 A DISPUTE OVER RIGHT OF WAY. Page 514. |
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CHAPTER XXIII. MARYSVILLE, MARSHALL COUNTY -- THE OKETO CUT-OFF.
*So named in honor of Mrs. Mary Marshall. |
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the northern tier of Kansas, the fourth county west of the
Missouri river is Marshall, named for Gen. Frank J.
Marshall, its pioneer. It is about 100 miles west of
Atchison, the latter being in the second tier of counties
from the north. Marshall was the first county in northern
Kansas to be settled, and it has always been one of the most
prosperous counties in the state. Less than a half-century
ago it was swarming with buffalo, where, perhaps for
centuries, they had grazed unmolested.|
GEN. F. J. MARSHALL. |
MRS. MARY MARSHALL. |
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COURT-HOUSE, Built in 1874 by Marysville township, at a cost of $15,000. and donated to the county. Destroyed by fire December 31, 1890. |
COURT-HOUSE, Built in 1891 by the town of Marysville, at a cost of $40,000, and donated to the county. |
eastern portion of the county, on the great overland military route. They secured a very fine body of land, and in a few years Guittard's station became one of the prominent stopping points on the overland mail line. In early Kansas territorial days Marysville was a red-hot pro-slavery town. The first election was held at Marshall's, the upper crossing of the Blue, at Marysville, on March 31. 1855. The Kansas-Nebraska act gave to every "inhabitant" or "actual resident" of the territory the right to vote at that election. The total population of the county was but a score or two, but parties organized in western Missouri came for the time being to be "actual residents" for a day or two--until the election was over and the votes counted. There were only two free-state men in the county, George H. Hollenberg and John D. Wells. The election to vote on the Lecompton constitution took place December 21, 1857. That was a great day in the history of Marysville, and Marshall county could easily have secured the blue ribbon for illegal voting. There were less than a half-dozen log cabins* on the town site of Marysville and probably less than 100 bona fide voters in the county, but when the count was made, it was found that nearly 1000 votes had been cast. THE OKETO CUT-OFF. From July 1, 1861, to the fall of 1862, the overland stages ran daily on the old military road via Guittard's station, through Marysville. There was a sort of rivalry or jealousy that had for some time existed between the county-seat *In the upper story of one of these cabins the polls were opened by setting a soap box on the head of a whisky barrel as the receptacle for ballots. In case the above-mentioned soap box was filled with ballots, another box was to be substituted. A narrow staircase, led to a hole in the ceiling, through which the voter would thrust his hand, holding a ticket, and yell out his name, or the first name he happened to think of, and then would immediately descend, to make room for the next man, absorb a sufficient quantity of "tarantula juice," conjure up a new name, and await his opportunity to vote again. Among the twenty-five or thirty voters present there was a notable personage known by the sobriquet of "Shanghai "--probably so named from his personal appearance. Long before half the day had passed, Shanghai, who had become so thoroughly imbued with patriotism for his party (and whisky) that he could not keep a secret, sprang upon a whisky barrel and exlaimed (sic) that he had voted twenty-five times, was going to vote twenty-five times more, and would bet any man $100 that he had outvoted any one in the outfit., Tradition states that the little band of Southern pilgrims stood by and listened with amazement. No one seemed willing to take up the challenge of the champion voter, and the matter was about to go by default, when it was accepted by one of the "pilgrims," the money put up, and a committee appointed to investigate. The result of the investigation showed that Shanghai was beaten, the challenged party having deposited nearly 100 votes. It was also shown that he had possession of a St. Louis business directory, and that he was voting in alphabetical order, and had only got half way through the "A" list!--A. T. Andreas's History of Kansas, 1883. |
First Methodist Church (South), Marysville, Kan. Purchased by Marshall county, Kansas, in 1863. and used for a court house until 1873. of Marshall and this station. A cut-off, about
thirty-five miles long, was talked of by the stage
authorities, from Guittard's a little northwesterly, via
Oketo, across the Otoe reserve, leaving Marysville a few
miles to the south. To forestall this action a new road was
laid out from Marysville to Seneca--leaving Guittard's a few
miles to the north--by which it was hoped sufficient
advantages could be given to induce the overland freighters
to travel it as well as the stages; but the scheme did not
succeed. The stage company could not be induced to travel
