1453 - May 29; Constantinople falls to the Ottoman Turks. After 1100 years the Eastern Roman Empire has finally reached its end, shutting Europe's door to the East.
1485 - August 22; the Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard III is killed, ending the War of the Roses. Henry Tudor becomes King of England as Henry VII.
1492 - October 12; Christopher Columbus makes his first landfall in the Americas.
1498 - June 24; John Cabot, sailing on behalf of Henry VII of England, discovers North America.
c. 1500 - Breton, Basque and Cornish fishermen are fishing the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, and may actually have preceded Columbus and Cabot.
1509 - April 21; death of Henry VII. Henry VIII becomes King of England.
1535 - August 10; Jacques Cartier, on a voyage of discovery for Francois I of France, sails into the St. Lawrence.
October 2; first French contact with Wyandots in the vicinity of the great town of Hochelaga, site of the present Montreal. Wyandots and related tribes may number between 30,000 and 45,000, with two of the largest, the Attignousntan and the Attigneenongnahac, joined in a confederacy. Already at war with other Iroquoian tribes, the Wyandots begin to move west.
1539 - May 25; Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto lands with a large force at Tampa Bay in the Floridas.
1541 - May 8; Soto reaches the Mississippi River, having marched overland from the Floridas. The brutal behavior of the Spanish has a devastating effect on the tribes of the southeast; perhaps coincidently, Mississippian culture enters a rapid decline.
1542 - May 21; death of Soto. He is buried in the Mississippi at night to hide his death from the Indians.
1547 - January 16; Ivan the Terrible is crowned Czar of Russia.
January 28; death of Henry VIII. Nine-year-old Edward VI becomes King of England.
1553
1553 - July 6; death of Edward VI. His elder half-sister Mary I becomes Queen of England.
1558 - November 17; death of "Bloody" Mary. Her younger half-sister Elizabeth I becomes Queen of England.
1559 - January 15; Queen Elizabeth is crowned in Westminster Abbey.
c. 1560 - Iroquoian tribes south of the Great Lakes, at war with each other and surrounded by more numerous Algonquian enemies, are on the verge of extinction. The Iroquois Confederacy, the League of the Five Nations, is founded by Deganawidah and Hiawatha. Beginning of the "Great Peace."
The Arendahronon, the People of the Rock, join the Huron (Wyandot) Confederacy.
1564 - April 23; birth of William Shakespeare.
1570 - February 25; Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth.
c. 1570 - The Tohonaenrat, the People of the Deer, join the Huron (Wyandot) Confederacy.
1587 - February 8; Mary, Queen of Scots is beheaded for plotting to murder her cousin, Elizabeth I.
1588 - July 29; England defeats the Spanish Armada.
c. 1600 - The name "Hurons" is given to the Wyandots of the Huron Confederacy by the French. The four nations are at the height of their power in Ouendake (the French Huronia), with 16 towns between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay in central Ontario. Capital of the confederacy is the town of Ossossane on Nottawasaga Bay. Ottawa to Wyandot to Iroquois fur trade flourishes, supported by Wyandot agricultural surplus.
South of the Hurons is a second, smaller Wyandot confederacy, the Tionontate, called Petun by the French. A third Wyandot group, the Attiwandaronk, called the Neutrals because of their stance in Wyandot-Iroquois conflicts, occupies the country west of Niagara.
1603 - March 24; death of Elizabeth I. James VI of Scotland becomes King of England as James I.
1607 - April 26; the first permanent English settlement in the Americas is established in Virginia.
1608
1608 - July 3; Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec, the first permanent French settlement in the Americas, on the site of the Algonkian town of Stadacona.
1609 - July 30; Champlain accompanies a mixed war party of Hurons and Algonkins to the lake which now bears his name, where with his aid they inflict a major defeat on the Iroquois. The Iroquois discover firearms.
September 2; Henry Hudson and the Half Moon, sailing on behalf of the Dutch East India Company, enter the Hudson River while searching for the Northwest Passage.
In the winter, La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis is founded by Pedro de Peralta as the capital of the province of New Mexico.
1611-1612 - Etienne Brule, protege of Champlain, spends an extended period among the Hurons.
1614 - A formal trading alliance between the French and the Huron Confederacy is ratified at Quebec.
Dutch begin trading guns to the Iroquois. They are soon much better armed than the Hurons.
1615 - Champlain sends Fransciscan missionaries into the St. Lawrence territory. With Recollet Father Joseph Le Caron he visits the Hurons and spends the winter among them.
1616 - April 23; deaths of William Shakespeare in Stratford-on-Avon, England, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in Madrid, Spain.
1619 - A Dutch ship needing supplies lands the first cargo of 20 African slaves at Jamestown in Virginia.
1620 - December 26; the Pilgrims land at the site of Plymouth on Massachusetts Bay.
1621 - June 3; the Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherlands.
1623 - Father Le Caron and two other Recollet missionaries attempt to establish a mission among the Hurons but fail.
1625
1625 - March 27; death of James I. Charles I becomes King of England.
In the spring, Nieuw Amsterdam (present New York City) is founded on Manhattan Island by the Dutch.
Arrival of Jesuit missionaries in Canada.
1629 - August 9; after a relief expedition sent by Richelieu from France is captured by privateers, Champlain is forced to surrender Quebec to the English. The town's French population still numbers just 65, with only 20 adult males.
1632 - March 29; Quebec is returned to France by the Treaty of St. Germaine-en-Laye. Champlain must begin to rebuild.
1634 - The Jesuits begin a mission to the Hurons at Ihonatiria, where Taretand' is chief.
Trois Rivieres is founded by La Biolette. It becomes the fur trading center of New France.
1634-1640 - War, a devastating smallpox or measles epidemic, and religious dissension among the Wyandots reduce their number to approximately 10,000.
1635 - December 25; death of Samuel de Champlain at the age of 68.
1637 - The Jesuits move their Huron mission headquarters to Ossossane. Many turn to the Church for protection from the epidemic.
1638 - March 29; Swedish and Finnish colonists begin to settle in the Delaware River valley. They have friendly relations with most groups of the Delaware Indians.
1639 - The mission-fort of Ste. Marie Among the Hurons is constructed by the Jesuits on the Wye River near Midland Bay, and becomes the center for Huron mission activities.
600 of the Wenrohronon, a Neutral tribe from east of Niagara, seek refuge with the Huron Confederacy.
1642 - May 18; La Ville Marie de Montreal is founded by Paul de Chomeday, Sieur de Maisonneuve, on the site of Hochelaga.
The Iroquois attack Huron canoes on the Ottawa River in retaliation for loss of the fur trade to the French.
1643
1643 - February 15; New Sweden's first governor, Lieutenant-General Johan Printz, arrives at Christina Harbour (present Wilmington, Delaware).
There are more Iroquois attacks on French-Huron trading parties on the Ottawa River.
1644 - February 18; a Papal Brief recognizes Ste. Marie as a place of pilgrimage.
The Iroquois block the Ottawa River. Twenty French men-at-arms are sent to protect Huronia.
The Atontrataronnon, an Algonquian people, seek asylum with the Huron to escape destruction by the Iroquois.
1645 - A peace treaty between the French and the Iroquois leads the latter to expect a resumption of the Huron fur trade. Instead, the Huron take 60 canoe loads of furs to Montreal.
1646 - The Huron take 80 canoe loads of furs to Montreal - some 32,000 lbs. of beaver pelts.
1647 - May 11; Peter Stuyvesant arrives in Nieuw Amsterdam to become governor of New Netherlands.
No Huron trading canoes go to Montreal this year.
1648 - 250 Hurons in a flotilla of canoes make the journey to Quebec.
July 4; raiding deep into Ouendake, the Iroquois destroy the Huron mission village of St. Joseph, torturing the Jesuit missionary, Father Antoine Daniel, to death.
The Huron trading expedition returns from Quebec with 27 Frenchmen, including 12 men-at-arms.
1649 - January 30; King Charles I of England is beheaded.
March 16; 1,200 well-armed Iroquois launch coordinated attacks into Ouendake, wiping out the mission towns of St. Ignace and St. Louis. Hundreds of Hurons are put to death, along with Father Jean de Brebeuf and Father Gabriel Lalement.
Ossossane is abandoned as the Huron Confederacy disintegrates. Many flee to islands in Georgian Bay; some seek refuge with the Ottawa, Petun, or French, while others become adopted captives of the Iroquois. Ste. Marie is isolated.
1649
In May, Ste. Marie is abandoned, the refugees moving to the safety of Christian Island in Georgian Bay. By winter the island's population has swelled to 6,000.
In December, the Petun lose their principal town to the Iroquois. Father Charles Garnier and Father Noel Chabanel, missionaries to the Petun at St. Jean, are tortured to death by the Iroquois, bringing the number of Jesuit martyrs to five. Petun and Huron refugees leave Ontario, and spend the winter of 1649-50 on Mackinac Island.
c. 1650 - First French contact with the Shawnee in Tennessee, where they have drifted from Ohio. A Shawnee colony called the Savannah is in South Carolina, where they form a buffer between the Cherokee and the Catawba.
1650 - June 10; after a winter of famine, 300 surviving Huron refugees on Christian Island set out with 60 Frenchmen for Quebec, where their descendants the Hurons of Lorette still live.
1651 - Under continuing Iroquois pressure, Petun and Huron Wyandots move from Mackinac to an island in Green Bay, where they are joined by Ottawa refugees.
The Neutrals are attacked by the Iroquois. Some flee to their Wyandot kin at Green Bay, others go south to Ohio where Wyandot refugees are enslaved by the Erie.
1652-c.1665 - The Wyandots and Ottawa move inland from Green Bay to the Mississippi River, then drift north to Chequamegon on Lake Superior in Sioux country, where they resume fur trade with the French.
1653 - February 2; the city of Nieuw Amsterdam is incorporated.
1653-1656 - The Erie lose a protracted war with the Iroquois. Some flee, others are absorbed by the Seneca. They disappear as a tribe. The Five Nations temporarily control all the lands on either side of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
1654 - Huron refugees at Quebec are joined by others from Trois Rivieres. Their chief is Ignace Tsaouenhohouhi.
1655 - September 1; New Sweden falls to Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch. In the years of skirmishing back and forth, the Delaware have generally sided with the Swedes.
1658 - September 3; death of Oliver Cromwell.
1660
1660 - May 29; the Restoration. Charles II becomes King of England.
1664 - September 8; Peter Stuyvesant is forced to surrender Nieuw Amsterdam to the English when the good burghers refuse to fight.
1665 - June 12; England installs a municipal government in Nieuw Amsterdam, renamed New York.
June 30; a new Lieutenant-General of New France, the Marquis de Tracy, arrives in Quebec with the first regular French troops. The Crown takes possession of the colony.
The Mission of La Pointe du St. Esprit is founded by Father Allouez at Chequamegon on Lake Superior, ministering to the Ottawa and Wyandots.
1666 - After over two decades of skirmishes, raids and ambushes, the French launch a full-scale military invasion of the Iroquois country.
September 20; Father Jacques Marquette arrives in Quebec from France.
1667 - July 7; the French and the Iroquois sign a peace treaty. This brings 20 years of peace to New France and largely ends the conflict between the Iroquois and the Wyandots.
1669 - Father Marquette joins the Mission of St. Esprit at Chequamegon. Kondiaronk is Sastaretsi, "Grand Sachem" or hereditary head chief of Wyandots in the west.
1670 - May 2; the Hudson Bay Company is chartered by Charles II to compete with the French in the Canadian fur trade.
1671 - In conflict with the Sioux and no longer menaced by the Iroquois, Wyandots move to Michilimackinac, where the Mission of St. Ignace is founded by Father Marquette.
1673 - In May, Father Marquette and Louis Joliet set out from St. Ignace to find the great river described by the Illinois Indians. They reach the Mississippi on June 17, and the mouth of the Arkansas a month later, where they turn back after learning there are Spanish in the area of the present New Orleans.
1675 - May 18; Father Marquette dies of a fever while on a mission to the Illinois Indians.
1677 - Father Marquette's remains are returned to St. Ignace.
1680
1680 - August 21; Pueblo Indians take possession of Santa Fe after driving out the Spanish. The successful revolt temporarily creates a power vacuum in western North America, which the French are quick to exploit.
1682 - April 9; Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, having descended the full length of the Mississippi with an exploring party of 23 Frenchmen and 31 Indians, claims all of the lands drained by the river and its tribu-taries for France and names it Louisiana.
July 15; the Delaware sign a treaty with Penn's repre-sentative William Markham at the present site of Germantown, Pennsylvania; Voltaire claims this is the only treaty with the Indians that whites never broke.
October 29; William Penn arrives in Pennsylvania to oversee the Holy Experiment.
1685 - February 6; death of Charles II. His brother James II becomes King of England.
March 21; birth of Johann Sebastian Bach.
1687 - March 19; La Salle is murdered by mutineers in present-day Texas.
1688 - December 22; the Glorious Revolution. James II abdicates, and William of Orange and his wife Mary, elder daughter of James II, become joint rulers of Great Britain as William III and Mary II.
1689-1697 - King William's War between Britain and France.
1690 - July 12; the Battle of the Boyne. Protestant forces led by William of Orange defeat James II in Ireland, as he attempts to regain his throne.
1692 - The Spanish retake Santa Fe, meeting little resistence, in an otherwise brutal reconquest of New Mexico.
1694 - December 28; death of Mary II after six years of joint rule with her husband William III.
1700-1730 - The Shawnee begin drifting back north into Kentucky - the Dark and Bloody Ground - and western Pennsylvania. One group ends up in Maryland.
1700 - French fur traders are operating along the Missouri River as far as the mouth of the Kansas River and perhaps beyond.
1701
1701 - July 24; Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit is founded by the French. At the invitation of Sieur Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, Wyandots move south from Michilimackinac to settle in the vicinity of the new fort, but pro- and anti-French (anti-Catholic) divisions persist. Cadillac himself is hostile toward the Jesuits and their missionary efforts.
In August, death of Kondiaronk, Sastaretsi of the Wyandots for over 40 years, at Montreal.
1702 - March 8; death of William III. Anne, second daughter of James II, becomes Queen of Great Britain and America.
1702-1713 - Queen Anne's War between Britain and France. Marlborough and Prinz Eugene versus the Sun King.
1704 - The last Wyandot having left, the Jesuits burn their mission house at Michilimackinac and return to Quebec.
1706 - January 17; birth of Benjamin Franklin in Boston.
1709-1742 - The Delaware gradually move in small groups from the Delaware River valley to lands controlled by the Iroquois on the West Branch of the Susquehanna in central Pennsylvania. From this point, the Iroquois regard the Delaware as a subserviant people. The Munsee have already separated from the main Delaware group.
1713 - The Tuscarora, defeated by an alliance of Indians and British colonists in North Carolina, move north to join the Iroquois Confederacy; Six Nations thereafter.
July 10; the exploring party of Etienne Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont, camps at the present site of Kansas City, Missouri. The next day he investigates the "crusts of Red Earth" he saw along the banks of the Kansas River.
1714 - August 1; death of Queen Anne. George I becomes King of Great Britain and America.
1717 - Upper Louisiana (the Illinois country) comes under the supervision of Lower Louisiana's government.
1718 - August 25; hundreds of French colonists arrive in Louisiana, some settling on the site of the future New Orleans.
1720
1720 - The French build Fort de Chartres in the Illinois country, 15 miles north of Kaskaskia, as the seat of government in Upper Louisiana.
August 15; a Spanish military expedition from Santa Fe and their Apache allies are defeated by the Pawnee and their French allies near the principal Pawnee village at the forks of the Platte in present Nebraska. Only a handful of men return to Santa Fe.
1721 - The fortified city of La Nouvelle Orleans is laid out by Le Blond de la Tour.
1726 - The French build Fort Niagara to keep watch on the British at Oswego.
1727 - June 11; death of George I. George II becomes King of Great Britain and America.
1728 - The Mission of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Among the Huron is established at Detroit by Father Armand de La Richardie.
c. 1730 - While retaining their settlements in the Detroit area, many Wyandots migrate southward and settle on the south shore of Lake Erie. They gradually assume sovereignty over all the Ohio country between the Great Lakes and the Miami River. Respected by surrounding Algonquian tribes, the Wyandots are now regarded by the Six Nations as their viceroys in Ohio. Their influence greatly exceeds their numbers.
1732 - February 22; birth of George Washington on his parents' plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia.
December 19; Benjamin Franklin, under the name Richard Saunders, begins publishing "Poor Richard's Almanack."
1733 - May 17; the Molasses Act is passed by Parliament.
1734 - November 2; birth of Daniel Boone in Berks County, Pennsylvania, the sixth child of Quaker parents.
1738 - The Wyandot chief Orontony, called Nicholas, has become estranged from the Ottawa and the French. With his followers he leaves Detroit to establish a new village at Lower Sandusky (present Fremont, Ohio).
1741 - Birth of Simon Girty, the "Great Renegade," near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
1742
1742 - Birth of Tarhe, called the Crane, near Detroit.
The Jesuits' Wyandot mission is transferred from Detroit to the Isle of Bois Blanc at the mouth of the Detroit River.
1743 - Benjamin Franklin organizes the American Phil
THE EMIGRANT TRIBES: WYANDOT, DELAWARE & SHAWNE
A CHRONOLOGY
1453 - May 29; Constantinople falls to the Ottoman Turks. After 1100 years the Eastern Roman Empire has finally reached its end, shutting Europe's door to the East.
1485 - August 22; the Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard III is killed, ending the War of the Roses. Henry Tudor becomes King of England as Henry VII.
1492 - October 12; Christopher Columbus makes his first landfall in the Americas.
1498 - June 24; John Cabot, sailing on behalf of Henry VII of England, discovers North America.
c. 1500 - Breton, Basque and Cornish fishermen are fishing the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, and may actually have preceded Columbus and Cabot.
1509 - April 21; death of Henry VII. Henry VIII becomes King of England.
1535 - August 10; Jacques Cartier, on a voyage of discovery for Francois I of France, sails into the St. Lawrence.
October 2; first French contact with Wyandots in the vicinity of the great town of Hochelaga, site of the present Montreal. Wyandots and related tribes may number between 30,000 and 45,000, with two of the largest, the Attignousntan and the Attigneenongnahac, joined in a confederacy. Already at war with other Iroquoian tribes, the Wyandots begin to move west.
1539 - May 25; Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto lands with a large force at Tampa Bay in the Floridas.
1541 - May 8; Soto reaches the Mississippi River, having marched overland from the Floridas. The brutal behavior of the Spanish has a devastating effect on the tribes of the southeast; perhaps coincidently, Mississippian culture enters a rapid decline.
1542 - May 21; death of Soto. He is buried in the Mississippi at night to hide his death from the Indians.
1547 - January 16; Ivan the Terrible is crowned Czar of Russia.
January 28; death of Henry VIII. Nine-year-old Edward VI becomes King of England.
1553
1553 - July 6; death of Edward VI. His elder half-sister Mary I becomes Queen of England.
1558 - November 17; death of "Bloody" Mary. Her younger half-sister Elizabeth I becomes Queen of England.
1559 - January 15; Queen Elizabeth is crowned in Westminster Abbey.
c. 1560 - Iroquoian tribes south of the Great Lakes, at war with each other and surrounded by more numerous Algonquian enemies, are on the verge of extinction. The Iroquois Confederacy, the League of the Five Nations, is founded by Deganawidah and Hiawatha. Beginning of the "Great Peace."
The Arendahronon, the People of the Rock, join the Huron (Wyandot) Confederacy.
