History

Post Civil War Times at Dragoon Creek

The settlers along Dragoon creek received their mail at the post office of Wilmington until the fall of 1869, when a new mail route was established from Burlingame, running up Dragoon creek, to Alma, the county seat of Wabaunsee county, a distance of about thirty-eight miles. A post office was located on the northeast quarter of section 28, township 14 south, range 13 east. The Post-office Department at Washington, D. C, requested the settlers to designate a name for the post office and nominate a postmaster. At a called meeting of the settlers the name New Lexington was selected for … Read more

Emigration to Kansas

I kept in correspondence with Thompson Blair, and in one of his letters he minutely described the trail from Leavenworth to the settlement where he and his brother Willard were located, and I determined to join them at my first opportunity. After earning a little more than one hundred dollars above expenses, I left my home in Iowa for Kansas, on the morning of September 1, 1857. The nearest railroad station was Dyersville, distant about thirty-five miles west from Dubuque, so father hitched up his team and took me and my trunk some ten miles from home to a point … Read more

Gold Digger’s, Indians, and the Santa Fe Trail

In 1858 and 1859, during the period of the Pike’s Peak gold excitement, large numbers of gold hunters passed over the trail for the new diggings. Some of these were driving good teams and wagons, some were on horseback, others had small push carts, and some even wheelbarrows, loaded with all their earthly possessions tied in a small roll. During one day in 1859 three hundred and twenty-five vehicles by actual count crossed at the ford on Elm creek, near the old mail station. At the height of the gold excitement it was not unusual thing for five hundred vehicles … Read more

Early Vital Records of Dragoon Creek

Early births in our settlement were Samuel M., son of Isaiah and Nancy J. Harris, born August 11, 1858; Frank L., son of Jehu and Mary A. Hodgson; Mary E., daughter of Samuel and Dency E. Woods: Lincoln, son of Allen and Joanna Hodgson. Early marriages as I remember them were Edward B. Murrell and Mary J. Harris, married by Allen Hodgson, justice of the peace, January 26, 1860; Burgess Vanness and Eliza Spencer; Ephraim (?) Jellison and Eliza Bailey. After the rejection of the Lecompton constitution, as previously mentioned, the legislature of 1859 provided for the framing of another … Read more

Dragoon Creek During the Civil War

As a result of the admission of Kansas as a free state and the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, seven of the southern states seceded and organized an army in rebellion against the United States government. April 15, 1861, President Lincoln made the first call for soldiers to put down the rebellion, and for the war which followed Kansas furnished more troops according to her population than any other state in the Union. Dragoon creek settlement furnished a large proportion. All the able-bodied men were in the volunteer service, the militia against Price and his … Read more

Settlers at Dragoon Creek after 1865

Among the families coming into the Dragoon creek settlement after the spring of 1865 may be mentioned Jeremiah Fields and wife Betsey, with their two married sons and son-in-law: Joseph Fields and family of six persons; John L. Fields and family of five persons; James M. Johnson and family of four persons; they all came from Ohio in September, 1865. Caleb J. Harvey, formerly of Ohio, but later a teacher at the Quaker Shawnee Indian mission, came in December, 1865. Squire Cantrill, unmarried, came from Ohio in 1867; he later married a Miss Burroughs. Upon her death he married her … Read more

History of Dragoon Creek Cemeteries

In 1860 Jehu Hodgson and wife had a tract of land surveyed and platted for cemetery purposes, James B. Ingersoll and assistants doing the work. This tract as finally platted consisted of eighty burial lots, each twelve by forty feet in size, ample for eight graves. The tract was deeded in trust to the County Commissioners of Wabaunsee County, and their successors in office, for a free cemetery. Eight conditions were named; the first provided that the cemetery should be under the care of a superintendent who might be appointed by the county commissioners, or by friends of the deceased. … Read more

New York as a Social Center

The women who, both at home and abroad, are regarded as the leaders of American society in these last days of the century are or have been, almost without exception, at some time in their career identified with New York. Though there is no city in the United States that fills the central position which Paris holds in reference to all France, and which London occupies, at least socially, in England, the geographical position of New York, to a nation whose progressive spirit inspires it with a keen interest in the doings of the entire world, has given it a … Read more

