417 Supervisor of Registration; D. A. N. Grover, Comptroller; John C. Gage, J. J. M. Beach, John Campbell, A. C. Moffat, B. A. Feineman, Dennis Levy, G. W. 1876.-Turner A. Gill, Mayor; P. M. Chouteau, Treasurer; L. J. Talbott, Auditor; W. H. Sutton, H. R. Nelso, Recorder; Wash. Adams, Attorney; J. M. Ekdahl, Supervisor of Registration; J. Brumback, Counsellor; D. A. N. Grover, Comptroller; Robert Salisbury, Assessor; A. A. Holmes, Engineer; Patrick O'Reilley, Market Master; Wm. C. Morris, Physician; J. W. Wirth, Supt. Workhouse; John Kelley, Inspector Weights and Measures; A. Mayer, E. R. Hunter, City Clerk; F. Foster, Chief of Fire Department; Thos. M. Speers, Chief of Police. Councilmen : John Campbell, W. S. Gregory, B. A. Feineman, D. R. Porter, Edward Lynde, G. W. Lovejoy, Dennis Levy, P. McAnany, James M. Buckley, J. W. Reid, Wm. Holmes, H. A Simms, David P. Bigger. 1877.-J. W. L. Slavens, Mayor; L. J. Talbott, Auditor; P. M. Chouteau, Treasurer; D. Ellison, Recorder; James Gibson, Attorney; John M. Ekdahl, Supervisor of Registration; J. M. Dews, Comptroller; H. N. Ess, Counselor; Robert Salisbury, Assessor; W. C. Morris, Physician; F. M. Furgason, Inspector Licenses, Weights and Measures; Joseph Porter, Market Master; W. L. Sheppard, Superintendent Workhouse; W. E. Benson, City Clerk; A. A. Holmes, Engineer; Thomas M. Spears, Chief of Police; F. Foster, Chief of Fire Department. Councilmen: W. S Gregory, Philip Casey, E. Lynde, R. H. Drennon, Dennis Levy, C. C. Whitmeyer, James M. Buckley, W. B. Robinson, William Holmes, W. H. Winants, David P. Bigger, H. A. Simms. 1878.-Geo. M. Shelley, Mayor; William Weston, Treasurer; L. J. Talbott, Auditor; Hamilton Finney, Recorder; James Gibson, Attorney; Erastus Johns, Supervisor of Registration; Robert Salisbury, Assessor; W. E. Benson, City Clerk; W. L. Sheppard, William Kelley, Superintendents of Workhouse; Joseph Porter, Market Master; J. M. Trowbridge, Engineer; H. C. Kumpf, Comptroller; W. W. Payne, Inspector Licenses, Weights and Measures; S. P. Twiss, Counselor; A. M. Crow, Physician; Thomas M. Speers, Chief of Police; F. Foster, Chief of Fire Department. Councilmen: Philip Casey, P. D. Etue, R. H. Drennon, H. C. Morrison, C. C. Whitmeyer, T. W. Butler, W. B. Robinson, L. A. Allen, W. H. Winants, Louis Dragon, H. A. Simms, A, H. Glasner. 1879.-George M. Shelley, Mayor; A. C. Walmsley, Treasurer; William Vincent, Auditor; Hamilton Finney, Recorder; Thomas King, Attorney; M. K. Kirk, Supervisor of Registration; T. A. Gill, Counselor; H. C. Kumpf, Comptroller; Robert Salisbury, Assessor; W. E. Benson, City Clerk; C. H. Knickerbocker, Engineer; John Donnelly, Assistant Engineer; D. R. Porter, Physician; William Burk, Market Master; Benedict Waibel, Inspector Licenses, Weights and Measures; F. R. Allen, Superintendent Workhouse; Thomas M. Speers, Chief of Police; F. Foster, Chief of Fire Department. Councilmen : P. D. Etue, George W. McClelland, H. C. Morrison, J. N. DuBois, T. W. Butler, R. H. Maybury, L. A. Allen, John, Salisbury, Louis Dragon, T. B. Bullene, A. H. Glasner, Patrick Hickey. 1880.-C. A. Chace, Mayor; A. C. Walmsley, Treasurer; William Vincent, Auditor; H. Finney, Recorder; Thomas King, Attorney; M. Burk, Supervisor of Registration; Wash Adams, Counselor; John Donnelly, Engineer; Nathaniel Grant, Comptroller; V. D. Callahan, City Clerk; Thomas M. Speers, Chief of Police; F. Foster, Chief of Fire Department; Robert Salisbury, Assessor; C. J. Jenkins, Physician; Adam Johns, Inspector of Licenses; J. J. Granfield, Market Master; F. R. Allen, Superintendent Workhouse. Councilmen: J. A. McDonald, T. B. Bullene, John Salisbury, George W. McClelland, W. J. Ross, J. 27 N. DuBois, Patrick Hickey, J. N. Moore, R. H. Maybury, W. G. Duncan, Louis Dragon. 1881.-Daniel A. Frink, Mayor; A. C. Walmsley, Treasurer; M. L. Sullivan, Auditor; John W. Childs, Recorder; W. J. Strong, Attorney; M. H. Bass, Supervisor of Registration; D. S. Twitchell, Counselor; Nathaniel Grant, Comptroller; Robert Salisbury, Assessor; V. D. Callahan, City Clerk; John Donnelly, Engineer; A. A. Holmes, Assistant Engineer; John Fee, Physician; John J. Granfield, Market Master; B. Waibel, Inspector Licenses, Weights and Measures; Thomas C. Clary, Superintendent Workhouse; Thomas M. Speers, Chief of Police; F. Foster, Chief of Fire Department; Councilmen: W. J. Ross. J. M. Ford, J. A. McDonald, D. H. Porter, John W. Moore, James Anderson, L. A. Allen, John Salisbury, L. Dragon, B. A. Sheidley, W. G. Duncan, M. Gafney. REVIVING TIMES IN 1853-4. During the years 1853-4, there was a material revival of confidence among the people of this locality. The cholera, which, it had been feared, would become an established disease, had failed to make its appearance since 1852. The Santa Fe trade was rapidly growing, and the settlement of the adjacent country made a larger local trade. The fact that this angle in the river was the nearest water transportation for all the Indian country from the head of the Platte River round by the Rocky Mountains to the Cherokee country, caused the whole of the Indian trade to come here, and at that time it had become very large. People began to return, and others to make their homes here, and at last there began to be new hopes of realizing the bright promises of 1846 9. The next enumeration