Prairie Tapestry: A Tale of Kansas Homesteaders and Their Fight For Survival

By Tom Fleming

Ottawa County, Kansas. The homesteader era. The eastern newspapers of the period promoted the Midwestern frontier as a paradise for settlers. They didn't mention the Indian raids, droughts, grasshopper plagues, and prairie fires that awaited the pioneers. 'Prairie Tapestry' tells the true tales of the visitors and homesteaders of Ottawa County, Kansas - Horace Greeley, Susan B. Anthony, George Washington Carver, and 'Lincoln's Little Girl,' Grace Bedell. The settlers confronted the numerous adversities with a tenacity and resolve that formed the American spirit of today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tom Fleming
• Release date: Dec 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370444960

Tom Fleming

Tom Fleming shares his time between Texas and central Kansas, where he researches the history of the Plains Indians and the homesteader era. He grew up in California, and received an MA from The University of Texas at Austin. 'Prairie Tapestry' is his second book.

Book preview

Chapter 2-1861

Chapter 3-Men and Their Motivations

Chapter 4-Building a Foundation

Chapter 5-Chance Encounter

Chapter 6-1864

Chapter 7-The New Englanders

Chapter 8-Ambition

Chapter 9-The Promise of the Saline

Chapter 10-The Trials of the Saline

Chapter 11-Lindsey, 1868

Chapter 12-Independence Day

Chapter 13-To Arms

Chapter 14-Teachers and Students

Chapter 15-The Ague

Chapter 16-The Vision

Chapter 17-Beasts

Chapter 18-The Raid

Chapter 19-Recovery

Chapter 20-Business Negotiations

Chapter 21-Battles and Survivors

Chapter 22-Relationships

Chapter 23-The Vote

Chapter 24-Saying Goodbye

Chapter 25-Days of Judgment

Chapter 26-Train Ride

Chapter 27-Tornado

Chapter 28-The Destinies of Two Men

Chapter 29-1882

Historical Notes

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Prairie Tapestry is a work of historical fiction. All but three of the major characters are based on real individuals who lived in Ottawa County, Kansas during the homesteader period. The depictions of actual persons are derived from historical documents and writings of the era, and many of the events that occur in the book are centered around authentic occurrences. My research was based largely on primary sources – the letters and recollections of the historical figures themselves. Whenever multiple sources gave conflicting versions of incidents, or if supporting documentation could not substantiate events, I used my imagination judiciously to interpret motivations and circumstances, based on the historical context of the time and place.

Prologue

Central Kansas territory. 1861.

Elizabeth Wright could tell right away they were coming at them, not to them. They were off their horses now, and approaching the cabin, their features growing distinct – deer skin leggings, long, dark hair, braided and adorned with feathers. A cold dread surged through the woman’s veins. She ran her fingers through her long auburn hair.

This would be her death. She knew it. Of all the hazards that threatened the homesteader on the Kansas prairie – the twisters, the illnesses – the most dreaded were the bronze-skinned men closing in at this very moment. She had heard all of the stories. The plainsman caught out here alone would face death after a prolonged, cruel torture; for the female, it would be a different, more excruciating torment. All swore that the only alternative for the captured pioneer woman was a quick death.

Her mother-in-law had weighed in on the topic. They wouldn’t take me alive. I keep a bottle of arsenic above the stove, in the event of a raid.

The Indians were now within a few yards. Their eyes were upon her and little Howard cowering behind her hoopskirt. Please Lord, let Jacob remain silent in his crib inside.

Sam had gone off with the wagon and team to Junction City for supplies, leaving her and the two children alone. It’s only for a few days, he assured her. If anything happened, her parents’ cabin was just around the creek bend. But at a moment like this it might as well have been as far away as Salina. Sam had shown her how to load the rifle with powder and shot, yet, all the preparation in the world was never enough – especially when a dozen of them were marching right up to your cabin. Where had he put the ammunition?

Give them whatever they want, Sam had instructed. They’re usually just hungry. But the braves were close enough now that Elizabeth could see their expressions, and they wanted more than just food. They were intent on taking something, everything.

