SOME REMINISCENCES OF EARLY DAYS ON DEEP CREEK 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 392-396. submitted by Teresa Lindquist (merope@radix.net); (copyright) 2001 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SOME REMINISCENCES OF EARLY DAYS ON DEEP CREEK. RILEY COUNTY. Written for the Kansas State Historical Society by FRANCIS A. ABBOTT. EARLY in the year 1855, after nearly seven years of continuous work in the cotton mills of Lowell, Mass., I found I must make a change to work in the open air and sunshine or go under the sod. Thus the movement to help make Kansas a free state came with peculiar force to me. I confess I thought first of "number one." Only plain necessity made me willing to give up the good position to which I had worked up from that of bobbin boy, which I had filled at sixteen. I was now next in order of promotion to the overseer, and I liked the work. Just at this time I fell in with Charles W. Smith,(1) who but recently died in Lawrence, Kan., one of her oldest citizens and business men. He had spent the previous winter in Kansas and become an enthusiastic lover of the new territory. His life and experience in the cotton mills had been almost identical with my own, but since spending a few months in Kansas his contentment with factory life was a thing of the past. He told of the balmy winter just past, and assured me that all I needed was to give the Kansas winds a chance to blow the cotton lining out of me. He had returned for the "girl he left behind him," who was an old friend and roommate of the good, brave girl I had chosen as my life companion. These girls were typical of the factory girls of that day in New England. They came from comfortable American homes, and lived, while working, in a small boarding house, carefully overlooked by a motherly American widow with daughters of her own. We were married on the day we started to Kansas, leaving Boston March 13, 1855. Seeing the probable advantage to my health, my wife accepted the plan to try the West with the same cheerfulness and courage with which she helped me meet the usual ups and downs of pioneer life-and I must say there were some unusual ones, or they seemed so to us at the time. I am sorry to record that her friend, Lucretia Cook Smith, died in Lawrence in 1859. I knew nothing of farming, but, as Charlie Smith said, I'd have had it all to learn over again if I had. Still I could see, as I was well aware my neighbors did, that some practice with farm work and stock would have been an immense advantage to me. Largely through a friendship that had sprung up during the two week's trip westward between the women, I was asked to join a party from New Hampshire who had their location picked out. Leaving the women folks in Kansas City and Lawrence till we should have shelters built, we started in early April, with several teams of oxen and a new wagon, for the claim of Josiah Pillsbury.(2) We all helped build his cabin, which was placed so that it overlooked the small natural fall at what has been known ever since as Pillsbury's Crossing. There were in the party William and Andrew Marshall, Josiah and L. H. Pillsbury, Abram Stone, H. A. W. Tabor and J. C. Mossman. From this point we cast about and picked out our claims. The mild winter of 1854 had misled the newcomers, who supposed that a tent or rude cabin would be sufficient shelter for comfort in Kansas. The following winter was terribly severe, and brought much suffering that could have been avoided with a better knowledge of the climate. There were several single men living in the settlement, of whom it is a pleasure to speak. Daniel Bates, a young man from Wisconsin, was a kind and thoughtful neighbor and a thoroughly upright and public-spirited man. His housekeeping was carefully done and neighbors were always welcome. When I was unusually discouraged it was cheering to talk with him. He was as proud of his quarter section (now known as the Daniels farm) as if he could see into the future and read present valuations in plain figures. He enlisted when the war broke out, and died in a hospital before the close. Another bachelor by the name of Morse, whose home had been in Hudson, N. H., came to Kansas to teach school. In that day, with very few children and those mostly infants in arms, the problem of finding pupils was a difficult one. He finally accepted for a few weeks the position of tutor to Jude Bursaw's children, but soon became so homesick that he was really ill, and returned to his old home, first selling his cabin and his right to the claim on which he had declared his intention of homesteading, for the sum of $15. This farm sold several years ago for $7200. John C. Mossman, late of Wichita. and Horace Tabor (3) lived farther up the creek. Both were hardy pioneers. Later, while Tabor, then a Colorado millionaire, was in the midst of a spectacular career, we used to recall his hearty laugh one winter morning, in 1856, when he made an early morning call at our cabin. He was walking home from some neighbor's and had a coffee mill under his arm. One of us said we had been wondering if he had n't starved out during the hard, freezing weather just past. His laugh roared out as he answered: "You need n't worry about Horace Tabor