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been in view for two days though we have been marching directly toward them.
     18th March. This morning the sun rose from a dark cloud but for half an hour before it was visable we could see its reflection on the snowy top of the Orizaba still about sixty miles distant. The other mountains the Chickawuta seemed only about two or three miles off yet they were really nearly twenty. This deception is produced by the extraordinary transparancy of the atmosphere. To-day for many miles the road on either side as far as the eye could see were the remains of stone habitations which must have been a sort of rural city the spaces between the ruins being sufficiently large for extensive gardens. We saw a stone wall of excellent workmanship thrown across the bed of a dry stream, designed to form a reservoir for the purpose of supplying the cattle and farmers with water during the dry season. The dam was broken down in one place no doubt with a view of depriving the Americans of water in this dry region. The labor expended on this wall would doubtless have been sufficient to have made half a dozen wells and certainly the water would have been much better yet there is not a single well of water between Vera Cruz and Cordova save the miserable apology for one five miles from the former place. IV.

     Abelard Guthrie was an Argonaut - a pioneer in California. So restless a spirit could not behold thousands of gold hunters sweep by his very door without himself contracting the feverish desire to be a partaker in their adventures, their dangers and in the golden harvest. It is supposed a hundred thousand men crossed the plains in 1849 and 1850. A great number of these started from Westport, Mo., and many from Fort Leavenworth.
     A number of Wyandots organized themselves into a mining company early in 1850. Their purpose was to dig gold from the mines and wash it from the beds of streams in California. For the names of these Wyandots see Governor Walker's Journal, under date May 15, 1850. On that date

the party set out upon the long and painful journey to the gold fields beyond the Sierras. They were six months on the road across the boundless prairies, the frightful mountains of barren rock, the parched and dreary wastes of burning sands. They worked along the Feather River, and Russell Garrett says they found an abundance of gold.
     We are not informed when Mr. Guthrie returned from California, but it was some time before the summer or fall of 1852. V.

     Mr. Guthrie, in the summer of 1852, directed his efforts toward securing a Territorial organization for the Territory of Nebraska, with bounds practically those of the present States of Kansas and Nebraska. In this, all the evidence I have been able to obtain and examine shows that he was acting with, and largely for, Senator Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, although he says the idea was his own, and that "solitary and alone" he undertook this work. His Journals are full of references to his work as a Delegate to Congress from Nebraska Territory, but they contain no extensive statement of the movement which sent him there. I have not been so fortunate as to find those covering the years of the movement for a Territorial Government for Nebraska Territory. My account of his services, so far as they relate to this movement, is written in another part of this work.

VI.

     In 1862 Mr. Guthrie made some effort to have all the Indian Country between the States of Kansas and Texas erected into the Territory of Lanniwa, and provided with a Territorial Government. He prepared a bill for this purpose and advocated its passage. The bill was introduced by Senator Pomeroy of Kansas. The merits of the bill and

QUINDARO NANCY GUTHRIE.

the policy which it outlined were discussed in the columns of the New York Tribune. VII.

     During the troublous times in Kansas Territory immediately succeeding the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill there was no point within her borders where Free-State people from the East could land unmolested to enter the conflict for liberty and freedom then raging there. The Missouri River towns of the Territory were little more than camps for border ruffians, and it was often necessary for settlers from the Northern States to enter Kansas by the way of Iowa and Nebraska. The necessity for a Missouri River town where the Free-State sentiment prevailed was recognized, and the building of such a town urged by Free-State men and Free-State interests.
     Guthrie was identified with the Free-State movement in Kansas Territory from its inception. He was a Delegate to the Big Springs convention. But he did not aspire to leadership in the movement. Like John Brown and other great men of the day, he believed it was to be only a temporary expedient which would carry the struggle for freedom in Kansas through a preliminary stage, then be succeeded by something broader - a National party. Others of Kansas, some of the so-called great men, never got beyond this point in Kansas politics. When the Free-State party was absorbed by the Republican party they were left floundering about without rudder, chart, or compass, and could never make up their minds about the relative merit of existing political parties, but were found first in one and then in another, as the opportunity for office or gain seemed them best for the time being.
     At this time steamboats on the Missouri River furnished the only means of communication with the East, aside from

9

the overland freighter's wagon and ox-team, consequently a good landing for steamboats was of the first importance in selecting a town site. Ascending the Missouri after it becomes the State line, the first good landing on the Kansas side is some six miles above the mouth of the Kaw. Here the yellow waves of the mud-laden Missouri surge against a limestone ledge, and deep water is as reasonably certain as the capriciousness of this erratic river will allow at any point. The land along this broken shore was owned by the Wyandot Indians, but by a recent treaty they were permitted to sell it. Guthrie, being a Wyandot by adoption and a prominent Free-State man, was invited to take an interest in the new town. To this he was not averse. But there were pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the Wyandot Nation, and it was necessary that both be represented in the Town Company, for otherwise it might be difficult, if not impossible, to purchase the required Indian land. For this reason Joel Walker, a brother of Governor Walker, and a splendid business man, was solicited to take an interest, which he did, and became one of the founders of the Free-State town.
     The Free-State city was named Quindaro, in honor of Mrs. Guthrie. The plat was filed in 1860, but the survey had been made in 1857, and lots were sold in that year. A city was rapidly built. Stone and brick blocks rose along the broken bluffs and serpentine gullies and ravines. Here was to be the crossing of the Missouri River and Rocky Mountain Railroad, and lands for terminal facilities for this road were provided.
     After two years of unparalleled prosperity the town began to decline. Nature and not man selects sites for great marts. It was soon seen that the great city of Kansas, and the Valley of the Missouri, was to be built on the site indicated by Senator Benton, at the mouth of the Kansas, and principally on the Missouri side of the State line. Honest

