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Wellsboro Agitator, April 15, 1884, p1
Life in the Rocky Mountains
Four Years’ Residence of a Tioga County Boy on the Backbone of the
Continent
Gunnison, Colorado, March 17, 1884
On the 21st of April 1880, I footed it across the continental divide, from
Saguache here, a distance of seventy-five miles, before there was a railroad
within a hundred miles of us. It was seventy-five miles to the nearest stage
line, and, like Jordan, the road leading here “was a hard one to travel.” I
reached here after the sun had sunk behind the western hills, but its rays were
still shining on the Elk mountains, the peaks of which were towering up several
thousand feet above us some thirty miles to the north. Gunnison in the spring of
1880 was not much like the place it is today. Forty-tree shanties then comprised
all the houses on the town site; but the place was laid out for the metropolis
of the Pacific slope and it has been steadily growing for the past three years.
We are located fifty miles west of the summit of the backbone of the
continent, 7,750 feet above the level of the sea, at the confluence of the
Gunnison and Tomichi rivers, two of the finest streams on the Pacific slope. The
valley here is form two to three miles wide, and the location of the town is one
of the most natural on the face of the globe. Every stream of water in the
county flows past our doors, and the “city” is centered like the hub of a wagon
wheel. Every road leading to the mining camps of the county is tributary to
Gunnison, and all the coal, iron, gold, silver, lead, copper, zinc, etc., can be
brought here on a down grade. We are only an hour’s ride by rail from the finest
anthracite and bituminous coal fields in the world, and two hours’ ride from the
finest body of iron ore in America.
When I first saw Gunnison there was not a brick or stone building in town.
Log shanties comprised the larger number of the buildings, for native lumber
then readily commanded from $50 to $70 per thousand, and was hard to get at
that. Now the same can be bought for $16 to $20. Brick and stone are now largely
used here for building, and there is an inexhaustible supple at our doors. There
are half a dozen stone quarries adjoining the town site, and there are four or
five brickyards within fifteen to twenty minutes’ walk from the center of the
town. There are half a dozen varieties of building stone of different shades
here – from pure white to brown and variegated. We also have first-class fire
clay within two miles of town. We are a little over four years old, and boast a
population of 5,000. We have the Denver & Rio Grande and the Denver & South Park
railroads, the former extending westward to Salt Lake City. Both roads have
branches running from here north, the former to Crested Butte and the latter to
Baldwin, making Gunnison quite a railway center. To get to this place the Rio
Grande reaches an altitude of over 10,600 feet on Marshall Pass. The South Park
line comes over Alpine Pass, going through a tunnel over 1,800 feet long at the
summit, 11,000 feet above tide. The Denver & Rio Grande reached here August 6,
1881 and the Denver & South Park September 1, 1882. Both are narrow gauge roads,
but the day is not far distant when we shall have a third line leading here from
the East, and it will be of standard gauge.
It will doubtless surprise some of Tioga county’s citizens to know that in
our four-year-old city we have a hotel, soon to be opened that has cost
$200,000. The city is lighted with gas, which, together with the system of
water-works, has cost over $250,000. We have two National Banks, two daily
newspapers and one weekly, two opera houses, four brick school houses, six
churches and another to be erected this year, two breweries and a third one soon
to be built, three fire companies, the telephone system, three steam
planing-mills, a foundry and machine works, and during the coming summer we
expect our street railway to be built. We have a flourishing Lodge and Chapter
of Masons and a Commandery of Knights Templar, a Lodge and Encampment of Odd
Fellows, a Post of the G.A.R., and a Society of the Woman’s Christian Temperance
Union. We have two smelters, and a third one will be built this year with quite
a number of other enterprises. One of the most important projects for Gunnison
is a blast furnace, the foundation for a portion of which is already laid.
Whether the plant will be pushed forward this year is a conundrum; but for the
fact that the originators of the enterprise are buying coal and iron mines, it
looks as if they mean business some time. They have already spent over $600,000
in Gunnison county.
This has been the most severe winter I have spent in the Gunnison country.
We have had three months of the finest sleighing I ever saw. The mercury has
been down as low as forty degrees below zero several times; but it will surprise
many of my old Tioga county friends to learn that with the exception of an
overcoat when out on the streets I have worn the same clothing I war in the
summer. Our dry, rarified air here enables us to stand forty degrees below zero
easier than zero in Tioga county. We have has at least fifteen feet of snowfall
in Gunnison this winter, and at this time “the beautiful snow” covers the ground
to the depth of from two to three feet. A few days of warm, pleasant weather,
however, will effectually use up the sleighing, which is just now as fine as I
ever saw in the East. The worst storm of the season occurred early last week.
The snow came a foot deep, accompanied with a stinging wind from the west, so
that at times we could hardly distinguish objects across the street. The
railways leading to the coal mines became blocked, and several avalanches have
occurred, one at Woodstock, near the Alpine tunnel, which carried down in an
instant seventeen persons, killing all but two. We expect at any time to hear of
additional avalanches. The immense snowfall will work great disasters to life
and property. At Crested Butte the snow is eight feet deep on the level, to Ruby
Camp from ten to fifteen feet deep, and at Elko from twenty-five to forty feet
deep.
This is a great resort for sportsmen, the country abounding in bears,
mountain lions, panthers, elk, deer, mountain sheep, rabbits, grouse, sage-hens,
etc. The streams are full of trout and tons of them are caught every summer.
They command in our market, dressed, 25 to 40 cents a pound, and some of them
weigh two and a half to four pounds. One good feature is that there are no fish
in our streams beside the trout.
I hardly know what to say to you about the mines and mining prospects of
Gunnison county. O course very little has been done here so far in the way of
developing the mineral resources of the various camps, but we all think this is
destined to be one of the richest and best mining regions in the State. Our
mineral is not of a high grade, and it requires expensive machinery to develop
the various prospects. When smelters are in successful operation and the mines
have a market for their output, more work will be done in the way of developing
the various mining properties. The Red Mountain region, in the southwest part of
the State will draw a heavy immigration this spring as it promises to be one of
the finest mining camps in Colorado.
From Gunnison we have a grand view of the surrounding country for a long
distance. The summit of the continental divide is plainly visible fifty miles to
the east. Uncompahgre Peak, sixty-five miles southwest of here, which towers up
nearly 14,500 feet above tide, lies in plain sight. On the north, thirty miles
away, if the Elk Mountain range, and south fifteen miles is Sawtooth. The views
on all sides are unsurpassed.
----Frank A. Root
Wellsboro Agitator, April 15, 1884, p1
Winter Scenes in Colorado
Tremendous Falls of Snow, and the Work of the Avalanches
Aspen, Colorado, March 11, 1884
Since my last letter but little has transpired to break the monotony of camp
life until quite recently. On the 12-day of last month two men were killed in
Queen’s Gulch, near Aspen, by snow slides. Both bodies were shipped East, one to
Kansas, the other to Pennsylvania. The snow has been falling nearly every day
for several weeks, and the snowplow is being run nearly all the time in town to
keep the streets open. Shoveling snow is the order of the day. Where the walks
were two or three feet above the roadbed, they are now as much below. On the
mountain the snow lies ten feet deep, and still men are at work as though
nothing was to hinder.
Last Sunday we had a light snowstorm the most of the day. About five o’clock
in the afternoon it began to snow in earnest, and at eight in the evening the
wind began to blow and kept up the racket all night. If Dakota can beat it, I
don’t want to be there. On Monday the storm raged with unabated fury until about
three o’clock in the afternoon. Then there was a lull for a short space of time,
when it seemed that the fury of the storm was redoubled, and at five o’clock an
event occurred that horrified every inhabitant of the town, four men being
hurled into eternity without a moment’s warning.
There were eighteen men – nine in the shaft-house and nine in the shaft of
the Vallece mine situated on Aspen mountain and near the Spar and Washington
mines, within full view from town. At the time mentioned the storm was raging
and roaring fearfully, and without any warning a snow slide struck the
shaft-house, crushing the house and leaving fifteen feet of snow on top of it.
Two miners at work nearby, seeing what was done, came to town and gave the
alarm, and a hundred men armed with shovels were soon on the trail. When they
arrived where the men were buried beneath almost a mountain of snow, no sound
could be heard but the roaring of the tempest still raging. The men worked as
men will work on such occasions, and after three hours of hard labor they came
to the men who were in the house. All were fast in the timbers. They took five
out alive, two or three quite seriously hurt but not dangerously. The other four
were dead. Two will be buried here and the other two will be sent East.
The miners who were in the shaft came up not hurt but badly frightened.
Among those in the shaft was a Mr. Barker of New York City, who was looking the
mine over with a view of purchasing it. He had only landed here a night or two
before. In company with him was B.B. Gillespie, of the Spar mine. As but one
could be lowered at a time, Mr. Gillespie had not gone down, but escaped with
slight bruises.
March 14 – The funeral service of the two unfortunates, Maginity and
Marshall, took place yesterday at 2 p.m. Rev. Mr. Purdue delivered the
discourse. A more solemn scene was never witnessed in Aspen. Fully six hundred
persons were in attendance, and every business place in town was closed.
At five p.m. a messenger arrived with the sad news that five or more men
were buried in a snow slide in what is called Conundrum Gulch about eight miles
from here, and had been buried since Monday night. No sooner was the news
received than about fifty men were in readiness to start for the mournful scene,
traveling on snowshoes, as the location cannot be reached in any other way. So
far as we know the names of the unfortunates were, S.E. Steele, J.P. Steele,
J.F. Tate, Geo. Marsh and a Mr. Thorn. Whether there are any more we do not
know, as there is no one left to tell the tale. Where the cabins stood the snow
is now twenty feet deep. The slide was about two miles long, and swept
everything in its course. The miners were on the opposite side of the Gulch from
the slide, but it came with such force and was so deep that is reached far up
the mountain across the valley.