ever starving while he has plenty of corn and a coffee mill to grind it in." Not many years ago I had a pleasant call with his son, who was born on the Kansas claim in 1858, Mrs. Tabor having come from her old home in Maine a year after her husband settled here. The son became the proprietor of the Brown Palace Hotel, in Denver, where I think they do not serve cracked corn prepared in a coffee mill. Leonard Pillsbury, who came out with his sister, Mrs. Wm. Marshall, when only about seventeen years old, was a lively and original boy. His calls and conversations are a pleasure to remember, even after all these years. He worked with his brother Josiah on the Independent, an early publication in Manhattan. It was an ardent anti-slavery paper and reflected the high principles and cultivated tastes of these young enthusiasts. Prairie fires were terrible in those very early days when the grass grew shoulder high on the fertile bottom lands. The first fall I was here I had, by hiring help, gotten up a fine lot of hay for my oxen and cows. In trying to burn around the stacks to protect against prairie fire, I lost control and burned them all. That was a sad blow to my pride as a promising young farmer. In 1861 I had two valuable colts burned to death in a prairie fire. J.M. Bisbey, in a sketch he calls "Early-day Transportation," mentions my loss of three yoke of oxen while trying to cross Shunganunga when bank full.(4) I was wholly unfamiliar with the region. It was raining hard and growing cold when I reached the creek, and being anxious to go on, I decided to see if the lead oxen were afraid. I spoke to them without using the whip, and they plunged right in. I saw at once that they were lost, but made an effort to cut them loose. It was a hard sight to me, and I tried to free them, but had to give it up to save my own life. A friendly Indian directed me from the opposite bank to a place farther upstream where I could best swim across. He took me to his near-by cabin, which he cleared of its inmates. I was thoroughly chilled and my teeth chattering, and the roaring open fire looked good to me. I gladly accepted his offer of blankets, in which I rolled myself while my clothes were drying. In my distressed condition I had no thought of the graybacks, which soon began to discover me. Looking back on the incident, I am disposed to regard them much as David Harum did the fleas on his dog-- "a reasonable amount of which were good to keep him from brooding on other troubles." Such exposures as the foregoing were not calculated to keep off the chills and fever. For about three years I suffered so much from the ague that I sometimes wonder I lived through it. I believe it was on September 12, 1859, that the final public sale of land was held at Ogden,(5) the settlers having previously filed on their claims with a declaratory statement. Any settler failing to appear at that sale might expect to lose his right. By this time good claims were in demand, with newcomers constantly arriving. A few days before the important date I had a sinking chill. My wife was badly frightened, and had by hard work the most of the night, with hot applications and by chafing my limbs, brought me through with no other aid than her resolute will and good common sense. We knew nothing of the use of quinine, and most eastern people were prejudiced against it by their old family doctors, who were ignorant of the Kansas brand of ague. A concoction called "collygog" was the only remedy we knew. At daylight my wife hung out the white cloth, the neighborhood signal of distress, which was seen by William Marshall, who responded promptly. She also got word to Mr. Blain, a man from the Ohio valley well versed in the treatment of ague. He said it would not do for me to risk having another sinking chill, and administered such a dose of quinine as was usual for extreme cases in his own family. I was wholly unused to the drug, and after taking it was as deaf as a post for two weeks, but I think the dose saved my life. Going to the land sale was out of the question for me, so Mr. Blain, as kind a neighbor as any one ever had, offered to take my money and represent me at the sale, which he did, saving our quarter section for us and relieving our minds of a heavy burden. During the war we did not see much money, and what we had did not go far in providing for a growing family. I remember selling a horse to Mr. Campbell, of College Hill, who, not having the cash, gave me an order for $75 at Higginbotham's store. I rode the horse over and delivered him, then went to the store and traded out the entire sum in sheeting, gingham, hickory shirting, etc., and walked home to Deep creek with the bill of goods tied up in a bandana handkerchief. In those days coyotes, wolves and other wild animals were a great deal more plentiful than sheep. While sitting in my cabin door one Sunday afternoon in the fall of 1856 I shot the biggest wildcat I ever saw. He had come up to snatch a chicken from our small flock. I lost valuable young stock at different times. The most tragic and touching event in the history of the Deep creek and Zeandale neighborhood was the loss of little Charlie Meachem, the bright three-year-old son of Oscar and Martha Meachem, who had