When a Stage Line Ran from Topeka to Atchison
The Towns on the Route Were Few and Far Between–Hickory Point Was An Important Place Where Travelers Were Fed
From the Topeka Daily Capital, Feb. 27, 1909
By Frank A. Root
It was in the spring of 1862 when I made my first visit to Topeka, although I had been a resident of Kansas five years previous, having come to the territory in mid-spring, 1857. My trip over here was from Atchison, where I then resided. At that time there was not a mile of railroad in Kansas, and I came across the country in a two horse stage as far as Hickory Point (Jefferson County), a few miles east of Ozawkie.
Towns on the old stage route at that time were few and far between, Mount Pleasant, Hickory Point, Osawkie and Grasshopper Falls being the only places, the two former having not to exceed more than three or four houses each. Osawkie was a small free state village, but it was located on high ground above the river bank, hence was quite conspicuous for a considerable distance. The place–what little there was of it–had been built up largely from the sale of the Delaware trust lands, these embracing a tract of 200,000 acres which had been disposed of by Uncle Sam in August, 1857.
The little town built at the falls was also quite a village, being the largest and most prominent place on the stage route at that time–as it is now, with its name changed to “Valley Falls,” and the Grasshopper river changed to “Delaware”–the largest point on the railroad between Atchison and Topeka. It was already enjoying considerable reputation as a prominent free-state point, having gained more than ordinary notoriety during the early “border ruffian” troubles which first began with the settlement of Kansas in the early fifties.
Hickory Point, on the opposite, politically, loomed up more or less prominently as an earnest pro-slavery town, and here it was that a lively conflict, lasting six hours, took place Sunday, the 14th of September, 1856. Henry Reisner of 1225 Harrison street was in this fight. He was shot in the knee while engaged in pushing a load of hay up to a building to be set on fire from the burning hay, in an effort to dislodge the enemy. The free state forces engaged in the fight numbered 101 men and were from Lawrence, with Captain James A. Harvey in command. Lowe and Robertson commanded the pro-slavery party, but being whipped, were obliged to surrender. After the fight, Harvey and his men were taken prisoners by Colonel P. S. George Cooke, who had charge of the United States forces, and shortly appeared on the scene of hostilities. The men composing the gallant free state company were at once escorted to Lecompton, where they were kept in confinement at a prison–a rude building guarded by federal soldiers–on the outskirts of the pro-slavery territorial capital.
At Hickory Point the wagon road from Atchison united with the Leavenworth road, thus making this an important station on the route. The stage between Atchison and Topeka stopped at this junction, where the passengers ate dinner. And it was a splendid place to dine. The house was a one-story log structure, kept by a Mr. Lowe, a gentleman of intense pro-slavery sentiments. Mrs. Lowe presided over the cooking department. Everything composing the choice spread was gotten up in the best apple-pie order and the guests who partook enjoyed it exceedingly.
From Hickory Point to Topeka the passengers, both from Leavenworth and Atchison, were transferred to one of the larger four-horse coaches. A stop was made for changing the mail at Osawkie and Grasshopper Falls, and at the latter place there was a change of teams. The falls were known as the halfway point on the stage line between Atchison and Topeka. Another change of teams was made at a distance farther to the southwest, near what is now Meriden, this being the last change on the route between the Missouri river and the capital city. From Hickory Point the stage followed the old military road leading from Ft. Leavenworth to Ft. Riley, and five miles from Topeka, a little east of north, the noted thoroughfare passed within a stone’s throw of the old log cabin erected on General William T. (“Old Tecumseh”) Sherman’s homestead, near the east bank of Indian creek by that famous army veteran as early as 1856. On this route “Gov.” E. M. Pollinger of Twin Bridges, Montana; Chas. C. Haynes of Shoshone, Idaho; William Trotter of Indiana, and Mike Wagner of Topeka, and others, both living and deceased, drove the old stage-coach in territorial days in the latter fifties.
The usual place and the way of crossing the Kaw river at Topeka in the latter fifties and early sixties, was by means of the old rope ferry, operated near the foot of Harrison street, only a few rods south from the old Curtis log cabin home, the birthplace of Senator Charles Curtis, one of Topeka’s honored citizens. The rope was hitched to trees and stretched from bank to bank across the stream on which pulleys ran, and the bow being headed a little upstream, the boat was naturally propelled by the current of the river.
There was no sign of a town near the old ferry on the north side of the Kaw at that time. When the Kansas Pacific railroad was pushing up the valley from Kansas City and nearing Topeka, the town of “Eugene” was laid out on the north side opposite the city of Topeka, then with less than 1,000 inhabitants. Subsequently this was changed to North Topeka, but the prosperous town that has since grown up near the old ferry was not even dreamed of for several years following my first trip here.
