The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-07-28

"a GOOD man and hard to beat
or dugouts. mostly. Occasionally,
there was a frame house in the settle
ments, and, in the vicinity of Kirwin,
where the United States land office
] (moved from Concordia) was estab-
| lished. there were few stone houses;
| their bright white walls landmarks of
the plain. Afterward, within Mr.
| Roots time in the Northwest, this
| to Oberlin, and finally to Wakeeney,
| where it remained until 1t was consol-
idated with the Dodge City office. Mr..
1 Root, personally, has known every
| register and every receiver of the
office.
| Buffalo bones were the only COM
modify of commerce, and these, gath
cred on the plain by settlers. were
hauled to stations on the main line of
| the Kansas Pacific Railway (now
Union Pacffic), fifty, seventy-five, and
one hundred miles distant, and sold
| to buy family supplies. Another prod
uct of the plain was buffalo chips"
which were gathered by the women
and children for fuel to warm their
primitive homes. .
In the valleys of the forks CT the
Republican, great herds of buffalo
/ crossed the plain, in their vernal and
autumnal migrationS. 1t was an Indian
hunting-ground, and marauding bands
| of savages, on their visitations, did not
hesitate to attack and kill settlers:
often carrying away women and chill
dren. In 1873, only a year before
Mr.. Root appeared in the Sappa val
ley, a band of Cheyennes massaqred
thirty men, women, and children, WHO
were living there. Afterward, the
bodies of twenty of the victims were
| taken up, to be buried in the town of
| Oberlin, and a monument costing
5000 set above the graves.
The settlers brought few cattle and
/ no hogs. They grew enough wheat
for bread. and enough corn for win
| ter feed; the native pasture abundant
| the rest of the year. Their source of
fresh meat was rabbits; sometimes
| quarter of buffalo brought from the
west. In the second year after a set
| tiers advent, he began to assemble
| flock of poultry, which became
source of food. Added to this, cows
came in fresh, giving milk for the ba-
bIes, and calves for a future herd.
With these old reliables helping to
keep the pot boiling. their familiar
voices filling the air, the faithful dog
. bearing company, the claim began
to assume the aspect of home"
| Quail and prairie-chicken, which. on
the plains, come only to well settled
| rarm areas, had not appeared vet, al
! tho they are quite numerous now.
| Wlndmills had not come, and, the
ground supply quite deep, water for
man and beast was hauled from the
nearest stream. There were no trees,
tall cottonwood groves, which now
distinguish farmsteads of the region.
Were many years coming
Crops sometimes failed, schools were
remote and irregular, religious services
lnfrequent, and settlers, especially the
] women m
sionally Some families moved away.
and for many years their sod
habitatiops. fallen into decay.
were melancholy spectacle on
Ine landscape: These have de-
now are occupied by the COM
Portable homes and barns of families
VINO came afterward. But the sod
mouse has not disappeared wholly. A
Few still remain. landmarks of the
past, and, in good state of repair &C.
cupied by families who built them
originally.
Mr.. Root, who was a soldier of the
civil War, came to Atchison in 1855.
following his brothers. John c. Root
and Frank A. Root, also printers, who
mad settled there some years before
IN 1866, he witnessed the ceremony of
breaking ground for the Atchison &
| P1ke's Peak Railroad, since the Cen
trail Branch of the Union Pacific, now
owned by the Missouri Pacific whose
lines, in later years. to this day, have
carried him so many thousand miles
IN his work of chronicling the human
activities of the Kansas Northwest
Following the rails of the Central
Branch to the Blue, he went by team
into the country west of that stream
ahead of the advent of it, or any other
railroad; and when railroad surveyors
appeared to spy out the land, he knew
every foot of the country and pointed
the way. Except the counties men,
toned, which had been created be-
yond the Blue when he crossed it,
Harry Root has witnessed the organ
1zauon, and early settlement of all
the other counties of the region. He
mas witnessed the rise (the beginning
OF some) of the towns of Greenleaf,
washington. Clifton. Clyde. Concordia,
CORTLAND, Superior, Scandia, Manka-
70, Burr Oak, Beloit, Glen Elder, Cav
ker, Downs, Osborne, Alton, Stockton,
Hill City, Gaylord, Kifwin, Logan, Le-
nora, Belleville, Smith Center, Phillips
burg, Norton, Colby. Goodland. Long
Island, Almena, Oberlin, Herndon. At
wood, Bird City, st. Fr4ncis These
are the high places only. He has been
present at the birth of nearly all of
the settlements out that way, and has
chronicled the birth, and afterward
the death, of many long since for
gotten He, personally. has known
every man who has been governor of