Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1859-07-02
ON THE rLAINs.
Station 9, Pixies Peak Express Co.,
PIPE CRErR. Nav "a 1859.

NN'N f'N'Ni NHN NbNNH "'NhNN "NeN-
ward.
Our way was stn along the o. s. Military
Road, crossing Wildcat row sreasonable
stream, and winding for some miles over rugged,
thin-soiIed 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 land,
Office city Of thirty or forty houses, some Of
them well built Of stone. Just beyond this be-
gins the Fort Riley reservation, beautiful
tract of prairie timber, stretching for four or
five miles along the northern bank Of the Kau4
sas and including the sad remains Of Pawnee
city, at which Gov. Reeder summoned the FIRST
(bogus) Legislature of Kansas to meet--then
SO to 100 miles westward Of any where They
obeyed the summons, but forthwith adjourned
TO Shawnee Mission, a Pro.Slavery stronghold
on the Missouri border. Pawnee City Is now
of the things that were.
Fort Riley is 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 Mid
die or Western Kansas all around. The bar:
raks are comfortable, the hospital large and we'll
placed the officers quarters spacious and eles
giant, and the stables most extensive and admif
rable hear that Two Millions Of Uncle Sans
money has been expended in making th0se snug
arrangements, and that the Oats largely con-
sumed here have often cost SO per bushel.
have Of course seen nothing else at all COMPARE
BILE to this in the way Of preparations for pass
ing life agreeably since l left the Missouri.
We here crossed by rope ferry the Repub|
lican or northen fork Of the Kansas. We met
at the ferry number of families, with large
herd of cattle, migrating from southwestern
Missouri to California, and crossing here to
take the road up the right bank of the Repnb-
lican to Fort Kearney and SO to Laramie
They had exhausted their patience 10 trying to
swim their cattle. ALI day as on proceeding
days, we had been meeting ox-wagons loaded
with dishearteued Pixies Peakers returning to
their homes, but some of them going down into
southern Kansas 10 search Of "claims." Most
of those we interrogated said they had been
out as far as Fort Kearney before they were
turned back by assurances that Pixies Peak is
humbug.
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 the Smoky
Hill. We stopped here for the night, and I
talked Republicansm in the church for an hour
or so. Junction has a store, two hotels, and
some thirty or forty dwellings, one OF which is
distinguished for its age, having been erected
so long as 1858. A patriotic Junctioner ex-
cused his city for not possessing something
which inquired for, but which its rival, Man
haitian, was supposed to have; "for," said be,
, " Manhattan is three years old.' As Junction
is hardly year old yet, the relative antiquity
Of Manhattan, and the responsibilities therein
involved were iudisputable. Junction is the
center of a fine agricultural region, though TIM
ber is not so abundant here as wish it were.
!, This region is being rapidly shingled with
"claims;" hope it is likewise to be filed with
settlers-though that does not always follow -
Our landlord Ia Germany had tried California;
t then Texas; and now he is trying Kansas, which
seems to agree with him.
We started again at this morning. making a
little north of west, and keeping the narrow
belts of timber along the Republican aud the
Smoky Hill respectively in full view for several
miles A mile or two Of progress carried us
beyond any road but that traced only this spring
, for the Pixies Peak expresses for ten miles ON
ward, no house, no field no sign OF human agen-
: cy this road and few United States surveyors
stakes excepted, was visible I; at length we came
| to where wretched cabin and an acre or so OF
broken and fenced prairie showed what pio-
: neer had been doing iu the last two OF three
: years, and beside it was a taverE-=the last
presume this side of Pixies Peak. 1t consisted
of a crotched stake which, with the squatter's
fence aforesaid, supported a ridge-pole, across
which some old sail-cloth was drawn, hanging
down on either side, and forming a cabin some
/ six by eight und perhaps from three to FIVE aud
half feet hgh-large enough TO contain two
whisky barrels, two decanters, twosglasses, three
or four cans of picked oysters and two or three
boxes of sardines but nothing OF the bread
: kind whatever. The hotel-kesper probably I'M
? derstood his business better than we did, and
} had declined to dissipate his evidently moder-
ate capital by investing any part of it in arti-
, cles not of prime necessity. Our wants being
IL k,.f az
! ter an interchange Of courtesies passed, passed
) on.
D Two miles further, we crossed, by bad aud
Q difficult ford "Chapmauis Creek" running south
y to the Smoky Hill bordered by thin streak
5 of timber and meandering through liberal
d valley Of gloriously rich prairie Here we pass
= ed the last settler on our road TO Pixies Peak
" He has been here two or three years; has seven-
e ty-fYe acres fenced and broken, grew 5000 bu.
ie Of last year, has ine stock OF horses and
e. cattle about him. with at least eight toW-headed
; children under ten years old. His house, judg-
IS ed specifically, would be dear at fifty dollars.
, but think he neither needs nor wishes to be
Is pitied.
$ Our road bore hence north OF west up the
= left bank Of Ohapmsns Greek, on which, 23
2 miles from Junction, we halted at 'Station 8, ,"
Z at ii A. NJ to change mules aud dine. (This
Station should be five miles further on and three
or lOur miles Turtner Boutni out cannot DC Tor
( want of wood and water.l There is Of course
no house here but two small tents and brush
e arbor furnish accommodations for six to fifteen
II persons as the case may be. A score Of mules
c are picketed about on Che rick grass there is
d a rail pen for the two cows Of our landlady's
# two sun-browned children (girls Of ten and six
e respectively one was born in Missouri. the 9TH
Is or at Laramie. was told that their father was
r killed by Indians, and that the station keeper Is
: her second husband. She gave US an excellent
n dinner Of bacon and greens, good bread, apple
s sauce aud pie, and wOulG have given Us butter
s had we passed few days later but her COWS
u have been overdriven, 4 need few days quel
t and generous feeding. The water was too mud
; dy--the predjudices Of education wogld moi
u permit we to drink it--the spring being sub
d merged by the high water Of the brook, which
J. was The only remaining resource. She apollo
D, gized for making MS cat in her narrow tent raih
& er than under her brush arboF, saying that ths
last time she set the table there. the high prairie
: wind made clean sweep OF table cloth and 81
d upon It, breaking several Of her nof abundant