ADDENDA Excerpted from "Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society, 1911-1912", Edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary. Vol XII., State Printing Office, Topeka, Kansas 1912, pages xii-xix. submitted by Teresa Lindquist (merope@radix.net); (copyright) 2002 by Teresa Lindquist ----------------------------------------------------------------------- KSGENWEB INTERNET GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In keeping with the KSGenWeb policy of providing free information on the Internet, this data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other gain. Copying of the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ADDENDA. ----- Page 137.--Not a little research has been put into the matter of early births in Kansas. In the Fifteenth Biennel Report of this Society, page 35, will be found a list of births in Kansas, dating from August 22, 1828. In that list appears the name of Mrs. Susanna Adams Dillon, who was the first child born at the Shawnee mission, the date of her birth being January 12, 1830. The finding of the Thomas Johnson Bible is of much interest, since it establishes beyond question the birth dates of the Johnson children born at the Shawnee mission. The following account of the Bible is from the Wyandotte Daily Cricket of July 30, 1912: "Col. E.F. Heisler, who knows all there is to know about the early history of Wyandotte, and Kansas, for that matter, has dug up the first Bible ever used in this county. Mr. Heisler found the big family book in possession of Wm. Johnson, the only surviving member of the family of Thomas Johnson, who founded the Shawnee Methodist mission in 1829 or 1830, in Wyandotte county. A good many people persist in saying that the mission was founded in Johnson county. That makes Mr. Heisler sore..... "The Bible is a big volume of the old family size, and contains many interesting things. It records that Thomas Johnson and Sarah T. Davis were married in Missouri in 1830. Their honeymoon trip was on horseback to Johnson [Wyandotte] county...The births, marriages and deaths of the whole Johnson family, the first Wyandotte settlers, are chronicled in the book..." The earliest recorded births in the Johnson Bible are: Thomas Johnson, born July 11, 1802 (assassinated January 2, 1865). Sarah Title [Davis] Johnson, born June 22, 1810. Alexander McAllister Johnson, born July 18, 1831 (died Aug. 15, 1831). Alexander Soule Johnson, born July 11, 1832 (died December 9, 1904). Sarah Elizabeth Johnson, born August 11, 1834 (died June 8, 1840). Eliza Shallcroys Johnson, born April 20, 1836 (died July 5, 1865). Mary Cummins Johnson, born January 15, 1838 (died March 19, 1838). William Thomas Johnson, born June 22, 1839 (died April 2, 1840). Andrew Monroe Johnson, born August 16, 1841. William McKendra Johnson, born July 6, 1845. Mr. Henry Shindler writes us from Fort Leavenworth that he finds that Col. S.W. Kearny and Col. Clifton Wharton, commanders of that post prior to 1850, had children born there. Also, he had every reason to believe that a child was born at Fort Leavenworth in 1827 or 1828, the daughter of an officer who was there with Colonel Leavenworth; her name he has not yet been able to ascertain positively. Page 138.--There has been misunderstanding as to the exact location of the Shawnee Methodist mission founded by Rev. Thomas Johnson in 1830. The locations of the mission and the manual-labor school were given in volume 9 of Kansas Historical Collections, page 169, note 17. We now publish a letter from Mr. William Johnson, a son of Rev. Thomas Johnson, which is added proof and corroborates the statement of Rev. Joab Spencer cited above. The site of the manual-labor school is the southwest quarter of section 3, township 12, range 25, Johnson county, while the old mission site is near the town of Turner, Wyandotte county. "ROSEDALE, KAN., July 29, 1912. "Geo. W. Martin, Topeka, Kan.: "FRIEND MARTIN--In compliance with request from you some time since to locate the site of the old Methodist mission, founded by my father in 1829 [1830]: In company with Mr. Heisler, editor of the Kansas City, Kan., Sun, Col. Edward Haren and Mr. Luke Babcock, we made the trip. We had no trouble in finding the spot. Mr. Babcock has lived continually in this spot since 1857, and a great portion of that time patronized a blacksmith shop located on this same ground. I visited the place some thirty years ago with Mr. Steve Perkins (now dead), who lived on adjoining land. The location coincides with my recollections of the place at that time; the timber was still standing and the old foundations could be traced. It is now a wheat field. This place, so far as I know, was the beginning of civilization in Kansas, and I think should be marked in a suitable manner. "Location of Methodist Mission.--Founded in 1829 [1830] by Rev. Thomas Johnson, on land owned at this time by G. Partumer, northeast quarter of southwest quarter, 24-11-24, Wyandotte county, Kansas, 185 steps north of Partumer's southline. A line drawn from the Glasscock sanitarium, running between the Turner elevator and its smoke stack, would pass over the site, marked by a pile of rocks with an iron rod driven down in the center. This rod is about three quarter inch thick and about five feet long, about three feet in the ground. "Hoping this will prove satisfactory to you, I remain yours, etc., WM. JOHNSON." Page 149, note 10.