Our mail has just arrived from the East it being the first we have had in a
week. It has been impossible for even a man to cross the divide until today. The
snow is anywhere from ten feet up. Twenty miles below on the Roaring Fork river
west the mail that leaves here on four to six feet of snow, is compelled to
change from sleigh to wagon for the Hot Springs on the Grand river.
In my next I will tell you something about the prosperity of our camp.
---[Author unknown]
Wellsboro Agitator, 4 March 1884, p1
Politics and Business in Kansas
Congressional Election – The Next State Campaign – Success on Prohibition – Kansas Crops – Female Office Holders – The GAR – Atchison’s Nickname
Atchison, Kansas, February 15, 1884
You an always count on the weather for an item. The coldest day of which we have any record here was in January of this year, when the thermometer fell from 25° to 30° below zero. Before and since that time our Kansas winter weather reminded me of the northern Pennsylvania winters of nearly twenty years ago. Considerable snow has fallen but there has been no rain since last fall. Pedestrians and teams have been crossing the Missouri river uninterruptedly for two months on the ice bridge with no prospects of a let up before early in March. As I write the snow is falling heavily.
Kansas politics has been transferred to the Second Congressional district were an election to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Congressman Haskell will occur on the first day of March. The liveliest interest is felt throughout the State by both parties as the district is closely divided. The Republicans are fighting the combined opposition of the Democrats and Greenbacks who nominated Sam Riggs, who has been in every party --------- and in no one long enough to claim a membership. The Republicans nominated E.H. Funston, who has been a prominent figure in Kansas affairs for many years. He is by vocation a farmer and has served in both the House and Senate of the State. He will be elected by a good round majority.
There is not much being said about State affairs at present. Prominent politicians say the Democrats will re-nominate Governor Glick, the present incumbent. He was elected on a sort of anti-prohibition tidal wave. He will be defeated in the race this year. He was elected by the Republicans on probation they said. He has served his time and he must go. No more Democratic Governors for Republican Kansas.
Col. John A. Martin, Secretary of the National Republican Committee will in all probability be the nominee of his party for Governor. He is one of the most prominent men in Kansas and will poll his own party and many Democratic votes.
United States Senator John J. Ingalls will be a candidate for re-election. The Legislature will next winter choose his successor. At present he has no formable opposition.
Prohibition has now been in force in Kansas nearly three years. The law adopted and now a part of the constitution reads –
“The manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors shall be forever prohibited in this State except for medical scientific or mechanical purposes.”
This great reform is daily growing more complete and probably within a few weeks every liquor saloon in the State will have closed its doors. There is scarcely a town outside of Leavenworth, Atchison and Wyandotte that is not enforcing the law. The saloons must go. Here in Atchison a border town, where there are sixty or more of these dens the law-abiding people have given them sixty day to close up. It at the end of that time they are still open the temperance men will commence prosecutions in a lively manner and keep them up till every saloon is closed. The temperance people of Atchison will not weaken a particle in the fight they have inaugurated to see that the law is enforced here as well as elsewhere. There is not an open saloon in Fort Scott, Lawrence, Topeka or Wichita, heretofore, whisky strong holds. During one term of court in Potawatome county Judge Martin fined saloonkeepers an aggregate of $7,500 besides closing them. In Marshall, Washington, Brown, Nemaha and many other heretofore anti-prohibition counties the same can be said. Prohibition will prohibit throughout the State of Kansas inside of six months.
As Kansas is a subject ------------ and discussed by many of the reader of the Agitator especially by those who have seen the elephant and others who have friends here a few figures in relation to last years crops may interest them. It produced last year in round numbers 182,100,000 bushels of corn, 80,100,000 bushels of wheat, 34,000,000 bushels of oats, 5,100,00 bushels of rye, 7,000,000 bushels of potatoes, 1,160,000 bushels of flax, 6,000,000 tons of hay, 780,000 pounds of tobacco, 136,000 bushels of castor beans, 100,000 pounds of cotton, 32,000,000 pounds of broom corn, 1,154,196 head of sheep and 1,393,968 hogs. There are many other interesting figures in the report of the State Board of agriculture. Kansas is not only one of the most beautiful and fertile regions on the map of the world but it is today the most prosperous State in the Union. The population of the State is 1,017,140. And this year, with prohibition we expect an immigration unparalleled in the history of the State. It used to be “droughty Kansas,” then again “grasshopper Kansas,” but now it is prosperous Kansas.
The Agitator comes out in favor of the women for offices on the School Board. This is as it should be. Long ago, Kansas allowed the women the privilege of voting on school matters, and it is a fact that there are now several of them holding the office of School Superintendent in some of the counties of the State. They make efficient officials and are well qualified for the position. One county has gone so far as to elect a lady for County Clerk. In the Democratic State Convention two years ago they put upon the ticket a lady for the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The recent meeting of the Grand Army of the Republic encampment at Topeka was largely attended, there being nearly six hundred delegated present, representing every county in the State. While Kansas has only seventeen regiments in the field, there are nearly 57,000 ex-soldiers residing in the State. In many counties settled since the war a majority of the adult males are ex-soldiers of the Union Army. The growth of the Grand Army in this State is phenomenal. There are 301 Posts with a membership of over 20,000. It is confidently predicted that before the close of the present year the membership will have more than doubled.
Present prospects point to a larger mileage of railroads to be built in Kansas this year then for a long time. If all of those projected are built the railroads of the State will foot up 5,000 miles. Is there a State as young as Kansas that can beat it? The old established Kansas custom of asking for bonds has not year died out. Some counties have almost crippled themselves by voting bonds. It is township bonds now whereas it used to be county bonds.
In the distribution of ---- offices both National and State, Atchison is certainly entitled to some distinction abroad. Colonel John A. Martin Secretary of the National Republican Committee has resided here for upwards of twenty-five years. Then there is United States Senator John J. Ingalls, United States District Judge C.G. Foster, United State Mail Inspector Major J.M. Crowell, Governor George W. Glick, Judge of the State Supreme Court A.H. Horton, and Superintendent of Insurance Richard Morris. These gentlemen are all Atchison citizens. If there is another city in the United State of 20,000 people that can make so good showing let the fact be published. In fact, the city has come to be the recognized political as well as business center of Kansas, but many of the papers of the State refer to Atchison as – “Hogtown.”
-----H.C.R.
Wellsboro Agitator, 21 October 1884, p2
Politics and Crops in Kansas
The Political Situation in That State – A Large Republican Majority Assured – What They Think of Missouri – A Fruitful Year for the Farmer – Personal
Correspondence of the Agitator
Atchison, Kansas, October 15, 1884
All interest throughout Kansas now centers on politics, and most noticeably on our own State election. A more thorough canvass is being made by the two great political parties than has ever been known before. Two years ago Kansas by accident elected a Democratic Governor, beating St. John for a third term. The issue this year is between the present Governor Glick, who favors a re-submission of the present temperance question back to the people for acceptance or rejection, while the nominee of the Republicans, Col. John A. Martin, is for law and order, as well as for the enforcement of all laws on the statute books. And this is the situation at the present time. On the 4th day of November, my prediction is that Col. Martin’s majority will be all the way from 25,000 to 40,000. It is possible Gov. Glick may be re-elected on the issue he is running on, but hardly probable. Blaine and Logan will carry the State by from 60,000 to 75,000, while St. John will perhaps receive some 2,000 or 2,500 votes. The present member of Congress were all renominated, and they will all be elected.
It begins to look as though United State Senator, John J. Ingalls will succeed himself for re-election by a unanimous vote of the Republicans. Every Senatorial and Representative district has indorsed him, and instructed their nominees to vote for him. This insures his re-election without a struggle, as has heretofore been the custom in Kansas, with one exception, and that was two years ago in the re-election of Col. P.B. Plumb to the United States Senate.
Over in Missouri, just across the river from where I write, the liveliest canvass that has ever been known in that State since the war is now going on. In Kansas, the Republicans believe that Ford, Republican, will beat Marmaduke, Democrat, by a large majority. The fight is bitter, and there is scarcely a doubt of the election of Mr. Ford.
In my nineteen years’ residence in Kansas, I have never known the State to be so prosperous. The crops are enormous, especially of wheat and corn, and when the “reports are all in,” readers of the Agitator will notice that Kansas is the banner State of the Union in the yield of these two crops. From the remotest corners of the State, the cheering words are “peace, plenty and prosperity.” Thousands of dollars were expended during the year by our farmers for agricultural machinery, and it is a common sight for two hundred miles west of the Missouri river to see a dozen steam threshers working at one time. Such a sight is worth beholding. Fields of one hundred acres up to three hundred acres of corn owned by single individuals are as common as the ten-acre fields among the hills of “old Tioga.” During the past two weeks I have seen several one-hundred-acre cornfields that will average eighty bushels of corn per acre. Another fact: In Osborne and many other counties the yield of wheat was so great that it was utterly impossible to harvest all of it, because of the scarcity of men and teams.
The trains now coming into Kansas are crowded with people, more so than for the past half dozen years. Every train running west and southwest through the State is loaded down with land-seekers. On many roads is extra trains are run for the accommodation of travel. During the past two years Kansas has gained a quarter of a million people. The admirers of Governor Glick attribute this fact to the State having a Democratic Governor, while others are of the opinion that it is because of our Prohibition law. But be that as it may, the Governor is the only State officer who is a Democrat, and the saloons are open wide in many of the cities and towns of the State. My opinion of it is this: Kansas is one of the richest and grandest States in the Union for agriculture, if not the very richest and fairest the sun ever shone upon.