1564 - April 23; birth of William Shakespeare.
1570 - February 25; Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth.
c. 1570 - The Tohonaenrat, the People of the Deer, join the Huron (Wyandot) Confederacy.
1587 - February 8; Mary, Queen of Scots is beheaded for plotting to murder her cousin, Elizabeth I.
1588 - July 29; England defeats the Spanish Armada.
c. 1600 - The name "Hurons" is given to the Wyandots of the Huron Confederacy by the French. The four nations are at the height of their power in Ouendake (the French Huronia), with 16 towns between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay in central Ontario. Capital of the confederacy is the town of Ossossane on Nottawasaga Bay. Ottawa to Wyandot to Iroquois fur trade flourishes, supported by Wyandot agricultural surplus.
South of the Hurons is a second, smaller Wyandot confederacy, the Tionontate, called Petun by the French. A third Wyandot group, the Attiwandaronk, called the Neutrals because of their stance in Wyandot-Iroquois conflicts, occupies the country west of Niagara.
1603 - March 24; death of Elizabeth I. James VI of Scotland becomes King of England as James I.
1607 - April 26; the first permanent English settlement in the Americas is established in Virginia.
1608
1608 - July 3; Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec, the first permanent French settlement in the Americas, on the site of the Algonkian town of Stadacona.
1609 - July 30; Champlain accompanies a mixed war party of Hurons and Algonkins to the lake which now bears his name, where with his aid they inflict a major defeat on the Iroquois. The Iroquois discover firearms.
September 2; Henry Hudson and the Half Moon, sailing on behalf of the Dutch East India Company, enter the Hudson River while searching for the Northwest Passage.
In the winter, La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis is founded by Pedro de Peralta as the capital of the province of New Mexico.
1611-1612 - Etienne Brule, protege of Champlain, spends an extended period among the Hurons.
1614 - A formal trading alliance between the French and the Huron Confederacy is ratified at Quebec.
Dutch begin trading guns to the Iroquois. They are soon much better armed than the Hurons.
1615 - Champlain sends Fransciscan missionaries into the St. Lawrence territory. With Recollet Father Joseph Le Caron he visits the Hurons and spends the winter among them.
1616 - April 23; deaths of William Shakespeare in Stratford-on-Avon, England, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in Madrid, Spain.
1619 - A Dutch ship needing supplies lands the first cargo of 20 African slaves at Jamestown in Virginia.
1620 - December 26; the Pilgrims land at the site of Plymouth on Massachusetts Bay.
1621 - June 3; the Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherlands.
1623 - Father Le Caron and two other Recollet missionaries attempt to establish a mission among the Hurons but fail.
1625
1625 - March 27; death of James I. Charles I becomes King of England.
In the spring, Nieuw Amsterdam (present New York City) is founded on Manhattan Island by the Dutch.
Arrival of Jesuit missionaries in Canada.
1629 - August 9; after a relief expedition sent by Richelieu from France is captured by privateers, Champlain is forced to surrender Quebec to the English. The town's French population still numbers just 65, with only 20 adult males.
1632 - March 29; Quebec is returned to France by the Treaty of St. Germaine-en-Laye. Champlain must begin to rebuild.
1634 - The Jesuits begin a mission to the Hurons at Ihonatiria, where Taretand' is chief.
Trois Rivieres is founded by La Biolette. It becomes the fur trading center of New France.
1634-1640 - War, a devastating smallpox or measles epidemic, and religious dissension among the Wyandots reduce their number to approximately 10,000.
1635 - December 25; death of Samuel de Champlain at the age of 68.
1637 - The Jesuits move their Huron mission headquarters to Ossossane. Many turn to the Church for protection from the epidemic.
1638 - March 29; Swedish and Finnish colonists begin to settle in the Delaware River valley. They have friendly relations with most groups of the Delaware Indians.
1639 - The mission-fort of Ste. Marie Among the Hurons is constructed by the Jesuits on the Wye River near Midland Bay, and becomes the center for Huron mission activities.
600 of the Wenrohronon, a Neutral tribe from east of Niagara, seek refuge with the Huron Confederacy.
1642 - May 18; La Ville Marie de Montreal is founded by Paul de Chomeday, Sieur de Maisonneuve, on the site of Hochelaga.
The Iroquois attack Huron canoes on the Ottawa River in retaliation for loss of the fur trade to the French.
1643
1643 - February 15; New Sweden's first governor, Lieutenant-General Johan Printz, arrives at Christina Harbour (present Wilmington, Delaware).
There are more Iroquois attacks on French-Huron trading parties on the Ottawa River.
1644 - February 18; a Papal Brief recognizes Ste. Marie as a place of pilgrimage.
The Iroquois block the Ottawa River. Twenty French men-at-arms are sent to protect Huronia.
The Atontrataronnon, an Algonquian people, seek asylum with the Huron to escape destruction by the Iroquois.
1645 - A peace treaty between the French and the Iroquois leads the latter to expect a resumption of the Huron fur trade. Instead, the Huron take 60 canoe loads of furs to Montreal.
1646 - The Huron take 80 canoe loads of furs to Montreal - some 32,000 lbs. of beaver pelts.
1647 - May 11; Peter Stuyvesant arrives in Nieuw Amsterdam to become governor of New Netherlands.
No Huron trading canoes go to Montreal this year.
1648 - 250 Hurons in a flotilla of canoes make the journey to Quebec.
July 4; raiding deep into Ouendake, the Iroquois destroy the Huron mission village of St. Joseph, torturing the Jesuit missionary, Father Antoine Daniel, to death.
The Huron trading expedition returns from Quebec with 27 Frenchmen, including 12 men-at-arms.
1649 - January 30; King Charles I of England is beheaded.
March 16; 1,200 well-armed Iroquois launch coordinated attacks into Ouendake, wiping out the mission towns of St. Ignace and St. Louis. Hundreds of Hurons are put to death, along with Father Jean de Brebeuf and Father Gabriel Lalement.
Ossossane is abandoned as the Huron Confederacy disintegrates. Many flee to islands in Georgian Bay; some seek refuge with the Ottawa, Petun, or French, while others become adopted captives of the Iroquois. Ste. Marie is isolated.
1649
In May, Ste. Marie is abandoned, the refugees moving to the safety of Christian Island in Georgian Bay. By winter the island's population has swelled to 6,000.
In December, the Petun lose their principal town to the Iroquois. Father Charles Garnier and Father Noel Chabanel, missionaries to the Petun at St. Jean, are tortured to death by the Iroquois, bringing the number of Jesuit martyrs to five. Petun and Huron refugees leave Ontario, and spend the winter of 1649-50 on Mackinac Island.
c. 1650 - First French contact with the Shawnee in Tennessee, where they have drifted from Ohio. A Shawnee colony called the Savannah is in South Carolina, where they form a buffer between the Cherokee and the Catawba.
1650 - June 10; after a winter of famine, 300 surviving Huron refugees on Christian Island set out with 60 Frenchmen for Quebec, where their descendants the Hurons of Lorette still live.
1651 - Under continuing Iroquois pressure, Petun and Huron Wyandots move from Mackinac to an island in Green Bay, where they are joined by Ottawa refugees.
The Neutrals are attacked by the Iroquois. Some flee to their Wyandot kin at Green Bay, others go south to Ohio where Wyandot refugees are enslaved by the Erie.
1652-c.1665 - The Wyandots and Ottawa move inland from Green Bay to the Mississippi River, then drift north to Chequamegon on Lake Superior in Sioux country, where they resume fur trade with the French.
1653 - February 2; the city of Nieuw Amsterdam is incorporated.
1653-1656 - The Erie lose a protracted war with the Iroquois. Some flee, others are absorbed by the Seneca. They disappear as a tribe. The Five Nations temporarily control all the lands on either side of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
1654 - Huron refugees at Quebec are joined by others from Trois Rivieres. Their chief is Ignace Tsaouenhohouhi.
1655 - September 1; New Sweden falls to Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch. In the years of skirmishing back and forth, the Delaware have generally sided with the Swedes.
1658 - September 3; death of Oliver Cromwell.
1660
1660 - May 29; the Restoration. Charles II becomes King of England.
1664 - September 8; Peter Stuyvesant is forced to surrender Nieuw Amsterdam to the English when the good burghers refuse to fight.
1665 - June 12; England installs a municipal government in Nieuw Amsterdam, renamed New York.
June 30; a new Lieutenant-General of New France, the Marquis de Tracy, arrives in Quebec with the first regular French troops. The Crown takes possession of the colony.
The Mission of La Pointe du St. Esprit is founded by Father Allouez at Chequamegon on Lake Superior, ministering to the Ottawa and Wyandots.
1666 - After over two decades of skirmishes, raids and ambushes, the French launch a full-scale military invasion of the Iroquois country.
September 20; Father Jacques Marquette arrives in Quebec from France.
1667 - July 7; the French and the Iroquois sign a peace treaty. This brings 20 years of peace to New France and largely ends the conflict between the Iroquois and the Wyandots.
1669 - Father Marquette joins the Mission of St. Esprit at Chequamegon. Kondiaronk is Sastaretsi, "Grand Sachem" or hereditary head chief of Wyandots in the west.
1670 - May 2; the Hudson Bay Company is chartered by Charles II to compete with the French in the Canadian fur trade.
1671 - In conflict with the Sioux and no longer menaced by the Iroquois, Wyandots move to Michilimackinac, where the Mission of St. Ignace is founded by Father Marquette.
1673 - In May, Father Marquette and Louis Joliet set out from St. Ignace to find the great river described by the Illinois Indians. They reach the Mississippi on June 17, and the mouth of the Arkansas a month later, where they turn back after learning there are Spanish in the area of the present New Orleans.
1675 - May 18; Father Marquette dies of a fever while on a mission to the Illinois Indians.
1677 - Father Marquette's remains are returned to St. Ignace.
1680
1680 - August 21; Pueblo Indians take possession of Santa Fe after driving out the Spanish. The successful revolt temporarily creates a power vacuum in western North America, which the French are quick to exploit.
1682 - April 9; Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, having descended the full length of the Mississippi with an exploring party of 23 Frenchmen and 31 Indians, claims all of the lands drained by the river and its tribu-taries for France and names it Louisiana.
July 15; the Delaware sign a treaty with Penn's repre-sentative William Markham at the present site of Germantown, Pennsylvania; Voltaire claims this is the only treaty with the Indians that whites never broke.
October 29; William Penn arrives in Pennsylvania to oversee the Holy Experiment.
1685 - February 6; death of Charles II. His brother James II becomes King of England.
March 21; birth of Johann Sebastian Bach.
1687 - March 19; La Salle is murdered by mutineers in present-day Texas.
1688 - December 22; the Glorious Revolution. James II abdicates, and William of Orange and his wife Mary, elder daughter of James II, become joint rulers of Great Britain as William III and Mary II.
1689-1697 - King William's War between Britain and France.
1690 - July 12; the Battle of the Boyne. Protestant forces led by William of Orange defeat James II in Ireland, as he attempts to regain his throne.
1692 - The Spanish retake Santa Fe, meeting little resistence, in an otherwise brutal reconquest of New Mexico.
1694 - December 28; death of Mary II after six years of joint rule with her husband William III.
1700-1730 - The Shawnee begin drifting back north into Kentucky - the Dark and Bloody Ground - and western Pennsylvania. One group ends up in Maryland.
1700 - French fur traders are operating along the Missouri River as far as the mouth of the Kansas River and perhaps beyond.
1701
1701 - July 24; Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit is founded by the French. At the invitation of Sieur Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, Wyandots move south from Michilimackinac to settle in the vicinity of the new fort, but pro- and anti-French (anti-Catholic) divisions persist. Cadillac himself is hostile toward the Jesuits and their missionary efforts.
In August, death of Kondiaronk, Sastaretsi of the Wyandots for over 40 years, at Montreal.
1702 - March 8; death of William III. Anne, second daughter of James II, becomes Queen of Great Britain and America.
1702-1713 - Queen Anne's War between Britain and France. Marlborough and Prinz Eugene versus the Sun King.
1704 - The last Wyandot having left, the Jesuits burn their mission house at Michilimackinac and return to Quebec.
1706 - January 17; birth of Benjamin Franklin in Boston.
1709-1742 - The Delaware gradually move in small groups from the Delaware River valley to lands controlled by the Iroquois on the West Branch of the Susquehanna in central Pennsylvania. From this point, the Iroquois regard the Delaware as a subserviant people. The Munsee have already separated from the main Delaware group.
1713 - The Tuscarora, defeated by an alliance of Indians and British colonists in North Carolina, move north to join the Iroquois Confederacy; Six Nations thereafter.
July 10; the exploring party of Etienne Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont, camps at the present site of Kansas City, Missouri. The next day he investigates the "crusts of Red Earth" he saw along the banks of the Kansas River.
1714 - August 1; death of Queen Anne. George I becomes King of Great Britain and America.
1717 - Upper Louisiana (the Illinois country) comes under the supervision of Lower Louisiana's government.
1718 - August 25; hundreds of French colonists arrive in Louisiana, some settling on the site of the future New Orleans.
1720
1720 - The French build Fort de Chartres in the Illinois country, 15 miles north of Kaskaskia, as the seat of government in Upper Louisiana.
August 15; a Spanish military expedition from Santa Fe and their Apache allies are defeated by the Pawnee and their French allies near the principal Pawnee village at the forks of the Platte in present Nebraska. Only a handful of men return to Santa Fe.
1721 - The fortified city of La Nouvelle Orleans is laid out by Le Blond de la Tour.
1726 - The French build Fort Niagara to keep watch on the British at Oswego.
1727 - June 11; death of George I. George II becomes King of Great Britain and America.
1728 - The Mission of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Among the Huron is established at Detroit by Father Armand de La Richardie.
c. 1730 - While retaining their settlements in the Detroit area, many Wyandots migrate southward and settle on the south shore of Lake Erie. They gradually assume sovereignty over all the Ohio country between the Great Lakes and the Miami River. Respected by surrounding Algonquian tribes, the Wyandots are now regarded by the Six Nations as their viceroys in Ohio. Their influence greatly exceeds their numbers.
1732 - February 22; birth of George Washington on his parents' plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia.
December 19; Benjamin Franklin, under the name Richard Saunders, begins publishing "Poor Richard's Almanack."
1733 - May 17; the Molasses Act is passed by Parliament.
1734 - November 2; birth of Daniel Boone in Berks County, Pennsylvania, the sixth child of Quaker parents.
1738 - The Wyandot chief Orontony, called Nicholas, has become estranged from the Ottawa and the French. With his followers he leaves Detroit to establish a new village at Lower Sandusky (present Fremont, Ohio).
1741 - Birth of Simon Girty, the "Great Renegade," near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
1742
1742 - Birth of Tarhe, called the Crane, near Detroit.
The Jesuits' Wyandot mission is transferred from Detroit to the Isle of Bois Blanc at the mouth of the Detroit River.
1743 - Benjamin Franklin organizes the American Philosophical Society.
April 2; birth of Thomas Jefferson in Goochland County, Virginia.
1744 - August 8; Fort de la Trinite, popularly called Fort de Cavagnial, is established by the French on the west bank of the Missouri River near the principal Kansa village, just north of the present Fort Leavenworth. Westernmost outpost of the Illinois district in Upper Louisiana, it is intended to keep a watchful eye on both the Spanish in Santa Fe and French fur traders in the area.
Father Pierre Potier arrives at the Wyandot mission.
1744-1748 - King George's War between Britain and France.
1745 - English traders from Pennsylvania build a blockhouse near Nicholas' village at Lower Sandusky. This is the furthest British penetration into lands claimed by the French.
1747 - In August, Nicholas is encouraged by the British to lead a multi-tribal attack on the French at Detroit. He fails but burns the mission church. Most Wyandots remain loyal to the French.
October 7; birth of Ebenezer Zane, eldest son of William and Nancy Ann Nolan Zane, in Virginia.
1748 - In April, dissident Wyandots led by Nicholas burn their village and the fort at Lower Sandusky and flee to Indiana, where Nicholas dies in the autumn.
The Assumption Mission is reestablished on Ottawa lands on the Canadian side of the Detroit River, and a number of Wyandots settle around it (present Windsor, Ontario).
1749 - September 7; birth of Rene Auguste Chouteau, son of Rene Auguste and Marie Therese Bourgeois Chouteau, in New Orleans.
c. 1750 - After much wandering and division, the 5 semiautonomous bands of the Shawnee are permitted by the Wyandots to settle along the Scioto River in central Ohio.
1750
1750 - Dr. Thomas Walker enters Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap, following the Warriors' Path used by the Shawnee and Cherokee, while on a two-year exploration for the Loyal Land Company.
July 28; death of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig.
The Ottawa chief Pondiac, or Pontiac, organizes a loose confederation of the Ottawa, Ojibwa (his mother's people), and Pottawatomi, tribes closely related in language and heritage.
Christopher Gist, exploring for the Ohio Company, reaches the Falls of the Ohio (present Louisville, Kentucky).
1752 - November 19; birth of George Rogers Clark, son of John and Ann Rogers Clark, near Charlottesville, Virginia.
1753 - Birth of Isaac Zane, younger brother of Ebenezer, in Berkley County, Virginia.
1754-1763 - The French and Indian Wars.
Under continuing pressure from British colonists, many Delaware drift west once more, crossing the Alleghenies into western Pennsylvania. The majority of the Munsee move north from Pennsylvania to settle in Canada. A few rejoin the main group of Delaware.
1754 - Delaware in western Pennsylvania join the Shawnee in raiding the settlements, more out of hatred of the English than love of the French. The Delaware still on the Susquehanna stay neutral at first.
Fort Duquesne (the present Pittsburgh) is built by the French where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join to form the Ohio. The young George Washington is sent to destroy it but is forced to surrender to superior forces. His rash actions help to trigger a wider war.
1755 - April 3; birth of Simon Kenton in Fauquier County, Virginia.
July 9; defeat of General Braddock's expedition near Fort Duquesne by a mixed force of French and Indians, including Delaware, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Pottawatomi, Shawnee and Wyandots. The Indians are led by Anastase, a Huron war chief from Lorette. Twenty-three-year-old George Washington and 21-year-old Daniel Boone are among the survivors.
1755
Kansa and Missouri warriors from Upper Louisiana arrive too late to take part in Braddock's defeat, and their return journey takes 6 hardship-filled months.
The Delaware still on the Susquehanna defy the Iroquois and join their western kinsmen, raiding as far as New Jersey and southern New York.
1756-1763 - The Seven Years' War. The fighting in North America expands into the first global conflict, with Britain and Prussia fighting France, Austria and their allies in Europe, the Americas, and India.
1756 - January 27; birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
April 14; Governor Robert Morris of Pennsylvania declares war on the Delaware, and offers cash bounties for prisoners and scalps.
June 14; the governor of New Jersey declares war on the Delaware.
Simon, James and George Girty are taken captive in an Indian raid in Pennsylvania, and are eventually traded to the Seneca.
September 8; colonial troops attack and burn the principal Delaware town of Kittanning on the Allegheny River, but most Delaware escape with over 100 white captives. End of Delaware presence in central Pennsylvania.
The Wyandots allow the main group of Delaware to settle along the Tuscarawas River in eastern Ohio. No longer under the thumb of the Iroquois, the Delaware reassert their manhood.
In November, William Pitt becomes Secretary of State for Great Britain, responsible for the conduct of the war and foreign affairs.
1757 - August 9; the French and Indians under the Marquis de Montcalm take Fort William Henry on Lake George. The fort is burned and prisoners massacred.