Elizabeth stood sentry on the porch, one hand on the gun’s stock, the other on Howard’s shoulder. The child began to whimper. The warriors met her gaze.

One of them picked up the butter churn and looked at it curiously. Put that down! She demanded, trying to sound assertive.

Give us, the brave now standing in front of her said.

What did they want? The butter churn? My husband and his friends will be back here any moment. You can talk to them.

The Indian eyed the woman up and down. His dark eyes settled on her dark red hair, then down to her bodice, at the silver necklace hanging around her throat. The slender chain held an amulet, a cross over a heart. The necklace was a birthday gift from her younger brother. The brave reached for it but she stepped back. The boy could sense his mother’s distress. He let out a long wail.

All eyes were on the crying child now. They looked around nervously. Before Elizabeth could react with the rifle, a tall brave rushed forward and snatched him under the arms. In a split second the Indian had the struggling child by the ankles, hanging upside down. The boy bawled louder now, coins from his pockets jingling on the ground.

Tell boy to quiet! barked the Indian.

At the sight of her terrified son being held by his feet, the mother’s fear gave way to a furious anger. She screamed, Put him down! Take it all!

As the tall brave began swinging the child by his ankles in circles, Elizabeth howled, You want this? Take it! She snapped the necklace off her neck and threw it at the Indians. TAKE EVERYTHING!

The First Homesteaders

Two years earlier, 1859.

From his seat on the prairie schooner the Yankee cleaned his spectacles with a cloth, and squinted out at the rolling grasslands. He was blind without his glasses, and the world was nothing but a blur of blue above and green below. With them back on, he spied two men in the distance struggling behind a mule team and plow. From their ages they must have been father and son – the younger in his twenties, the other double that – and both shared the same red hair. They probably resided at the cluster of sod homes back on Pipe Creek. The younger of the two caught sight of the wagon team, lowered his whip and waved a greeting. The New Yorker smiled and tipped his hat grandly.

At forty-eight, Horace Greeley was the renowned editor of the New York Tribune, the nation’s most widely-read newspaper. The phrase Go West, young man, and grow up with the country, was attributed to him. His tiny spectacles gave him a bookish appearance, and he spoke in a shrill, high voice. Greeley, however, did not fit the stereotype of a blue blood, east coast dandy. He always appeared a bit disheveled, his sideburns unkempt and weedy. People commented on his lack of social graces.

The Yankee was brave. He was bound for California, and such an overland journey west of the Missouri was a courageous endeavor. He chose not the busy northern route of the Oregon Trail or the established Santa Fe Trail to the south, but the more direct and riskier Smoky Hills Trail through central Kansas, straight into what geographers of the day called the Great American Desert.

Greeley had examined the vast grasslands, and concluded, This is the end of the world. The night before, while lodging at Pipe Creek, he scribbled the latest dispatch, describing how civilization was slipping away. Adieu to friendly greetings and speaking! Adieu for a time to pen and paper! In Topeka he noted the last sighting of wash bowls and bedrooms. And in Junction City, beds bid us good-by. All of those creature comforts lay behind. Who could know what waited ahead.

At first Greeley marveled at the quiet of the grasslands. The only sounds came from the wind whispering through the tall grass, the song of a lonely bird, or a chirping cricket. But he understood there was nothing peaceful about nature out here. This wild frontier offered no compassion, and no margin for error. Eastern newspapers reported of fierce predators awaiting the unassuming pioneers, wolves ready to tear them limbless, and vultures that would finish off the remains. Old Testament tribulations of locusts scoured the land, dimming the summer sun, stripping the hills and plains bare of all vegetation, even devouring the clothes off your back. Summer storms ripped the vast heavens, shaking and stinging the earth with exploding thunder and lightning. The lightning begat hellish infernos that consumed the grasslands unfettered, sometimes for weeks on end.

You’ll see lots of buffalo, the bucktoothed proprietress of the Pipe Creek coach station told the Yankee the night before.

I’ve seen them.

Ever seen a half million of ‘em in one place before?