During the present week two heavy frosts have visited us, the first of the season. Everything is out of the way of them, and farmers want to see them regularly for some time. Abundance of them has ----, more this summer than for many years. In fact, I have never known it to be so wet. I see by the Agitator and other eastern journals that it has been very dry for some time throughout a great portion of the East, and much damage has resulted in ----------------.
The State and county fairs for the year are over. Everyone looking for their coming, and I presume everybody else if like me, glad when they are over. They are looked upon as an annual holiday, and well they may be. I have never seen so successful fairs we all have had this year. The displays made by the farmers and stock raisers of the State far surpassed all previous efforts. To see what Kansas can raise and is going one must attend a season of our fairs. Here every variety of grains, vegetables and fruits are shown in profusion, each raiser striving for a “blue ribbon” or “diploma” or a mere cash premium, only so he is awarded first premium, I presume, Mr. Editor, your Tioga county farmers do them the same way.
I have lost sight of most of the Tioga boys in Kansas. They are living in nearly every county. Some years ago nearly every issue of the Agitator contained a “personal” of some one just returning to old Tioga. The scene has now changed. Those who stayed and “roughed it” are doing well and don’t want to go back. Chas. S. VanHorn, who came to Kansas from Wellsboro upwards of a dozen years ago, and finally drifted into Colorado, where he worked some three years, has returned as far as Missouri, and in a letter to your correspondent says, he will return to Kansas in a short time. And so it goes. After living in this State for several years it is almost impossible to leave it. I have known of hundreds who have returned.
----H.C.R.
Wellsboro Agitator, 13 October 1885, p2
Prosperity in Kansas
Remarkable Crops there this Year – A Great Gathering of the Veterans –
Facts About the Temperance Law – Railway Progress – A Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home –
A Kansas City Over the Line – Tioga County People
Atchison, Kansas, October 8, 1885
The present year will go into history as one of the most remarkable for
Kansas ever known. The spring months were noted for an unusual rainfall, which
lasted nearly through the month of June, requiring many of the farmers in the
eastern part of the State to replant their corn two or three times. The months
of July, August and September, with occasional rains, were the best growing
months our farmers ever experienced, and the result will be, when the figures
are added up, that Kansas will be the banner corn producing State of the Union
in the year 1885. Jewell, one of the northern tier counties and a county that is
not yet fifteen years old with a population of over 20,000, has 130,000 acres
planted in corn, which estimated at forty bushels per acre – and this is a low
estimate – will yield over 5,000,000 bushels. There are dozens of counties in
the State that will yield this year in corn from 3,000,000 to 7,000,000 bushels.
But it was the remarkable year I started out to tell your readers about, and
they will pardon me for drifting away from the subject.
It used to be droughty Kansas; then it was known as grasshopper eaten
Kansas; again it was referred to as the Sunflower State; then again some one
wrote to some Eastern journal that cyclones were daily devastating towns and
killing off the people by the hundreds; and this year it is known as the
Prolific State. There have been no disastrous windstorms or cyclones in Kansas
this year. We have got rid of them, as we have of the drought and grasshopper
visitations. The sunflower will stick to Kansas for many years to come and we
will ever be thankful and boastful if we don’t have any more drawbacks than the
gay and festive sunflower. I have seen them on the high and broad prairie
without a house or barn in sight. At other times I have seen them choking out a
field of corn. I have seen them used for poling beans; I have seen the stalks
used for firewood, yes, and I have seen them given to hogs, and they will fatten
upon the seed. But what of that, if they do choke out a field of corn for some
lazy farmer? I have seen the ladies and gentlemen wear them to society parties,
and wherever you find a Kansan he will tell you that he is proud of the
Sunflower State, proud that he lives in a State where they are utilized, and
proud that they will grow where everything else fails.
Here are some more facts and figures for your old Tioga farmers: We have
lead in the southeast corner of the State; we have coal in many sections, and
the supply is equal to the wants of our people; we have salt and gypsum in
abundance. But the wealth of Kansas lies in our harvest fields. Our prosperity
is based primarily on the plow. Kansas embraces over 52,000,000 acres of land.
Fully 56,000,000 acres of this vast area of county is capable of producing
luxuriant crops. Only a little over 13,000,000 acres – less than one fourth of
the entire area – is now under cultivation, and the land classed as under
cultivation includes nearly 5,000,000 acres of prairie grass. Practically,
therefore, only about 7,000,000 acres of Kansas soil has been touched by the
plow. Yet the products this year will aggregate fully ten million bushels of
wheat, two hundred million bushels of corn, six million bushels of rye, three
million bushels of oats and seven million bushels of Irish potatoes - making two
hundred and twenty-six million bushels of these five crops
In an address delivered at the Smith County Fair by Governor John A. Martin,
a former Pennsylvanian, who moved to Kansas some thirty years ago, he says: -
“We have planted nearly twenty-two million fruit trees, and have over one
hundred and thirty thousand acres of --------- forest trees. The assessed
valuation of the property of the State for the year 1885 aggregates
$248,820,262, an increase over last year of $11,806,505. The real estate
aggregates in value $123,000,000, an increase of nearly six million over the
valuation of last year. The railroad property of the State is valued at
$30,367,820, in increase of $1,901,912, and we have 4,180 miles of completed
railway within our borders. This is all the growth of thirty years I could
perhaps more accurately say of twenty years, for Kansas hardly began to grow
until the spring of 1865 when the home returning soldiers and the railroads came
together. The development of Kansas during these two decades challenges
comparison with that of any country in the world. An irresistible impulse seems
to have brought hither the best blood and brain of all the nations of the world.
Our schools, colleges, universities and churches rival those of the oldest
countries, and railways, traversing nearly every organized county, bring a
market to every farmer’s granary.”
The State reunion of old soldiers just closed brought together the largest
crowd of people ever assembled in the State. It was held at Topeka, the capital,
and was the most successful of any yet held. From 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers were
present, besides the several companies of the State National Guards and enough
people from different portions of the State to swell the crowd to 100,000. Many
of the boys who attended the Portland Grand Army encampment ------------
surpassing that in every point except the grand review. No wonder Kansas can get
up a successful soldiers’ reunion, for it must be borne in mind that every
organized county in the State has a soldier population of from 500 to 2,000. I
met some of the Tioga boys here, - James English, J.G. Seeley and Albert
Russell, - and I heard of many more but the crowd was so dense that to find them
would have been like hunting for a needle in a straw stack. The meeting lasted
three days, there being 2,000 tents pitched. There were several batteries of
artillery, the State Guards all bringing their guns; and it was a continuous
round of enjoyment from the time it opened until the close.
The temperance law is not yet a success as far as Kansas is concerned. In
all the larger towns and cities of the State it is being openly violated by the
open saloon traffic. The law as passed by the Legislature last winter is a dead
one in the cities and openly violated in most of the towns of the State. As the
law now stands, drugstores take the place of the saloons, and many of them are
worse than the saloons, for usually the country drugstores keep the vilest kind
of whisky. It the law is lived up to, the buyer of the liquor is compelled to
sign an application for any amount of liquor he desires for medicinal,
mechanical or scientific purposes, and the law says this cannot be drank on the
premises where it was purchased, nor given away. I do not know of a town in the
State where this law is not violated to a greater of less extent. It is by no
means as good a law as the old one. There are more open saloons in Atchison
today than I ever knew under the license and local option law. In the country
towns where the druggists make any pretense of enforcing the law beer is sold
for 35 cents a bottle, and $1 a pint is asked for a poor article of whisky. The
applications are filed, or supposed to be filed every month with the Probate
Judge, for which he gets a fee of five cents on every one – a gold mine for the
Probate Judge, providing that all the applications are returned. But there isn’t
one druggist in a hundred who will file all the applications, the rest are
destroyed. To evade the law many saloonkeepers in the interior of the State
started drug stores. It is expected that the special session of the Legislature
next winter will change this law or repeal it altogether. There is a growing
conviction that the question should again be submitted to the people. High
license and local option in Kansas seem to many of our people the bast ways to
get out of this vexed question. The latter is the law of Nebraska, and it is
said to be working with good effect.
The lease by the Gould interests of the Central Branch of the Union Pacific
Railroad system, running west of Atchison for 300 miles, for a period of
twenty-five years means the rapid extension of this road to Denver, thus giving
Missouri river points four trunk lines to the Rocky Mountains. Railroad building
in Kansas next year promises to be livelier than ever before. There is great
rejoicing in our city, as well as all along the line, over the prospects of the
Denver connection. Then the Atchison line will be the shortest route from the
Missouri river to the mountains by from 75 to 100 miles, and will doubtless be
largely patronized by Eastern tourists. The Central Branch road as far as
completed passes through the Republican and Solomon river valleys, in point of
agriculture the garden spots of Kansas.
There is no general election in Kansas this year. Next year a full State
ticket and members of the Senate and lower house of the Legislature will be
chosen. We have a few “cranks” in the State, in a large majority of cases former
Republicans but now blatant demagogues, who are in favor of putting a third
ticket in the field and labeling it the temperance ticket. This will not win, I
think. Of course the Democrats are urging this. Elections for county officers
will be held throughout the State this fall, but they will have no bearing on
the State election next year. Efforts will be made to elect the next Legislature
“for” or “against” the submission of the temperance law, and in many districts
it is quite probable politics will be lost sight of.
Atchison is greatly elated over the location of the Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home
at this place, for which, as a starter, the Legislature appropriated $10,000.
