salina.
In 1868 Governor Crawford came to Salina, organized a volunteer company of 60 men and started in a bootless pursuit
of the savages who had raided the valleys of the Saline, Solomon and Republican rivers, going as far to the northwest
as Asherville, near Beloit, without overhauling the retreating friends. Numbers of Salina's old citizens were
enrolled in this company. During the company's absence an alarm was sounded in Salina, and guards were put out
on all the roads leading into town. At a given signal the women and children were to assemble for safety in what
was then designated as the court house, a two story frame building standing opposite the National hotel building.
The only "alarm" that ever came from the preparedness was the shot of a gun by a frightened guard at
the crossing of the Smoky Hill river, where an iron bridge now stands, on Iron avenue. The result of the shot was
a grunt and squeal of an innocent and unoffending hob that had plunged through the bushes to the riverside to obtain
a drink.
Speaking of the court house reminds me that the dilapidated frame story and a half building still standing on
East Iron avenue was first used in the primitive days - the lower story for a printing office and the upper story
for the temple of justice. It was the practice in the era for attorneys as far east as Topeka to travel with the
judges who were holding court in the various districts. The writer recalls that during the incumbency of the office
of judge by Judges James Humphrey and Canfield in the old Eight district, to which Saline county then belonged,
John Martin, A.L. Williams and A.H. Case of Topeka and J.R. McClure of Junction City were present at nearly every
term of court in Salina. Judge J. P. Usher, Secretary of the Interior in Lincoln's cabinet, and then general attorney
for the Kansas Pacific road, was often in court looking after the company's interest. I remember once seeing John
J. Ingalls of Atchison in court. It is not probable that he then thought of being United States Senator from Kansas
within six or eight years.
Salina being for a few months the terminus of the Kansas Pacific road became also the point of exit for the Santa
Fe "bull trains" and the shipping point of a large Texas cattle business. "Mexican greasers"
and cowboys from Texas jostled each other on the streets. Salina for a season became noted for its toughness, but
at not time became the equal in wickedness of Ellsworth and the later town of Abilene. "Wild" Bill, Jack
Harvey and other noted scouts were seen here occasionally. "Wild" Bill was in Salina when a party of
Pennsylvanians, including Simon Cameron, General W.S. Hancock, George H. Brewster, et. al., who were traveling
to the end of the road, took their dinner here. The ladies of the party made much of "Wild" Bill, who
had suddenly bounded into notoriety by a lurid sketch of his career which had recently appeared in Harper's magazine.
While in reminiscent mood I can not overlook the delightful experience of a buffalo hunt which was carried in
the writer's memory all the days of his subsequent life. It took place in October, 1867. The line of travel was
along the Saline river to the northwest as far as Paradise creek. The country was almost an unbroken wilderness
and the habitations of men were not found further west than in the eastern edge of Lincoln county. In the pure
air and haze of the October day scattered herds of fleetfooted antelope were seen on either hand, all the way to
the buffalo grounds Gray wolves frequently made their appearance. At night the howling of the wolf and the yelping
of the coyotes sounded down the canyons. The night voices of nature's tenants were by no means perfect symphony,
but they have lingered all these years in the memory like unto the sweetest melody. The buffalo grounds once reached,
the hills and valleys were literally black with the animals, and the sharp crack of the guns of hunting parties
were heard in nearby range in all directions. The party to which the writer was attached killed 24 buffalo, and
loaded the wagons only with the hams, tongues and "humps." The balance of the carcasses was left as food
for the wolves, and the clean picked bones bleached by many suns became a source of profit to the future settlers,
who hauled them to neighboring railroad stations, where quite a traffic in bones existed for several years. Our
party belated one night in reaching a stream camped on the "divide" and at early morning, just as the
sun was rising, had reached highlands which overlooked the beautiful Paradise creek. Beyond it one of the hunters
described a large herd of elks and it was the purpose of the party to stalk the herd and bring in "new trophies
of the chase." But long before the hunters reached the creek itself the large herd was in motion and with
their beautiful antlers thrown back on their shoulders were speeding away across the plain for dear life. It was
a grand sight, not witnessed more than once in the most favored lifetime of a plainsman. It seems as if the children
of this generation of Kansas people, in loss of the buffalo, the elk, the deer and antelope which were hunted by
their fathers, are deprived of the most glorious privileges for which the substitution of the benefits of a more
refined and comfortable civilization seem faulty indeed.
But to return to Salina.
Salina slumbered in mediocrity in its village proportions for more than a decade and a half of years. But her
inhabitants had pinned their faith in her big future and hoped on. For years her growth was like that of the oak,
slow but substantial. When the town was struck midships by the boom of 1887 the early prophets of her coming bigness
were sure that her supreme hour had come. But alas! It was a "sickly growth not her own." Her greatness
disolved like ropes of sand. It was simply a phantasmagoric effect, which a few brief months expunged as the wind
would tear down a scaffolding. The builders were in the gloom of despondency and almost despaired of ever seeing
again one ray of hope. But the foundations were deep and strong. The builders had builded stronger than they knew.
Up rose in the fleeting years a fairer and better structure, welded with bands of iron, which are to endure for
all time. The hub of widely encircled area of fertile soil, paying tribute more than Roman to her upbuilding, Salina,
is destined to go on and on to a wider and more outreaching prosperity, keeping full pace in the years to come
with the wideawake, progressive and enterprising communities of Kansas.
O O O O
WILL ARRIVE TOMORROW
Mrs. Will Shotwell will arrive here tomorrow to visit with home-folks for a few days. Mrs. Shotwell has been in
New York City for ten days buying goods for her department in Buckley Brother's store in Salina, Kans.
Ray County Missourian, (Ray County, Missouri newspaper) February 3, 1910
O O O O
NEW FEDERAL PRISON WARDEN
A. V. Anderson of Saline County, Kansas, to Get Leavenworth Place
WASHINGTON, April 6 - A. V. Anderson, state senator of Saline County, Kansas is to be the new warden of the federal
prison at Leavenworth.
While the appointment hasn't been officially made, it is known that the new attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer,
has decided upon Mr. Anderson, and it is expected the announcement will be made some time next week. Representative
Anthony of the Leavenworth district was given this information today and told that the matter was finally settled.
Anderson had the backing of Representative Guy Helvering, the retiring member of Congress from the Fifth district.
Inside the Department of Justice, the section having charge of the management of the federal prisons, was backing
Deputy Warden Fletcher for the position, on the ground that he deserved the promotion. (The Kansas City Star, April
6, 1919)
Transcribed by Peggy Thompson
O O O O
-H.G. Douglass succeeded William Baltersby to chairman of the board of county commissioners Monday.
-Stockholders and employee of the National Bank of America held a turkey dinner Monday night at the country club.
More than 100 guests were present. The guests were led in singing by Margaret McAdams with Henry Eberhardt at the
piano. Talks were by Frank Hageman, president, Ames Rogers, and H.W. Rohrer, Abilene, Charles L. Schwartz, Jess
B. Smith and others.
-Mr. and Mrs. Charles W. Burch, 219 West Prescott, have left for a trip which will take them to Honolulu for a
two months stay.
-John Pyle and Larry F. Krell have completed plans for a warehouse at the corner of 9th and North.
-E.R. Nelson who retired as sheriff after four years will return to his former work with the Union Pacific. Joe
Condit who filled the job while Nelson was sheriff will be transferred to the main line.
The Salina Journal, January 13, 1931
O O O O
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