The merciless frontier with its beasts and threatening weather, however, couldn’t compare to the mind-numbing emptiness of this land. Once in a while, the sojourners would glimpse a totem of inhabitance – an empty turf hut, or a discarded bottle in their path – and it was a reminder that a fellow human was out here somewhere, bobbing about like a cork in a vast ocean of desolation. Travelers claimed the overwhelming loneliness and solitude would drive the most stalwart of pioneers to a state of blathering idiocy.

As empty as the endless grasslands may appear, there were others out here. The station hostess had gestured to the dark horizon. You don’t see ‘em but they’re there. A day earlier, an oncoming coach stopped to warn the team of being harassed by Indians a few miles back. The coach’s driver jerked his head behind him, at Greeley’s impending destination. In the wide open exposure of the flat terrain, the Yankee swore he could feel their eyes on the wagon train.

The native tribes criss-crossed the Solomon Valley during their traditional bison hunts or raids of rival nations. The hostess told of a large Pawnee community that used to inhabit the Republican River up north, until the enemy Kanza attacked and expelled them. Up until a dozen years ago this land was granted by the U.S. government to the Kanza tribe, before the white officials changed their minds, and chased them out as well. No matter who expelled who, the natives were still out here, hunting and raiding.

Now the new white tribe from the east was migrating into the region. During their conversation the night before, the proprietress had told Greeley of the families settling along Pipe Creek. A couple named Samuel and Elizabeth Wright arrived from Ohio, followed by Elizabeth’s family, the Humbargars. A mile down the creek lived the Millers. The cluster of cabins and dirt dwellings attested to a growing community.

From his perch on the wagon Greeley studied the two men laboring behind the plow. Brave people, he thought. The bespectacled Yankee waved a final time to the young, red-haired man.

Young Sol Humbargar watched as the prairie schooners, their white tops contrasting against the rich blue sky, disappeared into the grasslands. He wondered about the man with the glasses. Where did he hail from? Where was he bound?

Sol gestured at the spot on the horizon where the team had disappeared. The wagon . . . The words were slow, simple.

Jacob took off his hat, and mopped his thinning scalp with a kerchief. Quit dawdling. We got a lot more land ahead of us to break.

Sol turned his attention back to the stubborn mule team. It had been a long day. The respite of supper couldn’t come soon enough. His sister Elizabeth and brother-in-law Sam would be joining them. After eating, perhaps there would be a game of dominoes. That is, if Sam and his father didn’t find something to argue about.

Struggling against the plow, Jacob started to sing in an off-pitched voice, Cotton-eyed Joe, Cotton-eyed Joe . . .

**

The buffalo hides were infested with fleas, and now the whole trading post jumped with them. James Mead gestured to the pile on the porch – layers of curly black fur – and told the trader, Take them out of here. My store is infestated.

You mean infested, the trader, a short man with a gimp leg, corrected. Gimme money for the ones you sold.

I haven’t sold any. No one wants to buy skins crawling with fleas. These guys kept pulling all sorts of shenanigans like this, and the storekeeper knew why. A smooth baby face gave him a gullible, boyish look, much younger than his twenty-three years. He had learned how to deal with the traders. Stay on good terms, but be tough. To get the dealer to return with clean hides, Mead reluctantly agreed to take in a few skinny cattle. They would take up space in the stable, until a trader made a rare visit from Junction City. But I want uninfestated skins.

Uninfested.

Just do it!

The trader loaded up the travois behind his horse, and, goading the beast to action, dragged the skins away. Mead started in on a long list of chores. After checking the vat of hooves boiling on the stove, he mixed the pickling brine for the buffalo tongues, all the while killing a dozen fleas between his pinching fingernails. Finally there was time to relax behind the counter with a months-old newspaper, wrinkled and yellowing. He re-read Horace Greeley’s article about his trip through Pipe Creek fifteen miles to the north, the spring before.

The New Yorker got a few facts correct, grumbled Mead. The description of the land was bully good, but the Yankee’s opinions on other topics were another matter. He was gullible to the machinations of the local Indians. And he didn’t even have a taste for the Kansas beef, the best meat in the world.

