DIGGING history Home sweet soddie The Land of Odds: Kwirky Kansas Wholesale Murder at Newton Mining Kansas Genealogical Gold Chautauqua Kansas Ghost Towns The Poor Man’s Educational Opportunity DIGGING HISTORY: MAY-JUNE 2019 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME DIGGINGA bi-monthly publication of HISTORYDigging History Media Web Site: www.digging-history.com Contact Us: [email protected] A Scene From Early Atchison, Kansas In this issue 1 Home sweet soddie 23 Wholesale Murder at Newton 34 Kansas Ghost Towns 37 The Land of Odds: Kwirky Kansas 49 BOOK CORNER: May I Recommend . 74 Essential Tools for the successful family researcher 77 Mining (Kansas) Genealogical Gold 80 Chautauqua: The Poor Man’s Educational Opportunity 89 John Elam Whitehead 95 BIBLIOGRAPHY and Photo Credits 100 but first, a word from the editor, researcher, writer, graphic designer and publisher . This issue’s lead article is exemplary of the necessity of directly linking history to genealogy and vice versa. The lead article tells a story of the early years of Kansas when settlers faced drought, famine, pestilence, an even an earthquake! This, after enduring the volatile period known as “Bloody Kansas”. For this issue all articles in some way or another relate to Kansas and its storied history. For quite a while I’ve been enamored with Kansas after making a handful of trips to the state. I didn’t actually need to travel very far into the state to be captured by the beauty of its landscape, the character of its people. Now that I’ve explored its history for this issue, I’m even more enamored – in awe actually. After reading this issue, I hope you are as well. Some stories are written a bit “tongue-in-cheek”. I do so enjoy writing these kinds of stories. History can be informative, yet entertaining as well. As always, I hope readers enjoy them all and learn as much as I have. A Very Personal Appeal I attempt to write stories of interest to history buffs and genealogists. In the case of the latter I believe it’s important to know history in order to become a better genealogist. Personally, I know that to be true as I have many times been able to discern some genealogical record based on what I’ve learned from reading, researching and writing related history. If you are a subscriber who enjoys reading these stories, who can appreciate the hard work (literally, countless hours) expended for each and every issue, might I ask you to consider the following? ● Encourage friends and family to subscribe, with three plans to fit any budget. I’m happy to provide a free issue sample or send them to this link where they can download two recent issues to enjoy (and see what they’re missing!): https://digging-history.com/free-samples/ ● Tell me what you like (or don’t like) about each issue. Praise encourages me and criticism makes me work harder! ● If you’re a member of a local genealogical or historical society, your group might be interested in subscribing. I would be pleased to discuss an annual bulk subscription. ● Follow Digging History on Facebook (@digginghistory). When a post pops up, be sure and “Like” it and feel free to share on your own timeline or other social media sites. It would mean the world to me to have friends and subscribers who mean the world to me help me grow the magazine and Digging History! Both the magazine and my work as a researcher and chronicler of family history for clients is a business, not a hobby. More subscribers keep me chugging along and helps pay the bills! Uncovering history one story at a time, Sharon Hall, Editor, Researcher, Writer, Graphic Designer and Publisher Drought B-B-Blizzard by Sharon Hall Perhaps no state is possessive of a more appropriate motto than Kansas: Ad Astra per Aspera (“To the stars through difficulties”, or more loosely translated “a rough road leads to the stars”1). By the time the state adopted its motto in 1876, fifteen years post-statehood, it had experienced not only a brutal, bloody beginning (“Bloody Kansas”) but had endured (and continued to struggle with) extreme pestilence, preceded by severe drought and even an earthquake in April 1867. In the early days being Kansan was not for the faint of heart. What must have seemed a hopeful new beginning for thousands of settlers who took advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862 instead became a test of man’s will to survive against unrelenting forces of nature. In terms of Kansas state history the first tests of man vs. nature came in the form of drought before settlers began to arrive en masse. The Great Drought of 1860 According to the Kansas Historical Society, “the great drought of 1860 was not an isolated dry year, but was the culmination of a period of dry years beginning definitely in 1854 and possibly in 1853.”2 Before Kansas was officially organized as a territory on May 30, 1854 as a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, settlers had already experienced the region’s propensity for capricious weather patterns. This did not, however, prevent newspapers from writing glowing editorials which invited “industrious, frugal and thrifty people” to settle in Kansas Territory which held out “many inducements – a fertile soil, a healthful and genial climate, noble forests, beautiful streams and pure springs of water gushing up from her bosom at every turn.”3 To their credit newspaper editors also allowed for inevitable challenges whilst making pleas for “working men and women, such as are not ashamed or afraid to take hold with an earnest purpose of helping themselves, and providing for their own wants.”4 To be forewarned was to be forearmed: if you were of a mind to migrate to Kansas, be prepared to work hard. While writing glowingly of the territory’s potential they were also discouraging those who might not measure up to the rigors of life on the frontier: Going to Kansas and getting a home may be a very romantic idea at a distance, but all who come without a suitable training for a frontier life, will find themselves most miserably unhappy. To people who are too lazy or do not know how to work, and have no particular wish to learn, we would say in all kindness stay where you are, wherever that may be. Let all proposing to come here, recollect that we have nothing but the raw material out of which to manufacture a noble civilization. That we have in abundance, strong arms and willing hearts, can rear up from these a prosperity to be admired and envied. Energetic farmers, skillful and industrious mechanics, merchants, and upright learned professional DIGGING HISTORY | JULY-AUGUST 2019 1 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME men will find an ample field for usefulness, in fields sheltered by timber and favorable wealth and distinction. Let all then bear in hills, whether sown on sod or not. But the mind that in coming to Kansas they come wheat sown on fallow ground is dead to the to administer to their own wants and to very roots. No power of raindrops and take life rough and tumble as they will find sunbeams can quicken it to life. The fact is it.5 the winter has been a bad one for wheat. No rain, no snow and much open, thawing, Between 1854 and 1860 the most favorable mild weather, alternated with sharp, year – one without complaint – was 1859. though brief snaps, have made up the That year’s fall harvest was touted as winter of ‘59 and ‘60. The late sown wheat “tremendous” and the corn “unusually fares worst, and is most hopeless. No rain 6 good.” Lykins County was especially of any consequence has fallen since proud, boasting a corn crop that “cannot be September last, a thing, of course, beat, and we have no fears that we shall hear unthought-of by our farmers, who allowed 7 the ‘children crying for bread.’” the choice days of the last of August and the Farmers had much to be thankful for that first of September to slip by unimproved. season’s bounty as “[T]he rich soil of Kansas A certain amount of moisture is absolutely has responded gratefully to your industry, essential to carry fall wheat green and 10 until your granaries are full, and your cellars flourishing from autumn to spring. are overflowing with the reward of your Given that the previous year had brought a summer’s toil.” 1859 had brought “freedom surplus of corn (the country was “full of it”), from parching drought”, an abundance of farmers were urged to consider sowing “soaking rains” and “freedom from the spring wheat on their corn ground. The real 8 extremes of heat and cold”. concern which faced Kansans was the Late September and early fall boasting prospect of having nowhere near enough notwithstanding, by late December farmers wheat to feed the territory’s growing were growing increasingly concerned as population, fearing “the immense winter wheat crops were being “seriously immigration that we may justly expect, will injured by the continued dry weather of this more than consume our surplus beyond our 11 winter, with the occasional freezing and own wants.” 9 thawing.” No doubt, with the success of With low moisture levels and spring winds, the 1859 crop year, farmers had planted dust storms were inevitable. The wind their winter wheat with hopes of continued storm occurring on April 3 was “by far the abundance.