Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1859-06-11
WHOLE NUMBER 494.

GkANoo W WY VI AAaMttuCtf MNlcn We
had intended to make our resting-place for
the night; a creek nine miles south of Lea
venworth bad turned back the stage run
ming in that directions ia fact, no stage
made its way out of Leavenworth that day
in any direction which was not forced to
return baffled by the high water. SO at 3
p. m. we shipped our horses and wagons on
board the steamboat d. A. January, aud
! dropped down the Missouri some so miles.
past the bleaching bones of several dead
cities mot including Quindaro, which in.
ssts that it is still alive) to Wyandot, in
the lower corner of Kansas, with Kansas
City, Missouri, three miles of, in plain sight
across the mouth of the Kansas or Kaw
River. Wyandot, though hemmed in and
impeded, like Quiddaro, by an Indian re-
serve back Of it, is alive, aud is becoming
what it ought fully to be, the outlet and in
let between Southern Kansas and the Mis-
! souri, River. 1t has a beautiful location,
and decided natural advantages over Kan.
Sas City, which, with other Border-Rufflan
strongholds south of it, has hitherto en-
crossed too much of the travel aud trade Of
Kansas We halted at WyandOt over
night, had an impromptu Republican gath
ering and some off-hand talk in the evening,
aud set forth at next morning for Osa-
watamie (46 miles little west Of south by
a bee line, but over so by any practicable
route), which we were desirons of reaching
before night, as the Convention was to be
l held next day.
Our route led southwest over rolling
woodland through the Wyandot Reserve,
descending into the bottom Of the Kansas
or Kaw River-said bottom being from
one to two miles wide, and very heavily
timbered with Elm, Yellow Oak, Black
Walnut, Hickory, Cottonwood, Sycamore,
Eastwood, &c. Nearly all the rivers and
larger creeks of Kansas run through SINH
lar bottoms or intervales, from half mile
to three miles wide, and timbered much like
this. These intervales are composed of
dark, rich mold, oftener over than under
three feet in depth, but they are SO level
that they could hardly be cultivated with
out drainage even were it advisable to strip
them by wholesale of timber, as it decided
ly is not. The houses and barns that shall
yet thickly dot the adjacent prairies are
now mainly growing in these bottoms, and
should stand there as trees till they are
wanted. When cleared and drained--and
in some places the rotting out of the stumps
and thorough blowing thereafter will go far
toward effecting the drainage required
they will yield bounteous crops of almost
anything that does not dread frost Tho
it seems hardly possible that their sell
should be richer than that of the prairies,
it is deeper, and probably contains more
varied and choice admixture of the elements
of vegetation. But the Kansas or Kaw
bottom was not only soaked but covered
with water--for it had rained here smartIy
only the preceding morning after it ceased
at Atchison, and the bottom was for the
time an all but impossible morass. trust
the citizens Of Wyandot will not long leave
it thus.
We crossed the Kaw on fair wooden
toll-bridge, 1900 feet long, just erected
or, rather, not quite completed. In default
Of dollhouse or gate-keeper, a man at
work on the bridge took the toll in his
shrt-sleeves. l believe no other bridge
across the Kaw is now standing, though
there has been one at Topeka, so miles up,
and perhaps at other points. Bridges are
sorely needed throughout Kansas, not only
because the streams are addicted to rapid
and vast augmentations from thaws or rains,
but because their banks are almost perpen-
dicular, and often miry toward the bottom.
while tire streams are nearly as deep at
either shore as in the middle, making the
attempt to ford difficult, even when it is
not dangerous
The Kaw was, of course, nearly full (all
the rivers of Kansas have low banks), and
was running very swiftly; still, it seems Of
moderate size for river 800 miles long;
but all the rivers of this region, the Nilsson
ri included, seem small, considering the
area drained by them. The facts that they
run rapidly, are apt to be deep, and that
their depth is nearly uniform from side to
side, account for this appearance.
Half an hour after crossing the river, VIC
emerged from the road and the Reserve
upon the high prairie, the clouds Of the
morning broke away, and the day was
heaceforth perfect. The young grass of the
prairie refreshed by the heavy rains, APP
peared III its freshest, tenderest green; the
delicate early flowers were abundant, yet
not so numerous as to satiate the pleasure
of looking at them, and the panoroma pre-
Sented was magnificent Passing Shawnee
prairie village of twenty or thirty houses
/ with large hotel, our road bore more di-
/ iSClll bDubug duu oOOu DiOuSub uc oikub
of the great Santa Fe trail, with its white
topped emigrant wagons, and three great
trains of contractors wagons, one of them
still in corral, the others with six pair OF
mules to each wagon, attempting 10 make
progress toward New Mexico-attemptin
it, for the most part, in vain. The mules
were small, and new to work-to tbis work
ct all eyents-and drew badly; while the
wheels cut SO deeply into the yielding paste
beneath them, that little or no advance
was made. ! presume they all corraled for
the night within two miles of the places
where we saw them.
Crossing the trail almost at right angles,
we left the smart village Of Olathe (eoun-
ty seat of Johnson County, mile or so 70
the west and struck of nearly due south,
over higR, ,prairies sloped as gently grass
ed az richly as could be desired, with timber
ysibly along the water-courses on either
hand. Yet there was little or no settlement
below Olathe--for the next twenty miles
that we Travelled there was hardly an i'm