The Home will be located a mile from the town and will command a beautiful view
of the surrounding country, as well as far up and down the valley of the
Missouri. Work will begin on the foundation immediately. United States Senator
Ingalls promises to work for a Government appropriation. There is no doubt that
the day is not far distant when the Government will keep up all such
institutions. This is the first public building Atchison has ever secured,
although we have had a United States Senator ever since the State was admitted,
a Governor for several years, a Chief Justice, United States Post Office
Inspector and several other high officials.
As I write the weather is as pleasant as one could wish, although I read in
the last issue of the Agitator of a young snowstorm back in “old Tioga.” Our
first frost, last nigh, was alight one, and as all vegetation is out of the way,
it was timely in helping to ripen and dry up the corn. The leaves have commenced
falling, reminding one of the approach of winter. I have not seen a more
beautiful fall during my twenty years in Kansas. The Missouri river is unusually
low at this season. The crop of Missouri pawpaws is just beginning to ripen and
they are arriving in market. I would like to send you one, Mr. Editor. They look
and smell deliciously, but I think one would last you a year. An original
Missourian is very fond of them.
The Agitator correspondent in company with several carloads of other
Atchison people attended the Kansas City Fair. Here is a city just over the
line, in Missouri, boasting of a population of over 100,000, and wholly built up
by Kansas people. It is only fifty miles from Atchison. It is growing rapidly,
and is already the second center of the hog and cattle industry of the United
States. I remember well when, in 1865, I could purchase building --- in what is
now the center of business for a few hundred dollars, where now the same ground
is held at thousands of dollars. Kansas City is the Chicago of the great and
growing West. It certainly ought to be a portion of Kansas, and doubtless will
be someday.
Here, too, are several of the “Old Tioga” boys. I met my old friend Captain
Lewis Bodine, whom I had not seen for several years. He is looking hale and
hearty and making money. I remember him when we were “boys” together in
Wellsboro, although he was several years older than I was. I remember him again
as his company passed us in the Chickahominy swamps, when he turned to me,
surprised that I was there. I think in May 1864, and I not sixteen years old,
and I remember him again as I have seen him several times since his location in
the West, always the same generous, jovial and kind hearted man. He has a good
home and excellent wife and bright and happy children. I also talked awhile with
my friend Thomas Edwards and his wife through the telephone, at their home
nearly two miles from his office. Mr. Edwards is one of the most promising young
men of the city.
At the Fair held in Doniphan county two weeks ago I met my old Tioga county
friend Henry Steele, now in his eightieth year. He is lively yet, and gets
around almost as well as those of forty. He can yet do a good day’s work,
converses rapidly and with ease, but is quite gray, and old age is telling on
him fast. He will be remembered by many of the older residents of Wellsboro and
of Tioga county, where he resided many years. He says he would like again to
visit that section and hunt over the old hills of Tioga county for bear and
deer, a pleasure doubtless that every Tioga county boy in the West would again
like to indulge in.
----H.C.R.
Wellsboro Agitator, January 19, 1886, p2
Affairs in Kansas
Winter Weather – Extra Session of the Legislature – Celebrating the Admission of the State – Growth of Cities and Towns – Hog Cholera Enforcing the Prohibitory Law – A Good Place for Hunters – Protected Railroads
Atchison, January 11, 1886
In my last letter to the Agitator I stated that we were enjoying the finest fall I ever saw in Kansas. It was in the midst of the agricultural fair season and Nature never smiled upon more bounteous crops than were harvested last year. What changes the weather can bring about in three months time. Commencing on the 7th of this month and continuing three days the thermometer ranged from 10 to 20 below zero, and the snow fall in the western part of the State as well as throughout Iowa and Nebraska was unprecedented. All of the east and west railroads are blocked by the drifts being from ten to twenty feet high and on many of them no trains have arrived or departed for more than a week. Old Profs gave us timely warning of the approaching blizzard and our people prepared for it. The storm was disastrous to stock upon the plains and several carloads of hogs were frozen while in transit to market. Dispatches this morning indicate that the same storm was general extending to the Atlantic coast and away into Florida. The Missouri river is again frozen over, it being the second time this winter an event that has not occurred before in twenty years. Hundreds of men and teams are now engaged in gathering ice.
The 4th day of December last will long be remembered by Kansas people. Prof. Snow of the Lawrence University who keeps a record of such matters says the wind blew at the rate 86 ½ miles an hour keeping it up at the rate of 70 miles an hour from 10:30 in the morning until 5:30 in the afternoon and making an average of over 50 miles an hour for twenty-four hours. This beats any previous record for eighteen years yet no particular damage was done except in turning over outhouses and blowing away hay and straw stacks. It was certainly one of the most windy and disagreeable days that I have ever seen in Kansas.
The Kansas Legislature meets in special session on the 19th of this month. About all that will come before it is the apportionment bill for dividing the State in to Senatorial and Representative districts there having been four new counties since the last session. Probably some change will be made in the prohibitory law in so far as it regards Probate Judges and Druggists. As the law now stands the office of Probate Judge is the most remunerative of any in the gift of the people of the State which was not intended by the legislators when they created it. The Governor of Kansas receives a salary of $3,000 a year and out of this he furnishes his own house. The pay of the Senators and Representatives is $3 a day. The extra session will probably last some thirty days.
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An interesting event to Kansas will be the celebration on the 29th instant
of the admission of Kansas into the Union as a Sovereign State twenty-five years
ago. The grand celebration will be held at Topeka the capital of the State under
the auspices of the State Historical Society. Many of the pioneers who took part
in the stormy scenes which preceded the admission will take part in the
exercises. Governor John A. Martin who was Secretary of the Constitutional
Convention which formed the constitution under which Kansas was admitted and
still remains is expected to deliver an address on the progress of Kansas since
1861.
The day will be observed by appropriate exercises in many of the public schools of the State. In fact the 29th of January has long been known by Kansas school children as Kansas day and its return has been marked by songs, declamations and other observances recalling the past of the Sunflower State. Pennsylvania should fell an interest in the history of Kansas as of the Territorial Governors Reeder, Geary and Walker were Pennsylvanians and the present Governor Colonel John A. Martin is a native of Brownsville in your State. |
A serious blow to Kansas farmers has been the loss of hogs. For nearly a year what has been termed cholera among hogs has been spreading until the whole State has become affected. Thousands of farmers have each lost from 100 to 200 head in a few days, and the loss in many populous counties would foot up $100,000 to each county. Nothing as yet has been found to check it and it only leaves a community when all the hogs have died off. I see by Eastern journals that it is spreading throughout the Eastern States. It has come to be a serious matter with many of our farmers, as most of them were getting out of debt, and last year the largest corn crop ever raised in the State was harvested.
The prohibitory law is beginning to be pretty generally enforced in Kansas, so far as the open saloon is concerned. Here in Atchison, a city that has openly defied the law, there is not a saloon running every one of the half a hundred and more closing up on the first day of the year. Atchison is now saloonless for the first time in the history of the city. Only one town is yet holding out, and that is Leavenworth and by the first of February if not before it is asserted that she will be on the side of the law. There are more Prohibitionists in Kansas today than ever before and they are gaining fast. The law has come to stay. The law as it now stands puts the whisky business in the hands of legitimate druggists and upon signing an application specifying what it is to be used for the purchaser can obtain the liquor. Every month these applications have to be filed with the Probate Judge who construes the law that the druggists must pay him a fee of five cents for every application filed. The law was never intended to operate in that way and our druggists insist that the law means five cents for the whole batch hence the Probate Judge has revoked the license of nearly all our druggists. The Legislature will this winter make the law plainer and the Probate Judges will be permitted to exact a fee for the monthly batch of applications instead of five cents for each one.
Game in the shape of quails and prairie chickens is more numerous in Kansas this season than has been known for many years. Barrels of them are shipped to Eastern markets. The State is overrun with rabbits and many counties are offering a bounty of five cents for every pair of ears. This will bankrupt any Kansas county if permitted to run very long. Your correspondent know where an appropriation of $500 for rabbit ears was exhausted in nearly a month and they appeared to be as thick as ever.
It looks as though Kansas will have several hundred miles of new railroad this year. The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific line already running into Atchison one of their Missouri river terminal points will build southwest of Atchison some 200 miles. The Burlington and Missouri River road which already controls most of the State of Nebraska has already three different lines into Kansas and it is certain that at least two of them will be extended west and southwest. The Missouri Pacific road which now operates several thousand miles of rails in Kansas, Missouri, Texas and the Indian Territory having recently leased the Central branch of the Union Pacific system for a term of twenty-five years now running west of Atchison 300 miles will certainly push on to the Rocky Mountains. More railroads were incorporated in Kansas last year than for the past dozen years combined. If they are all built the State will soon be one complete network of railroads. The most of them however will die a burning.
----H.C.R.
| Wellsboro Agitator, 15 February 1901
Our Kansas Letter Former Wellsboro Boy writes much of Interest to Tioga County People Topeka Pension Agency Pays Off the Allowances in Three States and Three Territories – Millions of Dollars Paid Out Annually – Mrs. Carrie Nation, the Saloon Wrecker Correspondence of the Gazette
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As I write I am reminded of an old fashioned Tioga county sap snow, as it lies on the ground to the depth of about eight inches and still falling. I haven’t kept track of your big snows since leaving Wellsboro, in October, 1865, a little over a month after the 187th Pennsylvania regiment was mustered out of service, hence the last thirty-five winters I have enjoyed in Kansas. In all this time I have lived in Atchison, Beloit, the last change coming to Topeka, the capitol of the State, and taking up my residence at 1106 Tyler street, where I should be addressed to receive prompt attention. On the same street is the home of my friend, M.D. Bailey, a former Mansfield boy, and who now holds down a desk in the Topeka pension office.
