The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1859-07-21

ToomS ana WASH DOWlS AQ1eu (leG NE
hope) to cold rains and flooded rivers!--
Hurrah for Pixies Peak
VI.
Station 9, Pixies Peak Express Co. ]
Pipe Creek, May %, 1859.
I was detained at Manhattan nearly a
day longer than I had intended to be by
high water. Wildcat, FIVE miles west,
and Rock Creek. seventeen miles east,
were both impossible on Thursday, so
that an express wagon from Pixies Peak
was stopped behind the former, while FIVE
mail coaches and express wagons faced
each other through part of Thursday and
all of Thursday night, across the latter.
Next morning, however, each had run out
SO they could be forded, and at l, p. M,
l took my seat in the Pixies Peak express,
and again moved westward.
Our way was still along the U. S. Mil
itary Road, crossing Wildcat, now reas-
enable stream, and winding for some
miles over rugged, thin-soiled limestone
hills, then striking down south westward
into the prairie bottom of the Kansas,
which is as rich as land need be. A few
miles of this brought US to Ogden, a
land office city of thirty or forty houses,
some of them well built of stone. just
beyond this begins the Fort Riley reser-
walton, beautiful tract of prairie and
timber, stretching for four or FIVE miles
along the northern bank of the Kansas,
and including the sad rem aims of Pawnee
City, at which Gov. Reeder summoned
the first (5ogus) Legislature of Kansas
to meet then SO to 100 miles westward
of anywhere. They obeyed the summons,
but forthwith adjourned to Shawnee Mis-
sion, a Pro-Savery stronghold on the
Missouri border. Pawnee city is now Of
the things that were.
Fort Riley is a position which does
credit to the taste of whoever selected it.
1t is on high, rolling prairie. with the
Kansas on the south, the Republican on
the west. heavy limestone bluffs on the
north, and the best timber in middle or
western Kansas all around. The bar
racks are con Portable, the hospital large
and well placed, the officers quarters spa
cious and elegant. and the stables extern
sive and admirable. 1 hear that two
millions of Uncle Sans money have been
expended in making these snug arrange
ments, and that the oats largely consumed
here have cost So per bushel. I have of
course seen nothing else at all compare
bic to this in the way of preparations for
passing life agreeably, since l left Mis-
souri,.
We here crossed by rope ferry the
Republican OF northern fork of the Kan
sas, which, like the Big Blue, twenty five
miles back, seems nearly as large as the
Kansas at its outh, though the Smoky
Hill, or southern fork at this point is
said to be the largest of the three. We
met at the ferry number of families,
with large herd of cattle, migrating
from southwestern Missouri to Califor-
MIA, and crossing here to take the road up
the right bank of the Republican to Fort
Kearney and so to Laramie. They had
exhausted their patience in trying to
swim their cattle, und would hardly be
able TO get them all ferried over till next
day. All day, as on preceding days,
we had been meeting ox-wagons loaded
with disbeartened Pixies Peakers. return
ing to their homes, but some of them GO
ing down into southern Kansas in search
of "claims" Most of those We interro-
gated said they had been out as far as
Fort Kearney (some 200 miles further, l
believe.) before they we're turned back by
assurances that Pixies Peak is a hum.
bug.
Across the Republican, between it and
the Smoky Hill, is Junction City, as yet
the most western village in Kansas, save
that another has been started some fifty
miles up tho Smoky Hill. We stopped
here for the night, and | talked Repub.
icapism in the church for an hour or so
Junction has a store, two hotels, and
some thirty or forty dwellings, one ol
which is distinguished for its age, having
been erected SO long ago as 1858. A pa
triotic Junctioner excused bis city for
not possessing something which | inquir-
ed for, but which its rival, Manhattan
was supposed to have; "for," said he
"Manhattan is three years DID," As
Junction is hardly year old yet, the re-
latiye antiquity of Manhattan, and the
responsibilities therein involved were in
disputable Junction is the center of q
fae Agricultural region. though timber i.
not 80 abundant here as | wish it was
This region is being rapidly shingled with
"claims." | hope it is to be Likewise
filed with settlers-though that does moi
always follow. Our landlord "a German
had tried California; then Texas, and
now be is trying Kansas, which seems tc
agree with him.
We started again at 6 this morning
making little north of west, and keep
ing the narrow belts OF timber along the
Republican and the Smoky Hill respec
lively in full view for several miles, until
the streams diverged SO far that we los
them in the boundless sea of grass. A
mile or two Of progress carried Us beyond
1 = h..k 49, 1ra.aI cir