1757-1762 - Franklin is in London as agent for Pennsylvania.
1758
1758 - July 26; the British take the great fortress at Louisbourg, giving them naval control of the St. Lawrence.
October 10; birth of Jean Pierre Chouteau, half-brother of Auguste and illegitimate son of Pierre de Laclede Liguest, in New Orleans.
November 25; Colonial troops under Col. George Washington capture Fort Duquesne, site of Washington's surrender four years before. Rebuilt over the next two years as Fort Pitt, largest land fortification in North America, this establishes British control over the entire Ohio River valley.
1759 - Eighteen-year-old Simon Girty is released after three years as an adopted captive of the Seneca. He eventually becomes an interpreter at Fort Pitt.
July 25; the British under Sir William Johnson capture Fort Niagara.
September 13; General James Wolfe takes Quebec. Deaths of both Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm. This marks the effective end of French power in North America.
1760 - September 8; Sir William Johnson captures Montreal.
Pontiac meets in central Ohio with Maj. Robert Rogers, who is leading a British occupation force from Fort Pitt to Detroit. The meeting ends amicably.
October 25; death of George II. His grandson George III becomes King of Great Britain and America.
November 29; Rogers occupies Detroit.
1761 - James Otis speaks against writs of assistance. George III makes colonial judges serve at his pleasure.
July 3; the Northwest Confederacy is organized at a Wyandot town near Detroit, includes Delware, Miami, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Pottawatomi, Shawnee, Wyandots, and others. Wyandots are made Keepers of the Council Fire.
October 5; William Pitt, architect of Britain's victory over France, is forced to resign by George III.
1762
1762 - James Otis challenges the royal governor in A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Repre- sentatives of...Massachusetts.
Pontiac's War begins. In the wake of French defeat, Pontiac sends messengers to all the tribes between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi, seeking their united support against the British.
November 3; the Treaty of Fontainebleau. France secretly cedes the greater part of Louisiana to Spain (hoping to eventually regain it), in return for Spanish agreement to an end of the war with Great Britain.
1763 - February 10; the Treaty of Paris is signed ending the Seven Years' War between France and Great Britain. Britain acquires Canada and Louisiana east of the Mississippi from France, and East and West Florida from Spain.
Britain prohibits American settlement west of the Alleghenies and otherwise tries to tighten colonial controls. The colonies enter a severe economic depression lasting until 1770, with scarce money and declining trade.
February 15; the Treaty of Hubertusberg is signed by Prussia and Austria, restoring the status quo in Europe.
April 27; Pontiac convenes a multi-tribal council near Detroit, speaking eloquently of the wrongs done to the Indians by the British. Coordinated attacks on a dozen different forts and outposts are planned.
May 7; Pontiac's plan to sieze the fort at Detroit is betrayed by a young girl of mixed parentage, and a lengthy siege begins. The adjacent town's French habitants give at least passive support to the Indians.
July 31; the Battle of Bloody Ridge. A large British force sallying from Detroit is destroyed, but the fort's defenders continue to hold out.
August 6; at Bushy Run near Fort Pitt, Col. Henry Bouquet with a force of Royal Americans and Highlanders defeats a large war party of Shawnee and Delaware.
In October, the siege at Detroit sputters to an end. Wyandots led by Baby, who have taken part reluctantly, are the first to sue for peace.
1763
October 31; Pontiac signs a preliminary peace agreement with Detroit's commander, Maj. Henry Gladwin. The Ottawa withdraw to a winter village on the Maumee River.
In November, the site of La Ville St. Louis des Illinois is picked by Pierre de Laclede Liguest to become the new entrepot of the Missouri River fur trade.
1764 - In February, 14-year-old Auguste Chouteau and 30 men are sent by Laclede from Fort de Chartres in the Illinois to clear the site of St. Louis and begin construction of the new post. By mid-summer some 40 settlers arrive from Cahokia and St. Philippe.
April 5; the Sugar Act is passed by Parliament; the colonies protest.
July 10; most of the French troops in the Illinois district, including those from Fort de Cavagnial, are evacuated from Fort de Chartres to New Orleans. Capt. Louis St. Ange de Bellerieve is left in command.
August 12; the Treaty of Presque Isle. Wyandots make their peace with the British.
1765 - Delaware and Shawnee make peace with the British.
Many French habitants from the Illinois cross the Mississippi to resettle in St. Louis, which soon has a population of nearly 300.
March 22; the Stamp Act is passed by Parliament. The Sons of Liberty are organized to resist it, and the colonies boycott British imports.
March 24; the Quartering Act is passed by Parliament, requiring colonists to house British soldiers.
October 7-25; The Stamp Act Congress assembles and adopts "A Declaration of Rights and Grievances of the Colonists of America."
October 10; Commandant Louis St. Ange de Bellerieve surrenders Fort de Chartres and French jurisdiction in the Illinois to the British under Capt. Thomas Stirling, and transfers his headquarters to St. Louis.
October 17; Pontiac negotiates a peace treaty at Detroit.
November 1; a day of national mourning over the Stamp Act.
1766
1766 - March 5; Don Antonio de Ulloa arrives in New Orleans, as Spain takes possession of Louisiana from France.
March 18; the Stamp Act is repealed by Parliament, but the Declaratory Act is passed affirming the sovereignty of Parliament over the colonies, "...in all cases whatsoever."
The Quaker mercantile firm of Baynton, Wharton & Morgan, Philadelphia, dispatches 600 pack horses and many wagons with goods worth 50,000 pounds to Fort Pitt for the Illinois fur trade. The goods are shipped down the Ohio in new batteaux manned by 300 boatmen.
July 24; the terms of the Detroit peace treaty are confirmed by Pontiac and Sir William Johnson, meeting at Oswego, New York.
October 7; birth of Pierre Menard, son of Jean Baptiste and Marie Francoise Ciree Menard, in St. Antoine, Quebec.
December 19; the New York Assembly is suspended for refusing to obey the Quartering Act.
1767 - April 20; while staying with St. Ange in St. Louis, Pontiac visits Cahokia and is assassinated by a Peoria Indian, possibly in the pay of a British trader. He is buried with honors on the hill above St. Louis.
June 29; the Townshend Revenue Acts are passed by Parliament, levying import duties on necessities like glass, lead, paint, paper and tea, further depressing the colonial economy. The Acts are resisted in Boston.
1768 - February 11; Massachusetts submits a list of grievances to Parliament. In retaliation, Governor Bernard dissolves the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
In March, the birth of Tecumseh near the Shawnee town of Old Chillicothe in Ohio. His father, Puckeshinwa, is a Kiscopocoke Shawnee war chief; his mother, Methoataske, is a Creek.
In November, the Treaty of Fort Stanwix is signed. The Iroquois sell the Shawnee and Delaware's traditional hunting grounds in Kentucky and western Pennsylvania to the British, and set the Ohio River as the boundary between Indian lands and white settlement.
1769
1769 - The Act of Henry VIII is revived by Parliament. The Virginia Resolves are passed, protesting British policies. The Virginia House of Burgesses is dissolved by the royal governor.
May 1; Daniel Boone, his brother-in-law John Stuart, John Finley, and three others set out on a two-year hunting expedition that will lead them through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky.
1770 - Population of the thirteen colonies is estimated at 2,205,000.
March 5; the Boston Massacre.
April 12; the Townshend Acts are repealed, except for the tax on tea.
Ebenezer Zane, with his brothers Silas and Jonathan, begins a settlement at the mouth of Wheeling Creek on the Ohio River which becomes Fort Henry, Virginia (present Wheeling, West Virginia). Their brother Isaac is an adopted captive of the Wyandots, married to Tarhe's daughter Myeerah. Allowed to visit his family, he always returns to the Wyandots.
May 20; A Spanish garrison is finally sent to St. Louis, 7 years after the Treaty of Paris.
June 11; Captain James Cook, commanding HMS Endeavour, discovers the Great Barrier Reef off Australia.
June 18; St. Ange surrenders his authority in Upper Louisiana to a Spanish lieutenant governor, Pedro Jose de Piernas, but for the most part, Louisiana remains French in all but name.
August 1; birth of William Clark, younger brother of George Rogers Clark, in Caroline County, Virginia.
Birth of William Walker Sr., in or near Greenbrier, Virginia.
December 16; birth of Ludwig van Beethoven.
1771 - In March, Daniel Boone returns home from Kentucky.
Birth of Ebenezer Zane, Wyandot, eldest child of Isaac Zane and Myeerah. His parents are 18 and 14 respec-
tively; Romeo and Juliet on the Northwest frontier.
1771
June 4; birth of Catherine Rankin (Walker), daughter of James and Catherine Montour Rankin. Her maternal great-grandmother is Madame Montour, her aunt the Mohawks' Queen Esther of Revolutionary War fame.
Believing he has killed a man, 16-year-old Simon Kenton flees west. Assuming the name Simon Butler, for over two years he hunts along the Ohio and the Great and Little Kanawha Rivers, often in danger from the Shawnee.
1772 - May 3; a United Brethren (Moravian) mission is estab-lished among the Delaware in Ohio at Schonbrunn on the Tuscarawas River. Moravian missionary David Zeisberger discovers Indian burial mounds at the site, and writes the first account of the Ohio works.
June 10; the British revenue cutter HMS Gaspee is burned off Rhode Island by angry Providence merchants.
In August, a second Moravian mission is founded by John Heckewelder at Gnadenhutten, a short distance from Schonbrunn.
November 2; the first Committee of Correspondence is organized in Massachusetts. They quickly spread.
1773 - February 9; birth of William Henry Harrison in Charles City County, Virginia.
The Regulating Act is passed by Parliament.
The Boones and a handful of others set out to settle Kentucky, but turn back after 16-year-old James Boone and Henry Russell are captured and tortured to death by Indians (probably Cherokees).
Captain Pipe succeeds his uncle Custaloga as chief of the Wolf Band of the Delaware at Kuskuskies (present New Castle, Pennsylvania).
White Eyes, war chief of the Turtle Band of the Delaware, succeeds the elderly Natawatwees as Head Chief of the Delaware Nation.
December 16; the Boston Tea Party.
1774 - In January, frontiersmen attack a party of friendly Shawnee near Fort Pitt.
March 25; the Boston Port Act is passed by Parliament. The Massachusetts Government Act nullifies the colony's charter.
1774
Franklin publishes On the Rise and Progress of the Differences between Great Britain and Her American Colonies. Thomas Jefferson publishes Summary View of the Rights of British America.
April 30; frontiersmen slaughter a peaceful encampment of Mingos near Fort Henry, Virginia, including the Shawnee wife of Chief Logan. Several days later, Logan's brother and pregnant sister are murdered.
June 1; Boston Harbour is closed to shipping. The other colonies ship goods overland to keep the city alive.
June 2; the Quartering Act is revived by Parliament.
June 10; Lord Dunmore's War begins. The skirmishing provoked by colonials with the Shawnee and Mingos escalates into open warfare in western Pennsylvania, as Pennsylvania and Virginia try to assert conflicting claims on the western frontier. War parties kill several settlers on the Muskingum River in southern Ohio. George Rogers Clark, Simon Girty, and Simon Kenton serve together as scouts at Fort Pitt.
June 22; the Quebec Act is passed by Parliament, which extends the boundary of Quebec (still largely French, Catholic, and autocratic) to the Ohio River, and reaffirms the prohibition on western settlement by the colonies. The loyalty of the majority of French Canadians to the Crown is assured.
Adam Brown Sr. is taken by Indians near Greenbrier, Virginia, and becomes an adopted captive of the Wyandots.
Eighteen-year-old James Whitaker is captured by Indians near Fort Pitt, and becomes an adopted captive of the Wyandots.
In July, Logan informs colonial officials that the killing has ended, and Cornstalk, Shawnee Head Chief, asks the British Indian Department to mediate a peace, but clashes continue.
August 18; birth of Meriwether Lewis near Charlottes-ville, Virginia.
September 5 - October 26; the First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia with twelve colonies represented. The Congress passes a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, and votes to boycott all trade with Great Britain.
1774
October 10; the Battle of Point Pleasant. Lord Dunmore's War ends when 300 Shawnee led by Cornstalk are forced to withdraw across the Ohio. There are sub-stantial casualties on both sides.
Later that same month, Cornstalk meets with colonial officials, pledging friendship and giving up all Shawnee claims to Kentucky.
December 26; death in St. Louis of Louis St. Ange de Bellerieve.
1775-1783 - The American Revolution. The Ohio tribes generally side with the British, although many try to remain neutral at first. The British commandant at Detroit is Lieutenant Colonel Henry Hamilton, called "Hair Buyer" Hamilton for reportedly offering bounties to Indians for white scalps regardless of sex or age. After an initial neutrality, the war divides the League of the Six Nations, with the Cayuga, Mohawks, Onondaga, and Seneca supporting the British while the Oneida and half the Tuscarora side with the colonies; Iroquois power is broken.
1775 - Birth of Lalawithika, the future Shawnee Prophet. Reportedly one of triplets, he is a younger brother of Tecumseh. Their father Puckeshinwa was among those slain at Point Pleasant.
Most Thawegila Shawnee leave Ohio, seeking refuge among the Creeks in Alabama. The mother of Tecumseh and Lalawithika goes with them, leaving her sons to be raised by their older sister Tecumpease.
March 10; a group of settlers sponsored by Judge Richard Henderson's Transylvania Company and led by Daniel Boone sets out for Kentucky. The Company has paid 10,000 pounds in goods to the Cherokee for 20,000,000 acres between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers.
March 15; James Harrod begins the first permanent settlement in Kentucky at Harrodstown (Harrodsburg).
March 23; in a speech to the Virginia Provincial Convention, Patrick Henry declares for American independence: "Give me liberty, or give me death."
March 30; the New England Restraining Act is passed by Parliament.
April 1; Daniel Boone and his party reach the site of Boonesborough in Kentucky.
1775
April 14; Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Benjamin Rush found the first American society for the abolition of slavery.
April 19; the Battles of Lexington and Concord. By nightfall, Boston is under siege by colonial militia.
May 10; the Second Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia.
That same day, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold capture Fort Ticonderoga on authorization from Connecticut. Some suggest returning the fort to the British, as New York is not yet in rebellion.
May 23; unaware of the Revolution, a convention of Kentucky settlers is held at Boonesborough to set up the government of Transylvania.
Twenty-year-old Simon Kenton moves from Limestone on the Ohio River to Boonesborough, where he is appointed scout by Daniel Boone.
Birth of Jonathan Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) in Massachusetts.
June 16; the Second Continental Congress names Col. George Washington of Virginia General and Commander- in-Chief of the Continental Army.
June 17; the Battle of Breed's Hill (Bunker Hill).
June 20; the Wyandots at Detroit give James Rankin a tract of land just below the Assumption Mission church.
July 2; Washington arrives at Boston.
August 23; King George issues a Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition.
Birth of Robert Armstrong, son of George and Jane Armstrong, in Pennsylvania.
Francisco Cruzat replaces Pedro de Piernas as lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana at St. Louis.
December 31; Montgomery and Arnold fail in their assault on Quebec.
1776
1776 - January 10; Thomas Paine publishes his revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense, advocating American independence.
March 5; Washington fortifies Dorchester Heights over- looking Boston with guns brought from Ticonderoga by Henry Knox.
March 17; the British evacuate Boston.
The third Moravian mission town of Lichtenau is founded on the Muskingham River in Ohio. 2500 to 3000 Delaware are in Ohio, with 300 to 400 living in the three mission towns.
Death of Netawatwees, chief of the Turtle Band of the Delaware (and former Head Chief). He is succeeded by his grandson Killbuck.
In early June, a convention of Kentucky settlers at Harrodstown rejects Judge Henderson's Transylvania government and votes to be part of Virginia. George Rogers Clark and John Gabriel Jones are elected to Virginia's new House of Delegates.
June 11; the Second Continental Congress appoints a committee to draft a declaration of independence from Great Britain. The final draft is largely the work of Thomas Jefferson.
Eleven-year-old Elizabeth Foulks is captured by Indians near Cross Roads, Pennsylvania, and becomes an adopted captive of the Wyandots.
June 29; the Virginia constitution is adopted and Patrick Henry made governor.
July 4; the Second Continental Congress signs the Declaration of Independence, approved two days before.
In early July, 14-year-old Jemima Boone and her friends Betsey and Fanny Callaway, 16 and 14, are captured by a small band of Shawnee and Cherokee near Boonesborough. Leaving a trail and delaying their captors, the girls are rescued after three days by Jemima's father Daniel.
July 9; the Declaration of Independence is read to Washington's troops.
August 27; the Battle of Long Island.
September 16; the Battle of Harlem Heights.
1776
In November, Cornstalk, who has kept the Shawnee neutral and given himself up as a hostage, is murdered by American frontiersmen near Fort Pitt. His successor is Blackfish, a bitter enemy of the Virginians.
December 7; the Virginia Assembly declines to seat Clark and Jones, but creates Kentucky County out of Fincastle County, with Harrodsburg as its seat.
December 26; the Battle of Trenton follows Washington's daring crossing of the Delaware River.
1777 - January 3; the Battle of Princeton.
In March, George Rogers Clark begins organizing a Kentucky militia and suggests that the scattered settlers find refuge at the larger fortified stations. Blackfish with 200 Shawnee warriors begins to harass the settlements.
April 24; Daniel Boone and a dozen men are cut off by Indians in front of Boonesborough. Boone is rescued by Simon Kenton.
In May, Captain William Linn arrives at Fort Pitt with a large supply of powder brought upriver from New Orleans.
June 17; Hamilton convenes the tribes of the Northwest Confederacy at Detroit. Painted and singing a war song, he urges them to attack the Americans.
June 22; Benjamin Linn and Samuel Moore, sent by Clark to spy out the Illinois country, return with the news that most British forces have withdrawn to Detroit.
By July, only Boonesborough, Harrodsburg and St. Asaph's (Logan's Fort) remain in Kentucky as settlers flee to the stockades for protection or return to the east. All summer, Blackfish's Shawnee strike alternately at the three stations.
In August, the newly appointed County Lieutenant, Col. John Bowman, arrives in Kentucky with 100 men to relieve the settlements.
August 16; the Battle of Bennington.
September 1; Fort Henry, Virginia is besieged for 23 hours by almost 400 Mingos, Wyandots and Shawnee. Half of the 42 man garrison is killed in early skirmishes.
1777
September 2; reinforcements arrive at Fort Henry and the Indians withdraw after burning the surrounding settle-ment. Maj. Samuel McCulloch, separated from his men and pursued by Indians, escapes by making a daring leap on horseback down a 150 foot embankment.
September 30; Congress is forced to flee Philadelphia for York, Pennsylvania.
October 1; George Rogers Clark leaves Harrodsburg for Virginia. He writes to Governor Patrick Henry, urging a military expedition to secure the Illinois.
October 4; the Battle of Germantown.
October 14; "Gentlemanly Johnny" Burgoyne surrenders to Gates at Saratoga.
A vague appropriation for the protection of Kentucky is authorized by the Virginia Assembly. Clark, just turned 25, is appointed to raise the forces needed.
November 15; the Articles of Confederation are adopted by Congress.
The Continental Army goes into Winter Quarters at Valley Forge.
1778 - January 2; Clark receives secret instructions from Governor Henry to take Kaskaskia.
January 18; Captain James Cook discovers the Hawaiian Islands.
February 6; impressed by Burgoyne's surrender, Louis XVI recognizes the United States and signs a treaty pledging full military support.