Idaho Mines

Some of the first discovered veins, already mentioned in a previous chapter, retained their productiveness. The Gold Hill mine was sold in 1869, since which time to 1884 it produced $2,800,000. It was not until 1878 that the Banner district, north of Quartzburg, in Boise County, began to be really developed. The mines of War Eagle Mountain, in Owyhee County, continued productive. Oro Fino, the first discovery, yielded $2,756,128 in six years, without any considerable cost to its owners. The Elmore, later called the Bannack, in one month in 1868 yielded $500,000, the ore being crushed in a twenty-stamp mill. … Read more

The Battle of White Bird Canon

The Wallowa Valley is fifteen or twenty miles east of the Grande Ronde Valley in eastern Oregon, and had long been a bone of contention between the whites and a band of non-treaty Nez Percé Indians under Chief Joseph. The whites claimed the right of settlement under the United States Land Acts, and while no determined effort on their part was made to take up homestead, preemption or other claims, yet they kept it as a grazing ground for their cattle, while the Indians denied them the right to such privileges, claiming to themselves the entire control of the valley … Read more

Montana Constitutional Convention Members 1889

The following persons were members of the constitutional convention: William A. Clark, Walter M. Bickford, J. F. Brazelton, Peter Breen, E. U Aiken, Simon R. Buford, William Mason Bullard, Walter A. Burleigh, Alex. F. Burns, Andrew J. Bums, Edward Burns, James Edward Cardwell, B. Piatt Carpenter, Milton Canby, William A. Chessman, Timothy E. Collins, Charles E. Conrad, Walter Cooper, Thomas F. Courtney, Arthur J. Craven, W. W. Dixon, D. M. Durfee, William Dyer. William T. Field, George O. Eaton, J. E. Gaylord, Paris Gibson, Warren C. Gillette, O. F. Goddard, Fielding L. Graves, R. E. Hammond, Charles S. Hartman, Henri … Read more

Montana Territorial Appointments 1864-1888

Territorial Secretaries: Henry P. Torsey, commissioned June 22, 1864 John Coburn, March 3, 1865 Thomas F. Meagher, Aug. 4, 1865 James Tufts. March 28, 1867 Wiley S. Scribner, April 20, 1869 A. H. Sanders, July 19, 1870 James R. Callaway, Jan. 27, 1871 James H. Mills, May 10, 1877 Isaac D. McCutcheon, 1881 John S. Tooker, April 21, 1884 William B. Webb, 1886-8 Louis A. Walker, 1889 Territorial Treasurers John J. Hull, 1864-6; John S. Rockfellow, 1866-7; William G. Barkley, 1867-71; Richard O. Hickman, 1871-5; Daniel H. Weston, 1875-87; W. G. Prewitt, 1887-9. Territorial Auditors John S. Lott, 1864-6 John … Read more

Montana Justices 1886-1889

Montana Justices 1886-1889 1886 Decius C. Wade, Chief Justices of Montana J. H. McLeary, Associate W. G. Galbraith, Associate T. C. Bach, Associate 1887 N. W. McConnell, Chief Justices of Montana J. H. McLeary, Associate W. G. Galbraith, Associate T. C. Bach, Associate 1888 Stephen De Wolfe, Chief Justices of Montana Moses J. Liddell, Associate T. C. Bach Associate 1889 Henry N. Blake was Chief Justice of Montana Bach, Associate De Wolfe, Associate Liddell, Associate W. J. Galbraith was born in Freeport, Pennsylvania, in 1837, and educated at Dartmouth College, N. H., graduating in 1857. He studied law at Pittsburg, … Read more

Yellowstone County, Montana 1870-1888

Yellowstone County, organized out of Gallatin and Custer in 1883, comprised a part if not all of the former Crow reservation. The county town, Billings, was founded in 1882, and had a rapid growth. It contained 400 building’s in 1883, among which were a brick church of good size, a bank building, several wholesale merchandise establishments, three hotels, a commodious schoolhouse, the roundhouse and shops of the Northern Pacific railroad, at the terminus of the Yellowstone division, and three newspapers, one a daily. This phenomenal growth, seldom seen except in mining towns, might have quickly disappeared were it not that … Read more

