Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories: Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas — John Locke — John Shaqi
Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories: Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas
John Locke · en
Later, Atchison was made the starting point for the stage and mails. At
this time railroad service was extended from St. Joseph to Atchison—and,
on the west end, river service was had from Sacramento to San Francisco.
The first station out of Atchison was Lancaster, 11 miles. Then
Kennekuk, 24 miles; Kickapoo, 36 miles; Log Chain, 49 miles; Seneca, 60
miles.
From Seneca the line continued westward to Marysville. It crossed the
Big Blue river at Marysville, went up the Little Blue valley, crossed
over to the Platte valley, then up the Platte to Fort Kearney. At
Julesburg one branch turned south into Denver. The main line crossed the
South Platte at Julesburg, touched at Fort Larimer and Fort Bridger
in Wyoming. From Salt Lake it took a western course across Nevada to
Virginia City; thence over the Sierra Nevada mountains to Placerville
and Sacramento.
Considerable attention is given to the routing through Nemaha and Brown
counties. For historical purposes, it is important that this should be
done now while it is yet possible to trace the route with some degree
of accuracy. Only slight evidences of the Old Trail remain. Practically
everything obtainable now is a carry over from another generation,
hearsay. In a few years more all information pertaining to the old road
will have been relayed to a third and fourth generation, if not, indeed,
forgotten altogether, locally. There are people here now, some living
almost atop the Old Trail, who have never heard of it. There are none
living now who were adults then, and even very few who were children.
Albert Pitman, of Sabetha, aged 90, is probably the oldest person now
living who was in the Powhattan-Granada neighborhood during staging
days. Mrs. Martha Hart, E. J. Woodman, Volley Hough, Edwin Smith, and
Ed. Vilott, now living at McAlister, Oklahoma, were children.
Tracing the Old Trail, locally, we find: The road at first came almost
due west from Kennekuk across the Kickapoo Indian reservation, but
probably bent over into what is now Brown County, as it followed the
ridges. It crossed the Delaware at a point about eighty rods upstream
from the crooked bridge on the present south line of the reservation—the
Jackson-Brown County line. The Kickapoo reservation at that time
contained about 150,000 acres. It has since been diminished three times.
Now it is a block five by six miles in extent, thirty sections, 19,200
acres — with much of the land owned by the whites.
The first mission, built in 1856, was located on Horton Heights, inside
the present city limits of Horton. The site was marked by a red glacial
boulder on December 1, 1936 — 80 years after the Indian school was
established by E. M. Hubbard—the first school of any kind in Brown
County.