management would have made Quindaro, a thriving village, but not having that, it fell almost as rapidly as it rose. The business blocks were deserted and became the habitations of bats and owls. To-day one may see these ruins in the fragments of old walls remaining scattered over the town site. After the civil war many negroes from Missouri took up their residence in these ruins, and they own most of the old town site yet.
     This venture was the financial ruin of Guthrie. He put into it all he possessed, and endorsed for the Quindaro City Company and different members of the corporation to such an extent that he was overwhelmed with debts. For fifteen years he struggled with these debts, and finally sank into the grave beneath their weight. VIII.

     I give here a few quotations from Mr. Guthrie's Journals. Some of these excerpts indicate a spirit of bitterness in the writer. He may, perhaps, be justly charged with a denunciation too severe. But when one has read all the circumstances under which he wrote, as they are recorded in his Journals, he will, I believe, be constrained to admit that the provocation was great - often exasperating. His arraignment of Governor Robinson is severe in the extreme, but I believe no more so in his Journals than in a pamphlet which he published, a copy of which can be seen in the Library of the Kansas State Historical Society. These Journals are of interest at this time as showing how many of the patriotic men of his time misjudged President Lincoln. I have taken the following extracts at random and as representative of the whole Journal, and not for the sentiment expressed, in a single instance.

March 9, 1858.

     To-day I am forty four years old. Alas, what have I done with these 44 years! More good than I have credit for, less evil than I am charged with. And yet how much more good I might have done! and how much evil I might have avoided! But oh! how much have I suffered and how little have I enjoyed! Yet in every vicissitude of life my hopes and my faith in the future were never diminished for I know that God sets all things right. . . .
     Went to Quindaro and voted for Walden, Ed. of the "Chindowan" for Delegate to frame a Constitution the other gentlemen on the ticket I know nothing favorable of and therefore I did not vote for any of them.

14th March, 1858.

     In the evening I went over to Alfred Gray's and we talked prosily enough upon general topics for a short time I returned home. Why are men in good health sometimes so much duller than at others? I sometimes think I can coin ideas as fast as other men but at other times it is a labor to think or to talk upon the most commonplace subject, and what is strangest this stupidity is most oppressive just after reading an interesting book.

9th April, 1858

     I was shown a letter to-day from Gov. Robinson speaking in the most confident language of his success in getting a grant of land for our railroad. Should this enterprise succeed Quindaro will be the great city of the West, and it is believed that with my present property I will be a rich man, so people tell me and so I would like to believe. What immeasurable felicity must be that of the rich man who feels and knows that God has bestowed upon him this much of his favor for wise and useful purposes. 12th April 1858

     Gov. Robinson is much to blame for these embarrassments. The debts I have been paying are his and now I am obliged to disappoint and injure my own creditors. Robinson may turn out an honest man but he is certainly a very callous one - and such an one as I hope never again to do business with.

Tuesday 13th April 1858

     Went to Kansas City intending to go to Shawnee to see Capt. Parks but meeting him in Kansas City I did my business, . . . and to try to get the Captain to get the Shawnees and Delawares to build a bridge over the Kansas river at the point nearest to Chillicothe in the success of which he is largely interested. The measure I propose would make it a place of considerable importance whereas without it there will be no town. The Captain I believe thinks well of my project and said he would bring it up in Council. A bridge at this point will be as advantageous to Quindaro as at any other hence my interest in it. Thursday 15th April 1858

     I have never suffered more anguish of mind than I have suffered within the last month on account of pecuniary embarrassments. I have aimed at a fortune but it would be dearly earned were this state of things to last long. After all the old Indian life, with all its poverty and hardship is the happiest. Wednesday 15th [September, 1858.]

