MAY.-Lieutenant John C. Fremont arrived at St. Louis May 22, 1842. Thence he proceeded to Cyprian Chouteau's trading house, on the Kansas river, about six miles west of the Missouri line; latitude 39° 5' 57''; longitude 94° 39′ 16''; elevation above the sea about 700 feet. He started thence June 10, with Kit Carson as his guide. On the 12th he seems to have camped near the site of Lawrence:

"We encamped in a remarkably beautiful situation on the Kanzas bluffs, which commanded a fine view of the river valley, here from three to four miles wide. The central portion was occupied by a broad belt of heavy timber, and nearer the hills the prairies were of the richest verdure."

On the 14th, he crossed to the north side of the river, probably at the point where Topeka now stands. On the 16th, he says:

"We were now fairly in the Indian country, and it began to be time to prepare for the chances of the wilderness."

His journey thence was northwest to the Blue and the Platte. The expedition went as far west as the Wind River mountains; left there August 18; returned by the Platte, and reached the Missouri at the mouth of the Platte, October 1.

1843.

MAY. The difficulty between Texas and New Mexico renders an armed escort necessary for a Santa Fé train. Capt. P. St. George Cooke commanded the U. S. dragoons. Capt. Cooke disarms a Texas force near Fort Dodge. Various difficulties cause the closing of all Mexican frontier posts of entry in August of this year. They were not reopened until 1850.

-Silas Armstrong and George Clark, with their families, and Miss Jane Tilles, come here to select a reservation for the Wyandots. A purchase of land was made for the Wyandots from the Delawares December 14. This tract includes the site of Wyandotte city.

-Fremont passes up the Kansas river on a second expedition.

DECEMBER 14.-The Wyandots purchase of the Delawares 23,040 acres of land at the junction of the Missouri and Kansas rivers. This contract was ratified by the United States July 25, 1848; on the 1st of April, 1850, they agree to pay the Wyandots $185,000 for the lands promised them.

1844.

The Harpers issue the "Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition," in 1841, by Geo. Wilkins Kendall, in two volumes- one of our most widely-read books of travel.

Dr. Josiah Gregg, of Pittsburgh, writes a work, in two volumes, entitled, "Commerce of the Prairies, or the Journal of a Santa Fé Trader, During Eight Expeditions Across the Great Western Prairies, and a Residence of Nearly Nine Years in Northern Mexico." J. & H. G. Langley, New York, publishers. The work is well written, and has a permanent value, increasing with the years. Mr. Gregg's journey began at Independence, Mo., and followed the Santa Fé trail through our State.

-David Lykins settles in the present Miami county, as a missionary to the Indians.

JUNE 26.-Col. Stephen W. Kearny marches from Fort Leavenworth for New Mexico.

JULY 1.-J. M. Armstrong opens the first free school in the Territory, in the present Wyandotte.

-Col. Dodge, of the Third U. S. Dragoons, makes an expedition from Fort Leavenworth to Pike's Peak.

-The Mormons cross the Plains, starting near the site of the present city of Atchison.

1845.

Reports of Exploring Expeditions to the Rocky Mountains, in 1842 and in 1843. By Brevet Captain John C. Fremont. These are the best known of all reports of journeys through Kansas.

1846.

"History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Mississippi Valley," etc. By John W. Monette. 2 vols. Harpers, New York, 1846. This appears to be a full history of Louisiana and the southwestern region.

JANUARY 14.-The Kansas Indians cede to the United States "two millions of acres of land on the east part of their country, embracing the entire width, thirty miles, and running west for quantity."

JUNE 5 and 17.-The United States grant to the Pottawatomies a tract of land containing 576,000 acres, being thirty miles square, and being the eastern part of the lands ceded to the United States by the Kansas tribe of Indians, January 14, 1846, adjoining the Shawnees on the south, and the Delawares and Shawnees on the east, on both sides of the Kansas river.

