October and November, will bring to you the news of the success of the Wyandotte constitution and the majority old Atchison intends to give parrott.  JOHN
A. MARTIN.""LEAVENWORTH,
August 15, 1859."To John A. Martin: Your greeting was welcome. Accept my warmest congratulations. The Leavenworth republicans are harnessed for the liberty fight. Success to your city, your journal, and our common cause. CHAMPION
VAUGHAN.""ATCHISON,
August 15, 1859,"Editors St. Louis Democrat: Puck's girdle around the earth will soon be realized. To-day the Stebbins telegraph line was completed and the office opened at this city, fourteen miles further west than any telegraph station east of the Rocky Mountains. We send you greeting. The Salt Lake mail leaves here to-morrow. JOHN
A. MARTIN, Editor
Champion.""Editors Missouri Republican: We congratulate you on the completion of the Atchison and St. Louis telegraph to this city. We are indebted to the triple alliance of labor, capital and science for the final success of this great enterprise. We will now hand to you important news from Salt Lake one day earlier than heretofore via Leavenworth. This is the point where the Salt Lake mail first touches the Missouri. Respectfully yours, G.
O. CHASE, Editor Union."Atchison, which as early as 1859 had become an important freighting point, was also the farthest western town on the continent, east of the Rocky Mountains, having railway and telegraph advantages. The terminus of the Stebbins line, however, did not long remain at Atchison. The wire was soon stretched along the west bank of the Missouri to Brownsville and Omaha, Neb. It was here, in the later '50's, coming in from off the plains by stage and ox and mule train, that the telegraph first sent off on its "lightning wings" the news from California, Salt Lake, and the newly discovered Pike's Peak gold region. The glad tidings were sent to anxious relatives and friends scattered far and wide over the country: from the "Big Muddy" to the Atlantic seaboard; from the Great Lakes in the north to the Crescent City, near the "Father of Waters." While sitting in the Atchison telegraph office a few weeks later, after working hours (October 16, 1859), spending the evening with the operator, the first news was flashed over the wire telling of the capture of Harper's Ferry by old John Brown. The exciting event greatly startled the operator, John T. Tracy, who was a |
Southern man, and naturally sympathized with the land of his birth and its "peculiar institution." We were chums, and spent the most of our leisure hours together, and had become war friends. As I sat by his side he listened attentively to the click of the telegraph instrument, and repeated to me every word of the report that was then going over the wire for the daily press at St. Joseph; and his comments thereon were not in sympathy with "Old John Brown," whose soul has since been "marching on." The result of the discovery of gold in what was known as the "Pike's Peak District," in 1858 and 1859, was the building up of an immense business in freighting across the plains. This was necessary to supply the rush of miners and prospectors who had fitted out and gone to the new mines of western Kansas. There was no Colorado at that time. The western boundary of Kansas was on the summit of the Rocky Mountains. In the fall of 1859, Thomas L. Fortune, a citizen of Mount Pleasant, Atchison county, Kansas, conceived a scheme that he verily believed in a short time would make him a handsome "fortune" in fact. He planned a steam wagon, with which he expected to haul a loaded train of freight wagons from the Missouri river across the country to the new El Dorado in western Kansas. He built at St. Louis, in the spring of 1860, a monster vehicle, twenty feet long by eight feet wide. The wheels were twelve inches wide and eight feet in diameter. A large cask contained the water to feed the boiler. The "overland wagon" was transported up the Missouri river on the steamer Meteor. It was landed from the steamer in front of the White Mice saloon (a noted drinking resort on the Atchison levee in the early days) one night during the latter part of June, 1860. In a day or two after its arrival it was arranged that the steam wagon should make a trial trip on the 4th of July. The monster was accordingly fired up on the eighty-fourth national anniversary, and started by an engineer named Callahan, a native of the "Green Isle." The wagon was ornamented with a number of flags, and it was also loaded with a crowd of anxious men and boys, numbering a score or more. Everything in readiness, the valve was opened by the man at the throttle, and the wagon moved off in a southerly direction from near Woolfolk's warehouse, on the levee. It went all right until the foot of Commercial street was reached, about a square away. The pilot, failing |