February 8; Daniel Boone is taken captive by the Shawnee. Blackfish refuses to turn him over to Hamilton at Detroit, and he is adopted into the tribe.
In February, General Edward Hand marches north from Fort Pitt with a force of Pennsylvania militia. No hostile Indians are found but two attacks are made on defense-less villagers. The mother of the friendly Delaware chief Captain Pipe is wounded and his brother killed. The "Squaw Campaign" ends Pipe's neutrality.
1778
March 28; convinced that the Americans have lost the war in the west, Simon Girty, Alexander McKee and 5 others desert Fort Pitt. General Hand resigns and is replaced by Lachlan McIntosh.
May 11; death of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, leading champion of American rights in Parliament.
May 12; Clark embarks down the Ohio River, picking up supplies at Pittsburgh and proceeding to the planned rendezvous at the Falls of the Ohio. Twenty families travel with Clark, and settle on Corn Island.
Wyandots led by Half King unsuccessfully attempt to draw out the garrison at Fort Randolph on the Ohio. The Indians then move up the Kanawha toward the Greenbrier settlements.
May 29; Half King's Wyandots attack a blockhouse 20 miles from Fort Union. Held off until relief arrives from Fort Randolph, they give up the attack.
In June, Girty and McKee reach Detroit, where McKee is appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs and Girty becomes an interpreter for Hamilton. Noted for his savagery (possibly learned from the Iroquois), the "Great Renegade" is present at most of the major con-frontations between the Ohio tribes and the Americans.
June 16; Daniel Boone escapes from the Shawnee at Old Chillicothe. Covering 160 miles in four days, he reaches Boonesborough to warn of impending attack.
June 17; Fernando de Leyba replaces Francisco Cruzat as lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana at St. Louis.
June 18; American forces enter Philadelphia as the British withdraw.
June 20; death of Pierre de Laclede Liguest while returning to St. Louis from New Orleans. He is buried near the mouth of the Arkansas.
June 26; George Rogers Clark with just 175 men sets out from the Falls of the Ohio to attack the British outposts in the west.
June 28; the Battle of Monmouth. Washington almost traps the retreating British, who retire to their stronghold at New York. The theater of action shifts to the south and west.
1778
July 4; Kaskaskia falls to Clark without a shot being fired. Prairie du Rocher and Cahokia soon follow. The Illinois country is now in American hands. Simon Kenton is sent back with dispatches.
July 20; Clark's emissaries, Dr. Jean B. Laffont and Father Pierre Gibault, persuade the habitants of Vincennes to swear allegience to the Republic of Virginia.
In late July, Clark visits St. Louis at the invitation of Lieutenant Governor Leyba. The meeting is cordial (Clark reportedly falls in love with Leyba's sister), and Clark is able to obtain supplies on credit from Auguste Chouteau and other merchants.
In August, the deserted Fort Sackville at Vincennes is occupied by Captain Leonard Helm, sent by Clark to secure that post.
For five weeks beginning in August, Clark councils with the Northwestern tribes at Cahokia, including Wyandots led by Half King. Half King will keep most Wyandots neutral until 1782.
September 6-16; Boonesborough is besieged by a war party of 450 Shawnee and French Canadians led by Blackfish. The siege fails after 9 days.
September 17; the Delaware chiefs White Eyes, Captain Pipe, and Killbuck sign a treaty at Fort Pitt which provides for an alliance between the Delaware and the Americans and allows construction of a fort on Delaware lands in Ohio. Some Delaware feel that they have been duped, and Pipe resumes his pro-British efforts.
October 7; Hamilton sets out from Detroit with 175 whites, mostly French, and 60 Indians to retake Fort Sackville and Vincennes.
In November, White Eyes is murdered while escorting General Lachlan McIntosh from Fort Pitt to the site of the new fort in Ohio. The Delaware are told he died of smallpox; only a handful of Americans know the truth.
November 21; McIntosh establishes Fort Laurens on the west bank of the Tuscarawas River. The first American outpost in Ohio is designed by a military engineer and garrisoned with Continental regulars.
December 17; Hamilton recaptures Vincennes.
1779
1779 - Near the end of January, Simon Girty and 17 Mingos attack an American detachment near Fort Laurens, capturing valuable dispatches.
February 6-23; Clark with 200 men, nearly half of them French volunteers, makes an epic march through winter flood waters from Kaskaskia to Vincennes. Hamilton surrenders the fort, deceived as to American numbers.
February 23; Indians kill 18 soldiers in front of Fort Laurens. The fort comes under siege by a war party of Wyandots and Mingos.
March 23; a relief column from Fort Pitt reaches Fort Laurens, only to find the siege lifted and Indians gone.
In the spring, the settlers at the Falls of the Ohio move from Corn Island to the Kentucky mainland and found Louisville at the east end of the falls.
In May, Col. John Bowman assembles 300 mounted American volunteers to cross the Ohio and raid the Shawnee. Old Chillicothe is burned and Blackfish killed, but Clark's plans to launch an attack on Detroit from Vincennes are forestalled by this diversion.
Scouting for Bowman, Simon Kenton is pursued to the Ohio and captured by the Shawnee. Forced to run the gauntlet eight times and twice threatened with burning, he is reprieved at the urging of Chief Logan and his former comrade Simon Girty. He is turned over to the British at Detroit.
Many Kiscopocoke and Piqua Shawnee begin to move down the Ohio valley and into Spanish Louisiana to get out of the war zone. They are joined by Thawegila Shawnee from the Creek towns. Those who stay in Ohio join the Chilicothe and Mequachake bands, determined to fight on.
June 1; Thomas Jefferson is elected governor of Virginia. He soon drafts the statute of Virginia for religious freedom.
June 3; Simon Kenton succeeds in escaping from Detroit. He safely makes his way back to Kentucky.
1779
June 21; Spain declares war on Great Britain but refuses to recognize American independence.
In early August, Fort Laurens is abandoned after repeated brushes with starvation and losses to the Indians. "A slaughter pen, impossible to maintain..."
General Sullivan's campaign against the Iroquois in New York in late summer; destruction of towns, crops and stores, with the Seneca particularly hard hit.
October 4; Indians led by Simon Girty ambush Col. David Rogers on the Licking River in Kentucky. They capture 600,000 Spanish dollars and other valuable supplies being conveyed from New Orleans to Fort Pitt.
1780 - In the spring, 300 boats arrive at the Falls of the Ohio with supplies and more families, followed by a number of unmarried young women. Louisville begins to grow.
The British plan a three-pronged attack to sieze control of the Mississippi basin, on the Kentucky settlements, St. Louis and the Illinois, and New Orleans. In April, Capt. Henry Bird leaves Detroit with 600 Indians and whites and six cannon to raid Kentucky. Moving down the Maumee River-Miami River corridor, his ranks swell to nearly 1,200.
May 9; St. Louis receives word of an impending attack by the British. The militia at Ste. Genevieve is ordered to St. Louis by Leyba, but Clark is unable to send help.
May 19; a mysterious darkness envelops much of New England and part of Canada in the early afternoon. The cause has never been determined.
May 26; St. Louis is attacked by 950 British and Indians under Capt. Emanuel Hesse. The attackers are driven off by cannon fire, but 79 habitants are killed, wounded or captured out of a total population of less than 700. An attack is also made against Cahokia across the river, and is also driven off.
In June, Bird attacks the settlements between the Licking and Kentucky Rivers, taking 350 prisoners and much plunder before withdrawing. His Indian allies are disgruntled, believing an attack should have been launched against Boonesborough.
June 28; seriously ill at the time of the attack, Leyba dies at St. Louis. He is replaced as lieutenant governor by his predecessor, Cruzat.
1780
In July, French troops under General Comte Donatien de Rochambeau arrive at Newport, Rhode Island.
Birth of Between-the-Logs, near Lower Sandusky. His father is a Seneca, his mother a Wyandot of the Bear Clan.
In response to unfulfilled American promises, the majority of the Delaware end their neutrality and join Captain Pipe in supporting the British. Some Delaware led by Killbuck join the Americans at Fort Pitt and make war on their brothers.
In August, George Rogers Clark strikes against the Shawnee. He destroys Old Chillicothe on the Little Miami on August 6, and Piqua on the Miami on August 8.
August 16; the Battle of Camden.
September 22; Wyandots at Detroit cede two arpents of land on the Detroit River southwest of their village to Father Pierre Potier in appreciation for his many services to the Nation.
October 7; the Battle of King's Mountain.
In December, Greene replaces the incompetent Gates as commander of the American army in the South.
December 21; Great Britain declares war on the Netherlands because of that country's joining in a neutrality pact aimed at breaking the British blockade.
1781 - January 2; Lieutenant Governor Cruzat sends troops from St. Louis under Capt. Eugene Pourre to destroy the British supply base at Fort St. Joseph in southwest Michigan.
February 17; after a grueling march through the winter wilderness, Pourre's men capture Fort St. Joseph. They burn the fort and then withdraw.
March 1; with Maryland's approval, the Articles of Confederation are finally ratified.
March 6; Pourre's expedition is welcomed back to St. Louis.
March 15; the Battle of Guilford Court House. Cornwallis withdraws to Wilmington, North Carolina, then moves north into Virginia.
1781
William Walker Sr. is captured by a Delaware war party in Virginia, and his uncle killed. Taken to a Delaware town on the Whetstone (present Delaware, Ohio), the 11-year-old Walker is made to run the gauntlet and is subsequently adopted.
A Grand Council of the Northwest Confederacy is held at New Chillicothe (the former Piqua) in early summer, followed by bloody warfare in Kentucky. Simon Girty leads the tribes against the settlements.
Two of Girty's brothers also live among the Indians as interpreters and traders, James with the Shawnee at Girtystown (present St. Mary's, Ohio), and George with the Delaware.
Moravian missionaries arrive among the Wyandots.
Adopted Wyandot captives James Whitaker, 24, and Elizabeth Foulks, 16, marry at Detroit and settle near Lower Sandusky.
July 16; death of Father Pierre Potier at the age of 73, ending 37 years of service at the Assumption Mission. He is buried two days later in the sanctuary of the mission church. The long Jesuit mission to the Wyandots comes to an end.
George Rogers Clark sets out from Fort Pitt with 400 men to try again to mount an assault on Detroit, up the Wabash from Vincennes.
August 25; one hundred Pennsylvania volunteers under Col. Archibald Lochry, intending to join Clark, are ambushed near the mouth of the Miami River by Indians and Tories led by Joseph Brant. Half the Americans are killed and most of the others captured.
Brant's war party joins 100 British Rangers and 300 Indians from Detroit under Capt. Andrew Thompson and Alexander McKee, in an attempt to waylay Clark on the Ohio.
Clark safely reaches Fort Nelson at Louisville, but the expedition against Detroit is called off when fearful Kentucky settlers refuse their support.
September 8; the Battle of Eutaw Springs.
October 19; Cornwallis surrenders to Washington and Rochambeau at Yorktown. "The World Turned Upside Down."
1782
1782 - February 27; the House of Commons adopts a resolve against further prosecution of the war in North America.
March 4; the Wyandots at Detroit give a tract of land measuring 6 by 40 arpents to Father Jean Francois Hubert, Vicar-General of Detroit, and the Sisters of the Congregation de Notre-Dame de Montreal, to establish a house of the congregation. It lies south-southwest of the Wyandot village and east of James Rankin's property.
March 8; the Gnadenhutten Massacre. A party of 160 American volunteers from Washington County, Pennsylvania under the command of Col. David Williamson attacks the neutral Moravian mission town of Gnadenhutten, killing 90 Christian Delaware - men, women, and over 30 children - and burning the mission church. The survivors flee to Canada.
March 14; birth of Thomas Hart Benton, son of Jesse and Ann Gooch Benton, in Hillsboro, North Carolina.
Later that month, Moravian missionaries are removed from the Sandusky River by the British at the request of Half King. Wyandot neutrality is ended.
April 19; the Netherlands recognizes American independence.
June 5; the Wyandots defeat a large American force advancing on the villages on the Sandusky, and capture the commanding officer, Col. William Crawford. Simon Kenton, who advised against the expedition, is among the survivors.
June 11; in response to an impassioned plea from Captain Pipe, Half King turns Col. Crawford over to the Delaware, who burn him at the stake (actually, slow roast him) in revenge for the Moravian massacre. Simon Girty is present, and may have tried to ransom Crawford, though most accounts say he taunts the tortured victim.
August 15; Indians and Tories led by Simon Girty and Capt. William Caldwell raid Bryan's Station, Kentucky. They are pursued by hastily assembled militia.
August 19; the Battle of Blue Licks. Girty's war party defeats the Americans led by Major Hugh McGary. Among the 60 American dead is Daniel Boone's son Israel.
October 9; birth of Lewis Cass, son of Jonathan and Mary Gilman Cass, in Exeter, New Hampshire.
1782
October 12; Fort Henry, Virginia is again under siege by a force of 40 Tories and 250 Indians, including James Girty. Betty Zane risks capture or death by fetching powder from her brother Ebenezer's fortified house out-side the stockade. The siege fails.
November 10; George Rogers Clark with 1100 mounted riflemen (including Simon Kenton) defeats the Shawnee in Ohio and burns six towns, including New Chillicothe. The war in the west is largely over.
1783 - February 4; Great Britain declares a formal cessation of hostilities with the United States.
February 5; Sweden recognizes American independence.
March 24; Spain recognizes American independence.
Eight-year-old Robert Armstrong is captured by Indians (probably Delaware) in western Pennsylvania. Taken to Lower Sandusky, he is adopted by the Wyandots.
July 26; Jean Pierre Chouteau marries Pelagie Kiercereau in St. Louis.
September 3; the Treaty of Paris. Great Britain recognizes American independence. Lands west of the Alleghenies and south of the Great Lakes are ceded to the new nation, where despite the British ban there are already 25,000 settlers. Contrary to the treaty, British troops continue to hold Detroit and other western forts. Spain recovers the Floridas, but France gains very little.
October 4; the Society of Friends (Quakers) state their opposition to slavery in an address to Congress.
November 25; the British evacuate New York.
December 4; Thomas Jefferson writes to George Rogers Clark, attempting to interest him in leading an expedition overland to the Pacific. Clark declines.
1784 - January 14; Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris.
Simon Girty leaves the United States to settle near Amherstburg, on the east side of the Detroit River opposite the Isle of Bois Blanc, some 20 miles south of Detroit. Here he marries Catherine Malott, an Indian captive. For the next 10 years he continues to encourage the Ohio tribes to resist the Americans.
1784
John Adams is sent as Minister to Great Britain, Thomas Jefferson to France. After 8 years as envoy to France, Franklin returns home in triumph.
Birth of Isaac McCoy, son of William McCoy, in western Pennsylvania.
October 22; the Second Treaty of Fort Stanwix. The Iroquois make peace with the Americans, giving up all claims west of the Alleghenies and agreeing to allow the sale of tribal lands. Many refuse, and remain in Canada with Joseph Brant. The Six Nations remain divided.
1785 - January 21; the Treaty of Fort McIntosh. The Delaware, Ojibwa, Ottawa and Wyandots acknowledge American sovereignty in Ohio. A line is drawn between white and Indian territory, and the principal of the law applying to white criminals on Indian land is acknowledged. In practice, the new government can enforce neither condition.
At a council at British-held Detroit to discuss the Fort McIntosh treaty, adopted Wyandot captive Adam Brown Sr. ransoms 14-year-old William Walker Sr. from the Delaware and takes him into his household. (Brown had reportedly known Walker's family in Virginia.)
In the spring, George Rogers Clark's parents, brothers and sisters move to Kentucky, where they build "Mulberry Hill" on a large tract outside Louisville.
May 20; Congress passes the Land Ordinance of 1785, providing for the survey of the first seven ranges of townships in the Ohio country by Thomas Hutchins. This establishes the rectangular survey system subsequently applied to all U.S. public lands.
Simon Kenton, now 30, discovers that the man he thought he had killed 14 years before is still alive. Resuming his own name, he again settles at Limestone, Kentucky (present Maysville) on the Ohio River.
1786 - January 31; the Treaty of Fort Finney. The Shawnee acknowledge American sovereignty in Ohio and are forced to sign away their Ohio lands east of the Miami River. Indian Agent Richard Butler threatens the deaths of Shawnee women and children otherwise.
May 9; birth of Auguste Pierre Chouteau, eldest son of Pierre and Pelagie Kiercereau Chouteau.
1786
In October, in response to raids in Kentucky by Mingos, Cherokees, and dissident Shawnee, Col. Benjamin Logan leads an attack on the Shawnee villages on the Mad River in Ohio. Once again, the wrong Indians are attacked.
In December, the tribes of the Northwest Confederacy meet in Grand Council at Huron Village near Detroit to protest American policies. The Shawnee repudiate the treaty of Fort Finney, citing ignorance of the terms, coercion and unfairness. The government refuses to negotiate with the Confederacy but will only deal with individual tribes, and contrary to the treaty of Fort McIntosh, Americans are pushing onto lands reserved for Indians. The Confederacy resolves resistance.
1787 - January 7; birth of Catherine "Caty" Sage, daughter of James and Lovice Ott Sage, in Cripple Creek, Virginia.
February 21; Congress passes a resolution calling for a convention to be held in Philadelphia for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.
May 14; the Constitutional Convention convenes in Philadelphia. George Washington is elected president of the convention.
July 13; Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance, creating the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio (Northwest Territory). It includes the present states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. The Ordinance establishes the system by which territories are created and may subsequently enter the Union as states, bans slavery in the territory, assures religious freedom and encourages education. Arthur St. Clair of Pennsylvania is appointed governor of the territory.
September 17; the Constitutional Convention approves the Federal Constitution for adoption, and transmits the document to the President of Congress.
October 26; Congress directs Governor St. Clair to pacify the Ohio tribes by whatever means necessary.
In the late autumn, Manuel Perez replaces Francisco Cruzat as lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana.
1787-1788 - Hamilton, Madison and Jay author the Federalist Papers, urging adoption of the Constitution.
1788
1788 - January 18; the first English settlement in Australia is begun on Botany Bay as a penal colony.
In April, settlers from Massachusetts and Connecticut sent out by the Ohio Company establish Marietta, Ohio, at the mouth of the Muskingum River. The settlement is named in honor of Marie Antoinette.
June 21; nine states having voted approval, the United States Constitution is ratified.
In July, death of Half King at Detroit. His successor as Head Chief of the Ohio Wyandots is Tarhe.
Lieutenant Governor Perez sends emissaries to the Shawnee and Delaware, inviting them to settle in Upper Louisiana near Cape Girardeau. The Spanish wish to form a buffer against attacks by the Osage.
September 13; Congress passes a resolution calling for the new government to begin operations on Wednesday, March 4, 1789, authorizing the first national elections and declaring New York the temporary national capital.
Daniel Boone leaves Kentucky in the autumn, having lost his lands in a series of court suits.
In December, the settlement of Cincinnati, Ohio, is laid out by John Filson and Israel Ludlow on the Ohio River, opposite the mouth of the Licking. Originally called Losantiville, it is soon renamed in honor of the Order of the Cincinnati, the Revolutionary War veterans organization.
1789 - January 9; the Treaty of Fort Harmar reconfirms the provisions of the Treaty of Fort McIntosh, and is signed by a significant number of chiefs including Tarhe, but American encroachment continues. A notation states that the Wyandots claim the lands granted to the Shawnee, and if the Shawnee will not be at peace, the Wyandots will dispossess them and take back their lands.