AUGUST 8.-President Polk sends a special message to Congress, asking an appropriation of money to pay for territory to be acquired by treaty from Mexico. A bill was reported appropriating $30,000 expenses of negotiations, and $2,000,000 to be used in making a treaty. The House was Democratic by 120 to 72. A few Northern Democrats among them Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, Preston King, of New York, and David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, held a caucus and decided that, inasmuch as Mexico had abolished slavery some twenty years before, all territory acquired from that country should come in free. In accordance with this understanding, Mr. Wilmot offered the following proviso to the first section of the bill:

"Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty that may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted."

The bill passed the House with this proviso, by 85 to 80. It then

went to the Senate, in the last hours of the session, and remained there without action upon it when the session ended, August 10.

1847.

APRIL 29. Rev. John Schoenmakers arrives at the Osage Mission, now in Neosho county, accompanied by Rev. John J. Bax and Rev. Paul Ponziglione. The school for boys was established May 10th. Several Sisters of Lorette arrived October 5th, and established a school for girls. Both schools are still in a flourishing condition.

St. Mary's Catholic Mission among the Pottawatomies, originally established on Sugar creek, by Rev. Christian Hoeken, is removed to the south side of the Kaw, in the southwest part of Shawnee county. In the spring of 1848, Fathers Verreydt and Gailland, with four Sisters of the Sacred Heart, established the present mission, on the north side of the river.

In the fall, Seth M. Hays establishes a trading post at Council Grove, on the Kaw reserve.

DECEMBER 24.-Lewis Cass first promulgates the Squatter Sovereignty dogma, in a letter to A. O. P. Nicholson, of Nashville, Tennessee. He says:

"The Wilmot Proviso has been before the country for some time. It has been repeatedly discussed in Congress, and by the public press. I am strongly impressed with the opinion that a great change has been going on in the public mind upon this subject -in my own as well as others'; and that doubts are resolving themselves into convictions, that the principle it involves should be kept out of the national legislature, and left to the people of the Confederacy in their respective local governments.

"Briefly, then, I am opposed to the exercise of any jurisdiction by Congress over this matter; and I am in favor of leaving the people of any territory which may be hereafter acquired the right to regulate it themselves, under the general principles of the constitution."

The letter is published in Niles's Register. This firebrand did not make Cass President in 1848, nor Douglas in 1860. On the 1st of March, 1847, Mr. Cass said, in the Senate, of the Wilmot Proviso: "Last year I should have voted for the proposition, had it come up."

1848.

February 2, 1848, Mexico ceded the territory now covered by the States of California and Nevada; also her claims to the territory covered by the present State of Texas, by the Territories of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, by portions of the Territories of Wyoming and Colorado, and by the unorganized territory west of the Indian country, except that part of the Territory of Arizona and that part of the Territory of New Mexico lying south of the river Gila and west of the old boundary of New Mexico, which lands were ceded by Mexico December 30, 1853, and are known as the Gadsden Purchase.-U. S. Census Report, 1870, vol. I, p. 574.

The United States paid to Mexico $15,000,000.

-Major W. H. Emory makes a military reconnoissance from Fort Leavenworth to San Diego.

-The Jesuit Fathers, Morris Gailland, J. B. Hoeken, and Father Wright, establish St. Marys Mission.

-"The Western Journal" begun in St. Louis by M. Tarver and T. F. Fisk. It is a magazine largely devoted to Western history. Ten volumes are in the Kansas Historical Library.

-The Baptists erect a log mission building in Shawnee county, and Rev. Robert Simerwell opens a school here.-Abram B. Burnett, a Pottawatomie chief, settles near Topeka, and gives the name to "Burnett's Mound."

-Uniontown established as an Indian trading post in the present Dover township, Shawnee county, then on the Pottawatomie Reserve.

1849.

Fort Laramie, established by a fur company, is transferred to the United States.

-Frank J. Marshall establishes a ferry on the Big Blue. In the spring of 1851 he moved it to the present Marysville-named for his wife, as the county is for himself.