Otis L. Atherton, ex-treasurer of Kansas, and a former Wellsboro boy, is here frequently, being an ardent supporter of the project to hold a semi-centennial exposition in Topeka in 1904, of which he is one of the vice-presidents. My friend Atherton is still a politician, and under the new order of political events since the election of J.R. Burton U.S. Senator he is mentioned for a land office position and pension agent.
W.C. Edwards, another former Wellsboro and Tioga county boy, who served Kansas honorably as Secretary of State, was a Topeka visitor most of last week. He is financially interested in 1,100 acres of land in Jefferson county, Texas, said to be rich in oil, and equal to any yet discovered in Pennsylvania.
In the next ten or twelve days, commencing February 4th, the old soldiers will be made happy by receiving their quarterly allowance from the government. The Topeka Pension Agency pays off the allowances in three States and three territories, as follows: Kansas, Missouri and Colorado, and New Mexico, Oklahoma and Indian Territory. There are close to 115,000 pensioners paid from the Topeka agency, or over one-ninth of the amount paid to pensioners in the total eighteen agencies. The amount paid out annually in the Topeka agency is between fifteen and sixteen million dollars. It takes a force of thirty-eight at all times to transact the office business and an extra force of eight and ten during pension paying, of which force it takes a dozen who write checks. After the first day the quarterly payment is due the office readily pays checks to the amount of $12,000 a day, which is kept up not less than ten days. The pensioners draw all the way from $18 to $300 a quarter, though there are only three who draw $100 a month or per quarter. The work is so systemized under Pension Agent Cyrus Leland, Jr., that by the time the last sacks of vouchers are received the entire payment has been made without a defect.
No doubt the Gazette readers are enjoying Kansas’ last sensation – Mrs. Carrie Nation – the saloon and joint smasher and destroyer. She has been camping in Topeka for ten days or more and while she hasn’t committed any mischief yet, the jointists are standing on the edge of a volcano expecting her to commence operations any time, and this she agrees to do unless the rum holes close and agree to be good. Mrs. Nation says she will not leave Topeka until they are all closed up.
[Last week Tuesday, the same day this communication was written, Mrs. Nation and three followers, armed with hatchets, did $1,500 damage in the “Senate,” the finest equipped joint in Topeka. She was arrested but dismissed. – Ed.]
It is remarkable what a national reputation this Mrs. Nation has already received. Your correspondent has seen letters and telegrams from prominent people and newspapers to Mrs. Nation, tendering her situations or inviting her to visit their cities or towns. One Eastern theatrical company has tendered her good wages to take an important character in the play, “Ten Nights in a Bar Room.” She has no hesitation in calling any or all saloonkeepers who refuse to close up murderers. She still carries a black eye from coming in contact with the wife of one of the joint keepers at Enterprise, before she came to Topeka. She riddled the mirror and broke the bottles in the saloon before she left, however. She is a woman about 65 years of age, wears glasses and weighs about 175 pounds. It is believed that the work of Mrs. Nation and others she has enlisted in this cause will result in one of the most exciting temperance crusades this State or any other has ever known. Kansas has a strict prohibitory law, but it is openly violated from one corner of the State to the other.
Kansas is great on getting free advertising and while the East may laugh and make faces at us, it has had a tendency to do the State good. It started out first and voted against female suffrage, then the Legislature voted for prohibition and while the law remains on the statute books it is openly violated in many cities and towns. Then we got to giving the Republican ticket 75,000 to 80,000 majority and the next year it flopped around and elected the Populist ticket, who remained in power for several years, and until they commenced to “fuse” with the Democrats or vice versa, and that killed them, so in the future the Democrats will swallow them up as far as they can, and Populism will be a dead issue in Kansas in future elections. There was a time when the Populists had seven out of the eight Kansas Congressmen, now they have one, There was a time when they controlled both the State and Legislative governments, now they have only a small minority in the Legislature, and not enough to do any harm. Then, lastly, we have a Mrs. Nation who has made fame and national reputation as did the Kansas Populists.
The Kansas Legislature is now in session. The Senate has forty members, and the Lower House 125. In the Senate there are 51 former Pennsylvanians now making their homes in Kansas and in the lower branch there are ten former Pennsylvanians.
The “Overland Stage to California,” by Frank A. Root, a former Wellsboro boy, now of Topeka, will soon be ready for the printer, It will contain upwards of 600 pages, including 200 or more illustrations, many of them from original drawings. The book itself will be an authentic history and personal reminiscences of the overland stage line and pony express between the Missouri river and the Pacific ocean, carefully written by Mr. Root, who for some time was messenger in charge of the express and agent of the Post Office Department between Atchison, on the Missouri river, to the Rocky Mountains in the early ‘60s.
Traveling through Kansas Pennsylvanians always see objects not only of interest to himself but an advertisement for their former State. For instance, there is the “Pennsylvania Store” in a dozen or more towns I visit, then, again, there is the “Pennsylvania Hotel” sign in several towns. Besides “Blossburg and Pennsylvania coal for sale here” frequently meets the eye of passers. “Pure Pennsylvania Maple Sugar” is a monotonous sign one sees in many stores, and especially to one who was born and almost raised in a Tioga county maple sugar bush and knows the sugar season only lasts from a month to six weeks.
----H.C.R.
Wellsboro Agitator, August 2, 1911, p1
First Book for Green Free Library [Wellsboro, PA]
Mr. Frank A. Root of Topeka, Kansas, the author of “The Overland Stage to
California,” has the distinction of furnishing the first volume for the
Green Free Library in Wellsboro. And it is proper that he should do so, for he
is a Wellsboro boy. Mr. Root says that he has had more than 500 applications
from libraries for his book but he could not afford to donate so many. Wellsboro
is the only one honored with a volume presented by the author. On the flyleaf he
writes the following autograph letter:
“I have known Wellsboro more or less from the first time I saw the little
village in 1849. My admiration for the place and its people and institutions are
lasting. In the old town I learned the printing business and there had my last
school days way back in the fifties [1850s]. I want to congratulate Wellsboro on
its free public library and herewith I send the new institution one free passage
by “The Overland Stage to California”.”
The volume comprises 650 pages, handsomely bound and profusely illustrated.
It contains the personal reminiscences and authentic history of the great
overland stage line and pony express and mail transportation from the Missouri
river to the Pacific coast. Mr. Root was for years messenger in charge of the
express and agent of the Post Office Department to look after the transportation
over the plains and mountains in the days which tried men’s courage and
endurance. Mr. Root is also the late publisher of the Atchison Free Press, the
Atchison Champion, Waterville Telegraph, Seneca Courier, Holton Express, North
Topeka Times, Gunnison, Col., Review-Press, and the Topeka Mail.
On behalf of the Green Free Public Library we acknowledge with thanks the
receipt of the volume, now in charge of the Agitator, to be placed on a library
shelf at the first opportunity. We are glad that a Wellsboro boy who has
succeeded in the world – a pioneer in public service, and a brave and able
citizen – has the distinction of being the author and the donor of the first
volume in our Green Free Public Library.
Wellsboro Agitator, 19 July 1916, p3
Letter From Kansas
Former Wellsboro Resident Writes Entertainingly of Home State
Topeka, Kansas, July 12, 1916
The writer this letter has read the Colorado articles printed in the
Agitator from week to week, written by the owner and editor of the paper, Arthur
M. Roy, with interest and pleasure, because Arthur and the writer were school
boys together in our boyhood days back in Wellsboro, and his letters are written
from the state adjoining Kansas on the west, and, and many of the scenic points
he writes about I have visited. The first time I visited Denver and Colorado was
in 1876, the year of the Centennial, and for three day I was the guest of a
former Wellsboro boy, Cecil A. Deane. On your way to the mountains, Arthur, I
wish you could have visited in Kansas a few days, but you traveled so fast on
the trains going through the great prairie state that one sees but little before
they are in the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains.
Returning from one of my trips recently I found a card awaiting me, on which
was printed: “A.P. Sherwood, inspector immigration service, U.S. Department of
Labor, St. Louis, Mo.” There was also written on the margin of the card: Son of
Walter Sherwood, Wellsboro, PA. I regret I was away from home at the time, and
wish he may call again when he visits Topeka in the line of his work.
On a trip through northwest Kansas a few days since I met a former Wellsboro
and Tioga county man, J.H. Detwiler is his name. He was born in Wellsboro in
1854. He is now living in Smith county, Kansas, where he owns several tracts of
land. Last year he raised 30,000 bushels of corn. He informed me that he lived
in Wellsboro several years and later worked on the farm now owned by Phlem
Brown, near Hollidaytown. His father, John Detwiler, hauled many loads of lumber
over the old plank toll road between Tioga and Wellsboro. Mr. Detwiler came to
Kansas in 1872 from Wisconsin, and located in Smith county.
If I remember correctly you traveled through Kansas on the Rock Island road.
When I landed in the state in October 1865, there wasn’t a mile of railroad in
operation, now there are more than 11,200 miles in operation. With one exception
this state takes the lead in railroad mileage. Four big trunk roads traverse the
state from east to west. Besides, Kansas has oil, gas, coal, gypsum and shale
for brick making and Portland cement. These deposits are found in many counties,
and are being developed on a large scale. The last census gave the state a
population of 1,672,545.
In one of your letters, Arthur, you mentioned alfalfa fields while going
through Kansas. The total acreage of this cereal is 1,360,000. The crop ranks
fourth in area, being preceded only by wheat, corn and oats, and third in value.