to turn the machine, it kept on straight up to the sidewalk, and rail into A. S. Parker's mammoth outfitting house, which stood so long by the old historic cottonwood tree at the southeast comer of Commercial street and the levee. The result of this awkward blunder was an accident, by which a son of the owner of the wagon had an arm broken, as the machine crashed into the side of the building, which was a long, one-story frame cottonwood structure that for a number of years was a noted landmark in Atchison's early history. The excited engineer was at once let out, and Lewis Higby, another engineer and a natural genius, was sent for. Rigby mounted the wagon and took his place at the engine, backed the machine out into the middle of the road, and in a few minutes went sailing gracefully along west on Commercial street at a six-mile-gait. When in front of Jesse Crall's California stable, at the corner of Sixth street, before that part of Commercial street had been graded, it went down a little hill at a lively speed, but Higby kept it a going, and did not stop until it reached L. C. Challiss's addition, just south and west from Commercial and Eighth streets, near Morgan Willard's old foundry, built in 1859, away from the business and residence portion of the city. After the wagon crossed Eighth street, and was beyond the business houses, Rigby turned on more steam, and the monster vehicle made about eight miles an hour, cavorting around on the bottom, there being only a few scattering buildings then west of Eighth. To test the practicability of the machine, it was run into hollows and gullies and, where the ground was soft, it was found that the ponderous wheels would sink into the mud when standing still in soft ground. The result of the trial, witnessed by hundreds, was disappointment to most of those present. The inventor, who had spent a large amount of money and much time in trying to perfect his new steam wagon and solve the overland transportation problem, was the worst disappointed. He was thoroughly disgusted. He was mad. He saw at once that the use of the vehicle was impracticable, and that it would never answer the purpose. That trial trip was the first and only one the "overland steam wagon" ever made. It was accordingly abandoned on the bottom, near where the tracks of the Central Branch and Santa Fe roads are now laid, and was never afterward fired up. Those who had crossed the plains with mules and oxen |
 TRIAL TRIP OF THE OVERLAND STEAM WAGON, AT ATCHISON, Page 431. |
knew it could never be utilized in overland freighting. There was no use for any such vehicle, and the anticipated reduction in prices of ox and mule teams did not take place. The timbers used in the framework of the machine that were not stolen finally went to decay, and the machinery was afterwards taken out and disposed of for other purposes. But Mr. Fortune was not the first inventor whose original scheme to amass a fortune failed. The fall of 1863 found me employed as express messenger between Atchison and Denver on Ben. Holladay's overland stage line. While stopping a week in Atchison on one of my return trips from the west, Paul Coburn, the stage company's agent at Atchison, invited a half-dozen of his friends--among the number myself--to partake of a fried quail and prairie-chicken supper. The place was the "tony" restaurant kept by Wm. Yates, the experienced and popular colored caterer, in a small stone building on the southwest corner of Commercial and Second streets, the ground now occupied by the Byram hotel, little more than half a square from the "Overland" headquarters. Even as early as 1863, the little stone building had long been known as an old, historic landmark. It was put up by a border ruffian from Weston, Mo., in 1854, being one of the first buildings erected in Atchison. It was first used as a store by a Mr. Blassingame, from South Carolina. Subsequently it was occupied as a grocery, then a meeting-house, afterward as a law office, real-estate office, banking-house, editorial sanctum, office for the city marshal, jail, calaboose, cigar store, whisky shop, dentist's office, and for other purposes. Doctor Cochran, father of Congressman Cochran, of St. Joseph, Mo., for a time had his office there in the '60's. It was in this building that the first religious services ever held by a free-state clergyman in Atchison were conducted, and during the exercises a game of "chuck-a-luck" was being played on a stump outside, not a rod away. In the early days this old building was the headquarters for a company of border ruffians from South Carolina, numbering something over 100, who rallied there in 1855 to wipe out the abolitionists, as every free-state man was then termed. When unoccupied, the building was used by the "ruffians" for a target and was all the time during their sojourn in Atchison the chief office of the "border-ruffian pro-slavery grape-vine telegraph." It was in this same building that the scheme was concocted of "tar- -28 |