--Regarding the ordination of Rev. A.W. Pitzer to the Presbyterian ministry on January 15, 1858, the statement is made that this was "the first ordination of a minister of that order, and possibly of any other, west of the Missouri river." Comparison with the statement made on page 184, note 4, relative to the ordination of Rev. J.G. Pratt to the Baptist ministry, at the Delaware Baptist mission on November 19, 1843, shows that Mr. Pratt's ordination preceded that of Mr. Pitzer by fifteen years. Page 201, note 30.--Mrs. Sarah Gilmore Thacher, wife of Solon Otis Thacher, died at her home in Lawrence, July 18, 1912. Page 257.--Passing mention is made of Jedediah S. Smith's California expedition of 1826. Even in those days news traveled far, as the contents of the following letter shows: "PORTLAND, ORE., July 29, 1912. "Mr. Geo. W. Martin, Sec. Kansas Historical Society, Topeka: "DEAR MARTIN--Accept my thanks for the advance pages of the Kansas Historical Society's Annual. In this connection I want to ask if you have any of the leaflets left over containing description of the gavel. You sent me several copies, for which I thank you, but would like a few more if you have any to spare. "I noticed in the advance pages, already alluded to, reference to Jedediah Smith, trapper. In that connection the following may be of interest: "' Jan. 27, 1827.--News at the Islands that Jedediah Smith has crossed the Rocky Mountains and arrived at San Gabriel; had left and gone to the Columbia river; that posts have been established all the way from St. Louis to the Columbia. This news brought by the brig Waverly, fifteen days from Santa Barbara; cargo, horses, sheep and a calf.' "This was copied by Mrs. Eva Emery Dye from manuscript diary of Capt. Stephen Reynolds, an old sandal-wood merchant of early days in Honolulu. Each day he kept a record of Honolulu happenings. Mrs. Dye, who lives in Oregon City, was in Honolulu about two years ago, searching for items to be used in her forthcoming book, which will soon be in press, found the reference to Smith as indicated and sent it to me. Yours truly, GEO. H. HIMES." Page 259.--"The Melancholy Fate of Jedediah S. Smith": "Of all the tragedies of the Santa Fe trail the most deplorable is that in which this christian hero of the wilderness met an untimely death on the banks of the thirsty Cimarron. In the spring of 1831 Smith, Jackson and Sublette, having sold their business in the mountains to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, entered the Santa Fe trade. With a large and costly expedition of some twenty wagons and eighty men, said to have been the finest outfit ever yet sent to Santa Fe, these veteran traders set out, never doubting that their long experience would enable them to cope with the dangers of the route. Everything went well to the ford of the Arkansas, for there was a plain track all the way. But it was very different on the desert waste between the Arkansas and the Cimarron. There was not a person with them who had ever been over the route before, and they now found themselves in a featureless country with no track of any kind except buffalo trails which crossed each other in the most confusing directions. The alluring mirage deceived and exasperated the men, and after two days of fruitless wanderings, with animals dying and men frantic for water, the condition of things seemed well nigh desperate. In this emergency Smith declared that he would find water or perish in the attempt. He was a bold and fearless man and unhesitatingly sallied forth alone for the salvation of the caravan. Following a buffalo trail for several miles he came upon the valley of the Cimarron, but only to find it destitute of water. He knew enough of the character of these streams, however, to believe there was water near the surface, and he accordingly scooped out a little hollow into which, indeed, the water began to collect. Meanwhile some stealthy Comanches, whom Smith had not observed, were stealing upon himand while he was in the act of stooping down to drink, mortally wounded him with several arrows. He arose and displayed his undaunted spirit in resisting his savage foes to the last, and killed two of them before he expired. The spot where he fell wsa never precisely known and no grave protects the earthly remains of this Christian and knightly adventurer. A sadder fate or a more heroic victim the parched wastes of the desert never knew." --Chittenden's History of the American Fur Trade of the Far West, vol. 2, p. 552. "Jedediah S. Smith was one of the most remarkable men ever engaged in the commerce of the mountains and prairies. He was born in the state of New York, was well educated, and went to St. Louis in 1823. He traveled all over the west from the British boundary to the Mexican provinces and from the Mississippi to the Pacific coast. On several occasions his escape from the Indians, grizzly bears and from starvation bordered on the miraculous. In 1826 he became senior partner of the firm of Smith, Jackson & Sublette, and in 1831 embarked in the Santa Fe trade, but lost his life in the first expedition. "Mr. William Waldo, Ms. No 135, Missouri Historical Society, says of Smith: 'He was a bold, outspoken, professing and consistent Christian, the first and only one known among the early Rocky Mountain trappers and hunters. No one who knew him well doubted the sincerity of his piety. He had become a communicant of the Methodist church before leaving his home in New York, and in St. Louis he never failed to occupy a place in the church of his choice, while he gave generously to all objects connected with religion which he professed and loved. Besides being an adventurer and a hero, a trader and a Christian, he was himself inclined to literary pursuits and had prepared a geography and atlas of the Rocky Mountains region extending, perhaps, to the Pacific, but his death occurred before its publication."