January 19; birth of Jean Pierre Chouteau Jr., Cadet or second son of Pierre and Pelagie Kiercereau Chouteau, in St. Louis.
February 4; electors unamimously elect George Washington as first President of the United States, with John Adams as Vice President. (The votes are not counted until April 6, however.)
1789
April 28; the crew of HMS Bounty mutinies in the South Pacific. Captain William Bligh and 18 loyal sailors are set adrift in a launch.
April 30; George Washington is sworn in as President.
July 14; the fall of the Bastille. The French Revolution begins.
September 25; Congress approves the first 10 amendments to the Constitution (the Bill of Rights).
October 14; birth of John R. Walker, Wyandot, eldest child of William and Catherine Rankin Walker. The young parents are 19 and 18 respectively.
c. 1790 - The main Kansa village is moved from its old site near the abandoned Fort de Cavagnial to a new location on the Blue River near the present Manhattan, Kansas.
1790 - January 8; President Washington delivers an address to Congress on the State of the Union.
March 1; Congress authorizes the first U.S. Census. It establishes the population at 3,929,214.
March 21; recalled from France, Thomas Jefferson reports to President Washington in New York to take up his new office as Secretary of State.
April 17; death of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia at the age of 84.
May 19; as the result of a treaty negotiated by Alexander McKee, the Wyandots surrender much of south-west Ontario, including most of their lands around Windsor. The British establish two reserves for the Wyandots in western Canada, the Huron Mission Reserve opposite Detroit and the much larger Huron or Anderdon Reserve on the Canard River near Amherstburg.
July 16; the District of Columbia is established.
The Miami war chief Little Turtle is elected to command of all the war parties of the Northwest Confederacy.
1790
October 22; The Ohio allies led by Little Turtle defeat Col. Josiah Harmar's expedition against them near the present Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Auguste Chouteau is granted trade with the Kansa by the Spanish, and Pierre Chouteau spends the winter of 1790-91 at the new Kansa village.
1791 - March 3; the District of Columbia is established.
March 4; Vermont is admitted to the Union as the 14th state.
That same day, Governor Arthur St. Clair is appointed major general and commander-in-chief of American forces.
June 19; Parliament approves the Constitutional Act, establishing constitutional government in Canada and dividing Quebec into Lower and Upper Canada.
Eight-year-old Jonathan Pointer, an African-American, is taken by Indians near Point Pleasant, Virginia, and becomes an adopted captive of the Wyandots.
Pierre Menard, 24, moves from Vincennes to Kaskaskia, where he opens a store in partnership with Toussaint DuBois.
November 4; St. Clair's Defeat. The Ohio allies led by Little Turtle defeat American forces under Maj. Gen. St. Clair near the future Fort Recovery. With the loss of over 600 men, this is the greatest Indian victory over the Americans. The mouths of the dead are filled with earth, a reply to the American hunger for Indian land. St. Clair resigns from the Army but retains the governorship of the Northwest Territory.
December 5; death of Mozart in Vienna at the age of 35.
December 15; the Bill of Rights is ratified.
December 30; Francisco Luis Hector, Baron de Carondelet, is appointed governor of Louisiana and West Florida.
1792 - March 7; 21-year-old William Clark is commissioned a lieutenant of infantry, attached to the 4th Sub-legion.
April 20; France declares war on Austria, beginning the French Revolutionary Wars.
Don Zenon Trudeau replaces Manuel Perez as lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana at St. Louis.
1792
May 21; Pierre Vial sets out from Santa Fe to open trade connections with Upper Louisiana.
June 1; Kentucky, separated from Virginia, is admitted to the Union as the 15th state.
June 13; Pierre Menard marries Therese Godin.
July 5; five-year-old Caty Sage is abducted from Elk Creek Valley, Virginia by an enemy of her family. She is subsequently presented as a gift to the Wyandots from the Cherokee.
Thomas Jefferson proposes an expedition overland to the Pacific to the American Philosophical Society.
August 10; Louis XVI is taken into custody, and eventually charged with treason.
September 22; the French Republic is proclaimed.
October 3; Vial's exploring party arrives in St. Louis.
In October, a multi-tribal council is held at Au Glaize (present Defiance, Ohio) on the Maumee River, including not only the tribes of the Northwest Confederacy but also Joseph Brant and representatives of the Six Nations from Canada. The question of war with the United States is debated, but any final decision is held pending a forthcoming conference with American commissioners.
November 6; George Washington is reelected President.
1793 - January 21; Louis XVI of France is beheaded.
March 2; birth of Samuel "Sam" Houston, son of Sam and Elizabeth Paxton Houston, near Lexington, Virginia.
Birth of Joseph Parks, Shawnee, in Michigan.
June 14; Pierre Vial and two companions leave St. Louis to return to Santa Fe.
July 13; Jean Paul Marat is killed in his bath by Charlotte Corday.
July 21 - August 23; American commissioners confer with the tribes of the Northwest Confederacy in council at the mouth of the Detroit River. The chiefs do not take direct part, but Cat's Eyes, a Shawnee, Savaghdawunk, a Wyandot, and Simon Girty speak for the Confederacy. The conference ends in failure.
1793
September 18; the cornerstone is laid for the United States Capitol, with President Washington presiding.
October 7; under orders from President Washington, Maj. Gen. "Mad Anthony" Wayne with his Legion leaves Fort Washington near Cincinnati to advance into Ohio. Fort Greeneville (present Greenville, Ohio) is established 80 miles north of Cincinnati.
October 17; a supply detachment of Wayne's Legion is wiped out at Ludlow Spring by a war party led by Little Turtle.
November 15; Vial's party reaches Santa Fe.
1794 - February 17; his first wife having died, Pierre Chouteau marries Brigitte Saucier.
March 22; Congress prohibits American ships from carrying slaves to other countries.
In the spring, the British build Fort Miami on the Maumee River in northwest Ohio, in violation of the Treaty of Paris. The tribes view this as a commitment of support to their cause.
The Spanish grant Auguste Chouteau $2,000 and a 6 year monopoly on trade with the Osage, in exchange for a promise to build a fort among them (Fort Carondelet) and help keep them peaceful. Pierre Chouteau spends much of the next 6 years with the tribe.
July-November; the Whiskey Rebellion breaks out among farmers in western Pennsylvania. With the Legion engaged in Ohio, President Washington sends Alexander Hamilton to put down the rebellion.
July 28; Wayne's Legion sets out from Fort Greeneville, building a chain of forts as they advance. (William Clark and Meriwether Lewis serve together in the same division of the Legion.)
August 13; the tribes of the Northwest Confederacy hold Grand Council on the banks of the Maumee River. Little Turtle urges caution, but is overruled in the debate by Bluejacket.
1794
August 20; the Battle of Fallen Timbers. General Wayne with 900 men defeats a combined force of 2000 Delaware, Miamis, Pottawatomies, Shawnee and Wyandots led by the Shawnee war chief Bluejacket. All the participating Wyandot chiefs except Tarhe are slain. The British in Fort Miami refuse the Indians assistance after the battle. Unable to spark further resistence, Simon Girty returns to his home at Amherstburg.
Wayne remains below the Maumee Rapids for three days, destroying crops and buildings (including the home of Alexander McKee) but leaving Fort Miami untouched.
August 27; Wayne's Legion returns to Fort Defiance at Au Glaize, laying waste to the countryside as they march.
September 14; Wayne leaves Fort Defiance to ascend the Maumee into northeastern Indiana.
October 18-22; Wayne establishes Fort Wayne (present Fort Wayne, Indiana) among the Miami villages on the upper Maumee.
November 2; Wayne returns to Fort Greeneville, his campaign against the Northwest Confederacy an un-qualified success.
In the wake of their defeat, more Shawnee remove to the vicinity of Cape Girardeau in Spanish territory, though many still remain in Ohio with their chief Catahecassa, or Black Hoof. There is also a small group of Delaware in the Cape Girardeau area, having split from the main group perhaps as early as 1789.
November 19; the Jay Treaty. Great Britain and the U.S. sign a treaty settling terms of peace, amity, commerce, navigation, boundary claims and extradition. Britain agrees to yield the forts in the Northwest.
1795 - January 4; the Baron de Carondelet, governor of Louisiana, grants the Shawnee and Delaware near Cape Girardeau a tract of land 25 miles square.
August 3; the Treaty of Greeneville. Wyandots are given the place of honor as "Bearers of the Calumet," and Tarhe's son-in-law Isaac Zane acts as interpreter. Tarhe still supports the principal of all Indian lands being held in common, but is the first to sign the treaty and is loyal to the Americans thereafter. The Ohio lands of many tribes are ceded to the American government.
1795
The Society of Friends (Quakers) appoints George Elliott and Gerald T. Hopkins missionaries to the Delaware, Shawnee and Wyandots.
October 7; Governor St. Clair appoints Pierre Menard major of a militia regiment.
October 27; the Treaty of San Lorenzo. The United States and Spain agree to the free navigation of the Mississippi River and American access to New Orleans.
1796 - Elliott and Hopkins visit the Ohio tribes but fail to establish a Quaker mission.
March 9; Napoleon Bonaparte marries Josephine de Beauharnais.
Also in March, Col. Ebenezer Zane petitions Congress for permission to open a road through Ohio from Wheeling, Virginia to Limestone, Kentucky.
May 14; English physician Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination to an 8-year-old boy.
May 17; Congress approves Zane's road and grants him 3 sections where the road crosses the Muskingum, Hock-hocking, and Scioto rivers. He must blaze the road by January 1, 1797, provide ferries where it crosses the three rivers, and survey the three tracts at his own expense.
The settlement of Cleveland, Ohio is begun on the shore of Lake Erie by colonists from Connecticut as the chief city of the Western Reserve.
June 1; Tennessee, separated from North Carolina, is admitted to the Union as the 16th state.
July 1; William Clark resigns from the Army and returns to the family home at Mulberry Hill.
July 11; the British finally turn Detroit over to the Americans. To replace Detroit, Fort Malden is built at Amherstburg in Upper Canada. Alexander McKee moves to a new home at the mouth of the River Thames.
In the fall, the men cutting Zane's Trace reach the Hockhocking, stopping at Tarhe's village. William McCulloch, a member of the crew (and nephew of Col. Zane's wife Elizabeth), meets Tarhe's granddaughter Nancy Zane.
1796
In October, Tarhe and several other Wyandot chiefs visit President Washington as part of a large delegation of Indians from the Northwest Territory.
November 8; John Adams is elected President, Thomas Jefferson Vice President.
December 15; death of Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne at Presque Isle (present Erie, Pennsylvania), on his return from the occupation of Detroit. Brig. Gen. James Wilkinson, Wayne's quarrelsome subordinate (and a bitter enemy of George Rogers Clark), is given the command at Detroit but is replaced within a year.
1797 - February 7; birth of Francois Gesseau Chouteau, eldest son of Pierre and Brigitte Saucier Chouteau, in St. Louis.
In the spring, Cranetown is moved from the Hockhocking River south of the Greeneville treaty line to a site near the present Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Isaac Zane moves his family to Solomonstown (present Zanesfield, Ohio).
Nancy Zane, daughter of Isaac Zane and Myeerah, marries William McCulloch. The couple settle on their uncle Col. Ebenezer Zane's 640 acre tract at the crossing of the Muskingum.
Three Friends (Quakers) meet with the Wyandot Tribal Council to discuss the possibility of a mission.
September 17; Washington's farewell address.
October 21; the USS Constitution is launched.
1798 - April 7; Mississippi Territory is established.
July 9; the U.S. begins an undeclared naval war against France because of French interference with American shipping and violations of American neutrality.
July 14; Congress passes the Sedition Act.
Late in the year, having lost his lands in title disputes, Simon Kenton leaves Kentucky to settle in Ohio.
1799
1799 - January 13; death of Alexander McKee at his home in Upper Canada.
Zanesville, Ohio is laid out by Col. Ebenezer Zane on his tract where Zane's Trace crosses the Muskingum River.
Tarhe sends a letter to the Society of Friends in Philadelphia to inquire as to why Quaker missionaries have not returned to the Wyandots.
In June, a Quaker delegation arrives at Upper Sandusky to discuss the proposed Wyandot mission. Unwilling to wait several months for the next tribal council meeting, they leave never to return.
In August, Col. Charles de Hault Delassus replaces Zenon Trudeau as lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana.
In October, Daniel Boone arrives to great acclaim in St. Louis. At the invitation of the Spanish government, he leads a party of Boones, Callaways and other settlers to the Femme Osage district 40 miles west of the city. He is made syndic, or magistrate, and allowed to parcel out 400 acres to each family. (The claims are voided by the U.S. government following the Louisiana Purchase.)
November 9-10; Napoleon overthrows the Directory in a coup d'etat and becomes First Consul.
December 14; death of George Washington.
1800 - Second U.S. Census establishes population at 5,308,483.
Auguste Chouteau's monopoly on trade with the Osage is extended for 4 years.
The Delaware move to the White River in central Indiana as provided at Greeneville. With four principal towns and several smaller villages, their Head Chief is Tetepachksit of the Turtle Band.
March 5; birth of William Walker Jr., Wyandot, in the present Wayne County, Michigan, fourth son of William and Catherine Rankin Walker.
April 24; the Library of Congress is established.
May 12; William Henry Harrison is appointed the first territorial governor of Indiana and Superintendent of Indian Affairs following the division of the Northwest Territory. Ohio approaches its present boundaries.
1800
Lancaster, Ohio is laid out on Col. Ebenezer Zane's second tract, where Zane's Trace crosses the Hockhocking River. The third tract, on the Scioto, lies opposite Chillicothe.
September 11; Canadian Wyandots give up the last of their lands at the Assumption Mission church (with the exception of 61 acres near the church) as the Huron Church Reserve (Huron Mission Reserve) is ceded to the Crown. Much of the reserve is already occupied by the town of Sandwich, established for the resettlement of Loyalists from Detroit.
September 30; the U.S. naval war against France ends.
October 1; the Treaty of San Ildefonso. Louisiana is ceded back to France by Spain, the treaty kept secret until the conclusion of a general European peace in 1803.
In the fall, the Presbyterians send the Rev. Thomas E. Hughes and the Rev. James Satterfield from Virginia to see about a possible mission to the Wyandots. For the next several years, Presbyterian missionaries regularly visit Upper Sandusky.
November 4; Presidential election results in a tie in electoral votes between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.
1801 - February 17; the House of Representatives elects Jefferson after Hamilton goes against his party to oppose Burr, who thus becomes Vice President.
Also in February, Governor Harrison appoints Pierre Menard judge of the county court at Kaskaskia, a position he will hold for 10 years.
In March, Meriwether Lewis becomes President Jefferson's private secretary. Planning for a western expedition begins.
In May, a Moravian missionary from Canada attempts to resume work among the Delaware in Indiana. He meets considerable hostility, as Delaware no longer trust missionaries any more than they do the Americans.
In the winter, the Mequachake Shawnee chief Black Hoof visits Washington, D.C., and requests farming implements and livestock for the Shawnee at Wapaughkonetta (present Wapakoneta, Ohio).
1802
1802 - February 5; Black Hoof asks a startled Secretary of War Henry Dearborn for a specific deed to the remaining Shawnee lands in Ohio.
February 6; the U.S. declares war on Tripoli. Jefferson refuses to pay tribute to prevent piratical acts against American shipping in the Mediterranean.
February 10; the government denies Black Hoof's request.
June 10; Birth of George I. Clark, Wyandot, grandson of Adam Brown Sr.
In June, Manuel Lisa persuades (some say bribes) the Spanish government to grant him the Osage trade monopoly in place of Auguste Chouteau. In retaliation, Pierre Chouteau persuades the majority of the tribe to move to the Three Forks of the Arkansas, where he has trading privleges of his own.
Twenty-year-old Lewis Cass establishes a law practice in Marietta, Ohio, but soon relocates to Zanesville.
1803 - January 18; Jefferson proposes his western expedition in a confidential message to Congress, which votes an appropriation.
February 19; Congress votes to accept Ohio's borders and constitution (but does not formally ratify Ohio state-hood until 1953). Ohio enters the Union as the 17th state.
March 1; first meeting of the Ohio State Assembly in the capital of Marietta.
April 30; Napoleon sells Louisiana to the United States for $15,000,000.
June 20; Lewis receives detailed instructions from Jefferson regarding the proposed expedition. He picks his former comrade William Clark as co-captain.
July 1; news of the Louisiana Purchase reaches Washington.
July 5; Lewis leaves Washington for Pittsburgh and the west. Clark joins him in Louisville.
Nineteen-year-old Isaac McCoy marries Christiana Polk, 16, and they settle near Vincennes where he hopes to become a Baptist minister.
1803
October 31; USS Philadelphia is captured by Barbary pirates after running on a reef, and is taken as a prize to Tripoli Harbour.
In the winter, his first wife having died, Tarhe marries 16-year-old Caty Sage, called Sally by the Wyandots.
In December, Lewis and Clark arrive in St. Louis. Lieutenant Governor Delassus refuses passage to the expedition, as he is unaware of Louisiana's recession to France, let alone its sale to the United States. The expedition establishes a winter camp at the mouth of Riviere a Dubois (Wood River) on the American bank of the Mississippi, opposite the mouth of the Missouri. Lewis and Clark spend the winter as guests at the home of Pierre Chouteau.
December 20; Louisiana is formally transferred from Spain to France and from France to the United States in ceremonies at New Orleans.
1804 - February 3; Lieutenant Stephen Decatur boards the Philadelphia in Tripoli Harbour and burns the ship under the guns of the forts.
March 9; in ceremonies at St. Louis, Upper Louisiana is transferred from Spain to France. The next morning, the territory is transferred from France to the United States. Capt. Amos Stoddard, commandant at Kaskaskia, receives possession of government house. Lieutenant Governor Delassus enters his final report: "Year 1804 - The Devil may take all."
March 21; the Code Napoleon (the French civil code) is adopted.
March 26; the Louisiana Purchase is divided for adminis-trative purposes into the Territory of Orleans and the District of Louisiana. To the distress of St. Louis' habitants, the latter is placed under the jurisdiction of Indiana Territory. They petition for territorial status.
May 14; the Lewis and Clark expedition leaves Camp Riviere a Dubois and begins its journey up the Missouri. Their principal interpreter and second-in- command is George Drouillard, son of a French father and a Shawnee mother from Cape Girardeau.
May 18; the French Senate proclaims First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte to be Emperor of France.
1804
June 26-29; the Lewis and Clark expedition camps on the upper point at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, at the present site of Kansas City, Kansas. Two men get into the expedition's whiskey stores, and are court-martialed, convicted and flogged.
July 2; the Lewis and Clark expedition visits the site of Fort de Cavagnial, abandoned some 40 years before. The outline of the fortifications is still visible and some chimneys still stand.
July 11; Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounds Alexander Hamilton in a pistol duel near Weehawken, New Jersey. Burr's political career dies with Hamilton.
July 17; Pierre Chouteau is appointed Agent of Indian Affairs for the District of Louisiana.
Death of James Whitaker, adopted Wyandot captive, at Upper Sandusky at the age of 48. A prosperous merchant, he leaves stores at Lower Sandusky, Tymochtee, and Upper Sandusky, his goods all paid for and 2,000 pounds on deposit with his supplier in Canada.
October 12; Governor Harrison arrives in St. Louis from Vincennes to establish the district government. He subsequently supports the petition to separate Louisiana from Indiana Territory.
November 6; Thomas Jefferson is reelected President.
December 2; Napoleon crowns himself Emperor of France.