of the population, which was in 1855, showed a revival to 478, but business grew much faster than population. THE FIRST NEWSPAPER. As early as the year 1851 or 1852, there was an attempt made to establish a newspaper. A Mr. Kennedy undertook the enterprise, calling his paper the Public Ledger. It was not, however, a financial success, and after a vain struggle with the waves of adversity, Mr. Kennedy yielded, and the Public Ledger passed out of existence. The need of a paper to represent the interests of the new city, and properly chronicle local events, had become so apparent that the people interested in its welfare could not long do without one. Hence, after much talking about it among themselves, they finally held a meeting at the Union Hotel, now known as the old Gillis House, and determined that a paper must be had. A company was organized at that meeting, the capital stock was fixed at one thous and dollars, and the larger part of it taken on the spot. The names of some of these subscribers were Wm. Gillis, W. S. Gregory, Northrup & Chick, M. J. Payne, Dr. B. Troost, E. M. McGee, Thompson McDaniel, and Robert Campbell. Dr. Troost, M. J. Payne and W. S. Gregory were elected trustees, with power to collect the subscriptions, purchase material, and start and manage the paper. M. J. Payne was deputed by his associates to do the most of the work. He went to St. Louis and purchased the material, and shipped it to Kansas City. About this time, Mr. D. K. Abeel made his appearance in Kansas City, and the trustees finding that he was a printer, engaged him to take mechanical and business charge of it. Wm. A. Strong, an attorney, was engaged to conduct the editorial department. Its first appearance was in October, 1854, and, as it was deemed only an enterprise, it was given the name of the Kansas City Enterprise. This was the first permanently established newspaper in Kansas City. In 1857, its name was changed to Journal of Commerce, and is now known simply as The Journal. On the 15th of June, 1858, it appeared as a small morning daily, the fourth daily in the Missouri Valley. Soon afterward, a telegraph line having been completed to Boonville, arrangements were made for dispatches by that line, and by express from Boonville to Kansas City. In its different editions prior to the war, it was the most active and wide-awake paper the writer has ever had the pleasure of examining; the fullest of local and business news, and the most devoted to the welfare of Kansas City. It was at once a faithful reflector of all local and business news, the leader and exponent of public commercial sentiment, and the fosterer of every public enterprise. In the summer of 1855, Col. R. T. Van Horn came to the city and purchased the Enterprise, of which he assumed control in October. He had previously lost an office, the Telegraph, at Pomeroy, Ohio, by fire, and for a year or two had been steamboating for a brother-in-law who was largely interested in steamboat stocks. It was from this fact that he got the title of captain, by which he was generally known, until by military services in the late war he gained the one by which he is at present known. In the summer of 1855 he took a boat to St. Louis to sell, and while lying there for that purpose boarded at the Virginia hotel. Here he met William A. Strong, then editor of the Enterprise, who, learning that he was a printer and journalist, induced him to come to Kansas City. His purchase of the Enterprise was for one thousand dollars, one half cash and the balance on time. From its first issue under his management, it became an active, earnest and vigilant advocate of Kansas City's interests, and so far exceeded the expectations of the old company that before the maturity of his notes they were canceled and presented to him. D. K. Abeel, Esq., who had been connected with the paper from the first as printer and business manager, soon afterward became associated with Col. Van Horn in the proprietorship, taking charge of the business affairs, into which department he infused that vigor and energy which at once put the paper on a sound and progressive financial basis. These two gentlemen have since been largely associated together in the paper in these respective capacities, each ably fulfilling the promise of their early years. KANSAS CITY IN 1854-5. At this time all there was of Kansas City was situated along the river front, except a few residences which had been built upon the hills overlooking the river. The levee was only about wide enough for a team to pass, jutting over a ledge of rocks into the river on the one side and rising hundreds of feet into bluffs on the other. Here and there excavations had been made into the hill, and business houses built. One of these houses was the Union Hotel (now Gillis House), built in 1849, and another Chick's warehouse, built in 1843. About the foot of Broadway, the bluffs, coming round in nearly a perpendicular wall from Turkey Creek, jutted into the river, and a wagon road wide enough for one wagon had been cut across it leading into the Kaw bottom, which was then a dense woods, except where the French traders had cleared off a few patches. The hills back of the levee were well covered with woods, except in the less broken portions where clearings had been made. A deep