the new road. Gen. F. J. Marshall's residence, Marysville, Kan. Built in 1859-'60. |
About the middle of October, 1862, the stages began traveling the cut-off. Oketo station was on the Big Blue river, ten miles a little northwest of Guittard's, and about the same distance due north of Marysville. Holladay had a ferry-boat built for crossing the Big Blue at Oketo, in high water; he also put in, at considerable expense, bridges and culverts over the small streams and ravines; worked the bad places and fixed up things in good shape, hoping to divert the bulk of the travel over his cut-off. Everything that was done, it seems, only helped to exasperate the people of Marysville, who were already indignant beyond measure at the way things had gone. Before the change, they were getting their mail three times a week by stage. For a month afterwards they were almost entirely without mail facilities. Finally a man was engaged to carry it on horseback triweekly from Guittard's. A petition was sent to the department from Marysville asking for a daily mail by four-horse coach. A reply was sent to the petitioners cutting the service to semiweekly by horseback. This naturally increased the exasperation of the good people of Marysville, and the department was again petitioned, when the service was cut down to once a month. This of course only enraged them, and a third petition was sent in, after which service was stopped altogether. This was "the straw that broke the camel's back." For some time thereafter, whenever an opportunity offered, the mail for Marysville was sent by ox team and freight train from Guittard's to its destination. Finally a man was hired to carry it regularly between the two offices. Although it is claimed the stage proprietor was under contract to deliver a mail twice a week at Marysville, for a period of at least four months the arrangements for supplying under the existing contract were of the most miserable kind. Missouri river daily papers--from St. Joseph, Leavenworth, and Kansas City--received in Marysville during that period, were often a month old when they came to hand. But Marysville, the oldest town in the Blue valley, and the most important point between the Missouri river and Denver, was determined on revenge for the wrong that had been done her in this matter. During a freshet, the ferry-boat on the Big Blue at Oketo, under the cover of darkness, was cut loose by some one--the name of the guilty party was never learned--causing it to float |
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AN INCIDENT ON THE OKETO CUT-OFF. Page 523. |
from its moorings. This was a rather severe obstacle to be met by the stage company, causing much annoyance and considerable delay, but it was not the end of the trouble. One night not long afterward a party went out and dug a ditch across the road on the cut-off seven or eight feet long and one or two feet wide. In addition they tore up a stone crossing in a bad slough. That night, as the west-bound stage came up, about ten o'clock, one of its passengers inside was a general of the United States Army. Enoch Cummings, a pioneer plainsman, and one of the earliest of the overland stage-drivers, was on the box. It was dark, and as a natural consequence, he drove into the ditch. The sudden and severe jolt threw him off the seat to the ground. He knew of the bitterness between the town authorities of Marysville and the stage men, and, in an instant, comprehended the situation. The army official inside the coach was given a sudden and severe shaking up. It was during the war of the rebellion, and he could not have been more surprised had a shell been thrown into the stage-coach from the enemy's ranks in the Confederacy. When asked for the cause of the sudden stopping, the driver explained that it was probably owing to the ill feeling that had for some time been existing between the people of Marysville and Ben. Holladay, at the same time explaining as best he could the whole situation. The general listened to the facts, and at once wrote to the commanding officer at Fort Leavenworth for troops to be sent out to protect the overland mail line and the stage company's private property. In a few days a detachment of soldiers belonging to the Third Wisconsin Cavalry were detailed for that purpose, and, marching out on the frontier, which was then at the Big Blue, made their headquarters at Marysville. The people, however, who lost their vegetables and chickens, soon became tired of their presence, but there were no more complaints of the outrages which had been charged to the Marysvillians. In this Oketo cut-off move, it would naturally appear to a person disinterested that Holladay had "cut off his nose to spite his face." He erected new stations on the Otoe reservation and went to great expense in changing the route, in some manner being able to convince the post-office department and other high officials that the new cut-off was a shorter and in many other respects a much better route than via Marysville. The stage-drivers and |
