This Day in Kansas History - February

These entries are taken from The Annals of Kansas, 1541-1885 by D.W. Wilder, The Annals of Kansas, 1886-1925 edited by Kirke Mechem, and contributed by staff members of the Kansas State Historical Society (these entries are marked with an *). Other sources used will be noted. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of events in Kansas history.

February

1 - [1887] - A "weigh social" was held at Sabetha. A man paid a third of a cent per pound of a woman's weight for the privilege of eating supper with her.

2 - [1924] - The Emporia Gazette was printed for the first time upon a new Duplex tubular news press that would print up to 16 pages at the rate of 30,000 an hour. The entire edition could be run off in ten minutes.

3 - [1888] - Many large Swedish colonies were being settled in western Kansas. The Swedish Colonization Co. had sold nearly 50,000 acres in the past seven months.

4 - [1918] - Registration of German aliens began. Names and addresses were to be published. Chiefs of police and postmasters were in charge. Failure to register meant internment during the war.

5 - [1857] - The report of John Donaldson, Territorial Auditor, shows that the whole tax collected amounts to $2,240.

6 - [1909] - The town of Ulysses was moved to escape payment of $35,000 bonds plus $10,000 interest for waterworks and other improvements. The indebtedness was greater than assessed valuation of the property.

7 - [1902] - A colony of Swedes bought 3,900 acres of land in Lyon and Greenwood counties for $50,000. They planned to hold it in common and farm it jointly.

8 - [1936] - Charles Curtis, former Vice-President of the United States, dies in Washington. [Ives, Footprints on the Sands of Time]

9 - [1864] - Joint Convention of the two houses to elect a U.S. Senator for the term beginning March 4, 1865. The result of the vote was: For Thos. Carney, 68; "Against a fraud," 1; excused and declined to vote, 27; blank, 2. Governor Carney was declared elected, but never claimed the office.

10 - [1865] - Report of House Special Committee, that D. Rogers is not entitled to a seat from Neosho county:

"In the organization of Neosho county, we find on file in the Secretary of State's office the necessary papers to complete such organization. We find from the evidence before us that D. Rogers, S.E. Beach and Rufus Estes, who filed the affidavit as to the number of inhabitants of the county of Neosho, are residents of Allen county. That of the thirty-one persons representing themselves as resident freeholders of Neosho county, a large majority are residents of Allen county; and that J.L. Fletcher, who was appointed Special Clerk, and the three persons appointed County Commissioners are residents are residents of Allen county."

11 - [1860] - Mr. Beebe, Democrat, makes a report against the bill abolishing slavery, as follows:

"A minority of your Committee, to whom was referred House bill No. 6, 'An act to prohibit Slavery and Involuntary Servitude in the Territory of Kansas,' having had the same under consideration, and having found that there now is invested in this Territory between one-fourth and one-half a million of dollars' worth of property in slaves; and believing that the immediate prohibition of an existing right of property in any given article is beyond either the legislative power of the States or Territories, as contavening the letter and spirit of articles four and five of the 'Amendments' to the Federal Constitution, recommend to your honorable body the indefinite postponement of the said bill. --G.M. Beebe, a Minority of your Committee."

The Council pass the bill by 9 to 4, the noes being Beebe, Christison, Keeler, and Mathias.

12 - [1858] - Henry J. Adams, Thomas Ewing jr., E.L. Taylor, Dillon Pickering, J.B. Abbott, and H.T. Green, Commissioners to investigate election frauds, report to Governor Denver. They expose in detail the fraudulent vote cast at Kickapoo, Delaware City, Delaware Agency, Shawnee, and Oxford. They decide that the following illegal votes were cast at the election on the acceptance of the Lecompton Constitution, December 21st, 1857: At Kickapoo, 700; Delaware City, 145; Oxford, 1,200; Shawnee, 675; total 2,720. And the following illegal votes at the election of January 4th 1858, for officers under the Lecompton Constitution: At Kickapoo, 600; Delaware City, 5; Delaware Agency (commonly called "Delaware Crossing"), of the election held January 4th, the committee say they "were honestly made out by the officers of teh election, and subsequently 336 names were forged upon them, by or with the knowledge of John D. Henderson, and that John Calhoun was particeps criminis after the fact."

13 - [1905] - Cold weather over Kansas reached 22 to 30 degrees below zero. Temperatures had not risen above freezing for six weeks. Trains were delayed by heavy snows. Losses in livestock would be heaviest since 1886.

14 - [1882] - Wichita letter: "Wild Bill and Mike Meagher are only two of many cowboy victims. Their name is legion. Among the cowboys in the Caldwell raid was Comanche Bill, at one time a noted scout and Indian fighter; now a renegade and fugitive from justice, and associate of the worst characters who congregate in the Indian Territory. The typical cowboy wears a white hat, with a gilt cord and tassel, high heels he wears a pair of jingling Mexican spurs, as large around as a tea-cup. When he feels well (and he always does when full of what he calls 'Kansas sheep-dip'), the average cowboy is a bad man to handle. Armed to the teeth, well mounted, and full of their favorite beverage, the cowboys will dash through the principal streets of a town, yelling like Comanches. This they call 'cleaning out a town.'"