1805 - January 11; Michigan Territory is created, and Brig. Gen. William Hull appointed governor.
March 3; Congress makes the District of Louisiana a territory, removing it from Indiana Territory's jurisdiction.
March 11; Brig. Gen. James Wilkinson, senior officer of the Army (and for many years a paid Spanish agent), is appointed governor of Louisiana Territory by President Jefferson.
April 2; birth of Hans Christian Andersen in Odense, Denmark.
1805
Lalawithika experiences a spiritual awakening and takes the name Tensquatawa, the Open Door. Called the Shawnee Prophet, he begins preaching an alliance of all Indians against American encroachment. He condemns alcohol and inter-tribal violence, and claims that the Americans are the children of the evil spirit, the Great Serpent. No chief should have the right to sign away his tribe's lands, and no tribe should have the right to sign away lands used by all in common. His influence grows rapidly, particularly among the Shawnee and Delaware. He is opposed by Black Hoof, Little Turtle, and other traditional chiefs.
The habitation (settlement) at Detroit, still largely French, burns but is rebuilt within two years. The new town in part follows an unusual triangular plan laid out by Judge Augustus Woodward.
June 4; a peace treaty is signed between the United States and Tripoli.
July 4; the Treaty of Fort Industry is signed, with additional cessions of Indian lands in Ohio resulting in a new "permanent" treaty line.
August 9; Lt. Zebulon Pike, on orders from Brig. Gen. James Wilkinson, leaves St. Louis on an expedition to determine the source of the Mississippi River.
In the fall, the Wyandot Tribal Council agrees to accept a permanent Presbyterian mission.
October 3; the Board of Trust of the Pittsburgh Synod of the Presbyterian Church approves the Wyandot mission.
October 21; the Battle of Trafalgar. Lord Nelson defeats the combined French and Spanish fleets, thwarting Napoleon's plans for invading England.
November 14; the Lewis and Clark expedition reaches the Pacific Ocean.
1806
1806 - February 25; the Rev. Joseph Badger is employed as Presbyterian missionary to the Wyandots. With his assistant, Quintus F. Adkins, he constructs a mission house at Upper Sandusky, which soon expands to include a schoolroom.
March 15; at the instigation of the Prophet, Delaware at Woapikamunk begin to kill Christian converts, accusing them of witchcraft. Although not a Christian, the elderly Head Chief, Tetepachksit, is struck with an axe by his own son and thrown into a fire. The aged chief Hockingpomsa narrowly escapes the same fate.
March 21; birth of Benito Pablo Juarez in Oaxaca, Mexico.
March 23; running low on supplies, Lewis and Clark begin the trek homeward from the mouth of the Columbia River.
The Delaware witch hunt ends in mid April. The new Delaware Head Chief is Beaver, but his alcoholic in-competence leads to the swift rise of Captain William Anderson, chief of the Turkey Band.
April 30; Pike's Mississippi expedition returns to St. Louis. He erroneously believes he has identified the river's source.
In May, Tensquatawa visits the Wyandot villages. He influences a number of the younger Wyandots, and four women are marked for execution only to be freed by Tarhe's angry intervention.
June 16; Tensquatawa, having erected a village at Greeneville, convinces his followers of his power by accurately predicting an eclipse of the sun.
In mid June, a force of 600 under Lt. Facundo Melgares sets out from Santa Fe to intercept Pike's second expedition (on which the Spanish are well informed) and explore the northeast frontier of New Spain.
July 15; Zebulon Pike's second expedition, again on orders from General Wilkinson, sets out from St. Louis to explore the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers and possibly to reconnoitre the Spanish settlements in New Mexico.
1806
August 11-12; the returning Lewis and Clark are surprised to meet free trappers Joseph Dickson and Forest Hancock at the mouth of the Yellowstone. John Colter leaves the expedition to join the trappers on August 15.
The Delaware United Brethren (Moravian) Mission in Indiana closes, its efforts a failure and converts lost.
Pike's expedition visits the villages of the Pawnee on the Republican River. He takes down the Spanish flag the Pawnee received from Melgares shortly before and replaces it with an American flag.
September 15; the returning Lewis and Clark expedition passes the mouth of the Kansas River and lands a mile below.
September 22; his first wife having died, Pierre Menard marries Angelique Saucier, sister-in-law of Pierre Chouteau.
September 23; the Lewis and Clark expedition reaches St. Louis.
Melgares' expedition, having missed Pike, returns to Santa Fe in October.
November 15; Pike's expedition sights the mountaintop later known as Pike's Peak. With great suffering, the small force stumbles on into New Mexico and erects a small stockade.
1807 - In mid-February, Lewis returns to Washington with Clark. Jefferson names Lewis governor of Louisiana, replacing Wilkinson.
February 19; former Vice President Aaron Burr is arrested in Alabama on charges of treason.
February 26; Pike's expedition is taken prisoner by the Spanish, and Pike is taken to Chihuahua.
February 27; Clark resigns from the Army, and is appointed brigadier general of militia for Louisiana Territory and Superintendent of Indian Affairs. He will hold the latter position until his death.
That same month, Black Hoof returns to Washington, again requesting agricultural assistance for his people.
1807
In the spring, Manuel Lisa and George Drouillard lead the first organized trapping and trading expedition up the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains. Lisa's partners in the venture are Pierre Menard and William Morrison of Kaskaskia.
May 22 - October 20; Aaron Burr is tried for treason in Richmond, Virginia. He is found innocent after Chief Justice John Marshall disallows much of the government's evidence. Wilkinson testifies for the prosecution and succeeds in diverting suspicion onto others.
June 28; the Spanish release Pike on the Sabine border after a four month captivity.
In July, with government approval Quaker missionary William Kirk arrives at Wapaughkonetta. He is warmly welcomed by the Shawnee. He begins to teach them a variety of skills, from farming to house building.
November 17; the Treaty of Detroit. Governor William Hull obtains the cession of Indian lands in the Detroit area, including some held by the Michigan Wyandots.
1807-1808 - The Prophet's influence spreads among the tribes of the Northwest. Tecumseh, not necessarily a convert to his brother's beliefs, begins to take an active role in molding the movement toward more rational ends: a political alliance against the Americans.
1808 - January 1; a law prohibiting the importation of African slaves into the United States goes into effect.
In January, his first wife having died, adopted Wyandot captive Robert Armstrong marries Sarah "Sallie" Zane, daughter of Isaac Zane and Myeerah.
That same month, General William Clark and his wife Julia arrive in St. Louis.
In the first week of April, the Prophet and his followers abandon Greeneville and go west. His move pleases the Americans but is opposed by Little Turtle and the other chiefs, who do not want him near. The
Prophetstown is built on Tippecanoe Creek in north- central Indiana.
April 6; John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company receives a charter from the New York legislature.
June 8; Tecumseh meets with the British at Amherstburg, requesting their assistance.
1808
In the summer, Friend Kirk hires a blacksmith to establish a permanent shop among the Shawnee. He also begins construction of a saw mill, and is persuaded by Black Hoof to make plans for a grist mill. Despite his anti-Christian bias, both the Friends and the Shakers have fairly friendly relations with the Prophet.
In August, Tensquatawa meets with William Henry Harrison at the territorial capital of Vincennes. The meeting ends on a friendly note.
In the early fall, Capt. Eli B. Clemson, U.S. 1st Infantry, begins the construction of Fort Clark (Fort Osage) on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River, 40 miles below the mouth of the Kansas.
November 8; James Madison is elected President.
November 25; the Treaty of Brownstown. Governor Hull obtains an agreement allowing the opening of a road from Detroit to Columbus through Indian lands.
December 22; Secretary of War Dearborn abruptly dismisses William Kirk as Friends missionary to the Shawnee. Despite petitions by the Shawnee and many white Ohioans, Kirk is forced to leave the Auglaize.
1809 - A harsh winter results in starvation and disease at Prophetstown. Many northern tribesmen die, but only a few Shawnee, leading to estrangement. The Ottawa and Ojibwa plan to attack Prophetstown, but are dissuaded by Governor Hull.
February 3; Illinois Territory is organized.
February 11; birth of Abraham Lincoln in Larue County, Kentucky.
March 1; attempting to maintain American neutrality in the Napoleonic Wars, Congress passes the Nonintercourse Act, prohibiting trade with both Great Britain and France.
March 3; Manuel Lisa, Pierre Chouteau, Pierre's son Auguste Pierre Chouteau, General William Clark, Andrew Henry, Pierre Menard, and 5 others form the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company to challenge the North West Company's monopoly on the upper Missouri fur trade.
March 12; birth of Moses R. Grinter in Logan County, Kentucky.
1809
In the spring, two spies sent by Harrison to Prophets- town confirm his suspicions of anti-American activity.
June 17; Manuel Lisa leads a trapping and trading expe-dition of 350 men from St. Louis to the upper Missouri in a flotilla of 13 keelboats and barges. All the partners accompany the expedition save General Clark. The party includes a number of Shawnee and Delaware.
The Rev. Samuel Spaulding writes Manuscript Found, an historical fantasy inspired by the works of the presumed Mound Builders in the Ohio country. Never published, it circulates in manuscript with great effect.
Sixteen-year-old Sam Houston, living near Maryville, Tennessee, spends much of the next three years with the Cherokee, who name him the Raven. He refuses to return home with his brothers to work in a store.
September 20; Meriwether Lewis, stopping in Tennessee en route to Washington, is murdered or - as believed by Jefferson - commits suicide. After William Clark refuses the appointment, President Madison names General Benjamin Howard governor of Louisiana. Clark continues in his previous positions.
September 30; the Treaty of Fort Wayne. Delaware, Miamis, and Pottawatomies sign a treaty with Governor Harrison ceding over 3,000,000 acres of Indiana and Illinois to the government. Tecumseh and Tensquatawa denounce the treaty, threaten the chiefs that signed it with death, and vow that its provisions will never be carried out.
Late in November, Manuel Lisa and Pierre Chouteau arrive back in St. Louis. Much of the expedition remains on the upper Missouri.
December 16; Napoleon divorces the Empress Josephine, leaving him free to marry the daughter of the Emperor of Austria.
1810 - January 3; birth of Silas Armstrong, Wyandot, son of Robert and Sarah Zane Armstrong, in Zenia, Ohio.
March 11; Napoleon marries 18-year-old Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria by proxy. Surprisingly, it turns into a love match.
1810
April 3; Pierre Menard and Andrew Henry reach the Three Forks of the Missouri from Fort Lisa, and build a stockade. When they are driven out by the Blackfeet, Menard returns to his home in Kaskaskia.
Jonathan Chapman, called "Johnny Appleseed," appears in Ohio and plants his first nursery near Steubenville.
Isaac McCoy is ordained by a Baptist congregation at Maria Creek, 8 miles from Vincennes.
The Prophet asks his Wyandot followers to bring the Calumet, or Great Pipe, symbol of the Northwest Confederacy, to Prophetstown. This is done despite Tarhe's opposition. Wyandots near Lower Sandusky kill two old women for witchcraft.
June 1; the Wyandot chief Leatherlips is accused of witchcraft and executed near Columbus by Wyandots led by Roundhead (formerly Tarhe's war chief), because of his refusal to join Tecumseh and Tensquatawa.
June 17; birth of Matthew Rankin Walker, Wyandot, sixth son of William and Catherine Rankin Walker.
Also in June, the Rev. Joseph Badger is forced to resign his post as Presbyterian missionary to the Wyandots because of ill health. He is replaced by the Rev. William Matthews.
August 12-21; Tecumseh meets with Harrison and frankly explains his political aims. There are harsh words on both sides and open conflict is narrowly averted.
September 16; the Mexican revolt against Spain is proclaimed by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. It draws support from the poor, Indians and Mestizos.
1811 - In the spring, Tecumseh and Tensquatawa seek new recruits.
March 21; Father Hidalgo is captured by the Spanish.
Main Poche, Head Chief of the Pottawatomi, follows the lead of Tecumseh and Tensquatawa only when it suits him. The Pottawatomi begin to attack settlements in southern Illinois, alarming the frontier and bringing out the militia.
July 5; Venezuela becomes the first South American country to declare independence from Spain.
1811
July 27 - August 4; Tecumseh again meets with Harrison at Vincennes, each feeling the other out.
July 30; Father Hidalgo, defrocked and degraded by the Inquisition, is shot by the Spanish and his head displayed on a pike. The armed struggle continues, led by Father Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon.
Tecumseh goes south to ask the Five Civilized Tribes to join his alliance. He warns Tensquatawa against any rash action in his absence.
Alarmed by reports from Prophetstown, Harrison begins to assemble regulars and militia to meet the threat. He marches north from Vincennes on September 26.
September 28; birth of John Calvin McCoy, son of the Rev. Isaac and Christiana Polk McCoy, at Maria Creek, Indiana Territory.
October 1; the first steamboat to descend the river from Pittsburgh reaches New Orleans.
November 7; the Battle of Tippecanoe. Tensquatawa precipitates a battle with the Americans under Harrison who are encamped across the creek from Prophetstown. The battle is a draw, but the Indians withdraw and Prophetstown is burned. Harrison claims a great victory and the Prophet's reputation is destroyed.
For two weeks Tensquatawa is held captive by angry Winnebago followers before being released.
December 11; the first shock of the New Madrid earthquake destroys houses in St. Louis, topples chimneys in Cincinnati, dumps people out of bed in Pittsburgh and rings church bells in Washington, D.C. The tribes consider this an omen of disaster.
December 16; second shock of the New Madrid earthquake.
December 17; third shock of the New Madrid earthquake.
December 25; court-martialed on order of President Madison, Brig. Gen. James Wilkinson is found "not guilty." The verdict is so worded that the President approves it "with regret."
1812-1814 - The War of 1812; Congress is tricked by Napoleon into declaring war on Great Britain. Most Delaware, Shawnee and Wyandots stay neutral or support the Americans, though a few join Tecumseh in fighting for the British.
1812
1812 - In mid-January, Tecumseh returns from the south to find his work in ruin. He immediately begins trying to rebuild his alliance.
January 23; fourth and perhaps greatest shock of the New Madrid earthquake.
February 7; fifth and last major shock of the New Madrid earthquake, but tremors continue throughout the year.
That same day, birth of Charles Dickens in Portsmouth, England.
In February, Isadore Chaine, a Wyandot working for the British, meets secretly with Tecumseh and Tensquatawa, promising them British aid.
March 20; birth of George Wright, Wyandot. His mother Elizabeth, daughter of a Delaware and a slave from Guinea, was purchased from the Delaware by Rontondee in 1800 and adopted. His father is a St. Regis Seneca.
April 30; the Territory of Orleans, renamed Louisiana, is admitted to the Union as the 18th state.
In mid May, a multi-tribal council is held on the Mississinewa River. The chiefs put Tecumseh and the Prophet on the defensive, but secret negotiations with Chaine continue.
Three hundred warriors again gather at Prophetstown but by early summer they run out of provisions.
June 4; Louisiana Territory is renamed Missouri Territory.
June 17; the United States declares war. Plans for an invasion of Canada are already underway.
July 12; Brig. Gen. William Hull enters Upper Canada with the Army of the Northwest, but soon retreats back to Detroit.
July 17; Michilimackinac is captured by the British.
July 18; death of Little Turtle at the age of 70, from the complications of gout. His restraining influence gone, the Miami join the British. They send a war belt to the Delaware, but Captain William Anderson refuses it.
1812
July 26; Col. Henry Procter takes command of Fort Malden at Amherstburg.
August 2; the Wyandots at Brownstown decide to side with the British. This is a great blow to Hull.
August 15; the Fort Dearborn Massacre. Main Poche's Pottawatomies attack and kill most of the American garrison that has just abandoned Fort Dearborn (present Chicago) on General Hull's orders.
August 16; the British under Maj. Gen. Isaac Brock capture Detroit and the numerically superior Army of the Northwest, surrendered by Hull after a desultory exchange of artillery fire. (Hull sits out the rest of the war comfortably in Canada, and is eventually court-martialed for cowardice.) Col. Lewis Cass, although absent from Detroit, to his disgust is included by Hull in the surrender.
August 19; the USS Constitution defeats HMS Guerriere in a naval battle east of Nova Scotia.
Johnny Appleseed makes an arduous journey to warn settlers at Mount Vernon, Ohio of imminent Indian attack.
September 4; the Prophet's followers unsuccessfully attack Fort Harrison in Indiana. Capt. Zachary Taylor is breveted to major for his gallant conduct of the defense.
September 17; William Henry Harrison, commissioned brigadier general, is appointed commander of the new Army of the Northwest. The Americans raid throughout northern Indiana. His outnumbered followers fleeing, the Prophet again abandons Prophetstown.
October 19; Napoleon's Grand Armee begins its disastrous retreat from Moscow.
October 25; the USS United States under Captain Stephen Decatur defeats HMS Macedonian. The big American frigates have proven to be the finest ships of their time, but are too few in number to be effective.
November 3; James Madison is reelected President.
1812
November 17; death of Col. Ebenezer Zane at his home near Martin's Ferry, Virginia, at the age of 65.
In mid-December, Tensquatawa and his few remaining followers cross into Canada.
1813 - In early January, Harrison arrives with 1,500 men at Upper Sandusky and builds Fort Ferree, which is made the principal depot of his army.
That same month, Harrison moves the Delaware from Indiana to Piqua, Ohio, "for their own safety." Some of the Wyandots from Upper Sandusky are also relocated, and the Wyandot Presbyterian Mission is forced to close.
January 21; birth of John Charles Fremont, illegitimate son of Jean Charles Fremon and Mrs. Anne Whiting Pryor, in Savannah, Georgia.
January 22; General Winchester, commanding the left wing of Harrison's army, is defeated at Frenchtown by the British under Procter.
From January to April, Tecumseh and Tensquatawa are again in northern Indiana gathering followers.
February 1; Harrison directs the construction of Fort Meigs on a ridge at the foot of the Maumee Rapids, near the abandoned Fort Miami.
February 17; birth of Joel Walker, Wyandot, in Upper Canada, where his mother Catherine Rankin Walker has been assisting with tribal negotiations.
March 2; Harrison is commissioned major general.
March 13; death of Rebecca Boone, wife of Daniel. For the next few years he hunts and explores the western reaches - some say as far as the Yellowstone country.
Andrew Jackson and Thomas Hart Benton fight a duel at the City Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee that degenerates into a wild brawl. Jackson is wounded and a pistol ball narrowly misses two-month-old John Charles Fremont, asleep in a nearby room.
April 16; Tecumseh and Tensquatawa arrive with their followers at Fort Malden, where they join Procter's forces.
1813
April 25 - May 9; Procter's army besieges Harrison at Fort Meigs but is forced to withdraw. The dead include John Battise, brother of Roundhead. Tensquatawa returns to Canada and establishes a village near Amherstburg.
May 12; General Benjamin Howard resigns as governor of Missouri Territory to return to active duty. Clark agrees to succeed him.
May 22; birth of Richard Wagner in Leipzig, Germany.
May 27; Americans under Winfield Scott capture Fort George at the north end of the Niagara River.
June 6; the Battle of Stoney Creek. The British defeat an invasion force near the present Hamilton, Ontario, capturing the American commanders.
June 21; Tarhe with 50 Wyandot chiefs and warriors meets with Harrison at Columbus and assures him of their loyalty.
July 1; General William Clark is appointed governor of Missouri Territory, and will hold that position until statehood. Through adroit diplomacy and his great prestige with the Indians, he maintains peace on the country's western frontier.