freighters, however, who had traveled the plains and were familiar with both roads, declared the route through Marysville was by far the better and more desirable. It was the old-established military road; the natural highway across the plains to Salt Lake and California after the breaking out of the gold excitement in 1849. In 1852 the road was lined with emigrants and gold seekers from every state in the Union, going overland for the new El Dorado on the Pacific coast. It finally became one of the most important stage and freight wagon roads in the country. Over it all the travel and Government stores were shipped to Forts Kearney, Laramie, Bridger, and other important military posts throughout the great West and Northwest territories. Hundreds and thousands of teams had for years passed over it, and much of the track was beaten solid and almost as smooth as a floor. The freighters would not and could not, under any circumstances, be induced to travel the cut-off, and the old stage-coach was, for several months, almost the only vehicle that passed over it. Hardly a stage-driver went over the cut-off without relieving himself of a string of adjectives which were decidedly forcible if not very elegant. There is little doubt that, if the true feelings of Holladay had been known at the time, he was himself heartily sick of his cutoff, for in due time, through his agents, all differences between him and the authorities of Marysville were adjusted, the cut-off was finally declared a failure and abandoned, and the old, original route reestablished, to the satisfaction of all concerned. Holladay evidently had had his revenge on Marysville, but, at the same time, it was at considerable loss financially, for it had cost him at least $50,000. There was about as much rejoicing among the stage employees as among the citizens of the old town when the four-horse Concord coaches began again to make their daily trips east and west through Marysville. The first stage since the middle of October, 1862, passed through the historic old town on the 4th of March, 1863, having traversed the cut-off at great inconvenience to the traveling public for a period of four and one-half months. In the meantime the people of Marysville had learned to their sorrow that Ben. Holladay, vulgarly speaking, was a veritable buzz-saw, and that it would never do for even a town corporation to "monkey" with him. There was no finer body of land on the stage route than that |
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Schmidt & Koester's Exchange Bank, Marysville, Kan., 1870. Exchange Bank, Marysville, Kan., 1880. |
embraced in the Otoe Indian reservation. The most of it was gently rolling prairie, but it was quite well watered and timbered. Only a few acres occupied by the Indians had been broken. However, across the entire body it appeared a lonesome route, having been abandoned by freighters, who traveled it but once, and cautioned all their friends to give it a wide berth when crossing the plains. It was a rare thing to see a freight team on the cut-off, but occasionally would be noticed a band of Otoes, with their squaws and papooses, going over the trails one way or the other, with their ponies, hauling their lodges and the usual paraphernalia required to make up the outfit of the aborigines. Oketo, Otoe and Pawnee were the only stations built by Holladay on this reservation. The former was said to be ten miles distant from Guittard's, the latter thirty-two miles; but to me they seemed the longest miles I ever traveled on the old stage line. Gen. Frank J. Marshall, the pioneer and founder of Marysville, which town he named in honor of his wife, Mary, was born April 3, 1816, in Lee county, Virginia. He enjoyed a common-school education, finishing his studies with one or two years at the historic William and Mary College. Not long after the closing of the first quarter of the past century, he drifted from his native state and emigrated to the "wild, woolly West," casting his lot in Ray county, Missouri, where he soon gained political prominence. He married an estimable young lady named Mary Williams in 1847. In the California gold excitement, which broke out in the later '40's, he pushed out west of the Missouri river, and settled, as has been mentioned, on the east bank of the Big Blue in 1849, some years before the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, and in the heated political struggle that ensued in the '50's he took a prominent part. On the discovery of gold in the Pike's Peak region, in 1858-'59, General Marshall was among the early ones to be carried away by the fabulous reports. He left the old homestead at Marysville, and for many years was prominently engaged in mining in Colorado, being foremost in the development of Gilpin and Clear Creek counties, and subsequently engaged in farming in Boulder county. He built the first house at Marysville and also erected the first brick business house in Denver, and witnessed the unprecedented growth of the place, from its first log cabin, in 1858, until it had become a great city numbering a population of more than 150,000 inhabitants. The |
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