--Twitchell's Leading Facts of New Mexican History, vol. 2, p. 124, note 89. Page 283.--Attention is called to the fact that Henry C. Lindsey served as an officer in three wars--in the Civil War as second lieutenant of company M, Eleventh Kansas; in the Indian war of 1867 as captain of company A, Eighteenth Kansas; in the Spanish-American war as colonel of the Twenty-second Kansas. There is one other Kansas who had the same distinction--James Graham, of St. Marys, father of the late L.D. Graham, supreme court reporter. Colonel Graham served in the Civil War as second lieutenant of company L, Sixth Kansas; in the Indian War of 1868 as first lieutenant of company M, Nineteenth Kansas, and in the Spanish-American War as lieutenant colonel of the Twenty-second Kansas, Colonel Lindsey's regiment. Page 323, note 14.--Gen. Edward M. Hayes died at Morganton, N.C., August 16, 1912. Page 375, note 1.--Mr. E.T. Carr writes as follows: "My father was of the Carrs from the north of Ireland, who settled in Connecticut, and whose mother was a King, and sister of Rufus King, an old-time wholesale dry-goods merchant of Albany, N.Y. If the distinguished New York statesman is or was a son of the old merchant, then the legend is correct. I worked at mason's work until I was twenty, and then took up woodwork, general building and architecture. Went from the country to Syracuse, N.Y., in 1850, and not 1852 as stated. Left there in May, 1855, for the West. Remained in St. Paul till September 1, when I accepted an engagement and went to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., since when I have been very well known. "Several years ago, and while living at Miles City, I saw in the Leavenworth Times an article concerning the National Cemetery at Fort Leavenworth, in which the author gave much credit to the officer for having located it so beautifully at that early date--1827. Knowing something of the early history of the cemetery, how the head stones got there, etc., I wrote an article on the subject, which was published in the Leavenworth Times. I inclose you a somewhat faded copy of that article, and which possibly may be of use to you. I lately came across it. I was employed as superintendent of Leavenworth arsenal during the war and had the bodies removed." Mr. Carr's statement relative to the cemeteries at Fort Leavenworth, addressed to the Leavenworth Times, and dated April 5, 1897, follows: "In looking over a copy of your valuable paper dated May 31, 1896, I find under the heading 'Their Historic Resting Place' what purports to be a history of the National Cemetery at Fort Leavenworth, some portions of which are at variance with its true history, especially as to the dates of its location. While the dates are probably matters of record in the archives of the government and may easily be verified, some other matters connected with the same may not have been recorded. "Having been connected with much of the early history of this cemetery, permit me through the columns of the Times to make the following statement, correcting some portions of the article referred to: "Originally there were two cemeteries at Fort Leavenworth. The first, or what was later known as the 'soldiers' burying ground,' was established, as I have been told, in 1827, and was located in the north half of what is now the enclosure of the commanding officers in the old arsenal grounds. In this were buried the soldiers and many citizens who in its early history had died in the vicinity, some having been brought in from the plains, and even from New Mexico. This cemetery continued to be used until 1859, when so many had been buried there that it was almost impossible to find a place for a body without uncovering another, which was often done. Some were buried in that manner, as was afterwards discovered. In 1859 this enclosure was enlarged to the south and a few bodies buried there during that and the following year. "About this time, in view of the fact that the lad in the immediate vicinity had been assigned to the ordnance department, the subject of discontinuing the use of this cemetery was being discussed, and late in 1860, I believe, the order came to establish the post cemetery at the present site and bury no more at the old place. At that time the site of the present cemetery was a thicket of hazel brush and grapevines. "The second cemetery, then known as the 'officers' burying ground,' was established later, and was located on the brow of the hill, once known as