come from Michigan a year or so before. The child had been playing in the sand near the cabin. The wind began to rise and his mother called him to come and have his coat on. It was in the fall of 1859. Not finding him, she searched the place, and then started to a neighbor's, thinking he might have tried to go by himself. Mr. Meachem had gone in another direction on an errand earlier in the day. The news soon spread, and a general search was organized. Every settler from upper Deep creek to St. George joined sympathetically in the sad work.. The woods and hills and prairies were scoured, and never so much as a shoe or a scrap of his little dress was found. The days and nights grew into weeks, and when it was plain the child could not be alive if found, the prairies were burned over; and still no trace. It was feared the mother would lose her mind. The next spring J. Bardwell, while hunting his cows on the north side of the bluffs, found in a cave-like den a little skull, which the doctors pronounced that of a child about the age of Charlie. Never can I forget the agonized face of that poor father when, worn out and heartsick, he finally abandoned the search. He said to me: "Oh, it is so hard to give up and never know what became of my child." But he too crossed the mystic river some years ago, and, I do not doubt, has found his little boy. === NOTE 1.-For biographical sketch of Charles W. Smith, see vol. 7, Kansas Historical Collections, p. 534. NOTE 2.-JOSIAH HOBART PILLSBURY was born August 15, 1821, at Hebron, N. H. He came to Kansas in 1854 with the third party of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, remaining at Lawrence during the winter. The next spring he went up into what is now Riley county, pre-empted land and located the Zeandale colony in what later became Zeandale township. He was a member of the Topeka constitutional convention and of the famous Topeka legislature of 1856, and was also elected a delegate to the Leavenworth constitutional convention. In June, 1863, Mr. Pillsbury moved to Manhattan, where he established the Manhattan Independent, maintaining that paper until 1868. In 1869 he was appointed postmaster, and reappointed in 1875. He was also county surveyor from 1863 to 1872. He was twice married, first to Miss Nora L. Pevier, daughter of Joseph and Sarah Pevier, of Franklin, N. H., April 16, 1853. She died July 15, 1868. In November, 1870, he was married to Mrs. Emma Steele, of Terre Haute, Ind. Mr. Pillsbury died at Manhattan November 12, 1879. NOTE 3.-HORACE A. W. TABOR was born at Holland, Vt., November 26, 1830, and died in Denver, Colo., April 10, 1899. He received a common-school education, and later had some instruction from private tutors. In his early life he learned the stonecutter's trade, and in 1855 joined the emigration to Kansas, where he located in what is now Riley county, as a member of the Zeandale colony. He was a member of the Topeka legislature in 1856, and in 1859 moved west into what is now Colorado, where he first engaged in mercantile pursuits. He moved from Oro City to the new town of Leadville in 1877, and it was there that he made his first lucky strike by staking two prospectors. Tabor's open-handed generosity was proverbial, even at a time when he had but little to share. He soon became one of the most noted figures of Colorado, one of his mines, The Matchless, of which he was sole owner and which he hsd bought for a relatively small sum, netted him enormous profits, which he sometimes alluded to as "pin money." Mr. Tabor served as mayor of Leadville, 1878-79; as lieutenant governor, 1879-83, and as United States senator, being elected on the ninety-second ballot to fill the unexpired term of H. M. Teller, serving from February 1 to March 3, 1883. Many amusing stories are told of Tabor. At one time he was on a campaign tour with James Belford, the brilliant Colorado congressman. Belford was making an impassioned speech and closed it with the classical allusion "To-morrow night we meet the enemy at Philippi!" Tabor rose in his seat and called out: "Judge, you are mistaken; it's at Montrose Junction!" Tabor was a good spender and dazzled the country with his lavishness--anything from $600 night shirts to opera houses, if it cost enough, was all right. The Tabor Opera House, which he built in Denver, was the finest of its kind in the United States; it was opened by Emma Abbott, a noted songstress of the time, and Eugene Field, then a reporter on the Denver Tribune, contributed a poem in honor of the occasion which ran something like this: "The opera house-a union grand Of capital and labor- Long will the stately structure stand A monument to Tabor." In his last days Tabor, a poor and broken man, was postmaster of Denver. NOTE 4.-See Kansas Historical Collections. vol. 11, p. 596. NOTE 5.-The land office was moved from Ogden to Junction City October 6, 1869. A notice of the removal was issued by the acting commissioner of the General Land Office on August 8, 1859, the precise wording being: "Will be removed to Junction City...at as early a period as practicable after the 1st day of October next, being subsequent to the closing of the public sales at Ogden, under the President's proclamation dated the 22d March, 1859."