8 TTbe Conservative.
OI'DKST THAU
TIIK ' , .
Travel between the English-speaking
settlements of the East and the city of
Santa Fe is a comparatively recent
thing. Santa Pe is rather an old town ,
for the United States. Its official his
tory is continnous frqm about 1617
down , but its inhabitants are not satis-
fled with that respectable antiquity ;
they maintain that Oorouado and his
friends found a settlement , and a very
old one at that on the present site of
Santa Fe when they first penetrated
into New Mexico. Now Coronado
traveled in those parts in the year 1540 ,
ouly 21 years after Cortes had landed on
the coast of Mexico and 48 years after
Columbus' first voyage. Granting that
the Spanish settled at or near Santa Fe
at that time , the chronology of the city
groups itself as follows : 264 years of
Spanish occupation , from 1540 to 1804 ,
wholly without contact with the United
States ; 76 years of trade , first small ,
then growiug large , with the Americans ,
carried on by means of wagons and
pack-animals by the overland trail ; 20
years of railroad communication , begin
ning February 9 , 1880 , when the first
train of the Atchisou , Topeka & Santa
Fe Railway entered the old town.
How long will the railroad run , do
you suppose ?
Kansas east of Dodge City was French
territory until 1808 ; in the year follow
ing , the first trader of whom there is
record was sent across the plains by an
Illinois merchant. Kansas west of
Dodge City was Spanish territory until
1821 ; in the year following.regular trad
ing on a large scale with Santa Fe was
begun. In the mean time , Captain
Zebnlon Pike , in 1806 , had strayed into
Spanish territory , in southern Colorado ,
and been taken prisoner ; in the same
year a Spanish military force had come
eastward to near Superior , Nebraska.
In 1812 one "Captain" ' Bicknell , from
Missouri , had gone trading to Santa Fe
and done well ; but a party of his neigh
bors , attempting the same thing a year
or two later , were arrested , their wares
taken from them and themselves im
prisoned for a number of years. But
the Chonteaus of St. Louis had estab
lished themselves , in 1815 , on an island
in the Arkansas river , near the 100th
meridian , the dividing line between the
United States and Mexico ; and there
they remained , and the place is on the
maps as Chouteau's Island today.
The Starting Point.
It is said that wagons were first em
ployed in freighting across the plains in
1824 ; but by 1829 the trade had become
EO well established that an annual
caravan is mentioned. About this time
also the journey lost the character of an
exploring expedition , and the trail as
afterwards followed became well defined.
The starting point of the first caravans
was the town of Franklin , 150 miles
below Kansas City ; but as settlers came
in , we hear of Independence , then of
Westport , then of Kansas , and finally
the City is added. In the meantime
another settlement had crystallized on
the west bank of the Missouri , above
the month of the Kansas , peopled first
with the garrison of Nebraska's oldest
post , Fort Atkinson or Calhoun , in 1827 ;
Cantonment Leaven worth , Fort Leaven-
worth , Leaven worth City , and finally
the City is dropped. From these two
river towns the Santa Fe Trail ran
westward. Troops and government sup
plies were forwarded from Leaven-
worth , private travelers and merchan
dise for the most part from Independence
or Westport Landing , which is Kansas
City.
Early Kaunas City.
In 1838 there was a sale of vacant
lauds "below the month of the Kansas
River and five miles from the flourish
ing town of Westport. " Four years
later , when Second Lieutenant John O.
Fremont first crossed the Missouri , the
lauds seem to have been vacant still ;
but on his second expedition , in 1843 , he
arrived on the 17th of May at "the little
town of Kansas , on the Missouri
frontier. " Here he was obliged to re
main two weeks , a necessity from which
the advance of civilization has relieved
the traveler of today. Let us be thank
ful for our mercies and take the morn
ing train for Santa Fe. Kansas City is
a fine town , for a town , and no doubt
all of us would rather live in it than in
the Westport Landing of the 40's ; but it
is only a town.
"How canst thou breathe in this air ,
that hast breathed the sweet air of the
mountains ? "
One's nose gets full of soot and his
ears full of street-car racket in Kansas
City.
"Westward.
At seven miles from the union station
we see the name "Turner" on a sign by
the roadside. Here , sixty years ago ,
stood Cyprien Ohouteau's trading-post ,
where Fremont tarried for several days
in 1842 , making the astronomical obser
vations which were incumbent on every
traveler in this unexplored region at that
time ; and hence he "sat out" on the
10th of June , though it was a Friday.
"Mr. Chouteau accompanied us several
miles on our way , until we met an
Indian , whom he engaged to conduct us
on the first thirty or forty miles , where
he was to consign us to the ocean of
prairie , which , we were told , stretched
without interruption almost to the base
of the Rocky mountains "
Fremont had no pathfinding to do
hereabouts. He mentions following the
Santa Fe road for a couple of days , and
on leaving it he traveled on the trail of
the Oregon emigrants , crossing the Kan
sas a hundred miles from its mouth ;
somewhere above Topeka , therefore.
The Kansas , as seen from the car-
windows , is not an inviting stream to
ford with a train of ox-wagons. The
banks are of earth , vertical , perhaps
twenty feet in hight ; the substance of
the river is a tawny fluid , through
which sandy shallows can be seen , inter
spersed with dark streaks of doubtful
depth. Indeed , Fremont had trouble in
crossing on that first trip of his ; he had
an upset , both Kit Carson and Maxwell
caught colds , and they lost their coffee
which he assures us was a very heavy
loss. Again let us be thankful that we
can reach the sweet air of the mountains
without either wading or swearing.
The Old Terry.
Here is another station , named
Ohouteau , doubtless with a reason ; and
here is Lawrence , where there was war
in the 50's , and where ( what is more to
our purpose ) the first ferry over the
Kansas was established , for near here
the Leavenwortb branch joined the main
trail. Before the day of the ferry the
prudent used to shun the Kansas. In
1829 , for instance , when Major Riley
( for whom Fort Riley was named ) was
ordered out with a part of the Leaven-
worth garrison , as the first of military
escorts to parties crossing the plains , he
preferred to ferry his force over the
Missouri , march down its left bank and
cross again to Independence , thus going
around the Kansas ; and no doubt this
was often done.
The passengers care nothing for old
ferries nor trails ; they are playing cinch ,
as they call it , or telling each other of
their troubles with hired girls ; some
amuse themselves with watching the
white smoke of a parallel train , far off
across the river ; this is on Kansas' first
railroad , the line of the Union Pacific
which runs from Kansas City to Denver
and Cheyenne. Bayard Taylor described
its operation on his first visit west in
1866 , when it had only reached Topeka.
New Towns.
Topeka is a recent formation ; it is
moreover not on the Santa Fe Trail ,
which ran far to the south. We cross
it in turning down to Emporia , and
thereafter it is to the north of us for the
rest of the day. Up there are a number
of once famous places Big John Spring ,
Council Grove , Diamond Spring but
their glory has departed. We , along
our route , see many fields green with
winter wheat ; several surprising towns ,
such as Newton and Hntohinson ; and at
Osage City a great showing of coal
mines. The coal is BO near the surface
that they say a farmer can never tell for
sure whether he is plowing corn or
mining coal.
The name of Osage City suggests
something else that we have crossed
the path trodden by Pike and his un-
terrified handful , desiring only a little
"dust" with the Spanish , on their way
from the Grand Oaage village to the V
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