15 - [1893] - [14th, The "Legislative War" began at the State House when Republicans in the House asked the arrest of the Populist clerk for contempt. Populists surrounded the clerk and a scuffle ensued. The Governor asked the sheriff for help but was refused.]

Republicans in the House secured a temporary restraining order forbidding the State Treasurer to pay salaries and mileage. The Attorney General refused to act, and the case was brought into district court. The State Auditor decided to discontinue payments. Populists locked the Republicans out of the Representative Hall, but they broke down the doors and barricaded themselves inside. Both sides swore in deputies. The Governor ordered out the militia. Col. J.W.F. Hughes refused to obey and was discharged. Eight National Guard companies and a battery of light artillery armed with carbines and a Gatling gun brought order. Republicans were conceded possession of Representative Hall but were not recognized by the Governor or the Senate.

16 - [1863] - The Legislature locates the Agricultural College at Manhattan.

17 - [1882] - The House passes a bill giving Kansas seven Congresmen. John A. Anderson secured the seventh.

18 - [1891] - The bill for complete woman suffrage was reconsidered and passed the House, 69 to 34. the day before it had been defeated by three votes.

19 - [1806] - Pres. Jefferson's Message communicating discoveries made by Lewis and Clark, Dr. Sibley, and Mr. Dunbar, with a statistical account of the country adjacent to the Missouri river, and its Indian tribes.

20 - [1883] - Warrants issued for the arrest of the officers of the Marriage Aid Association, at Topeka

21 - [1921] - Kansans were buying automobiles at the rate of 300 a day.

22 - [1819] - Treaty with Spain. The following is copied from vol. I, pp. 573-4, of the Ninth Census of the United States, 1870:

"April 30, 1803, by treaty with France, the 'Province of Louisiana' was ceded. Its western boundary, as finally adjusted, February 22, 1819, by treaty with Spain, ran up the Sabine river to and along the seventeenth meridian (94th Greenwich), to and along the Red river, to and along the twenty-third meridian (100th Greenwich), to and along the Arkansas river, to and along the Rocky Mountains, to and along the twenty-ninth meridian (106th Greenwich), to and along the forty-second parallel, to the Pacific ocean. Its northern boundary has conformed to the boundary established between the British possessions and the United States. On the east it was bounded by the Mississippi river as far south as the thirty-first parallel, where different boundaries were claimed. The United States construed the cession of France to include all the territory between the thirty-first parallel and the Gulf of Mexico, and between the rivers Mississippi and Perdido, the latter of which is now the western boundary of the State of Florida. Under this consturction of the cession, the 'Province of Louisiana' is now covered by those portions of the States of Alabama and Mississippi which lie south of the thirty-first parallel; by the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, Minnesota west of the Mississippi river, and Kansas [except the small portion therof south of the Arkansas river and west of the twenty-third meridian (100th Greenwich)]; by the Territories of Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and that known as the Indian country; and by the portion of the Territory of Colorado lying east of teh Rocky Mountains and north of the Arkansas river, and all of the Territory of Wyoming which is south of that parallel and east of the Rocky Mountains. In 1800, however, the 'Province of Louisiana' had been ceded by Spain to France, Spain claiming that she ceded to France no territory east of the Mississippi river except the 'Island of New Orleans,' and also contending that her province of West Florida included all of the territory south of the thirty-first parallel and between the Perdido and Mississippi rivers, except the 'Island of New Orleans.' Under this construction, the 'Province of Louisiana' included on the east of the Mississippi river only the territory bounded on the north and east by teh 'Rivers Iberville and Amite and by the Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain."

23 - [1855] - The Leavenworth Herald says: "Five months ago there was not a building in the place. The town had just been laid off and the brush cut down. Leavenworth now has a hotel, a saw-mill, a tailor's shop, a shoemaker, a barber, two blacksmiths, three carpenter shops, several law and two doctors' offices."

24 - [1906] - Fire started by a meteor destroyed the house, barn and granary of Joshua Taylor, southwest of Abilene.

25 - [1897] - The Missouri-Kansas Telephone Co. lines between Omaha, St. Joseph, Leavenworth, Kansas City and Topeka were completed. At Lawrence 300 persons met to hear long distance music and conversations.

26 - [1867] - The gopher bill was changed by the Senate into a grasshopper bill, giving a bounty for all scalps of grasshoppers furnished with the ears.

27 - [1869] - The Legislature ratifies the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The ratification is defective, and the amendment goes over to the next Legislature.

28 - [1855] - Census completed; 8501; voters, 2905; persons of foreign birth, 408; free negroes, 151; slaves, 192. Governor Reeder divides the Territory into eighteen districts, appoints judges of election, and orders an election for a Territorial Legislature to be held March 30th.

29 - [1856] - J.H. Stringfellow commissioned as the captain of a military company in Atchison county. Many military commissions issued in the winter and spring, by the Governor.