Pierre Menard is appointed U.S. Indian Subagent at Kaskaskia, a position he will hold for 20 years. In addition to his other business enterprises, he operates a ferry and trades in real estate.
Pierre Chouteau Jr., in partnership with his brother-in-law Bartholomew Berthold, opens a store in St. Louis. They become increasingly involved in the fur trade.
July 21-28; Procter and Tecumseh, without Tensquatawa, again besiege Fort Meigs and again fail.
In late August, the Wyandots hold council at Browns-town. Tarhe's Wyandots side with the Americans while the Michigan and Canadian Wyandots lean toward the British. Roundhead denounces the Ohio Wyandots but Walk-in-the-Water, ostensibly pro-British, informs Tarhe of his intent to remain neutral.
By the end of August, Harrison takes the offensive.
September 10; Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeats the British fleet on Lake Erie, giving the Americans control of the lake.
1813
September 27; Harrison captures Fort Malden.
September 29; Harrison retakes Detroit.
October 2; Americans led by Lewis Cass pursue Procter into Upper Canada. Walk-in-the-Water goes over to Harrison, and many Indians desert the British.
October 5; the Battle of the Thames. Harrison's invasion force defeats Procter. Shawnee led by Tecumseh fight for the British and Tarhe's Wyandots for Harrison, but there are Delaware, Shawnee, and Wyandots on both sides in the battle. Roundhead and James Girty are reportedly among the slain. Tensquatawa and Procter flee after the first charge, leaving Tecumseh to be killed while rallying his warriors. End of the last Indian hope.
October 7; birth of John McIntyre Armstrong, Wyandot, second son of Robert and Sarah Zane Armstrong.
Later in October, Lewis Cass is promoted to general and named governor of Michigan Territory in place of Hull. Young Joseph Parks becomes a member of the governor's household, and at various times both he and William Walker Jr. serve as Cass' secretary.
November 3; as the Mexican revolt against Spain continues, a constitutional convention called by Father Morelos meets in Chalpancingo.
December 18; the British capture Fort Niagara.
December 29; the British burn Buffalo, New York.
1814 - In January, despite Manuel Lisa's protests the Missouri Fur Company is dissolved, its costs exceeding profits and its markets destroyed by the British blockade. The Chouteaus look to their own interests.
Tensquatawa sits out the remainder of the war in Canada.
March 9; birth of Abelard G. Guthrie, son of James and Eilzabeth Ainsworth Guthrie.
March 28; the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Andrew Jackson, major general of Tennessee militia, with a mixed force of militia, volunteers (including Davy Crockett) and Cherokee warriors, defeats the Red Stick Creeks in Alabama. The young Sam Houston receives wounds from which he never fully recovers.
1814
The Delaware return to the White River in Indiana from Piqua, Ohio.
April 19; Andrew Jackson is commissioned a brigadier general in the U.S. Army.
April 27; the Canadian capital of York (the present Toronto) is captured by an American expedition under Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn, and the parliament buildings burned. Col. Zebulon Pike is killed while leading the assault.
May 1; Jackson is promoted to major general.
May 31; William Henry Harrison resigns from the Army. He is subsequently appointed commissioner to treat with the Indians.
July 3; the Americans capture Fort Erie at the south end of the Niagara River.
July 22; the Second Treaty of Greeneville. Harrison, Cass, and loyal chiefs of the Delaware, Seneca, Shawnee, and Wyandots sign a treaty ending hostilities with the Kickapoo, Miami, Ottawa and Pottawatomi. The loyal tribes will aid in the prosecution of the war if the treaty is violated.
July 25; the Battle of Lundy's Lane. Another American invasion of Canada is defeated by the British, and retreats back across the Niagara.
August 9; Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson negotiates a peace treaty with the Creeks, forcing both enemies and allies to cede substantial lands.
August 20; General William Clark appoints Manuel Lisa subagent for all the tribes on the Missouri above the mouth of the Kansas.
August 24; Washington, D.C. is burned by the British in retaliation for the burning of York, but an assault on Baltimore fails.
September 9; birth of John Gill Pratt, son of Ebenezer and Elizabeth Pratt, in Hingham, Massachusetts.
September 11; defeat of the British fleet on Lake Champlain.
1814
Also in September, Thomas Jefferson sells his library to the recently destroyed Library of Congress, forming the new basis of the library's collections.
November 7; Andrew Jackson captures Pensacola and Fort Michael in Spanish West Florida, forcing the British to retreat.
December 24; the Treaty of Ghent is signed, ending the War of 1812. Virtually none of America's war aims are realized, but American independence and territorial integrity are firmly established.
1815 - January 8; the Battle of New Orleans. Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson successfully repulses a British invasion force led by General Sir Edward Michael Pakenham, neither side being aware that the war has ended.
February 26; Napoleon escapes from exile on the island of Elba to again seize power in France.
June 18; the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon receives his final defeat at the hands of the British and Prussians under Wellington and Blucher.
June 22; Napoleon abdicates, and is again sent into enforced exile, on the isolated South Atlantic island of St. Helena.
September 8; the Treaty of Spring Wells. Pro-British Indians make their peace with the Americans and are allowed to return to the U.S. The Prophet, in fear for his safety, refuses to sign and remains in Canada with a few followers including Tecumseh's widow and son.
Many of the Cape Girardeau band of Delaware move to the Red River on the Texas-Arkansas border, where they are welcomed by the Spanish government.
In October, Father Morelos is captured by the Spanish. Only a few guerrillas are left to carry on the fight.
December 22; Father Morelos, defrocked and degraded by the Inquisition, is shot by the Spanish in Mexico City.
1816 - Death of Isaac Zane at his home near Solomonstown at the age of 62. His wife Myeerah, Tarhe's daughter, dies this same year.
In late summer, most of the Prophet's remaining followers leave Canada.
1816
August 17; Gabriel Silvestre Chouteau and Francois G. Chouteau, sons of Auguste and Pierre, are granted licenses to trade with the Kansa. Francois' license is renewed in 1817.
August 28; Indian Agent John Johnston in a letter to the Secretary of War and President Madison refers to the death of Tarhe at Cranetown at the age of 74. His widow Sally (Caty Sage) is 29 years of age.
Birth in Michigan of Charles Bluejacket, grandson of Bluejacket.
November 5; James Monroe is elected President.
In November, many prominent figures, both Indian and white, attend Tarhe's memorial service, including John Johnston and the famous Seneca chief Red Jacket.
Tarhe's successor as Wyandot Head Chief is De-un-quot. The Wyandot tribal council house is moved from Cranetown four miles southwest to the village at Upper Sandusky, and the council fire of the Northwest Confederacy, extinguished at Brownstown during the war, is rekindled.
Also in November, John Stewart, a freeborn African-American, arrives among the Wyandots at Upper Sandusky to preach the Gospel. William Walker Sr., acting as Indian Subagent, is suspicious of Stewart but his wife Catherine wins him over. Jonathan Pointer acts as Stewart's interpreter.
November 26; birth of Margaret Greyeyes, Wyandot, daughter of Lewis "Esquire" Grey-Eyes.
December 11; Indiana is admitted to the Union as the 19th state.
1817 - In the spring, John Stewart returns to Marietta, Ohio.
May 25; John Stewart sends an impassioned letter to the Wyandots in care of William Walker Sr. He returns to Upper Sandusky a few weeks later.
Three of Daniel Boone's children - Daniel Morgan, Nathan, and Susannah - arrive with their families to settle in what is now Jackson County, Missouri.
1817
July 27; the first steamboat arrives at St. Louis from Louisville.
September 29; the Treaty of Fort Meigs. The Wyandots cede their remaining lands in Ohio to the U.S. In return they are granted the Grand Reserve around Upper Sandusky of 12 by 12 miles, and the one square mile Cranberry Reserve on a cranberry swamp on Broken Sword Creek. They are also given a saw and grist mill (built 1820), a blacksmith, and a $4,000 annuity by a grateful American government. Robert Armstrong receives an individual grant of 640 acres on the west side of the Sandusky River; similar grants are made to Elizabeth Foulks Whitaker, to the children of William and Nancy Zane McCulloch, to John Van Metre and the three brothers of his Seneca wife, to the widow and children of Isaac Williams, to Catherine Rankin Walker and her son John R. Walker, and to the Cherokee Boy.
The Delaware in Ohio are given a 3 by 3 mile reserve at Pipestown, adjacent to the south edge of the Grand Reserve, and a single payment of $500. They are to give up all claims in eastern Ohio under the treaty of 1807.
The treaty grants the Shawnee in Ohio three reservations totaling 173 square miles: a tract of land 10 miles square at Wapaughkonetta, 25 square miles on Hog Creek adjacent to the Wapaughkonetta reserve, and 48 square miles for the mixed band of Shawnee and Seneca (Mingos) at Lewistown, together with a blacksmith and a $2,000 annuity.
The Seneca (Mingos) are granted a 30,000 acre reserve on the east side of the Sandusky River north of the Wyandots' Grand Reserve and a $500 annuity. Two Indian Agents are to be appointed , one for the Wyandots, Delaware and Seneca on the Sandusky, and one for the three Shawnee reserves. The U.S. is to pay for damages incurred during the late war, and for any improvements in the ceded lands, while the tribes can continue hunting and sugar making in the ceded lands as long as they remain owned by the U.S.
A supplement to the treaty states that the reserves are to be divided between the council chiefs and various heads of families, the chiefs having the power to convey title to the individuals named in the appended schedule, but this provision is later overturned.
1817
Dissatisified with the treaty result and feeling they were coerced, De-un-quot, Scotash, and Between-the-Logs visit Washington, D.C., on their own initiative. They press the President and Congress for an enlargement of territory and increased annuities prior to ratification.
December 10; Mississippi is admitted to the Union as the 20th state.
December 16; birth of Charles Journeycake, Delaware, grandson of adopted Wyandot captive Isaac Williams.
December 26; Secretary of War John C. Calhoun orders Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson to attack the Seminoles in Spanish Florida.
1818 - February 13; death of George Rogers Clark at the home of his sister near Louisville at the age of 65. Simon Girty dies just five days later, on February 18, at his home near Amherstburg. The two old enemies have both reached the end of their lives in alcoholic despair.
Tarhe's widow Sally Crane marries Between-the-Logs.
In March, Jackson captures St. Marks in Florida and defeats the Seminoles.
June 4; birth of Hiram Milton Northrup, son of Andrus B. and Martha Northrup, in Olean, New York.
July 31; birth of Lucy Bigelow (Armstrong), daughter of the Rev. Russell Bigelow and Margaret Irwin Bigelow.
September 17; Lewis Cass and Duncan McArthur conclude the first of a group of treaties at St. Mary's, Ohio with the Wyandots, Shawnee, Seneca (Mingos), and Ottawa. Some 55,680 acres are added to the north and east of the Wyandots' Grand Reserve (at 12 by 19 miles the largest in Ohio), with part of the addition intended for any Canadian Wyandots who may wish to relocate. The Big Spring Reserve of 16,000 acres is established for the Wyandots at Solomonstown and on Blanchard's Fork, and a 160 acre tract on the west side of the Sandusky River adjacent to Elizabeth Whitaker's two sections. Some 12,800 acres are added to the east side of the Shawnee reserve at Wapaughkonetta, 8,960 acres are set aside for the mixed band of Seneca and Shawnee adjacent to the west line of the Shawnee reserve at Lewistown, and 10,000 acres added to the south side of the Seneca reserve on the east side of the Sandusky River. Annuities for the four tribes are increased by varying amounts.
1818
September 20; Michigan Wyandots agree to give up two tracts of land containing the towns of Brownstown and Monguagon near Detroit (5,000 acres in all), in exchange for a 4,996 acre Wyandott Reserve on the River Huron.
October 3; the Delaware give up their Indiana lands and agree to move west of the Mississippi. In exchange, the U.S. will pay the full value of improvements and a $4,000 annuity in silver, provide and support a blacksmith, and pay $13,312.25 in debts. There are approximately 1000 Delaware left in Indiana, although others are in Ohio, Missouri and Texas.
In the fall, the Rev. Isaac McCoy and his family move from Maria Creek to a tract on Raccoon Creek in north-central Indiana, next to the Wea Reserve, where he begins an Indian mission.
December 3; Illinois is admitted to the Union as the 21st state. Pierre Menard is chosen as the first lieutenant governor of the new state.
December 25; John Stewart marries Polly Carter in Richland County, Ohio. She is one of a number of persons of African descent living near the Wyandots at Upper Sandusky in a village called Negro Town.
c. 1819 - Francois G. Chouteau and Gabriel Silvestre Chouteau establish a Kansa trading post called "Four Houses" on the site of the present city of Bonner Springs, Kansas.
1819 - February 22; the Adams-Onis Treaty. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams brings off a great coup: Spain cedes East and West Florida to the United States for $5,000,000, a boundary between Louisiana and Texas favorable to the United States is defined, and a boundary line is established between the Oregon country and Mexico running west from the continental divide to the Pacific along the 40th Parallel.
In March, at the request of the Wyandot Tribal Council, the Methodist Episcopal Church in Ohio grants official recognition to John Stewart's mission, promises aid, and Stewart is formally licensed to preach. This is the first Methodist mission in North America (and precludes reestablishment of the Presbyterian mission).
1819
May 22; the Savannah, first steam-propelled ship to attempt the Atlantic crossing, departs from Savannah, Georgia.
May 24; birth of Alexandrina Victoria, future Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India.
May 28; the Independence, first steamboat to ascend the Missouri, arrives in Franklin.
June 20; the Savannah arrives in Liverpool, England.
Zanesfield, Ohio, is laid out by Ebenezer Zane and Alexander Long, son and son-in-law of the late Isaac Zane, on the elder Zane's 640 acre grant.
Francois G. Chouteau and his bride Berenice Menard, daughter of Pierre Menard, scout out the location of a new trading post near the mouth of the Kansas River while on a honeymoon trip up the Missouri.
December 14; Alabama is admitted to the Union as the 22nd state.
1820 - March 3-6; the Missouri Compromise. Maine is to be admitted as a free state (otherwise, after March 4 it could legally be re-annexed to Massachusetts), and Missouri is to be admitted as a slave state. Slavery is prohibited above latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes in the territories west of Missouri.
January 29; death of George III, insane, at Windsor Castle. The Prince Regent becomes King of Great Britain as George IV.
March 15; Maine is admitted to the Union as the 23rd state.
Simon Kenton moves to the vicinity of Zanesfield, Ohio.
Louis Bertholet and 5 engages of the French Fur Company are sent ahead by Francois G. Chouteau to begin con-struction of a new trading post on the south bank of the Missouri River, three miles downstream from the mouth of the Kansas.
1820
In May, the Rev. Isaac McCoy moves his missionary efforts to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he operates a school for Miami, Pottawatomi and mixed-blood children.
In July, Stephen H. Long's Rocky Mountain expedition reaches the mountains, after traveling up the Platte and South Platte Rivers. The expedition subsequently (and erroneously) labels the region between the Missouri and the mountains as "The Great American Desert."
August 12; death of Manuel Lisa in St. Louis at the age of 47.
August 30; Pierre Chouteau Jr. writes to Francois G. Chouteau at the family's Kansa trading post, commenting on the arrival of Americans Curtis and Eley into the Missouri River fur trade. They are proposing a commercial alliance against Manuel Lisa's partner, Andrew Woods.
September 26; death of Daniel Boone at the home of his son Nathan Boone near Defiance, Missouri, at the age of 85.
October 2; St. Louis newspaper editor Thomas Hart Benton (supported by Clark and the Chouteaus) is elected to the United States Senate from Missouri, and will hold that office for 30 years.
November 7; James Monroe is reelected President.
November 18; U.S. Navy Captain Nathaniel Palmer discovers the frozen continent of Antarctica.
1820-1822 - The Delaware from Indiana trek to Pierre Menard's agency at Kaskaskia, Illinois, where they camp, plant and harvest, then move on to the James Fork of the White River in southern Missouri. Many of the Ohio Delaware remain behind on the Pipestown Reserve.
1821 - February 24; Mexico declares independence from Spain. Ironically, the revolt is now led by conservatives opposed to the actions of a liberal Spanish government.
In the spring, Francois and Berenice Chouteau with their infant son Edmond, accompanied by 35 engages and 3 slaves, arrive at their new post on the Missouri. A French habitation grows up around the post called Chez les Canses. Later English-speaking settlers refer to the small community as Chouteau's Town, Chouteau's Landing, or (eventually) Westport Landing. This will become the present Kansas City, Missouri.
1821
April 2; the Osage, Delaware and Kickapoo Indian Agency is established as part of the St. Louis Superintendency, with Richard Graham as agent.
May 5; death of Napoleon Bonaparte, in exile on the island of St. Helena.
A 60 acre farm is purchased for John and Polly Stewart adjacent to the Wyandots' Grand Reserve, with funds raised by Methodist Bishop McKendree.
August 10; Missouri is finally admitted to the Union as the 24th state after continuing arguments over slavery and the rights of free blacks. Pressure soon begins to displace the Indian tribes settled within the state's boundaries.
In August, the Wyandot Tribal Council sends a letter to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Lebanon, Ohio, requesting the establishment of a mission school. The petition is signed by De-un-quot, An-dau-you-ah, Between-the-Logs, De-an-dough-so, John Hicks Sr., Mononcue, and Ta-hu-waugh-ta-ro-de.
The Prophet is still resident in Canada, as are Tecumseh's widow and son. He is becoming increasingly alienated from the British.
September 1; with Spanish exclusion ended, William Becknell with 5 men leaves Franklin, Missouri on the first American trading venture across the plains to Santa Fe.
September 27; General Agostin de Iturbide enters Mexico City at the head of a 16,000 man army. Spanish rule in Mexico is ended but conservatives have the upper hand. Beginning of the rise of a young former Royalist officer named Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
October 16; the Rev. James B. Finley, his wife Hannah, and teacher Harriet Stubbs arrive at Upper Sandusky to establish the Wyandot Methodist Mission school.
November 16; Becknell's party arrives in Santa Fe.
1822 - In the spring, the Western Department of Astor's American Fur Company is established in St. Louis. It will absorb most of the Chouteaus' operations by 1827.
The first cargo of furs is sent downriver to St. Louis from Chez les Canses.
1822
May 6; Fort Osage and other government-operated trading houses are abolished by Congress.
May 18; General Iturbide is proclaimed Emperor of Mexico by a "spontaneous" demonstration of soldiers and citizens in Mexico City.
May 21; an intimidated Mexican Congress declares Iturbide to be Emperor. He is admired by Simon Bolivar and Henry Clay, but detested by President Monroe, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.
Lewis "Esquire" Grey-Eyes moves his family from Owl Creek in Marion County, Ohio to the Big Spring Reserve.
July 20; Curtis and Eley are granted a license to trade with the Kansa, Osage, Otoe and Ponca. A fur trading post is subsequently established on the Missouri River a mile or so upstream from the mouth of the Kansas, on the present site of Kansas City, Kansas.
In October, the Rev. Charles Elliott arrives at Upper Sandusky to formally organize the Wyandot Methodist Mission church.
In December, the Rev. Isaac McCoy establishes the Carey Mission on the St. Joseph River in southwest Michigan Territory, where he ministers to the Pottawatomi. His work is opposed by some anti-missionary Baptists but is supported by Governor Cass. He is assisted by Johnston Lykins, Robert Simerwell and Jotham Meeker. He gradually comes to the conclusion that removal west of the Mississippi would be in the best interest of the Indians.
1823 - March 19; the Emperor Iturbide is forced to abdicate and goes into exile. Mexico begins to achieve constitu-tional government.