ravine, starting at the lower end of the levee, a little below the present foot of Grand avenue, wound around to the southwest, across the present market square, up by Delaware and Sixth street, and thence southeasterly to the Junction. There was a road up this ravine, over which the Santa Fe and other wagons passed, but with its precipitous banks on either side it was a bad road. It took the hill at a point near the junction of Main and Delaware streets, and crossed the creek south of the city, not far from the street railroad stables, going up the hill again toward Westport. A less inviting spot for town building it would be difficult to conceive. But from this great angle in the Missouri River was the best natural road to the southwest and west, and it was the highest point to which goods for the great Santa Fe and plains trade could be taken by boat, without increasing the cost of land transportation and incurring worse roads. This determined this locality as the starting point for that trade, while the unequaled river landing determined the exact spot whereon the transfer from boat to wagon should be made. These facts were then recognized, and with the beginning of the new era of activity, the plains trade previously done at Independence and Westport, centered entirely at Kansas City. Outfitting houses were opened and provision made for the outfitters, so that they no longer were compelled to go either to Independence or Westport. This trade, however, lasted but a few weeks in the spring while the trains were starting out, and a few weeks in the fall when they returned. At a later period the Enterprise, referring to this date, editorially, says: "Two years since, when we landed in Kansas City in the month of July, there was little or no business doing-two boilers, an engine, and a small lot of machinery, covered with a tarpaulin, was all there was to be seen on the levee. Business men informed us that the trade of the season was over; that with the exception of a short time late in the fall no more would be done until next spring." CHAPTER VII. THE SETTLEMENT OF KANSAS. The Kansas- Nebraskı Act — Preparations by Pro-Slavery and Anti-Slavery Parties to occupy Kansas- -Early Settlement-Kansas City again Recognized-Development of Kansas-Navigation of the Kaw River-The Kansas Troubles-The Effect on Kansas City-Col. Coates. With the concentration of the Indian and Santa Fe trade at Kansas City, there was here a sufficient business to have made a town of ten or twelve thousand people, had there been no increase of business until the capabilities of the town had developed to an equality with it. But at this time other events were transpiring which were destined to give the place an unprecedented forward impulse. These were the events attending the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and the opening of them to settlement. These events, however, were attended with circumstances that made the settlement of Kansas troublous, which injuriously affected the development of the trade of the young city. The events leading to the organization of these Territories began as early as December 13, 1852, when Hon. Willard P. Hall of Missouri introduced into the House of Representative at Washington, a bill to organize the Territory of Platte, which was to embrace both Kansas and Nebraska. On the 2d of February, 1853, Hon. William A. Richardson, of Illinois, introduced a bill for the organization of the Territory of Nebraska. Neither of these bills proposed to extend slavery. into either of these Territories, as it was already excluded from the country embraced in both by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. On the 10th of February, Richardson's bill passed the House, and on the 17th it was reported in the Senate by Hon. Stephen A. Douglas. Nothing was done however before the adjournment and expiration of that Congress. At the meeting of the next Congress, Hon. Augustus C. Dodge, of Iowa, introduced into the Senate a bill for the organization of Nebraska. This bill, like its predecessors, did not provide for slavery. On the 4th of January it was reported in the Senate by Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, and on the 23d of the same month Senator Douglas offered a substitute providing for the organization of the two Territories of Kansas and Nebraska and containing this significant clause : "That the Constitution, and all laws of the United States which are not locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect within the said Territory of Kansas as elsewhere within the United States, except the eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union, approved March sixth, eighteen hundred and twenty, which, being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by the Legislature of eighteen hundred and fifty, commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void; it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to revive or put in force any law or regulation which may have existed prior to the act of sixth of March, eighteen hundred and twenty, either protecting, establishing, prohibiting, or abolishing slavery." This clause was the result of hostility, on the part of Senators and Representatives for the slave States, to any bill looking to the extension of freedom in the |