In 1914 Kansas raised the largest crop of wheat ever harvested in a single
season, or 180,000,000 bushels. In 1915 the acreage harvested was 7,587,715,
which produced a yield of 95,141,207 Bushels, valued at $85,178,000. This year
of 1916 the harvest is now on. The acreage is 7,754,000 and the probable yield
will be close to 90,226,000 bushels, and the estimated value about $81,200,000.
Kansas ranked first in value of wheat and corn combined in 1914, besides it
ranks first in wheat, first in alfalfa, and first in sorghums. Kansas is making
great strides in progress in all directions, and it will continue so to do the
older she grows.
The nomination of Hughes for President satisfies the Kansas Republicans,
There was a difference in the choice of the Republicans, many of them wanting
Root. They are all satisfied with the nominee, and the state will give him a
splendid majority. The Bull Moose leaders in Kansas are with the Republicans
again with one exception ex-Congressman Victor Murdock. He is abroad during the
summer and won’t be here to take part in the campaign in this state. The
Republicans are elated, and it looks like Kansas is going to send a united
delegation to Congress. I am personally acquainted with most of our state
officers. Two of them deserted the Republicans and accepted the Progressive
faith for a time. They are now back in the old party, and doing their best for
success.
Speaking of local politics, can my old county of Tioga beat Jewell county in
this state? In that county there are 11 candidates for the office of sheriff, 5
Republicans, 5 Democrats and one Socialist.
The next National G.A.R. Encampment is held in Kansas City, Mo., about 65
miles from Topeka. At that time the old Boys in Blue living in Kansas will turn
out by the thousands. This state has a candidate for National Commander, Capt.
P.H. Coney, of this city. There are many former Pennsylvanians residing in this
state. I am thinking there will be a good sprinkling of the old heroes present
from the Keystone state. In my travels through Kansas I meet former
Pennsylvanians in every town. The census shows about 20,000 old soldiers living
in Kansas at this time. In Leavenworth there is a U.S. Soldiers’ Home, the
largest one of the several now in use. That town is also the headquarters of the
National Federal prison, and the Kansas State Penitentiary. It is also the site
of Ft. Leavenworth, one of the government forts. Leavenworth is only about 25
miles from Kansas City.
Now, Arthur, the next time you come West stopover a few days and see for
yourself what Kansas in Prohibition is enforced, and the people wouldn’t vote to
change it back to the saloon. Kansas was the first state to pass a law governing
drinking cups on passenger trains, and requiring every passenger to carry one of
his own. And a splendid law it is. The Kansas hotels and restaurants are
inspected by a state board appointed by the governor for this purpose, and the
landlords have to be strict in sanitary reforms or subject to fines. The state
has a law, also governing barbershops. The law is strict. And the state has
adopted equal suffrage to the women. In county matters many offices are filled
by women. In state matters there is a woman candidate for school superintendent,
while one woman was defeated for Congress and another one is a candidate this
year. So Kansas isn’t so slow.
Kansas reveres the name of John Brown. He loved Kansas, coming to the state
in 1855 with all the zeal of a crusader and martyr in order that Kansas should
be a free state instead of a slave state. He helped as much as any other man to
make Kansas what she has been for more than half a century and what she is
today. In his appeal for aid for his son, who is living in Portland, Oregon, and
is in want. Gov. Capper says: “In no other state is the soul of John Brown, of
Osawatomie, so genuinely incarnated as in Kansas. All of us who live in the
state are in his debt. None of us ought ever again to sing ‘His soul is marching
on’ if we permit his own son to suffer want during his remaining days on earth.”
All Kansans will join in this appeal from the Governor. Liberal contributions
are coming in loyally.
----Henry C. Root
Wellsboro Agitator, July 21, 1920, p1
The Early Days in Wellsboro
Recollections of Frank A. Root, a Wellsboro Boy, Now Long Years in Kansas
Topeka, Kansas – July 8, 1920
While enclosing my subscription for the Agitator, I am reminded that in the
old Advertiser office, directly south across Main street [opposite Dr. Robert
Roy’s pioneer drug store], in a one-story log building I began work as an
apprentice in 1850. This was the first printing office I was ever in. Wm. D.
Bailey, who learned the trade with the Bergers in the Harrisburg Telegraph
office, was proprietor and editor of the Advertiser, he having started the paper
in the latter forties [1840s]. My first day’s work for Mr. Bailey was sawing up
into stove lengths a cord of wood in the rear of the office. Before finishing
the printing trade at times I worked also in the Banner and Eagle offices.
About the time I finished the trade, a few job printing presses had been
invented and I thought many of the printers would be shortly thrown out of work
in consequence. I remember saying at the time, “Thank God a machine to set type
and throw compositors out of employment will never be made.” But it seems I was
mistaken. The indispensable “linotype” many years ago was invented and today
does as much work as half a dozen or more of the old-time hand type stickers.
Three score and ten years since I first entered the old printing office have
worked wonders in “the art preservative of all arts.”
In the spring of 1857 I left Wellsboro, destined for Kansas. It was during
the afternoon of April 21 when I stepped off a Missouri river steam packet and
first set foot on Kansas’ virgin soil at Wyandotte, a town with only half a
dozen small frame buildings. In the early nineties the name of Wyandotte was
changed to Kansas City, Kansas. Several years ago the place had blossomed into
the metropolis of Kansas, and the 1920 census gives it a population of more than
100,000. The Kansas river divides it from Kansas City, Mo., the latter now the
giant city of the central west, which boasts of a population of a third of a
million, but which had less than 2,000 inhabitants when I first walked the only
three blocks of its business street in April, 1857.
During the past sixty-three years I have witnessed many changes while living
west of the Missouri river. Kansas territory had about 25,000 population in the
spring of 1857, but now is nearing the 2,000,000 mark. At least 250,000 Kansans
left the state following the opening of Oklahoma territory for ------------- in
1859. Hundreds of thousands of Kansans have changed their residence and settled
in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, California and
Washington.
When I first came west the nearest railroad to Kansas by the Missouri river
steamboat route was 250 miles away. Today the state is a network of important
trunk roads, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe being the most important line
through the great state. I saw the first spadeful of earth turned over for this
giant transportation artery sixty years ago. The line now has 10,000 miles of
road in Kansas. It has an unbroken line from Chicago west to the “Golden Gate,”
and another from Kansas to the Gulf at Galveston. The great road penetrates ten
different states and more than half of the counties of our commonwealth. Kansas
is now harvesting a wheat crop which it is said will yield more than one hundred
million bushels. It also has a promising big corn crop, a large acreage in
potatoes, sugar beets and other crops. Most of the early fruit was killed by a
heavy May frost, but we are expecting one-third of a crop of winter apples.
Politics promises to be exciting from now on until election. The Republicans
of Kansas are practically solid for the Chicago nominees and will give the
G.O.P. a good majority.
My first vote for President was for Abraham Lincoln in 1860. I was then a
resident of Kansas, which was still a territory, hence could not vote here on
national politics. Having heard Lincoln speak two hours and 20 minutes in the
pioneer M.E. church at Atchison, December 2, 1859 – the day Old John Brown was
executed for his raid on Harper’s Ferry – I wanted to vote for him. A few days
before election I went back east 1,500 miles to Wellsboro and there cast my
first presidential ballot for the famous “rail-splitter.” Since then I have
voted for every Republican who has occupied the Chair of State at the White
House. If my life is spared I shall vote for Harding at the November election.
----Frank A. Root
Wellsboro Agitator, 20 April 1921, p1
A Wellsboro Boy in Kansas [Frank A. Root]
He Tells of His Life There and The State’s Growth
Topeka, Kansas, April 15, 1921
Taking Greeley’s advice, “Go West, young man,” midway in April 1857, while a
boy in my teens, I left my home in Wellsboro bound for Kansas. Journeying
towards the setting sun I pushed out beyond the “Father of Waters.” My trip by
boat from Jefferson City up the mighty Missouri ended at Leavenworth, April 21,
during Kansas’ territorial days.
Nearly sixty-four years have passes since I first reached Kansas. Most of my
life during that time was spent between the Missouri river and the Rocky
Mountains, upwards of half a century of the time in my adopted state. For over
twelve years after coming to the territory, I lived in Atchison, in the latter
fifties and throughout the sixties.
The first vote I ever cast was in Atchison, October 4, 1859. It was for the
adoption of the Wyandotte Constitution, under which Kansas was admitted into the
Union as the thirty-fourth state January 29, 1861.
I can hardly realize that I have been in the central west so long. Much of
the time has gone so quickly it seems only a dream. Kansas when first made a
territory was 616 miles long, and 204 miles wide, its boundary reaching from the
Missouri river to the snow-capped summit of the Rocky Mountains. Its original
area was 126,283 square miles. In 1860 following the so-called “Pike’s Peak”
placer gold discoveries, Colorado territory was organized and about 40,000
square miles of western Kansas was taken to complete the new territory’s
boundary, leaving Kansas 400 miles long, with 82,144 square miles.
In 1857 Kansas had only 26 organized counties. In 1861, when admitted as a
state its counties numbered 34. The place where I first set foot on the
territory’s virgin soil was Wyandotte, having only half a dozen frame houses. In
three score of years the town which has changed to Kansas City, is now the great
meat-repolis of the state, several immense packing houses and with a half dozen
railroads and over 100,000 inhabitants.
There were only three cities in the territory in April ’57, Leavenworth,
Atchison and Lawrence, the former having less than 2,000 population, the two
latter not to exceed 1,000 each. Today the state boasts of more than 130 cities,
each with over 1,000 population. The nearest railroad then building up the
Missouri river to the mouth of the Kaw or Kansas in the spring of ’57 was over
250 miles distant. Wood was the fuel used on the Missouri railroads and on all
boats plying the western rivers. Candles were used for lighting by the settlers.