Silver Bow County, Montana 1870-1888

Silver Bow County, cut off from Deer Lodge in 1881, had a small area, but a population of 14,000, and is richer, in proportion to its size, than any county in Montana, its assessed valuation in 1884 being $7,240,000. It was first settled in June 1804 by placer miners. Ten years of digging and washing exhausted the deposits, or so nearly that only 300 inhabitants remained. Quart-mining was begun in 1875. The county contained in 1885 19 mills, concentrato’s, and furnaces, which give employment to 3,000 miners. Butte, the county seat, was the second town in Montana. It had an … Read more

Missoula County, Montana 1870-1888

Beginning with Missoula, the first settled and organized, and the most western, it contained about 30,000 square miles, distributed in forest crowned mountains and sunny valleys, affording a charming variety of scenery, and a fortunate arrangement of mineral, agricultural, and grazing lands. About 36,000 acres were occupied, and 5,196 cultivated. Its principal valley, the Bitterroot, contained 500 farmers, and would support four times as many. It had 8,000 horses, 19,000 cattle, and 13,000 sheep. It produced in 1884 124,226 bushels of wheat, and 281,312 bushels of oats; made 30,000 pounds of butter, and raised large quantities of all the choicest … Read more

Meagher County, Montana 1870-1888

Meagher County extended from the Missouri River on the west to the Musselshell River on the east, and was sandwiched between Gallatin and Choteau Counties. It contained 20,000 square miles, embracing mountain ranges clothed in forest, and veined with mineral deposits, high grazing lands, and low agricultural lands. The valleys of the Judith, Musselshell, Smith, and Missouri Rivers aggregated 2,000 square miles. The population of the county in 1880 was 2,743. In 1884 its livestock was valued at 7,000.000; $750,000 being in horses. The mines of Meagher County by 1886 produced over $10,000,000 in gold from the gulches, while the … Read more

Madison County, Montana 1870-1888

Madison County, rendered forever famous as the district of country containing the Alder gulch of worldwide renown, 4,900 square miles in extent, had also a population of not more than 4,000 at the last census. It is a county rich in resources, chiefly mineral, although agricultural to a considerable degree. Its chief export was gold, while silver, copper, lead, iron, marble, coal, and other valuable minerals abound. The county owned in 1884 cattle, horses, and sheep valued at $1,800,000, and had 10 sawmills cutting 1,000,000 feet of lumber yearly, 2 grist-mills making 6,000 sacks of flour annually, besides raising 100,000 … Read more

Lewis and Clarke County, Montana 1870-1888

Lewis and Clarke County, occupying a central position, although comparatively small in extent, having only 2,900 square miles, was the second in population, its inhabitants numbering about 13,000, and its assessed valuation being in 1884 over $8,000,000. Its mines have already been spoken of. From 135 farms in Prickly Pear Valley was harvested, in 1878, 25,000 bushels of wheat, 40,000 bushels of oats, 15,000 bushels of barley, or an average of over 500 bushels of grain to every farm. Besides the grain crop, 7,000 tons of hay were harvested, over 300 tons of turnips and cabbages, 40,000 bushels of potatoes, … Read more

Jefferson County, Montana 1870-1888

Jefferson County, lying north of Madison, and divided from it by the Jefferson fork of the Missouri, contained 5,000 square miles and 2,500 inhabitants. It was, after mining, chiefly a dairying county, though there several farming settlements sprang up in the valleys of Prickly Pear, Boulder, Crow, Pipestone, and other streams. In 1878, 50,000 lbs of butter and 20,000 lbs of cheese were produced. The farmers raised 50,000 bushels of grain, and there were about 10,000 acres of improved lands. The sawmills in the county cut about 1,500,000 feet of lumber. The stock of the county consisted of 25,000 range … Read more