and-feathering" and setting adrift in the Missouri river, on a raft Rev. Pardee Butler, a free-state clergyman, for publicly expressing his sentiments for freedom. It was a favorite, rendezvous in border-ruffian times, and, when in town, pro-slavery sympathizers frequently rallied there from all directions. The old building had been used in pioneer days for a great variety of purposes. Hon. Franklin G. Adams, so long the veteran secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, when probate judge of Atchison county, in the later '50's, wrote editorials in it, when he was one of the editors of the Squatter Sovereign, after that early paper was purchased from its original founders and changed from a fiery pro-slavery to a radical free-state journal, Political meetings were often held there by both parties, and one of the first sermons ever delivered in Atchison was preached by Father James Shaw, the pioneer Kansas Methodist, in the historic building. This noted old structure was only one square north of the Massasoit House. Referring again to the banquet, Coburn and his guests assembled at Yates's about half-past nine o'clock, and in a few minutes all sat down to one of the most elegant suppers of the kind ever gotten up in Atchison. It was prepared in Yates's best style, and no person in the west knew better than he how to get things up in the most palatable shape. After eating for an hour or so and finishing the solids, the fluids were ordered. Of the promiscuous drinking that was indulged in, the wholesale part of it was done by Coburn, who at the time seemed to be a sort of walking still-house. He imbibed freely of several kinds of wine, then he drank whisky, then brandy, and nearly everything else usually partaken of, especially if it even smelled of anything like an "antidote for snake-bite." Like himself, Coburn wanted--even insisted--that his guests should sample everything in the liquor line about the house. It was not long until he, vulgarly speaking, was most gloriously drunk. A mere glance at his countenance showed that he was dangerous. He had a small arsenal about his person in the shape of a pair of six-shooters, and he looked as if he intended to use them. Having finished eating and drinking, Coburn soon arose from the table, went into the adjoining barroom, and began to "paint the place red"--firing several times in quick succession at the well-filled decanters standing on the shelves behind the bar. |
After he had broken a number of them, and the liquor was running streams in every direction on the floor, for some additional amusement he then turned his attention to shooting at the chandelier which hung from the ceiling in the center of the room. He flourished over his head in his peculiar manner one of his revolvers, and offered to bet his pile that he could "snuff out all the lights in the room." Raising his gun and taking deliberate aim, one after another he soon broke every lamp that hung in the chandelier. Then we were all suddenly left in darkness. Thinking some of us might accidentally get "snuffed out" too by his promiscuous shooting, and none of us caring to risk ourselves as targets on such an occasion, the most of the guests hastily but quietly withdrew from the premises and, thinking our beds the safest place for us, hurried home and at once retired for the night. Coburn was left with the proprietor in undisputed possession of the place, but he did not long remain, for he had shot away all his ammunition and there was nothing left to amuse himself with; so he soon retired. The next morning he had pretty much sobered up, and called on the colored restaurateur for his bill. His account had been made out, and he paid it without a word of complaint or explanation, and went to his office apparently oblivious of his worse than beastly debauch of the night previous. But this little episode, I soon afterward learned, was nothing new in Atchison. Yates told me such sprees were periodical with Coburn, and that he himself had witnessed at least half a dozen of a similar nature in the various restaurants he had kept there. In fact, they had become to be sort of monotonous, and many guests wondered, when quietly eating there, if Coburn would not suddenly appear on the premises, and, without warning, clean out the entire place. Notwithstanding his somewhat strange and peculiar ways, Coburn really was not the desperately bad fellow that many believed him to be. He was a genial-hearted young man, possessed of a good education, and was spoken of as a splendid business man. In stature he was small, but he had a big, warm heart. One of his legs was "a little longer than it really" should have been, and he always used a cane. Singular as it may seem, however, Coburn appeared to take delight in having an occasional spree, but he was careful never |
to go on a "toot" during business hours. He was always to be found at his desk in the office. There was no disputing, however, that he could "make Rome howl " when on one of his regular, old-fashioned "jamborees." A great many sympathized with him because he was a cripple and an orphan. He formerly lived in western Missouri and was raised by Gen. Bela M. Hughes, with whom, in his boyhood days, he was a great favorite. At Atchison he had hosts of warm friends, and he likewise had some bitter enemies. Being a cripple many times saved him from getting soundly thrashed. No one cared to get his ill will if it could be avoided. At times he would be arbitrary and obstinate, and, when "out of sorts," he would be cross and irritable, and frequently the most trifling thing would annoy and provoke him. On an occasion some time previous to this, I remember that the late Bishop E. S. Janes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was one of the west-bound passengers across the plains by the overland stage. The bishop had