At least the wildlife impressed the Yankee. Here in the Saline River Valley and north up through the Solomon Valley, the fauna was rich and varied. Otters and beavers crowded the tributaries. Bird life thrived in the grasslands – prairie chicken, wild turkey, and quail. Explorer Zebulon Pike had traveled the area forty years before, and described it as lush with antelope, elk, and deer. The buffalo that wandered through the valleys attracted the predatory bears and packs of wolves, which sometimes awoke Mead in the middle of the night with their howling.

He put down the paper and scratched a flea bite, when through the north window appeared an approaching wagon and team. The wagon’s bed was weighed down with assorted crates. Two horses followed the wagon, tethered to the rear board. Its driver was a heavy, blonde-haired man with a dutchboy haircut, as if a barber had placed a bowl on his head to trim his scalp. Mead got up to greet him.

Greetings, son, the driver called out as he reined in the team and climbed down. Your father home?

Could be. But he’s in Iowa. He, on the other hand, could be of help.

The man smiled. Can you spare some water for my horses? They had been riding hard for the last hour. The store owner motioned for him to take them round to the back.

At the rear of the post, the thirsty horses plunged their mouths into a trough of water. The blonde man caught Mead examining the wagon and team. The initials S. W. were branded on the rump of one of the beasts, and the crates in the wagon’s bed were stenciled with the words, Not to be Sold, and Federal Surplus Commodities Corp’n. The blonde man said, Got some goods here if you’re interested in a little business. Blankets of quality wool. Revolver holsters, waist belts, made of the best leather. Just name your price, and we can strike a deal.

The man seemed a bit too eager to part with the goods. Mead had seen the same smile among traders with whom he had learned to be careful. He was well stocked on goods, but thanked him. He asked, Where you from?

Lindseyville.

Never heard of it.

Between Lindsey Creek and Lindsey Hill.

A whiff of a sickly sweet odor caught Mead’s attention, and he took a closer look between the crates in the wagon’s bed. Flies danced about a dozen round packages the size of large spherical melons, wrapped in burlap. The trader’s affected cheer disappeared. Son, you don’t need to bother with those.

With the horses sated, the man crawled onto the wagon’s perch. Watching him pull at the lines, a thought struck Mead. You don’t know a way to get rid of fleas, do you?

The man paused for a moment. Lemons. Put lemon juice on everything. They’ll go away.

With a salute, the man was gone, heading south to the ford across the Saline River. Mead waved away the lingering odor of the wagon’s contents, and wandered off to check the buffalo hides stretched and staked to the ground for drying in the sun. The trade in buffalo goods kept him alive. Business here on the Saline was good, but it could be better. He pondered the suggestion someone had made about relocating his store to the south. There was an area on the Arkansas River called Wichita where the whites and the Indians – the Osage and Kiowa – liked to trade. He could be the first to open a trading post there.

A little later, the creaking of floorboards in the front of the store stirred Mead from a catnap. At the counter stood a huge, barrel-chested man with a mustache so bushy that it hid his upper lip. The holster around his waist held a revolver, and when the man called out a hello it was with the authority of a military officer or a lawman.

The owner in?

That’s me.

I been looking for someone who made off with a few horses up around Pipe Creek.

Only person that was around here was a yellow-haired guy from a place called Lindseyville. Wherever that is.

The tall man smirked. George Lindsey. He’s named everything where he lives after himself.

Mead knew how to handle himself around authority. Ain’t people funny, he commented. As for horse thieves, maybe he should try out east towards Solomon Town, where horses had gone missing lately.

Out of curiosity Mead was about to mention the spherical packages in Lindsey’s wagon – their stink, Mead’s strange reaction – but then thought better of it. Instead, he asked if the gentleman would care for a smile before he went. A few bottles of nice Kentucky bourbon had recently been procured.

The tall man tipped his hat, shook his head. Much obliged.

Mead walked him out to his horse, and then asked, By the way, you know a solution for getting rid of fleas? My stockroom is infestated.

You mean infested. The man considered the question, and then responded, Apple vinegar. That’s what I’ve heard. It smells bad but it drives them away.

1861

Pipe Creek. Sunday noon dinner.