Rattlesnake hill, just east of the large brick building and the frame cottage of the old arsenal, and at present covered by officers' quarters. Here were buried many of the officers who died at this and the neighboring posts, and also many citizens. "I was employed by the government in the capacity of superintendent of construction of buildings as early as 1855, and thus became familiar with the general surroundings of the post at that time. I was engaged in the erection of the first permanent ordnance buildings, in 1859, near these cemeteries, and upon the establishment of the arsenal, in 1860, was made master mechanic and superintendent. "Soon after the establishment of the arsenal came the order to remove the bodies from the old 'soldiers' burying ground' to the present site, in order to make room for the commanding officers' quarters. In the early spring of 1861, by direction of Capt. J.L. Reno, then in charge of the arsenal, I made a contract with R.V. Flora to remove the bodies. The work was performed by him under my supervision, and all the bodies taken up where the appearance of a grave could be found. About two hundred were thus removed. These were placed in rows in trenches along the upper side of the new cemetery, nearest the main road, all headstones or other means of identification being carefully preserved and placed over each body. How many were left in the old ground will probably never be known. "The bodies from the 'officers' burying ground' were not removed until two or three years later, and I had charge of their remo al [sic] also. This was a small enclosure and contained a number of monuments, headstones, etc., but there were many graves with nothing to mark them. Before removing any of these bodies I made a measured diagram of the inclosure, locating all visible graves and giving names of all I could, and where the names were not known, the distance and direction from other graves or fixed objects, such as trees, etc. Some graves had probably become entirely obliterated. This diagram I left with the depot quartermaster for future reference. Whether or not it was preserved I can not say. These bodies with their headstones, inclosure, etc., were placed in the northeast corner of the new grounds, and as in the other case the original resting place devoted to other uses. Probably here, as in the other cemetery, there are bodies still remaining, time having destroyed all visible marks. One body in particular I have no recollection of removing--that of Captain Brent, who was buried there in 1857. "I have no recollection of the present cemetery having been known as a 'National Cemetery' until such places were established after the war, and any dates appearing over graves in the present cemetery earlier than 1860 are for bodies brought there from other cemeteries." We take pleasure in reprinting here the following article by Henry Shindler: THE LAST OF THE RANK AND FILE WHOSE BLOOD DRENCHED KANSAS SOIL. Out in the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery a small white marble pyramid monument bears this inscription: "To the memory of Sergant [sic] Theodore Papier and Private Robert Theims, Troop H, Sixth Cavalry, killed in engagement with hostile Indians, April 23, 1875." There is nothing about the monument to attract the attention of the visitor to the cemetery, as there are many others in this city of the dead to the memory of those who have fallen in engagements with Indians. Yet these two soldiers have made history for Kansas, in that they are the last of the rank and file of the United States army whose blood drenched its soil as the result of battle with the hostiles which had been carried on in the defense of settlements and trade sicne 1829. They have also helped to make further history for Kansas, in that they participated in what has become known as the bloodiest Indian engagement within its borders. The writer know both men intimately and this accounts for his efforts to give them a place in history. It was in April, 1875, the commanding officer of Fort Lyon, Colo., was instructed to dispatch without delay a detachment of forty cavalry, under Lieut. Austin Henely, Sixth Cavalry, to Fort Wallace, Kan. There the troops were to take the field and intercept, if possible, a band of Northern Cheyenne Indians who had escaped from the Fort Reno agency, and were making their way across Kansas to their old homes in the vicinity of the Black Hills of Dakota. The detachment was on the trail within twenty-four hours, and on April 23 overtook the band in the Sappa valley, in what is now Clinto township, Rawlins county. They were taken completely by surprise, in the dawn of the day, and so fierce was the attack, so determined were the soldiers to square accounts, that when stock was taken after the finish the dead among the hostiles numbered more than forty, of which eight were squaws and children. The loss on the side of the soldiers was Papier and Theims, both killed instantly. None were wounded. The camp was totally destroyed and the plunder secured required several wagons to carry, not counting a herd of nearly 400 ponies which the troops rounded up. The shibboleth of the troopers was "Remember the Germaine Family," four members of which had been massacred in 1874 by a band of Southern