taken a seat inside the coach, and he and Coburn had, for some minutes before the stage departed, become engaged in a rather spirited controversy concerning certain rights and privileges of passengers overland. The longer the controversy continued, the more it appeared evident to all of the anxious listeners that the bishop, who was very cool and careful in his remarks, was getting the better of the agent in the argument. Coburn finally got desperately mad at the bishop, and, with his face as red as a beet, said to him: "Well, I wouldn't make a d---- ass of myself." "What makes you?" instantly retorted the bishop. This unlooked for but somewhat cutting reply, as unexpected as it was caustic and unanswerable, was the termination of the argument. It proved a sort of boomerang. Coburn stood motionless and said nothing. There was really nothing that could be said after the bishop had so plainly spoken. The controversy suddenly closed. In a moment the coach started off up Commercial street on its journey toward the setting sun, while the passengers inside broke into a hearty laugh and congratulated the bishop on his quick repartee. This little episode soon spread the entire length of the overland line, and Coburn for a time was greatly bored, and it was a long while before he heard the last of it. After the completion of the railroad across the plains and the overland stage had |
abandoned the place, Coburn left Atchison and went to Denver, where he was drawn into an encounter and killed a man named Hammond in a saloon with a billiard cue, in the early part of 1867. He had a trial and was acquitted. Subsequently he married settled down on a Colorado ranch near Denver, and, in a few years afterward, died. Many people of Atchison, before railroads were built west of the Missouri, were slow to realize the advantages of being the starting-point for the California mail. It was a dark day for the old town, however, when the "Overland" pulled out of the place for good, after having been running its stages out of the city almost daily since the summer of 1861, or for a period of little more than five years. The advance of the Union Pacific railroad from Omaha west along the Platte to Fort Kearney and the completion of the Kansas Pacific railway up the Kaw valley to near Manhattan was the cause of the move and the abandoning of Atchison, so long the point of departure in the '60's for the great overland mail. The company had for some weeks been pulling the stock and coaches off of the eastern division, from the Missouri river to Rock creek and "bunching" them at Atchison. Several days' preparation had been gone through with, and, a little after eleven o'clock in the day (December 19, 1866) the long train or procession of Concord stages, hacks and express coaches started from their stables and yard on Second street, some drawn by six horses and some by four. The procession went out of town west along Commercial street, the route daily traveled for over five years. Alex. Benham, the veteran overland stage division agent and plainsman, and David Street, so long the paymaster and general manager of the line, headed the procession, in a Concord division buggy. Other employees in buggies followed; then came something like a dozen big Concord coaches; then the Concord hacks or canvas-covered stages; then the long express coaches, etc. There must have been forty or more teams in the procession or train, besides the loose horses led. As the long line of vehicles moved out of Atchison, it seemed like a grand parade of a big show-all headed for their new destination, Fort Riley and Junction City. It was a magnificent sight to look upon, and yet there appeared to be something solemn or sad about it, when it was remembered that a similar |
scene would never be witnessed again in the old town. There were the familiar stages and express coaches and teams that had, so often rolled down the busy streets of Atchison loaded with human freight, carrying hundreds of thousands of treasure, vast numbers of express packages, the well-known drivers, and, last but not least, the great overland letter mails between the Atlantic and Pacific. The stage line had had its day. The company was bidding a final adieu to the city and section of country its vast enterprise had so many years been such an important factor in helping to build up. The old stages, so tastefully constructed and so useful and important in their day, were becoming too slow for the steady advance of civilization, The iron sinews of commerce that were rapidly stretching out over the rolling prairies from the great western bend of the Missouri were forcing the Concords to the rear. It was "the first low wash of waves"; the vast "human sea" soon to follow was rolling in behind them. The sight in some respects was a melancholy one. Many of the pioneers and old-time citizens of Atchison, who had for so many years watched the daily departure and arrival of the stages, heaved a sigh as the long familiar sight of the overland mail, passenger and express vehicles passed out from their gaze forever. Calhoun county (Kan.) court-house, where Judge Lecompte held court in 1855. Now Jackson county. |
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