On the stage were several passengers, all of them apparently in a great hurry to get across the river to Topeka. The entire “bottom” from the river to the high ground north of the city was a dense body of heavy timber. The trees embraced cottonwood, sycamore, elm, hickory and walnut, the first two varieties predominating. Some of the cottonwoods and sycamores would measure from four to five feet in diameter. Through this body of timber the road lay stretched out in a serpentine course as it came down from the elevated or bluffy land in a southerly direction to the ferry. The stage road through this immense forest deviated every few rods from a straight or direct line to a short semi-circle, on account of a gigantic tree that obstructed the course. As the vehicle was steadily making its way across the wide “bottom” through the forest and thicket, casting my eyes up into the wide-spreading branches, I noticed lodged among the lower limbs of a good many of the trees quantities of flood trash, fully ten or more feet above ground. This was a sight very strange and entirely new to me. For the life of me I could not understand it, neither could anyone else on the stage. It was something beyond the comprehension of us all.
After a lapse of nearly half a century, however, suddenly everything concerning the deposit of debris among the lower branches of the trees was made plain to me when the north and a portion of the south side of the city, early in the summer of 1903, was overwhelmed by that year’s disastrous flood. The thirty-two feet of water which came like an avalanche and swept down the Kaw valley five and a half years ago, apparently was but a repetition of the deluge which rolled along through the valley forty-nine years before–ten years before Kansas became a territory and was thrown open for settlement, and a year and three months after it became a state. It was only a year before the great flood of ’44 that Lieutenant John C. Fremont passed up the valley on his second exploring expedition in the Rockies. Eighteen years followed that ’44 flood. I rode through that body of heavy timber and witnessed what I have here related on that first trip by stage into Topeka. It is not at all strange that no one on the coach could explain the cause of the large amount of flood trash lodged in the lower branches of the big trees. The great flood of ’44 which had left its mark so plainly visible in the branches of the big trees nearly a score of years thereafter, occurred before the oldest pioneer in this vicinity had set foot on the site of what since became Topeka and the State Capital of Kansas.
On that first trip to Topeka, as the stage-coach was nearing the Kaw, the passengers were told by the driver that if they so desired, he could ford the river and save at least a half hour’s time, but that they–the inside occupants of the coach–would have to raise their feet a little, as a few inches of water would undoubtedly come into the bed of the stage when the main current of the stream was reached. All of the passengers at once agreed to do this, and here, almost half a century ago I, for the first and only time in my life, crossed the Kaw river on the stage-coach. The vehicle forded the treacherous stream between what has since been built, the Kansas avenue Melan arch wagon bridge and the Santa Fe railroad structure, over which the company operates trains to Atchison and St. Joseph.
Between Atchison and Topeka upwards of two scores of years ago, the vast rolling prairies that intervened were only sparsely settled. One now sees that great changes have been made since those days. Almost every one of the pioneer farmers selected places for homes along the various streams. Few even thought of squatting on Kansas land that was not convenient to both water and timber. Seldom was a farm house visible on the high prairies for the entire distance of fifty-odd miles. When I made that first trip here it seemed to me that the vast rolling prairie country across which the road was laid out would never be settled. A half dozen flourishing towns have since been built within a short distance of the early wagon highway over which ox and mule trains for several years had been conspicuous. Also there had passed over it the Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express company’s four mule coaches which were operated up the Kansas valley and on beyond to Denver in the spring and summer of 1859, following the early gold discoveries made in Cherry creek in the summer of ’58. During the staging period between Atchison and Topeka on that 50 mile route in the early sixties, it is probably no exaggeration to say that at this time there is hardly a section of land for the entire distance but what has on it from one to four buildings.
It was a long ten hours’ ride across from Atchison to Topeka by the Kansas Stage Company’s vehicles, operated by two and four horses. This 50 mile trip can now be covered inside of two hours. The bare, unbroken prairies of a half century ago have given way to choice farms, under a high state of cultivation, many of them showing improvements of a substantial character. What was once a wilderness on which waved tall prairie grass, has been transformed to orchards, and fields of all kinds of grain and tame grasses. Around the homely cabins of the early settlers can now be seen modern windmills, granaries containing riches sufficient for a king’s ransom, and cribs groaning with a wealth of corn than now goes into the production of pork and beef–for which our great state is famed–instead of being used for fuel as it was more than one season used for in the early seventies. Many cellars at this time are filled with products of the soil raised the past year, and if one will but for a moment reflect on the situation it must seem to him that the horn of plenty has been emptied at the feet of the Kansas farmer.
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More on the Kansas Stage Co. from the book, History of Atchison County, Kansas, by Sheffield Ingalls, published in 1916.