Petroleum then had only recently been discovered in Pennsylvania and was unknown
in Kansas.
Kansas since I first came here has developed wonders. It has extensive coal
deposits; vast quantities of petroleum; immense natural gas wells; enough salt
to supply the entire country; endless quantities of gypsum; the finest sand for
making glass and fully a score of other useful and valuable things hidden
beneath its soil.
In agriculture it is one of the country’s leading wheat states, while it is
well up on corn, rye, barley, kaffir [variety of sorghum] and other grains. It
is a good fruit state and the prediction is made that 1921 will produce the
biggest apple crop in the history of the state. Many of the smaller fruits were
badly damaged by the great freeze, which took us unawares on Easter, when the
mercury fell to 18 degrees. Kansas is a great railroad state; the various lines
threading the commonwealth like a cobweb. With its 103 counties all but four of
them are reached by some line of road. I never dreamed of this when I saw the
first shovel full of earth thrown in June, 1860, for what has since become the
Santa Fe system, which has its thousands of miles of road in the state and lines
reaching from Chicago to the “Golden Gate” – from the lakes to the Gulf and many
parts of the “Sunny South.”
I like Kansas, where I have lived so long. Here I cast by first vote, when
it was a territory, for the adoption of the Wynadotte Constitution, under which
Kansas was admitted as the 34th state in January 1861. My second vote in the
state was in favor of Topeka for the state capital.
On December 2, 1859, while still living in Atchison, I listened to a great
speech by Abraham Lincoln – practically the same address he afterwards made at
Cooper Institute in New York. He spoke two hours and twenty minutes in the
pioneer Methodist church at Atchison; the day Old John Brown was executed in
Virginia for his raid on Harper’s Ferry.
When the noted emancipator was nominated at Chicago for President in 1860, I
was determined to vote for him. There was an obstacle in the way and it seemed
that I could not vote for President. Kansas then being a territory, on one could
vote here on national politics. I wanted to cast my first Presidential vote for
the famous “rail-splitter,” and went back east 1,500 miles to Wellsboro and
there voted the next day. It was one of the proudest days of my life. I have
voted at every national election since and no Republican President who has
occupied the chair of State at the White House has failed to receive by vote.
----Frank A. Root
Wellsboro Agitator, 9 August 1922, p2
Wellsboro & Vicinity News
--- Henry C. Root, of Topeka, Kansas, is spending a month around his old home in Wellsboro. He is a veteran of the civil war and has been in the West since 1865. Mr. Root has been connected with prominent newspapers in Kansas for years. He is now a bailiff of the State Supreme Court. He is full of reminiscences of Wellsboro in early days and he has written of them in former years most interestingly for the Agitator. He says the first money he earned as a boy was paid him by Dr. Robert Roy, and a little later he was “roller Boy” in the Agitator office when the paper was printed on a hand lever press. For two days at such service each week he earned the princely wage of $1.
Wellsboro Agitator, September 3, 1924
Only Eight Living
Co. A, 187th Regt., Held Reunion at Home of Non. & Mrs. H.M. Foote last Tuesday
There are seven comrades of Co. A, 187th regiment, living in and near Wellsboro. When the company was sworn into the U.S. service in February, 1864, it numbered 127 men. Today only eight of them are accounted for who are living. One of these has resided in Kansas since the muster out in August, 1865.
The company did splendid service all through the siege of Petersburg, the Yellow Tavern and the terrific fighting on the Weldon railroad, one of the main arteries of the South to ship supplies to Petersburg and Richmond. It did only its part to help put down the rebellion.
Many of the “boys” in this company were young, several of them being only sixteen years of age. They had courage and grit, and stood the camp and march along with the older ones, as the official war records bear out. For several years it has been the custom of the “boys” of Co. A to meet at the homes of one of their families and enjoy an old-fashioned army bean dinner. It was the pleasure of Hon. & Mrs. Henry M. Foote to entertain several comrades of Co. A, which he was “one of them,” at their pleasant home on Central avenue Tuesday.
Those present were: Wesley L. Saxbury, Clifton Tipple, L.P. Potter, Henry M. Foote, and Henry C. Root, of Topeka, Kansas. It was the pleasure of the writer to attend a similar reunion of the “boys” of Company A two years ago, at this same place, when there were eight present. One of the number was Comrade Dan. Wilson, who answered the last roll call a year ago. Three of the living comrades, Kriner, Bliss and Henry, were unavoidably kept away.
The bean soup was a great treat for the “boys.” They had learned to like it in their army life. On this occasion meats, potatoes, pies, cake and other foods were “thrown in” for good measure. It was also agreed that Mrs. Foote could and did serve the best bean soup they ever ate.
Dinner over, “the boys” put in the afternoon on the porch smoking, and while it was voted that speech making was prohibited, the comrades related many entertaining scenes and anecdotes of their army experiences.
Bidding adieu to the host and hostess, the comrades wished them long life and happiness in the remaining years of their journey through life, and hoped to be well enough to answer “Here” at the next roll call in 1925.
Wellsboro Agitator, 27 January 1926, p4
Letter From Kansas
Former Tioga Countian Writes about Various Things of Interest
Topeka, Kansas, January 18, 1926
Kansas pioneers of the seventies and early eighties are rehearsing their
experiences of Kansas blizzards of forty and fifty years ago. There are a number
of them living yet. These blizzards were in the treeless prairie country in
Southwest Kansas, at a time when it was thinly settled, and much of the section
was used for grazing. In one of the counties an old-timer recalls to mind a
great blizzard when many cattlemen lost their stock by freezing. In his section
of country the settlers mostly lived in sod houses and dugouts. In this they
were more suited to withstand the terrific impact of the driven snow than frame
houses. The blizzard lasted for two days. The wind was so terrific and the cold
so severe, and the snow so blinding, that is was impossible for any one to go
away from the “soddy” without holding to a rope or some other means of guidance.
Another settler living in the same section of Kansas relates his experience
of a genuine blizzard. This settler says that January 7, 1875, was an ideal day.
Early in the morning the day following a blizzard was on. It didn’t take long
for the thermometer to reach 35 degrees below zero. Buffalo chips and corncobs
kept the people alive in their sod homes. As it was, many people poorly clad
froze to death, as well as thousands of head of horses and cattle. Many
freighters traveling through that section were also frozen, while others had
ears and feet frozen. The snow was so blinding one could see but a few yards.
Another old pioneer relates his experiences of a Kansas blizzard he was in.
This pioneer came west in 1869, and drove cattle from Texas up through Kansas
for a time, and finally located on a ranch near the Colorado border. This
pioneer with others lost $85,000 worth of cattle in one of the awful blizzards
by freezing. In one of them, and no shelter in those pioneer times, the cattle
would stand so close together no other part of their bodies but the back was
affected. When the weather moderated and animals began to thaw out, maggots set
it, and all such cattle were killed.
W.G. Fairchild, who was judge of his district in southwest Kansas in 1885, a
section of country that was sparsely settled at that time, tells of two
blizzards that year, one New Year’s day, the other occurring January 6. He
relates incidents of the two blizzards which will make the hair stand up to the
Tioga county people. He relates that after those storms one could walk from
Dodge City to the west border of Kansas on the carcasses of the frozen cattle.
Along the Santa Fe railroad telegraph poles were buried under huge snowdrifts.
For three days the few settlers were deprived of water. Snow banks covered the
homes and barns, and in a few cases cattle had little shelter. Steam coming from
the holes in the snowdrifts on the barn roofs was the only indication of life
inside. The drifts of snow froze so solid that one could walk over the tops of
buildings. Following the melting of the snow Judge Fairchild says men got rich
skinning the frozen cattle.
Another incident of the blizzard of 1886; there are those who relate that it
was the worst one Kansas ever experienced. Cattle perished by the thousands, and
a few people were frozen to death. Western Kansas was settling up fast by people
from eastern states. They has been told by others who preceded them that it was
unnecessary to lay in stores of roughage for livestock, and that cattle would
graze on buffalo grass on the then treeless prairies all winter. Some winters
they could, but this was one they couldn’t. The storm broke on as pretty a day
as one ever witnessed. The day was calm and warm and suddenly without warning
the wind shifted to the northwest and old Boreas delivered himself of his worst.
Cattle huddled together and drifted with the storm. Their herdsmen could do
nothing with them. They found shelter in the gulches and the snow drifted high
about them, driving them to higher and more tenable ground, where thousands upon
thousands froze to death that night and the next day.
With the building of railroads, killing out the buffalo grass, converting
the treeless plains into fine farms, and the growing of timber, the blizzards in
southwest Kansas are a thing of the past. There is quite as much chance for a
blizzard now in that part of the state as there is in any eastern state. When
John J. Ingalls was a member of the United States Senate from Kansas, in one of
his speeches, he said the government made a mistake in opening the western
plains for agriculture.
The nearest your correspondent was to one of the awful blizzards, he was
living in Atchison. Timber and hills afforded protection. The writer remembers
the worst snowstorm he ever saw. Early in the morning it was raining, and before
the middle of the day passed a high, piercing wind from the north was on, and
the air was filled with snow. It kept up this gait all the afternoon and until
midnight. The day after was beautiful as a spring day. One of the railroads
reaching Atchison was snowbound for nearly three weeks, every “cut” being bank
full. No lives nor stock was frozen. The day after the storm here was a funeral,
and to get from the house to the cemetery, hundreds of men were at work opening
the roads, they were so full of drifted snow. A bright sun was shining on the
drifts and the scene was charming.