Eating was for eating, and talking was for talking, so conversation at the dinner table ceased with grace, and resumed as mother and the daughters started clearing the dirty dishes. With the women away from the table, Jacob Humbargar tamped the tobacco into his pipe and looked over the table at son Sol, and son-in-law Sam. The table remained silent.

Jacob was used to the quiet. Days could go by, and his son wouldn’t utter a word. His reticence, along with the blank luster in his eyes convinced people that Sol was a bit touched. Something about the lad’s brain didn’t seem right.

Son-in-law Sam was equally still. Behind a large handlebar moustache, an expression of discomfort sat heavy on his face, as if he’d swallowed a cotter pin. The Humbargars and Wrights had moved out here to Kansas together, and for as long as Jacob had known Sam, the man always came off as sulky. He and daughter Elizabeth lived just around the bend of the creek. Jacob wondered how Elizabeth was able to live with such a curmudgeon. Maybe the man was grouchy from trying to pass that cotter pin.

Please avoid talking politics with Sam, his wife had always urged. You know you don’t see eye to eye about the world.

I’ll bring him around to understand.

Jacob broke the quiet of the table by describing his and Sol’s trip to Junction City the following day to purchase lumber. Sam commented, Junction City has grown crowded. Lots of bad characters. Be careful about going out at night.

Central Kansas was becoming more populated now that the frontier had been granted statehood back in January. The announcement was greeted with fireworks and parades in the big cities. The news reached the lonely trading posts and hamlets in the remote west. The Humbargars, the Miller brothers, and even the reticent son-in-law had celebrated by shooting off rounds with their Kentucky rifles at the treetops. Legislators in the new state capital of Topeka started demarcating the region into counties in order to administer the growing settler population.

Puffing on his pipe, Jacob reclined in his chair, and asked if Sam had been following the papers lately. What would the new state do if there was a war between North and South? What if the violence between free Kansas and proslavery Missouri moved this way? His questions were hypothetical, a means of sizing up his audience. Sam crossed his arms, and stiffened in his chair.

Jacob went on. Tell me, what if bandits attacked us here at Pipe Creek? Would you and Elizabeth pack up and move?

Worked too hard to make a life here. I’d stay and fight.

More what ifs followed. It was possible that marauders could burn down the cabin, run off the livestock. Then what?

Sam bristled. You would expect me to turn tail and run?

The father-in-law continued. What if they put my daughter in danger, and you – .

Sam rose to his feet. It doesn’t matter, because those men aren’t gonna attack us way out here! And with that the son-in-law rose and marched out of the house. Surprised, Jacob stared at the slamming door. The women in the kitchen had stopped their work.

Sol got up and moved toward the door. His father barked, Where you think you’re goin’?

Work . . . wagon . . . He mumbled, departing.

As the sun peeked over the trees, the last of the morning mist melted away. The old man yawned, adjusted his suspenders, and stepped out of the cabin. Sol was already up. A heavy brass Navy bell hung by the front door, and the youth took a playful swipe at it, making it clang loudly.

Stop with that foolery, and help me harness the team, his father commanded. His son-in-law’s abruptness the day before left Jacob in a sour mood. He looked over at Sol who was pulling the reins tight, lost in thought. The old man sighed. It was going to be a long trip.

The military road took them from the rolling landscape of the Solomon Valley into steeper hills, bald and speckled with limestone. To pass the time, Jacob sang a song he had learned from soldiers stationed at Fort Harker.

Cotton-eyed Joe, cotton-eyed Joe,

What did make you serve me so,

For to take my gal away from me . . .

They reached Junction City the next day. Sol hadn’t been to a city in years, and his eyes absorbed the busy streets. The town was a grid of frame buildings, the pedestrians hurrying about with the look of sojourners anxious to continue onward in their journeys. It was a city of transience, a temporary way station for prospective homesteaders and traders.

To kill time while waiting for the lumber to be sawed, father and son visited the land office around the corner to study any available claims along Pipe Creek. A balding, middle-aged surveyor named Mr. Houston listened to Jacob’s inquiry, and then motioned them to a wide oak desk.

