History of Atchison County, Kansas. Sheffield Ingalls

shall be extinguished by treaty.

      Section 20. The executive power and authority is vested in a governor, appointed by the President, to hold his office for the term of four years, or until his successor is appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States.

      Section 21. The secretary of State is appointed and subject to removal by the President of the United States, and to be acting governor with full powers and functions of the governor in case of the absence of the governor from the territory, or a vacancy occurring.

      Section 22. Legislative power and authority of territory is vested in the governor and a legislative body, consisting of two branches, a council and a house of representatives.

      Section 23 prescribes qualifications of voters; giving the right to every free white male inhabitant, above the age of 21 years, who shall be an actual resident of the territory, to vote at the first election.

      Section 24 limits the scope of territorial legislation, and defines the veto power of the governor.

      Section 25 prescribes the manner of appointing and electing officers, not otherwise provided for.

      Section 26 precludes members from holding any office created or the emoluments of which are increased during any session of the legislature of which they are a member, and prescribes qualifications for members of the legislative assembly.

      Section 27 vests the judicial power in the supreme court, district courts, probate courts and in justices of the peace.

      Section 28 declares the fugitive slave law of 1850 to be in full force in the territory.

      Section 29 provides for the appointment of an attorney and marshal for the territory.

      Section 30 treats with the nomination of the President, chief justice, associate justices, attorney and marshal, and their confirmation by the Senate, and prescribes the duties of these officers and fixes their salaries.

      Section 31 locates the temporary seat of government of the territory at Ft. Leavenworth, and authorizes the use of the Government buildings there for public purposes.

      Section 32 provides for the election of a delegate to Congress, and abrogates the Missouri Compromise.

      Section 33 prescribes the manner and the amount of appropriations for the erection of public buildings, and other territorial purposes.

      Section 34 reserves for the benefit of schools in the territory and states and territories hereafter to be erected out of the same, sections number 16 and 30 in each township, as they are surveyed.

      Section 35 prescribes the mode of defining the judicial districts of the territory, and appointing the times and places of holding the various courts.

      Section 36 requires officers to give official bonds, in such manner as the secretary of treasury may prescribe.

      Section 37 declares all treaties, laws and other engagements made by the United States Government with the Indian tribes inhabiting the territory to remain inviolate, notwithstanding anything contained in the provisions of the act.

      It was under the provisions of the above act that those coming to Kansas to civilize it and to erect their homes were to be guided.

      Edward Everett Hale, in his history of Kansas and Nebraska, published in 1854, says, “Up to the summer of 1834, Kansas and Nebraska have had no civilized residents, except the soldiers sent to keep the Indian tribes in order; the missionaries sent to convert them; the traders who bought furs of them, and those of the natives who may be considered to have attained some measure of civilization from their connection with the whites.” So it will be seen that at the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, Atchison county was very sparsely settled.

      All movements in the territory, or elsewhere, made for its organization, were provisional, as they were subject to the rights of the various Indian tribes, whose reservations covered, by well defined boundaries, every acre of northeastern Kansas, except such tracts as were reserved by the Government about Ft. Leavenworth, and other military stations, but with the move for the organization of the territory came an effort to extinguish the Indian’s title to the lands and thus open them to white settlers. One of the most interesting books bearing upon the history of Kansas of that time was “Greeley’s Conflict.” He makes the following statement with reference to this subject:

      “When the bill organizing Kansas and Nebraska was first submitted to Congress in 1853, all that portion of Kansas which adjoins the State of Missouri, and, in fact, nearly all the accessible portion of both territories, was covered by Indian reservations, on which settlement by whites was strictly forbidden. The only exception was in favor of Government agents and religious missionaries; and these, especially the former, were nearly all Democrats and violent partisans of slavery. * * * * Within three months immediately preceding the passage of the Kansas bill aforesaid, treaties were quietly made at Washington with the Delawares, Otoes, Kickapoos, Kaskaskias, Shawnees, Sacs, Foxes and other tribes, whereby the greater part of the soil of Kansas, lying within one or two hundred miles of the Missouri border, was suddenly opened to white appropriation and settlement. These simultaneous purchases of the Indian land by the Government, though little was known of them elsewhere, were thoroughly understood and appreciated by the Missourians of the western border, who had for some time been organizing ‘Blue Lodges,’ ‘Social Bands,’ ‘Sons of the South,’ and other societies, with intent to take possession of Kansas in behalf of slavery. They were well assured and they fully believed that the object contemplated and desired, in lifting, by the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the interdict of slavery from Kansas, was to authorize and facilitate the legal extension of slavery into that region. Within a few days after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, hundreds of leading Missourians crossed into the adjacent territory, selected each his quarter section, or a larger area of land, put some sort of mark on it, and then united with his fellow-adventurers in a meeting, or meetings, intended to establish a sort of Missouri preëmption upon all this region.”

      Immediately following the passage of the territorial act the immigration of Missourians to Kansas began, and, indeed, before its final passage the best of the lands had been located and marked for preëmption by the Missourians. This was true, apparently, in the case of George M. Million, whom the records disclose was the first settler in Atchison county, after Kansas was made a territory. Mr. Million was of German descent and came to the vicinity of Rushville in the hills east of Atchison from Coal county, Missouri, prior to 1841, where he was married to Sarah E. Dixon before she was fifteen years old. In 1841 Million occupied the present site of East Atchison as a farm. At that time the bottom land just east of Atchison was covered with tall rushes and was known as Rush bottom. The town of Rushville was originally known as Columbus, but the name was subsequently changed to Rushville because of the character of the country in which it was located. During the winter Million eked out his livelihood by cutting wood and hauling it to the river bank, selling it in the spring and summer to the steamboats that plied up and down the Missouri river. Sometime subsequent to 1841, Million built a flat-boat ferry and operated it for seven or eight years and did a thriving business during the great gold rush to California. He accumulated considerable money and later operated a store, trading with the Indians for furs and buying hemp, which he shipped down the river. In June, 1854, he “squatted” on the present townsite of Atchison, and built a log house at the foot of Atchison street, near his ferry landing, and just opposite his cabin on the Missouri side of the river. Following Million, in June, 1854 came a colony of emigrants from Iatan, Mo., and took up claims in the neighborhood of Oak Mills. They were F. P. Goddard, G. B. Goddard, James Douglass, Allen Hanson and George A. Wright, but the actual settlers and founders of Atchison county did not enter the territory of Kansas until July, 1854. On the twentieth day of that month Dr. J. H. Stringfellow with Ira Norris, Leonidas Oldham, James B. Martin and Neil Owens left Platte City, Mo., to decide definitely upon a good location for a town. With the exception of Dr. Stringfellow they all took claims about four miles southwest of the present city of Atchison. Traveling in a southwesterly direction from Platte City the party reached the river opposite Ft. Leavenworth and crossed to the Kansas side. They went north until they reached the mouth of Walnut creek, “and John Alcorn’s lonely cabin upon its banks.” They