"The California and Oregon Trail," by Francis Parkman, is published in New York. His "LaSalle, and the Discovery of the Great West," was published in 1869. Mr. Parkman's volumes on FrenchAmerican history nearly all bear on our own history, and he is unsurpassed as an American historian.

1850.

The Methodists establish a mission at Council Grove; T. S. Huffaker teaches the school until 1854.

The Catholics establish a branch of the Osage mission among the Miamis.

DECEMBER 13.—By the proclamation of the President, the territory ceded by Texas, November 25 (under act of Congress of September 9), comes under the control of the United States. The part of this cession, south of the Arkansas river and west of the one-hundredth meridian, which became a part of the State of Kansas, embraces 7,766 square miles.

-Luther R. Palmer, appointed Physician to the Pottawatomies, comes to the Agency, near St. Marys.

In 1850 the boundaries of the Indian country were as follows: On the east, the present western boundaries of the States of Missouri and Arkansas; on the south, the Red river; on the west, the twenty-third meridian (100th Greenwich) as far north as the Arkansas river, and along that river to the intersection of the Rocky Mountains and the twenty-ninth meridian (106th Greenwich), and along that meridian northward to the proposed southern boundary of the original Territory of Nebraska, which became the northern limit of this country. Within these limits, however, is included that part of the territory ceded by Texas to the United States which was not included in the Territory of New Mexico, being a parcel of land between the Arkansas river on the north and the present northernmost boundary of the State of Texas, and between the twenty-third and twenty-sixth meridians (100th and 1032 Greenwich). Including this latter territory, the area of the Indian country at 1850 was 195,274 square miles. By act of May 30, 1854, the Territory of Kansas was erected, and its southern boundary from the State of Missouri to the twenty-third meridian (100th Greenwich), became the

northern limit of the Indian country. The limits of the Indian country remain as they were left by that act; area, 68,991 square miles. A part of the territory above mentioned as ceded by the State of Texas was included in the Territory of Kansas.— U. S. Census Report, 1810, vol. I, p. 577.

-Military road established by the Government from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Kearny.

1851.

SEPTEMBER 17.-Treaty with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes. The boundaries of their country are thus defined: Commencing at the Red Butte, or the place where the road leaves the North fork of the Platte river, thence up the North fork of the Platte river to its source, thence along the main ridge of the Rocky Mountains to the head-waters of the Arkansas river, thence down the Arkansas river to the crossing of the Santa Fé Road, thence in a northwesterly direction to the forks of the Platte river, thence up the Platte river to the place of beginning."

1852.

MARCH 20.- Publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," written by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is an anti-slavery novel, and has a larger circulation than any other American book.

JULY 31.-T. T. Fauntleroy, Colonel of First Dragoons, while in Washington, writes a letter to Major General T. S. Jessup, Quartermaster General, U. S. A. He says: "Some time since," as commanding officer of the post "at Fort Leavenworth, I. T.," he refused to recommend an expenditure for repairs, etc., there, because he "did not consider that post as best suited for the military operations in that quarter." He urges the establishment of a military post "at or near a point on the Kansas river where the Republican fork unites with it "- now Fort Riley. He urges "the discontinuance of the Leavenworth, Scott, Atkinson, Kearny and Laramie posts," and the concentration of troops at the post proposed. A military camp, called Camp Center, was made at this place in the fall.

DECEMBER 13.-Willard P. Hall, of Missouri, offers in the House a bill organizing the Territory of Platte (embracing Kansas and Nebraska).

-Redfield, New York, publishes "Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley; with the Original Narratives of Marquette, Allouez, Membre, Hennepin, and Anastasius Douay; with a Fac-simile of the Newly-discovered Map of Marquette." By John Gilmary Shea.

The most complete lists of Spanish and French books relating to Kansas have been made by Prof. John B. Dunbar, and are on file in the Kansas Historical Library.

1853.

FEBRUARY 2.-William A. Richardson, of Illinois, from the Committee on Territories, reports a bill organizing the Territory of Nebraska. FEBRUARY 10.-Richardson's bill passes the House by 98 to 43. Neither