We have a new map, he announced with the buoyant look of schoolboy eager for show and tell. He unfurled a new map of the Kansas territory across the desk’s surface, weighing its edges down with ink jars. Mr. Houston was so far-sighted that he had to back away from the desk to get a proper view. Sol and his father leaned forward.

At first they saw only columns of indistinguishable rectangles in the eastern half of the state. Those were the counties. On the left side of the map, the state’s western region was a vast, blank expanse. With his forefinger, Mr. Houston pointed at different rectangles.

In that county is Topeka. This is us in Junction City. And that, the finger tapped a rectangle perched on the western precipice of the emptiness, is your Ottawa County. The county was in the last column, and appeared at risk of toppling into the undefined void.

The surveyor became engrossed with the map, and forgot about the customers awaiting their appointments. I’ve got something else to show you.

He unrolled a new map on top of the other, this one of Ottawa County. Two prominent lines wiggled through the rectangle. With a finger, Jacob traced a squiggle running diagonally across the whole map. If that’s the Solomon River, then our home is right there. The finger tapped the center of the map.

The other squiggle, barely creeping through the bottom left, was the Saline River. Jacob remembered visiting James Mead’s trading outpost down there.

Near you is a brook that a trapper there recently named after himself. Lindsey. Lindsey Creek. And there’s another fellow in the area – do you know someone named Markley?

Jacob shook his head. The surveyor described an Englishman who had visited the office a month before. A bit nervy he was. Perhaps all Englishmen are like that. He wanted to know everything about the area of the Solomon between Lindsey and Pipe Creeks.

Markley. The homesteader made a mental note to question Sam about the man.

After leaving the land office, the father and son sauntered along the wooden promenade on their way back to the saw mill. Sol hesitated at the show window of a jewelry store. Jacob joined him. Arranged on a display bed of black velvet was a silver necklace attached to a charm – a tiny cross over a heart. Jacob taunted, Boy, it wouldn’t look good on you.

Sol kept staring at it. Elizabeth . . . her birthday.

At the mention of the girl’s name, Jacob remembered his daughter’s birthday. Was it tomorrow? Never the matter – that was his wife’s responsibility. The father watched as the young man entered the shop, found a clerk, and pointed at the charm displayed in the window.

In the evening, they sat with the other guests in the parlor of the Junction City guest house, digesting their suppers and puffing on cheroots. The Humbargars’ wagon was parked in the inn’s barn, the bed heavy with freshly-cut lumber for the return trip home in the morning. Jacob gauged the conversation of a couple of prospectors. The talk was of the Colorado gold fields, and how miners were growing rich from the yellow nuggets that washed down out of the mountains. Jacob waited for a pause in the conversation, then cleared his throat. What if – .

Sol rose. Wagon . . . barn. He exited the room. The father waved him away and turned back to the prospectors who took the bait of his hypothetical questions. The prospectors were as verbose as Jacob, and a long discussion ensued. Eventually, Jacob caught sight of the pendulum clock. It was late, and Sol had yet to return.

There was a chill to the night air. Jacob checked the barn but no one was there. He sauntered past the saw mill, and continued a little bit farther, to the part of town that came to life in the evenings. The wild plunking of an out-of-tune piano sounded through the doors of a tavern. The voices of men grew boisterous. A heavy young woman in a colorful dress gave him a wide, inviting smile.

Why was he in this neighborhood? Certainly Sol wouldn’t have strayed in this direction. Spirits and loose women were beyond the young man. Normally, Jacob would have left him on the farm to tend to the daily duties, but Mother was concerned about his reclusive nature. Others commented on it, as well. Mother had murmured, Get Sol away from the farm for a few days. Take him with you.

Jacob agreed that the young man needed to venture out into the world, perhaps be introduced to a woman. By Sol’s age most men were marrying or courting. Sol had shown little interest in any of the girls around Pipe Creek. What harm would there be if he was to sample a different side of life? Maybe he should . . .

The sight of his son kneeling before a wild-eyed man dressed in buckskins stopped Jacob in his tracks. The plainsman was holding court to a half dozen spectators, a Kentucky rifle in one hand, and a Henry breach loader in the other. He announced, "One of these will stop a