     Went to Wyandot city to attend the "Free State" County Convention as a delegate from Quindaro. The convention was conducted with harmony and goodfeeling; but it made no declaration of principles on which to act as a permanent party, the chief desire appearing to be to unite as far as practicable the anti slavery element in the county, and the control of the territorial legislature but without reference to any line of policy designed for the public good. I was put on the "Committee["] to draft a platform and resolutions expressive of the views and designs of the convention and endeavored to have principles enunciated in support of which we could labor permanently, but it was contended that if we took decisive grounds upon the great questions of the day we would drive off the moderate men of the democratic party who would otherwise support nominations made solely on the question of free or slave State. How hard is it to conquer prejudice after reason has yielded everything! And how often does temporary expediency triumph over and trample down truth justice and

wise policy! This convention was composed of as intelligent and fine looking men as I ever saw assembled on a like occasion, yet I never before saw so little display of independence and outspoken truth and such studied cowardice and timidity, and all appeared felicitated with the manner in which they had hid their heads in the sand. Poor ostrich we laugh at thy simplicity and imitate thy example with gravity and diligence?
     This is the first nominating convention I have attended in the Territory, and after spending a thousand dollars in obtaining a government for the Territory (and without my efforts there would have been no territorial organization) and opening the country to white settlement, I had not money enough to buy myself a dinner and so fasted from morning till my return home at night. The humiliation of such poverty was more painful than the want of food and more painful still it has been brought upon me by the ingratitude and dishonesty of men who owe to me all they are worth. Monday 4th October 1858.

     Attended the election, but was too weak to stay long on the ground. This election presented scenes which cannot but lessen one's confidence in the popular will; the catholics voted in a body at the dictation of their priest, and the Indians sold their votes for a dinner, whisky, and some of them probably received small sums of money. Yet with all this competition on the part of the democracy, the free State party received 99 votes out of the 157 cast. Alas, the poor Indian despised by those who use him and spurned by those he opposes and who have been his only friends! Ungrateful, ignorant and unprincipled how soon will thy sad fate be sealed.

Friday 15th October 1858

     This trouble and all others I have suffered the past year [comes] from overconfidence in C. Robinson who authorized me to buy lands but leaves me to pay for them not even coining near me but avoiding me as if he was afraid of hearing the truth. I have never known such cold blooded ingratitude before. I have placed unbounded confidence in him and he has shown as boundless a disregard of honor, gratitude and honesty.

 

Monday 8th November 1858

     Health improving, but am confined to my room. Last night I slept sweetly and without sweat - a providential blessing for I had prayed to God that he would grant me a sweet and refreshing nights sleep - and that prayer was answered. I was amazed and transported with agreeable emotions at this unexpected change. Thursday 18th November 1858

     Attended a meeting of the citizens of Quindaro which I understand was called with a view to consider projects for the future welfare of the town, but I was satisfied from the composition of the meeting that no good could result from its action and therefore left it at an early hour. The meeting was held at Alfred Grays office. Charles Robinson who was to have been there skulked off as he always does when any responsibility may be thrust upon him. Saturday 20th November 1858

     M^r Alfred Gray was here wanting me to agree as a member of the Quindaro Co. to release M^rs Nichols from the payment of five hundred dollars which she owes the Co. on the condition that she will edit and conduct "The Chindowan" for one year, which it is proposed to revive. The agreement with M^rs Nichols is to terminate at the end of any quarter; provided other arrangements shall be made for the publication of the paper, in which case we are only to release her in proportion to the time she acts as Editor. Wednsday 9th March 1869

     Today am I forty five years old - long eventful years, fruitful of troubles to myself - of benefits to others! My acts misunderstood, my words distorted, my motives impugned. Others claim the rewards of my labors and history seems disposed to favor the fraud, but I have an abiding confidence in the justice of that overruling Power who shapes the destinies of man. Tuesday 15th March 1859

     Started to hunt my grey pony, Fanny, and called at Frank Cotter's

to get Thomas Crooks to go with me as he wants to buy the pony but he was not there and I rode out to "Young America" a grog shop a mile further on where it was supposed I could find him, but he had left. Such a scene as this "grocery" exhibited I never before beheld - Indian women and men were lying about as if a battle had been fought and these were the slain, some yet stood, others leaned against whatever they could sieze upon and others were reeling about, all the victims of whiskey. This "hell" is kept by a white man who it is reported steals from and robs these wretched votaries of Bacchus. This sink of iniquity is on one of the public highways, and yet no effort is made to abate it. Our laws are said to be defective in this respect which may account for this shameful neglect of a vital moral duty. . . . Monday 4th April, 1859.

     Capt. Parks died about 6 0' clock last night. He was tho't to be about 66 years old. He has been for several years, Head Chief of the Shawnees but General Cass, who employed him as interpreter when in the Indian service, stated in a speech in the U. S. Senate in 1853 while a Shawnee claim was under discussion that Parks, then in Washington was a pure white man and had been captured by the Indians when very young. But among the Shawnees he claimed to be of Shawnee extraction and the claim was universally acknowledged. He was plausable, shrewd, unscrupulous and avaricious and had accumulated a fortune of sixty or seventy thousand dollars. Saturday, 9th April, 1859.

     I remarked that the debt was not mine and I would not pay it. He said he would sue me immediately and I told him to do so. This note was given for lands bo't for C. Robinson & others and Robinson was to give his note, on which I was to go as security, and my note was to be returned to me. After I had given the note however Robinson avoided the fulfillment of his promise and thus I am held responsible for his debt. I told Smith, Robinson's confidential tool that I wished to settle this and other matters amicably but settled they must be, and I am led to believe from Smith's remarks that Robinson will not pay unless compelled, showing that be is a swindler of the worst stamp.

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