Cheyenne Indians under Stone Calf, and four of the girls of the family taken into captivity. These girls were rescued during the Miles campaign of 1874-'75, in which these troopers had participated. When the detachment returned to Fort Lyon, flushed with victory and the spoils of war, pandemonium reigned for joy. They were feasted to their hearts' content. And yet, in all this jubilation, the two comrades who lost their lives were not forgotten. A subscription was taken up and the monument referred to placed over their graves at Wallace. When the post was abandoned, some years ago, the dead in the cemetery were disinterred and brought to Fort Leavenworth and reinterred. Papier and Theims were both Germans, and, it goes without saying, splendid soldiers. Both were popular in the troop. It was here where Homer W. Wheeler, now a colonel of cavalry on the retired list of the army, won his spurs as an officer of the army. At that time he was the trader at Fort Wallace. He possessed a thorough knowledge of the section of the country, and volunteered his services to act as a guide. The successful outcome, largely due to this volunteer guide, led General Pope to recommend him for appointment in the army--a recommendation on which the War Department acted with promptness, so that by October 15, 1875, he wore the shoulder straps of a second lieutenant in the Fifth cavalry. A word for brave Austin Henely is due. Henely came to the United States from Ireland during the Civil War when only a boy. He enlisted in the Eleventh infantry, and at the close of the war, through intercession of friends, was sent to West Point, where he graduated in 1872. His career in the army was cut short by an untimely accident. While serving in Arizona with his regiment, in an attempt to cross a stream, ordinarily shallow, at flood tide, he was carried off by the current, and in an attempt to save him Lieutenant Rucker, a brilliant young officer of the same regiment, also lost his life. While to Papier and Theims belongs the distinction of being the last of the rank and file to lose their lives on Kansas soil in combat with hostile Indians, a similar distinction belongs for the commissioned ranks to Lieut. Col. H.W. Lewis, Nineteenth infantry. This officer was killed in an attempt to overtake some fleeing Cheyennes across the plains near Fort Dodge, in October, 1878, the last efforts of the Cheyennes to depredate the settlements in the state. In volume 10 of the Kansas Historical Collections, page 368, is an account of the above-described Cheyenne Indian massacre on the middle fork of the Sappa, written for the Historical Society by the late William D. Street. Mr. Street was an old plainsman and skillful Indian scout and very familiar with the Indian raids in western Kansas. He was commissioned by Major Mauck, of the Fourth U.S. cavalry, who was pursuing Dull Knife and his band after the raid of September, 1878, to carry dispatches from the Holstein and McCoy ranches, near the site of Atwood, to Ogallala, Neb., a distance of 135 miles. Mr. Street was in the saddle twenty-two hours, riding alone, and although he was followed by Indians who attempted to intercept him, he delivered his messages to the officers at Fort Ogallala in safety, enabling them to cut off the retreat of the Indians and capture them. In his paper will be found biographical sketches of Lieut. Austin Henely and Col. Homer Webster Wheeler. We quote from the last paragraph of Mr. Street's article: "The annihilation of this band was a severe and bitter blow to the Cheyennes. Whether they deserved such a fate I am not prepared to judge; but three years later, on September 30 and October 1, 1878, a band of Northern Cheyennes, under the leadership of Chief Dull Knife...swung eastward...and wreaked fearful reveng on the innocent white people who had pushed their settlements out onto the Sappa and Beaver creeks, in Decatur and Rawlins counties, where nearly forty unsuspecting men were killed, women outraged, and a vast amount of property destroyed...the massacre of the Cheyennes by Lieutenant Henely, of the Sixth cavalry, and the massacre of the white settlers by the Dull Knife band of Cheyennes, always appeared to me to be closely connected in the annals of border warfare, now a closed book forever." Page 388, note 1.--Capt. D.C. Goodrich, who for more than a quarter of a century has been connected with the Soldiers' Home at Leavenworth, has received notification of the acceptance of his resignation, which was tendered to the board of directors August 1. The resignation will take effect October 1, upon which date Captain Goodrich will have rounded out twenty-seven years of active service. Captain Goodrich came to the Home in 1887, when the total population was only twenty veterans. Since then more than 20,000 have come and gone, and 4600 have died there. In giving his reasons for his resignation, Captain Goodrich said: "I have been in the employ of the department for twenty-seven years, which is three years longer than any other man in any of the ten National Homes, and I think it is time to step out and make room for some one else. Furthermore, there is a great deal of responsibility attached to the position and I feel I am getting too old to attend to the work properly." ---------