



Produced by Linda M. Everhart, Blairstown, Missouri




Tales and Trails
of Wakarusa

By
A. M. HARVEY
of the Topeka Bar

Crane & Company, Printers
Topeka, Kansas
1917

Copyright 1917
By Crane and Company



A Forethought and a Dedication

"A Paradoxical philosopher, carrying to the uttermost length that
aphorism of Montesquieu's, 'Happy the people whose annals are
tiresome,' has said; 'Happy the people whose annals are vacant.' In
which saying, mad as it looks, may there not still be found some
grain of reason? For truly, as it has been written, 'Silence is
divine,' and of Heaven; so in all earthly things, too, there is a
silence which is better than any speech. Consider it well, the Event,
the thing which can be spoken of and recorded; is it not in all cases
some disruption, some solution of continuity? Were it even a glad
Event, it involves change, involves loss (of active force); and so
far, either in the past or in the present, is an irregularity, a
disease. Stillest perseverance were our blessedness--not dislocation
and alteration--could they be avoided.

"The oak grows silently in the forest a thousand years; only in the
thousandth year, when the woodman arrives with his ax, is there heard
an echoing through the solitudes; and the oak announces itself when,
with far-sounding crash, it falls. How silent, too, was the planting
of the acorn, scattered from the lap of some wandering wind! Nay,
when our oak flowered, or put on its leaves (its glad Events), what
shout of proclamation could there be? Hardly from the most observant
a word of recognition. These things befell not, they were slowly
done; not in an hour, but through the flight of days: what was to be
said of it? This hour seemed altogether as the last was, as the next
would be.

"It is thus everywhere that foolish Rumor babbles not of what
was done, but of what was misdone or undone; and foolish History
(ever, more or less, the written epitomized synopsis of Rumor)
knows so little that were not as well unknown. Attila Invasions,
Walter-the-Penniless Crusades, Sicilian Vespers, Thirty-Years' Wars:
mere sin and misery; not work, but hindrance of work! For the Earth
all this while was yearly green and yellow with her kind harvests;
the hand of the craftsman, the mind of the thinker, rested not; and
so, after all and in spite of all, we have this so glorious high-domed
blossoming World; concerning which poor History may well ask with
wonder, Whence it came? She knows so little of it, knows so much of
what obstructed it, what would have rendered it impossible. Such,
nevertheless, by necessity or foolish choice, is her rule and
practice; whereby that paradox, 'Happy the people whose annals are
vacant,' is not without its true side."--Carlyle.

This book of tales and trails of people whose annals are vacant,
because they were peaceful and happy, is dedicated to the
nineteen-year-old soldier boys of 1917 and to their comrades; and
especially to that nineteen-year-old soldier, Randal Cone Harvey,
whose image and whose service is with us by day and by night. May
their service help bring to a war-cursed world such peace that the
annals of all men will be stories of love, companionship and
association one with another.

A. M. Harvey.



Contents

  Title
  Forethought and Dedication
  The Trail of the Sac and Fox
  The Stone Bridge
  The Newcomers
  An Old-Timer
  Mother Newcomer
  John MacDonald
  Jake Self
  The Yankee and His Hog--and Other Troubles
  The Trail That Never Was Traveled
  The Conversion of Cartmill
  A Fourth of July Speech
  The Phantom Fisherman, and Other Ghosts
  An Indian Christmas



The Trail of the Sac and Fox

It was during the '40's that the Sac and Fox Indians started on their
long journey to take up their home in the land provided for them in
Kansas, being a portion of the present counties of Lyon, Osage, and
Franklin. In the year 1846 a large number of them had camped in the
Kansas River Valley near the present site of Topeka, and because of
their friendship with the Shawnees they were permitted to remain
there for some time before moving on. Many of them formed attachments
and friendships among the Shawnees and Pottawatomies, and remained
with them. After the main body of the Sac and Fox moved on to their
own lands, their associations with the Shawnees and other friendly
Indians were such that there was much travel back and forth.

The trails leading south from the Kansas River Valley all fell into
the "Oregon" or "California" road, and along that the Indians
traveled to the trading village of Carthage, a few miles northeast of
the present village of Berryton. From there, several trails set off
toward the Sac and Fox lands. One of the principal trails wound over
the hills and down through a long ravine to the Wakarusa Valley, and
across that river at the ford where the great stone bridge now
stands, due south of Berryton; and from there it wound around the
hill through the woods and again over the plains. Afterwards a public
road was laid out upon this trail, called, in the Shawnee County
records, the "Sac and Fox Road," but usually spoken of as the "Ottawa
State Road."

Just south of the Wakarusa crossing and a few hundred yards around
the brow of the hill, there lies a parcel of level ground, which was
an ideal place for camping. It is now occupied by the public road,
and church and school-house grounds. This was a famous camping place
for the Sac and Fox and all other Indians who used the trail. If you
step up to the stone fence just east of the schoolhouse, looking over
you will notice a deep ditch washed out down the creek bank, on the
side of which a large oak tree stands, with many of its roots
exposed. This ditch marks the path first used by the Indians as they
went back and forth from the camping ground to the spring of sweet,
beautiful water that flows from out the rocks at the foot of the
hill.

Modern history of this portion of the valley begins with this camping
place. It was not only a resting place, but a place where
consultations and conferences were held, and where the eloquent ones
told of the glory of Black Hawk, the wisdom of Keokuk,