History of Atchison County, Kansas. Sheffield Ingalls

river until they came to the “south edge of the rim of the basin which circles around from the south line of the city, extending west by gradual incline to the divide between White Clay and Stranger creek, then north and east around to the northern limits of the city.” It was at this point that the Missouri river made the bend from the northeast, throwing the point where Atchison is now located, twelve miles west of any locality, north, and twenty miles west of Leavenworth, and thirty-five miles west of Kansas City. When they descended into the valley, of which Commercial street is now the lowest point, Dr. Stringfellow and his companions found George M. Million and Samuel Dickson. Mr. Dickson followed Million to Kansas from Rushville, and while there is some dispute as to who was the second resident in Atchison county after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the best authorities lead to the conclusion that to Samuel Dickson belongs that honor. Mr. Dickson erected a small shanty near the spring, which bore his name for so many years, on the east side of South Sixth street, between Park and Spring streets. His house is described as a structure twelve feet square, having one door and one window and a large stone chimney running up the outside. As soon as Dr. Stringfellow arrived he at once commenced negotiations with Mr. Million for the purchase of his claim. Mr. Million, apparently, was a shrewd real estate speculator and only surrendered his claim upon the payment of $1,000. Dr. Stringfellow considered this a very fancy figure for the land, but he and his associates were firm in their decision of founding a city at this point on the Missouri river and they gave Mr. Million his price. The organization of a town company which followed will be discussed in a subsequent chapter of this territory.

      The first territorial appointment for the purpose of inaugurating a local government in Kansas was made in June, 1854. Governor Andrew. H. Reeder, of Easton, Pa., was appointed on that date. He took the oath of office in Washington, D. C., July 7, and arrived in Kansas at Ft. Leavenworth October 7, becoming at once the executive head of the Kansas government. Governor Reeder was a stranger to Kansas. With the exception of Senator Atchison he scarcely knew anybody in Kansas. He was a lawyer by profession, one of the ablest in the State of Pennsylvania. From early manhood he had been an ardent and loyal Democrat and had defended with vigor and great power the principle of squatter sovereignty and the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He was not a politician and was an able, honest, clear-thinking Democrat. Upon his arrival in Kansas he set himself at once to the task of inaugurating the government in the territory. According to his own testimony before the special congressional committee appointed by Congress to investigate the troubles in Kansas in 1856, he made it his first business to obtain information of the geography, settlements, population and general condition of the territory, with a view to its division into districts; the defining of their boundary; the location of suitable and central places for elections, and the full names of men in each district for election officers, persons to take the census, justices of the peace, and constables. He accordingly made a tour of the territory, and although he did not come to Atchison county his tour included many important and remote settlements in the territory. Upon his return he concluded that if the election for a delegate to Congress should be postponed until an election could be had for the legislature, which, in the one case required no previous census, and in the other a census was required, the greater part of the session of Congress, which would terminate on the fourth of March, would expire before a congressional delegate from the territory could reach Washington. He, therefore, ordered an election for a delegate to Congress, and postponed the taking of the census until after that election. He prepared, without unnecessary delay, a division of the territory into election districts, fixed a place of election in each, appointed election officers and ordered that the election should take place November 29, 1854. Atchison county was in the fifteenth election district, which comprised the following territory: Commencing at the mouth of Salt creek on the Missouri river; thence up said creek to the military road and along the middle of said road to the lower crossing of Stranger creek: thence up said creek to the line of the Kickapoo reservation, and thence along the southern and western line thereof to the line of the fourteenth district: thence between same, and down Independence creek to the mouth thereof, and thence down the Missouri river to the place of beginning. The place of the election was at the house of Pascal Pensoneau, on the Ft. Leavenworth and Oregon road, near what is now the town site of Potter. The election which followed was an exciting one. Public meetings were held in all of the towns and villages, at which resolutions were passed against the eastern abolitionists, the Platte County Argus sounding the following alarm:

      “We know we speak the sentiments of some of the most distinguished statesmen of Missouri when we advise that counter-organizations be made, both in Kansas and Missouri, to thwart the reckless course of the abolitionists. We must meet them at their very threshold and scourge them back to their covers of darkness. They have made the issue, and it is for us to meet and repel them.”

      The secret organizations, of which Greeley spoke, known as the “Blue Lodges,” “Social Bands,” and “Sons of the South,” became very active, and knowing the condition of affairs along the Missouri border, and having learned the needs and wishes of the actual settlers in the territory, Governor Reeder decided that their rights should not be jeopardized. Therefore, in ordering an election of a congressional delegate only, with the idea of a later proclamation ordering a territorial election of a legislature, he knew that much trouble would be spared. In his proclamation for the congressional election, provision was made for defining the qualifications of legal voters, and providing against fraud, both of which provisions were received with alarm by the leaders of the slavery Democracy, who, up to that time had hoped that the administration at Washington had sent them an ally. It was not long until they discovered that they were mistaken.

      The actual settlers of the territory did not evince much interest in the election. They were all engaged in what appeared to them to be the more important business of building their homes and otherwise providing necessities before the approach of winter. There were no party organizations in the territory. The slavery question was not generally understood to be an issue. The first candidates to announce themselves were James N. Burnes, whose name has for sixty years been prominently identified with the social, political and business history of Atchison county, and J. B. Chapman. These two candidates subsequently withdrew from the campaign, and the names finally submitted to the voters were: Gen. John W. Whitfield, Robert P. Flenneken, Judge John A. Wakefield. Whitfield ignored the slavery issue during his canvass, but his cause was openly espoused by the Missourians. Flenneken was a friend of Governor Reeder, with Free Soil proclivities. Wakefield was an outspoken Free-Soiler. Hon. David R. Atchison, then a United States senator, and for whom Atchison county was named, was the head and front of the pro-slavery movement. He had a national reputation and was a power in the United States Senate, and won for himself the highest position in the gift of the Senate, having been chosen president protempore of that body after the death of Vice-President King. He was loyal to the southern views regarding slavery and this made him the unquestioned leader of the party which believed, as Senator Atchison himself believed, that the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill would inevitably result in a slave State west of Missouri. It was to Senator Atchison that Dr. J. H. Stringfellow, himself one of the strong leaders of the pro-slavery forces, looked for inspiration and direction. In a speech Senator Atchison made in Weston, Mo., November 6, 1854, which was just prior to the congressional election in Kansas, he said:

      “My mission here today is, if possible, to awaken the people of this country to the danger ahead and to suggest the means to avoid it. The people of Kansas in their first elections will decide the question whether or not the slave-holder was to be excluded, and it depends upon a majority of the votes cast at the polls. Now, if a set of fanatics and demagogues a thousand miles off could afford to advance their money and exert every nerve to abolitionize the territory and exclude the slave-holder, when they have not the least personal interest in the matter, what is your duty? When you reside within one day’s journey of the territory, and when your peace, your quiet, and your property depend upon this action you can without any exertion send five hundred of your young men who will vote in favor of your institutions.”

      On November 28, the day preceding the election, the secret society voters in Missouri began to cross over into Kansas. They came organized to carry the election and in such overwhelming numbers as to completely over-awe and out-number the legal voters of the territory at many of the precincts. They took possession of the polls, elected many of the judges, intimidated others to resign and refusing to