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Title | Creator | Date Made Visible | None

Crossing the Plains, the journal of Harriett Bidwell Shaw

Shaw, Harriet Bidwell

Harriett Bidwell Shaw started a journal in September 18,1851, when she and her husband, Reverend James Milton Shaw traveled in a wagon train via the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico. Harriett was the only woman to accompany the wagon train. She documented their daily activities, the weather conditions, hardships on the trail, encounters with Indians, and buffalo hunting. When the Shaws passed through Kansas they stayed at Shawnee Baptist Mission, Council Grove, and Pawnee Rock and stopped near Fort Mackey on the Arkansas river. They reached Santa Fe on November 14, 1851, where the journal ends. The Shaws eventually went to Albuquerque and then Socorro to establish Baptist missions among the Spanish people. In sum, Shaws journal presents a remarkable picture of the difficulties and rewards of travel to the American West prior to the American Civil War.

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James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickok family collection

Hickok family

A collection of fifty-six letters from the family of James Butler ("Wild Bill") Hickok. The letters describe the adventures of the Hickok children (including Wild Bill) in California, Kansas, Missouri and elsewhere, and their parents and family in Troy Grove, Illinois. After Wild Bill's death in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, in 1876, the letters mostly concern his burial, the maintenance of his grave, and his reputation. Correspondents also include Agnes Hickok (Wild Bill's wife), William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, and Charlie H. Utter ("Colorado Charlie"). Ethel Ann Hickok, the last surviving niece of Wild Bill, donated fifty-four letters to the Kansas Historical Society and two letters to historian Joseph G. Rosa in the 1980s. The two Rosa letters (June 6, 1861; March 23, 1880) are included here by permission. The William F. Cody letter to Horace Hickok dated March 23, 1880 originally owned by Joe Rosa was donated to the Kansas State Historical Society on January 9, 2017. Ethel Hickok passed away in 1985 eight months before her 100th birthday. Ethel's niece Edith Harmon and historian Joseph G. Rosa assisted with the donations.

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