Omaha daily bee., 1880-05-07
FORT
WHEN AND HOW IT WAS L~ocATED-IN.
rRREsTING HISTORY.

FORT LEAVENWORT6.
WHEN AND HOW IT WAS L~ooATED-IN.
rRREsTTNa HISTORY.
st. Louis Republican.
Fifty-three years since, on the Goth
of May, 1927, Fort Leavenworth was
first marked out and occupied by the
United States troops. At that date
the western line of the state of Mis-
souri, commenced at latitude SO deg.
80 min. near the northwestern cor
ner of Arkantas territory, and ran
north, passing through the mouth of
the Kansas river to the liue of Iowa
territory, at the present northwest
corner of Worth county, Missouri.
The present six counties of Platte,
Buchanan, Andrew, Nodway, Holt
and Atchison iui Missoul, known as
the Platte purchase or reservation,
was claimed by the Iowa tribe of In
dams, and by them coded to the gov
eminent by treaty In 1926, and in
1886 it was added to the State Of
Missouri by act of congress. By
order Of the war department made in
1927, Col. Leavenwortk was instructed
to take four companies of troops and
ascend the Missouri river and build
a cantonment on the west side of the
river 30 miles from the mouth of the
Kansas to be located within the
vicinity of the Kaw Indians. In
pursuance of this order on the 18th
day of April, 1927, parts of four COM
panies consisting of 204 men and
commanded respectively by Captain
Relknap, Gather of Gen. Belknap),
1ieuts. Wheeler, Babbitt and Hunt,
left Jefferson barracks below st. Louis
in three keel boats and on the 10Th of
May reached and encamped at the
present site of Parkville to await the
arrival of Col. Leavenworth, who was
to locate the cantonement. He ar
rived on the 10Th, and on the Goth
he took Oorporals Wilkerson,
Ellis and Private Shep Brock in a
skiff and rowed to the landing, at
what was then called Rattlesnake
hills. Here the party scrambled on
the top of the bluff through the thick
underground and admired the pros
pect from the plateau. Col. Leaven-
worth walked up upon a leaning tree
and told Corporal Ellis to blaze a large
oak as the site of the camp. He then
said: "Men, I an going to locate a
posthere and call it after your colonel,
what do you think of it7" They an
swered: at is a good name" Sup.
per was then cooked, and the next day
the troops were ordered up, and the
work commenced in earnest to clear
off the site for the cantonment. 1t
was found that the place had been
properly named previously, for on the
first days work the men killed one
hundred and twenty rattlesnakes, and
some of the men doubted if it was a
good day for snakes, as beieg too early
in the season.
There was originally reserved for
the use OF the government 5000 acres
of land ON each side of the river, or
5000 acres from the mouth of Salt
creek above the fort to the present
upper boundary Of the city of Leaven-
worth on the Kansas side, and from
the mouth of the creek at Rialto to
the head of the island opposite the
city of Leavenworth on the Missouri
side, then the mouth of Bee creek,
which now enters the river three
miles above. The Missouri reserva-
ton was reduced a few years after
ward to a few hundred acres opposite
the fort.
In 1928 the Pottawattamis tribe of
Indians, or rather a portion of that
tribe, from Indiana located in the
Platte purchase and remained until
1887, when they were removed to
Council Bluffs, in what is now Potta-
wattamie county, Iowa, from whence
they were afterwards removed to the
valley of the Kanoss river, q short
distance above Topeka. In 1882 the
chiefs of the Delawares were sent west
to look for a location to exchange for
their lands in northern Ohio and In
diana, and we're shown and offered .
part Of the Platte purchase, but pre-
ferred the lands at the mouth of the
Kansas, with an outlet running two
hundred miles west for the purdose of
hunting.
Perhaps the sole survivor of the To-
cation of Fort Leavenwortb, Corporal
Thomas J. Ellis, now resident at Wes-
ton, enjoying a hale old age and the
bounty of his government. He is an
Ohioan, and in boyhood way a neigh
Dor of the father of President Hayes.
He enlisted at Newport barracks in
Kentucky, in the Third regiment in
in 1926, and served four enlist
ments, being discharged in the city of
Mexico in 1848; served under Taylor,
Twiggs, Gaines, Patterson, Harvey,
and Scott; was in the Black Hawk,
Florida and Mexican wars, and at the
battles of Resaca, Pslo Alto and Mon
terey, with old Rough and Ready and
at CAIRO Gordo, National Bridge and
of Mexico, and was an eye.wit-
ness of the capture Of La Vega by
Corporal Sullivan and Lieut.. Col.
May. During the Mexican wal Fort
was the Quitting point
for the command of Gen. Kearney
and the regiments of Coils. Doniphan
and Price, and the Mormon battalion
in 1916, and continued the frontier
post from whence troops and supplies
we're forwarded westward until after
the settlement of Kansas. It was for
more than twenty years one of the
most important frontier stations, as
being the gateway to the west and the
Pacific. Most of the officers of the :
old army have, at some time or other, /!
been stationed there, including Jefer-
son, and the old suffers store ]
at the east front has often
to the joyous laugh of Jeb.
Stewart or the mad pranks of"Shank"
It was here that Col. Ere.
mont was confined for some days
when returning from California in
1S47, under arrest by order of Gen. !
Kearney for insubordination, and
resulted in the famous court
of that officer in Washington,
in 184S, and it wa for this reason
that Col. Benton, then q senator from
Missouri, upon visiting the fort in