A town and post office in northeast Kansas was named after a city in
Pennsylvania. It was a good enough place for John W. Smith to be born and grow
up in. Taking Greeley’s advice to “go west,” he came to Kansas, and it looked so
good to him he staid. He arrived in Atchison in the early part of 1858 and at
once he filed with the county clerk on a tract of land about ten miles west of
the Missouri river. A town company was organized. Smith was named president and
a site for a town was selected. The company gave him the naming of the new town
and he named it Lancaster, in honor of his old Pennsylvania town and home.
Atchison hadn’t grown much, besides it was thoroughly border ruffian, while
Lancaster and vicinity were very decided Free State. He also served as a member
of the state senate in the first Free State legislative assembly, as he was an
acknowledged leader of the party in that section of the state. Clashes between
the two elements were frequent and his life was in danger many times. With the
aid of the allies the new town held its own. At one time Lancaster was a rival
of Atchison for county seat, and the election in 1859 resulted in the choice of
Atchison.
Lancaster was an important station in the time of overland travel, and only
ten miles from Atchison. In a publication of July 10, 1858, the following
references are made: “
Lancaster city is the name of a new town just springing into existence. The
great military road to Forts Kearney, Laramie, Bridger, and to Santa Fe, Utah,
Washington territory, Badson purchase, California, New Mexico, etc., passes
through the town site; also roads leading from Nebraska City, St. Joe, Deniphan,
and to Grasshopper Falls, Topeka, Lecompton and Lawrence.”
Of the Parallel road, which was one of the oldest and best known in that
section of Kansas, passed through Lancaster. It had been traveled at that time
more than 70 years. In a table printed of distances from Atchison to the gold
mines in 1859, the Parallel road is designated as the “First Standard Parallel
Route to the Republican Fork of the Kansas River, thence following the Trail of
Col. Freemont on his explorations in 1843, to Cherry creek and the mines.” It
also says that at this place there was “a settlement, provisions and grass.”
Another table, in the same year, of the “Route from Atchison via the Great
Military Road to Salt Lake and Col. Freemont’s Route in 1841,” also mentions
Lancaster, 5 ½ miles from Mormon Grove, and 9 miles from Atchison, and states
that at this point there are “provisions and grass.”
An inventory taken by the state of the value of the institutional properties
owned by Kansas, aggregates twenty-six million, while the unfinished
construction brings the total up thirty million. Two items in the list, the
State University at Lawrence is valued at $5,590,269 and the state hospital at
Topeka is worth $2,164,931. Work on several of the new projects is now under
way. During the year 1925 the state expended $807,891, while the fund for 1926
is $707,000.
Kansas City and St. Louis are now connected by a paved road and motor cars
are traveling over it, making swifter time than the railroads. By the motor
route the distance between the two cities is 263 miles. The shortest railroad
line is 278 miles. The time made by motor between the two cities was six hours
and 24 minutes. The fastest passenger train between St. Louis and Kansas City is
the Missouri Pacific and this fast train makes the times in seven hours and 28
minutes. The trail trip of the motor was only for a demonstration, as the driver
claims he can make the trip between the two cities in less than six hours and
perhaps five hours. So the country between the two Missouri cities now presents
a striking contrast to the mud roads of other years, when mules pulling wagons
and buggies through mud so deep a motor car would have mired, the motor now runs
along on concrete, macadam and gravel.
In building activity during 1926 the Union Pacific Railroad has under way
construction work aggregating two and one-half million dollars, which will give
this road a double track from Omaha, Neb., to Salt Lake. The completion of this
work will take until next autumn, which will give the system a double track
mileage between Chicago, Council Bluffs and Salt Lake of 1,145 miles. It will
expedite passenger and freight service and effect economies of operation. In
conjunction with its eastern connections the Union Pacific will afford a double
track line from the Atlantic seaboard to Salt Lake City. This road is expending
half a million dollars in Topeka in building a new passenger and freight depot.
All this immense system of railroad has been built since the writer of this item
landed in Kansas. It is certain the railroads have done a great share to redeem
the western country which used to be known as “The Great American Desert.”
----H.C.R.
KING - The Atchison, Kansas, Champion says Mr. Samuel King died at Seneca, Kansas, on the 15th instant [15 June 1886]. Mr. King was born in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, in May 1836, and consequently was fifty years old at the time of his death. He came to Kansas in 1864, and during that year was in the service of the Overland Stage Company. During that time he made his home in Atchison. He returned to the East and remained there till 1870, when he came back and located in Netawaka, removing in 1871 to Seneca, where he continuously resided until his death. He was by trade a blacksmith and a fine specimen of the American mechanic. His shop came to be a landmark in Seneca, and he himself became known to a wide circle of acquaintances who greatly esteemed him. He did his part in building up the beautiful and prosperous city of Seneca. He married in Pennsylvania Miss Maria L. Root, sister of John C. and Harry Root, both of the Champion, and Frank A. Root now of Gunnison, Colorado. She with a daughter [Mary E.], survives him. - Wellsboro Agitator, June 29, 1886
ROOT - Frank A. Root, aged 89 years, pioneer newspaper man, died at the home of his son, George Root, 324 Lindenwood Avenue, Topeka, Kansas, June 20, 1926. He had been in failing health for a long time. Mr. Root was born at Binghamton, NY, July 3, 1837, and removed to Kansas in 1857, settling at Lawrence. He began working as a journeyman printer in the office of the Herald of Freedom at Lawrence. After residing at Lawrence for a short time, he went to Atchison, where he entered the mail service. He was deputy postmaster and chief clerk in the Atchison post office. Later he became a messenger on the overland stage line. After being mail agent at Latham, Colo., for a short time, he became traveling mail agent between Denver and Atchison. From 1863 until 1865 he made 32 trips across the plains. In 1865 he returned to the newspaper business. He became publisher of the Free Press and Champion at Atchison and remained in the newspaper business until 1893, when he sold his North Topeka Mail to Arthur Capper. After publishing his Atchison paper four years, he sold it and went to Waterville, where he operated the Telegraph for one year. From 1871 until 1872 he published the Seneca Currier. He then went to Holton, where he published the Holton Express from 1872 until 1875. He also was postmaster at Holton for some time. In 1875, Mr. Root moved to Topeka, where he resurrected the old North Topeka Times. The Times had suspended publication but he bought the plant and started the paper up again under its old name. He published the paper until 1879, when he went to Gunnison, Colo. After publishing the Gunnison Review six years, he returned to North Topeka, where he purchased the North Topeka Mail. He published the Main until he sold it to Arthur Capper in 1893. After selling the North Topeka Mail, Mr. Root retired from the newspaper business but he built up a wide reputation as a writer. He contributed hundreds of newspaper articles, to Topeka, Kansas City and Atchison papers, as well as many others. He also was the author of "The Overland Stage to California," which was published in 1901. W.E. Connelley, secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, assisted him in his work. Mr. Root was a Republican in politics but he never held and political offices with the exception of being postmaster at Holton and North Topeka. He was a member of the Masonic lodge more than 50 years and was a Knight Templar. He made his home at 829 North Quincy Street more than 30 years. He is survived by two sons, Albert C. Root, of Kansas City, Mo., and George A. Root, of Topeka; two daughters, Miss Grace Root, of Topeka, a teacher in Quincy school, and Mrs. E.M. Rominger, of Shawnee, Okla.., and a brother, Henry C. Root, of Topeka, bailiff of the Kansas Supreme Court. - Wellsboro Agitator, June 30, 1926, p.2
Burial at Topeka, Kansas
ROOT - The late Harry Root - Former Wellsboro Resident Died at Leavenworth, Kansas
For 50 years a newspaper man, a civil war veteran and of late years bailiff in the State Supreme Court, Harry Root, 83, has responded to "taps", or in the newspaper vernacular, "30." Mr. Root died March 14 [1932], at the military home in Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was taken about two weeks ago. He was born in New York in 1848. coming to Kansas immediately after the civil war, Mr. Root entered the office of the old Atchison Champion as an apprentice printer, and served as printer for many years. As printer he set in type many manuscripts for Senators Ingalls, Plumb and Pomeroy. Finally he transferred to the circulation department of the Champion and for years covered the northwest Kansas territory. Many of the counties had not yet been organized, and during the process of formation Mr. Root saw many bitterly contested county sear fights. He saw Cheyenne, Decatur, Gove, Graham, Sherman, Sheridan, Rawlins and Thomas counties organized. The bitterest struggle for the county seat was in Rawlins county, which Atwood fighting to prevent removal of the records to Blakeman. In writing of his experiences afterward, Mr. Root gave some thrilling incidents of that contest. He served in the 187th Pennsylvania Infantry, which was organized in February, 1864. When he enlisted he was but 16 years old. Shortly after organization the regiment was ordered south and into the fighting zone. Made up mostly of boys, the regiment arrived on the firing line in June, 1864. Twenty-two of Root's company were wounded or killed in the first charge. Before his company was demobilized, it was called to act as guard for President Lincoln's body, after his assassination. Mr. Root was one of those chosen to stand at the coffin, as thousands of persons marched by to view the body. Shortly after his discharge, Mr. Root removed to Kansas and had lived in that state since. After 25 years' service with the Atchison Champion, he transferred to the Topeka State Journal, and remained as agent for that paper in the Sixth district for 25 years. At the end of 50 years' service as a newspaper man, he retired. He was appointed bailiff of the supreme court in 1920. He was a member of Lincoln Post, GAR, and of the United Commercial Travelers. He is survived by one daughter, Edith M. Root, of Los Angeles, California; burial at Topeka, Kansas. Mr. Root, several years ago, wrote an interesting series of articles for the agitator, on early days in Tioga county, and about some of his experiences during the first few years of his residence in Kansas. - Wellsboro Agitator, 23 March 1932
| Henry Root Letters Part One | Part Two |
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