“… Atchison had become quite a point for stage routes as early as 1859.A line of hacks ran daily from there to Leavenworth; another ran to Lawrence; and still another via Oskaloosa and Grasshopper Falls, over the prairies and down across the Kaw river (to Lecompton, Big Springs, and Tecumseh) to Topeka – distance, seventy-two miles. This was a rather circuitous route, but was the nearest and easiest way to reach Topeka at that time. To get from Atchison to Lawrence in Pioneer days, passengers were obliged to go around via Leavenworth, a distance of sixty miles, until a “short line” was opened via Mount Pleasant and Oskaloosa, reducing the distance to forty-five miles and the fare to only $4.50. There was a line north via Doniphan, Troy and Highland to Iowa Point. A line was also operated via Doniphan, Geary City and Troy to St. Joseph. Another line ran via Hiawatha to Falls City, Neb. A little later the old town had blossomed into the biggest staging center in Kansas. The most important route having its headquarters in Atchison was a four-mule line–the Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express–which ran its elegant Concord stages across the plains twice a week. The Kansas Stage Company ran to Junction City via Mount Pleasant, Winchester, Osawkee, Mount Florence, Indianola, Topeka, Silver Lake, St. Mary’s Mission, Louisville, Manhattan, Ogden and Fort Riley. The distance by this route was 120 miles; fare, ten dollars [$10].
“On this route a change of teams was made on the site of the old historic Hickory Point battlefield, and here passengers for Topeka and points up the Kaw Valley dined at ‘Old Man Lowe’s.’ Lowe was one of the early pro-slavery men in Kansas, and naturally took a prominent part in the noted ‘battle,’ fighting with the border ruffians against the free-state men in 1866. His eating station was a plain one-story log building, and overlooked a large scope of country with much picturesque scenery. Guests were hospitably entertained here during the days of staging between Atchison and Topeka, and the old log house became a favorite stopping place. Mrs. Lowe used to get up some splendid meals, making most delicious coffee, frying prairie-chicken, bacon, and doughnuts, and baking corn dodgers in a style that could not be excelled by the most experienced Yankee cook. While the stage passengers for several years dined at the house, it was always a pleasant to listen to Lowe; when asked to ‘tell all about it,’ he would relate some of the most important incidents connected with the siege of the old town, in 1856. In the engagement it became necessary for the free-state men to bring up their old historic cannon and drop a few shots; finally to push a load of hay against the building and set fire to it, as a last resort, in their efforts to dislodge the ‘ruffians’.”
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This article appeared in “Yesteryears” in October 2017. https://www.jchsks.com/publications
Ella Hull Fulton Recalls the Stage Coach
[Editor’s Note: As a girl, Ella Hull walked or rode her pony from her family’s farm near Boyle to Hickory Point to get the mail and newspapers in the mid-1860s. She was 9 years old when her family moved to Kansas in 1864. She recalls families named Lough, Wilson or Willson, and Sherwood owning the farm at Hickory Point where the stages stopped. Frank Root, in the Topeka Capital, remembers the Lowe family living there, possibly the same as the Loughs.]
From the Winchester Star, April 5, 1929
Hickory Point was a place of interest until the civil war closed, there being a stage station there, where large double-decked stages stopped to change horses, one from each way every day, from Leavenworth to Fort Riley, and often getting their dinner there. It was quite a thrill to see those army officers and their finely dressed ladies. Just a little touch of the outside world to the pioneer settlers.
We were often sent there with and for the mail. The office and store were kept by an old couple by the name of Lough, and as we remember were quite refined people from the south. It was no secret that a good table was set there and allowed plenty to drink. This old couple sold out in the spring of 1865 to a Mrs. Wilson from Ohio, and the Loughs went or started overland to California, taking their money all in gold with them. They were never heard from, so were supposedly murdered by Indians or by white bandits on the way.
On our trips to Hickory Point for the mail we were often scared by cattle; occasionally we met a strange man; and one time, a beautiful summer morning, north of the Sherwood home, we walked all unconsciously into a camp of Indians–[women], dogs and men and was much excitement among them; their ponies had run away in the night and they were wanting to inquire of me if I had seen them. I had not and was so badly scared I could not have told them if I had. They were very much dressed up with feathers and gay blankets. They were going visiting–the Delawares to visit the Kickapoos in Brown county, a part no doubt of the famous chief, Johnny-cake, tribe. I was not molested and went on for the mail.
From the Valley Falls Vindicator, Dec. 9, 1936
We received a letter from Mrs. Leota Willson Booth from Oklahoma, and how she remembered our mother and the pony. The Willsons owned the Hickory Point farm and kept the post-office and it was quite a thrill to go for the mail. The big stages passed there; they were doubled decked and carried passengers from Ft. Leavenworth to Fort Riley; officers in gold braid and finely dressed ladies, and as the mail and stages were our only view of outside life we enjoyed going for the mail and we enjoyed the Willson family too, and we had all c[o]me from Ohio and the[re] seemed a tie between people from the same state. People don’t notice it now a days of general transportation, here one day some place else tomorrow.