April 11; the Mexican Congress approves Stephen Austin's American colony in the sparsely populated and poorly defended province of Texas.
June 17; Prince Paul of Wurttemberg, exploring the west, arrives at Chez les Canses. On the 21st he visits the posts of Andrew Woods and Curtis and Eley. He befriends 16-year-old Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, son of Sacajawea, and pays for the young man's European education.
1823
In the summer, Sam Houston is elected to the first of two terms to Congress from Tennessee.
September 3; Joseph C. Brown begins the survey of the north-south boundary between the state of Missouri and the Indian lands to the west, starting from a meridian line passing through the mouth of the Kansas River where it empties into the Missouri River.
September 21-22; Joseph Smith, an 18-year-old farm boy in Palmyra, New York, is visited by the angel Moroni. He is ridiculed and persecuted when he tells of the visitation.
September 27; Curtis and Eley's trading license is renewed for two years. Their post will remain in operation until 1826 or '27.
December 2; President Monroe proclaims what becomes known as the Monroe Doctrine in his annual message to Congress.
December 10; Rev. Finley, Between-the-Logs, Mononcue, and Jonathan Pointer leave Upper Sandusky to go and preach to a mixed group of Shawnee and Wyandots living north of the Grand Reserve.
December 18; death of John Stewart, from consumption, at the age of 37.
December 23; Clement C. Moore's poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" is first published.
1824 - January 22; death of William Walker Sr. at the age of 53.
March 11; the Bureau of Indian Affairs is created by Secretary of War John C. Calhoun. The first head of the Bureau is Thomas L. McKenney.
April 8; William Walker Jr. marries Hannah Barrett in Belmont County, Ohio.
April 29; the Marquis de Lafayette, on a grand tour of the United States, visits St. Louis where he stays at the home of Pierre Chouteau. The populace of the city is still predominantly French.
May 14; Senator Thomas Hart Benton proposes legislation to remove the tribes settled in Missouri and relocate them to the west.
1824
May 25; Congress passes legislation providing for the negotiation of trade and friendship treaties with the trans-Mississippi tribes.
May 31; birth of Jessie Ann Benton (Fremont), daughter of Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri.
June 7; the Osage being assigned to a separate agency, the Shawnee and Delaware Indian Agency is established in St. Louis. Richard Graham continues as agent.
The Rev. James B. Finley visits Washington, D.C., and is granted an interview with President Monroe concerning the efforts of the Wyandot mission. Secretary of War John C. Calhoun approves the use of $1,330 in tribal funds for the construction of a new mission church. A stone church building is subsequently erected at Upper Sandusky (still standing).
July 19; attempting to again sieze power in Mexico, the former Emperor Iturbide is captured upon landing and summarily shot.
Tensquatawa meets with Governor Lewis Cass at Detroit in the summer. He agrees to help encourage the removal of the Ohio Shawnee, hoping to undermine his old enemy Black Hoof and regain authority.
October 4; the Federal Constitution of the United States of Mexico is promulgated.
November 2; although Andrew Jackson defeats John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, in the popular vote, he lacks sufficient electoral votes for a majority. The House of Representatives subsequently elects Adams President.
In December, Tensquatawa's portrait is painted at Detroit by local artist James Otto Lewis. It forms the basis of the better known Charles Bird King portrait of 1829.
1825 - March 3; President Monroe signs a bill authorizing the surveying and marking of a road from Missouri's western frontier to the New Mexican boundary - the Santa Fe Trail.
April 13; the Kansa Indian Subagency is established with the Baronet Antoine Francois Vasquez as subagent.
April 20; death of Robert Armstrong, adopted Wyandot captive and son-in-law of Isaac Zane, in Upper Sandusky at the age of 50.
1825
May 2; the Wyandot Tribal Council authorizes the Rev. James B. Finley to hire a suitable person to burn 70,000 bricks for building purposes.
June 3; the Kansa Indians cede their lands to the United States and accept a reservation. This opens Kansas for the resettlement of eastern tribes. The mixed blood French-Kansa receive 23 sections along the north side of the Kansas River from the present Topeka to Lecompton.
Cyprien and Frederic Chouteau, younger brothers of Francois, join him in the fur trade at Chez les Canses.
In the summer, death of De-un-quot, the last hereditary Head Chief of the Wyandot Nation and a leader of traditionalist opposition to the Methodist mission. Rontondee is elected Head Chief at Upper Sandusky.
A road is laid out from Liberty, Missouri to a point on the Missouri River opposite the mouth of the Kaw, near Curtis and Eley's trading post, and Richard Linville begins a ferry across the river at this location. The ferry is subsequently bought by Calice Montardy.
After most Ohio Shawnee refuse to consider removal, Tensquatawa travels among them in the late summer and autumn promoting emigration. Only Colonel Lewis of the Lewistown band agrees.
October 1; John L. Lieb submits a report to General Lewis Cass on the Wyandot Methodist Mission school. Thirty-four boys and 22 girls are enrolled, ranging in age from 4 to 22. The pupils include John M. and Silas Armstrong, John W. and Margaret Greyeyes, Francis A. Hicks and John Hicks Jr., Matthew Mudeater, Matthew R. Walker, and David Young. In addition to the original mission house, the complex now includes a schoolhouse, kitchen, washhouse, carpenter's shop, and various farm buildings.
October 26; the Erie Canal opens, connecting Lake Erie to the Hudson River and greatly expanding commerce with the west.
1825
November 7; the Missouri Shawnee sign a treaty in St. Louis with General Clark, agreeing to move to Kansas. Their grant at Cape Girardeau is to be ceded to the U.S., and in exchange they are to receive a reserve of 2,500 square miles and $14,000, $5,000 in the form of domestic animals, farm implements, and provisions. $11,000 is to be paid against existing Shawnee claims, and a blacksmith provided for a minimum of 5 years. The reserve is to be for all the Cape Girardeau Shawnee and any Ohio Shawnee that should care to join them (Colonel Lewis signs as a witness). The Missouri Shawnee number 1,383, with approximately 800 Shawnee still in Ohio.
December 28; death of James Wilkinson, liar, conspir-ator, and probable traitor, at the age of 68 in Mexico City, where he has been pursuing a Texas land grant.
1826 - In March, death of the Cherokee Boy, Wyandot chief and adopted son of Half King. Heirs to his 640 acre grant are Squeendechtee and Sarahass (Isaac Williams Jr.).
First major flood of the Kansas River to be recorded. The Chouteau warehouses below the mouth of the Kaw are swept away. Chez les Canses is eventually reestablished a mile to the west, upstream of its previous site. Francois and Berenice Chouteau and their children stay with Gabriel and Cyprien at Four Houses in the interval. Other refugees from the flood include nine-year-old Marie Josephine Gonville (ward of the Chouteaus and granddaughter of White Plume, Chief of the Kansa), and the Baronet Vasquez, his wife Emilie and their two children.
In the wake of the flood, Curtis and Eley's trading post is apparently abandoned. Calice Montardy's ferry across the Missouri is relocated futher down stream, where it will continue in operation until about 1830.
The Shawnee from Cape Girardeau settle south of the Kansas River in the present Wyandotte and Johnson Counties. Colonel Lewis and some of the Lewistown band join them, 55 Ohio Shawnee passing through Pierre Menard's agency at Kaskaskia on their way west. The Black Bob band refuses to reunite with the more assimilated Ohio Shawnee, and instead proceeds to the White River in Arkansas; other Shawnee (the so-called "absentees") relocate to Texas and the present Oklahoma.
1826
June 5; Rev. Finley, Mononcue, Between-the-Logs, and Samuel Brown leave Upper Sandusky on a three month trip throughout the east to promote the Wyandot Methodist Mission. They visit Buffalo, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and Mononcue and Between-the-Logs have their portraits painted.
July 4; deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The Baronet Vasquez and his family move to a house near the present 2nd and Gillis Street in Kansas City, Missouri, which becomes the Kansa Indian Subagency.
September 30; Tensquatawa leaves Ohio for Kansas with over 200 Shawnee from Wapaughkonetta and Lewistown. In addition to the Prophet, leaders of the emigrants include Big Snake, Cornstalk, Captain Perry and White Town, but a majority of the Ohio Shawnee still refuse removal and remain behind with the elderly Black Hoof.
1827 - January 1; death of Between-the-Logs, Wyandot chief and leading supporter of the Methodist mission, in Upper Sandusky at the age of 46. Sally Between-the-Logs (Caty Sage) is a widow for the second time.
In February, Tensquatawa's Shawnee arrive at Kaskaskia. They are destitute, and their horses are starving. Pierre Menard allows them to camp on his land and graze their horses in his fields. He appeals for help from St. Louis.
In March, Daniel Morgan Boone is appointed government farmer to the Kansa Indians and locates on the Kansas River in the present Jefferson County.
March 26; death of Beethoven in Vienna at the age of 56.
April 3; the Shawnee at Kaskaskia appeal to the Secretary of War for their share of the Shawnee annuity.
April 4; Shawnee and Delaware Indian Agent Richard Graham forwards the Shawnee's appeal from St. Louis, and vouches for their need for assistance. There are 203 Shawnee and 24 Seneca at Kaskaskia, with 55 more Shawnee expected daily. Without assistance, they may not be able to continue on.
After meeting with General Clark, Graham and a Shawnee inspection party (including Tensquatawa) leave St. Louis to visit Kansas and examine the Shawnee Reserve there.
1827
May 8; Colonel Henry Leavenworth, acting at variance with his orders, establishes Cantonment Leavenworth on the west bank of the Missouri River not far from the site of the old Fort de Cavagnial.
Cholera strikes Chez les Canses. Madame Berenice Chouteau nurses the sick French and Indians, baptizing 75 Indian children during the epidemic.
July 9; lot sales begin in newly-platted Independence, Missouri. It soon takes over from Franklin as the center of the Santa Fe trade.
July 18; Bernard Pratte & Co. (Pratte, Chouteau and Berthold) merge with the American Fur Company, with Pierre Chouteau Jr. handling the company's Missouri River operations.
The Wyandots are encouraged to divide the Grand Reserve in severalty, with individual allotments of up to 360 acres. The allotments can be inherited or leased, but cannot be sold or alienated from the reserve. The unallotted acreage remains tribal property.
The Rev. James B. Finley leaves the Wyandot Methodist Mission to become presiding elder of the district.
August 6 and 7; the Shawnee from Kaskaskia reach St. Louis.
September 8; Tensquatawa's Shawnee leave St. Louis. Traveling overland, they establish a second winter camp at the confluence of the Osage and Niangua Rivers in south-central Missouri, where they experience another hard winter.
September 22; Joseph Smith receives the gold plates that contain the Book of Mormon from the angel Moroni, and begins their translation.
Sam Houston is elected governor of Tennessee.
1828 - April 14; Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language is first published.
April 23; the steamboat Missouri leaves St. Louis with the U.S. 3rd Regiment, bound for Cantonment Leavenworth.
April 25; the Shawnee led by Tensquatawa resume their journey to Kansas.
1828
May 14; Tensquatawa's Shawnee arrive at the Shawnee Reserve. Their hardships have again reduced the Prophet's influence to a low ebb. With a few followers he establishes a new Prophetstown near the present 26th and Woodend in Kansas City, Kansas. Soon even Tecumseh's son abandons him.
In the summer, Joseph Smith and Martin Harris complete the translation of the Book of Mormon, but Harris manages to lose the manuscript.
Death of Isadore Chaine at Amherstburg. Solomon Warrow succeeds him as head chief of the Canadian Wyandots.
August 5; death of the Baronet Vasquez at Chouteau's Landing, of cholera. The Kansa Subagency is eventually moved to the north bank of the Kansas River some seven miles upstream from the present Lawrence.
August 28; birth of Margaret Clark (Northrup), Wyandot, daughter of Thomas G. Clark, near Lower Sandusky, Ohio.
September 4-24; the Rev. Isaac McCoy, now a leading advocate of removal, conducts a delegation of 3 Ottawa and 3 Pottawatomi on an exploratory tour of Kansas.
In the fall, the Chouteaus establish a new American Fur Company post on the Shawnee Reserve (in the present Turner-Morris area of Kansas City, Kansas - the exact location is in dispute) to replace Four Houses. Cyprien Chouteau takes over the operation of the new post and marries Nancy Francis, daughter of Shawnee John Francis. Gabriel S. Chouteau soon leaves both Kansas and the fur trade.
In October, the Rev. Isaac McCoy leads a second explor-atory party from St. Louis to Indian Country. (They were supposed to have left in September with the others, but were delayed.) The company of 42 includes 12 Chickasaws, 6 Choctaws and 3 Creeks. On their return to St. Louis, McCoy goes directly to Washington, D.C. to make a report.
With her husband in Washington, Christiana McCoy moves her family from the Carey Mission to Lexington, Kentucky. Conditions on the Pottawatomi Reserve are deteriorating, the Indians having been pressured into selling much of their land for cash.
November 4; Andrew Jackson, a strong advocate of Indian removal, is elected President.
1828
December 2; Francois G. Chouteau writes to his uncle and father-in-law Pierre Menard that he is taking merchan-dise to the new post in the Shawnee lands. Construction was delayed by need to repair buildings at the Missouri landing. "Now I have three good trading houses made."
December 28; in another letter to Menard, Francois G. Chouteau reports that Agent Graham has told him that Col. Leavenworth intends to cut a road from the fort to the Kansas River. Graham believes the new post to be located at the spot most suitable for a river crossing.
1829 - January 22; Governor Sam Houston marries Eliza Allen, daughter of a wealthy and influential family.
February 24; death of Auguste Chouteau in St. Louis at the age of 79.
April 15; George Vashon is appointed Shawnee and Delaware Indian Agent, replacing Richard Graham. John Campbell is subagent and lives on the Shawnee Reserve.
April 16; Sam Houston abruptly resigns as governor of Tennessee, and goes to live with the Western Cherokee in Indian Country. His wife has gone back to her father's house and refuses to return. For the next five years the Raven lives with a Cherokee wife, Tiana Rogers, on the Verdigris near Fort Gibson, employed as a trader.
In the spring, Joseph Smith again begins translation of the Book of Mormon, this time with the aid of school-teacher Oliver Cowdery. The work is swiftly completed.
May 15; four companies of the 6th U.S. Infantry under Bvt. Maj. Bennet Riley arrive with their families at Cantonment Leavenworth aboard the steamboat Diana.
June 12; led by Maj. Riley, the first military escort on the Santa Fe Trail leaves Round Grove Campground with a 38 wagon caravan captained by Charles Bent.
Also in June, the Rev. Isaac McCoy leaves the Carey Mission in Michigan and moves his family to Fayette in western Missouri.
Sally Between-the-Logs marries for a third time, to a Wyandot named Frost.
1829
August 3; the Delaware remaining at Pipestown in Ohio sign a treaty with Indian Agent John McElvain agreeing to cede their reserve to the U.S. and join the other Delaware west of the Mississippi. In exchange they are to receive $2,000 in gold and $1,000 in provisions.
September 24; the main group of Delaware negotiate a supplement to the treaty of 1818 with Indian Agent George Vashon, agreeing to move from Missouri to Kansas. They are to receive support for the move, one year's provisions thereafter, erection of a grist and saw mill within two years, and an additional permanent annuity of $1,000. In addition, 36 of the best sections of their lands in Missouri are to be sold to provide a school fund. The agreement is to be valid only after the examination and approval of the lands in Kansas. Among the signers are Captain William Anderson, Head Chief of the Delaware Nation, Captain Patterson, Second Chief, Captain Pipe (second of that name), chief of the Ohio Delaware, and one George Girty (!).
October 15; Francois G. Chouteau writes to his elder half-brother Pierre Jr. that a barge of merchandise has arrived at the Missouri landing, but delivery to the various trading posts will be difficult as the Kansas is very low.
October 19; in camp at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, a delegation of 6 Delaware chiefs and warriors signs approval of the supplementary treaty after examining the proposed new reserve.
In November, the Rev. Isaac McCoy returns to Washington, D.C. for a seven month stay, where he witnesses and participates in an historic debate over Indian removal. Opposition comes from the northeast (including many of the mainline Protestant churches), while removal is favored in the south and west. President Jackson presents it as an issue of states' rights.
December 3; the Delaware arrive in Kansas and settle north of the Kansas River. Anderson's Town is founded on the present site of Edwardsville, Kansas.
1830 - January 5; the second scientific expedition of Prince Paul of Wurttemberg arrives at Chouteau's Landing, then travels on to Cyprien Chouteau's trading post. He is accompanied by Baptiste Charbonneau.
March 26; a printer in Palmyra, New York, issues a 5000-copy edition of the Book of Mormon.
1830
April 6; the Church of Christ - later named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) - is organized by Joseph Smith in Fayette, New York, with six members. The uniquely American new church spreads with amazing rapidity.
May 28; the Indian Removal Act is passed by Congress.
June 1; Richard W. Cummins is appointed Shawnee and Delaware Indian Agent, replacing George Vashon. He will hold that office until 1849, and is genuinely sympa-thetic with the tribes' interests. John Campbell continues as subagent.
June 26; death of George IV. His younger brother William IV becomes King of Great Britain.
In July, the Fish band of Shawnee, through former Indian Agent George Vashon, request a missionary from the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Death of Solomon Warrow at Amherstburg. Francis Warrow succeeds him as head chief of the Canadian Wyandots.
August 23; the Rev. Isaac McCoy addresses a council of the Shawnee from Ohio on the subject of a Baptist mission. Tensquatawa replies favorably, but a decision is deferred until McCoy returns from his survey work.
August 24 - September 28; the Rev. Isaac McCoy and party survey the boundary of the Delaware Reserve.
September 5; Mary Radford, step-daughter of General William Clark, marries Bvt. Maj. Stephen Watts Kearny in St. Louis.
September 7; the Rev. Thomas Johnson and Sarah T. Davis of Clarksville, Missouri are married.
September 16; the Missouri Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church approves the Shawnee Indian Mission and three others. The Rev. Thomas Johnson is assigned to the Shawnee and his brother the Rev. William Johnson to the Kansa.
The principal Wyandot town of Upper Sandusky, Ohio, is platted into lots and blocks by William Brown.
Delaware Henry Tiblow establishes a ferry across the Kansas River near the abandoned Four Houses, on the site of the present Bonner Springs, Kansas.
1830
October 15; a Wyandot firing squad, including Silas Armstrong, executes the son of Black Chief for the crime of murder, following a vote on the sentence by a convention of the Nation. (The Pagan party proposes leniency; the Christians advocate the death penalty. The firing squad is made up of three from each faction.)
In November, the Rev. Thomas Johnson founds the Shawnee Methodist Mission near the present 51st and Swartz Road in Kansas City, Kansas, close to Cyprien Chouteau's trading post. Johnson thereby beats out the Rev. Isaac McCoy, who finds out about the mission on November 22.
December 23; the Shawnee hold council to discuss what position the tribe as a whole will take toward Johnson's mission to the Fish band.
Also in December, Mormon missionaries from New York and Ohio arrive in Independence, Missouri, which they believe to be the Center Place, site of the Garden of Eden and future location of the City of Zion.
1831 - January 13; General William Clark is notified of the establishment of the Shawnee Methodist Mission.
That same month, Joseph Smith arrives in Kirtland, Ohio, to establish the Church in the west.
Also in January, the Grinter ferry across the Kansas River is established by a young Kentuckian named Moses Grinter at the behest of the Army, near the present 78th Street and Kaw Drive in Kansas City, Kansas. The ferry provides the principal link between the Shawnee and Delaware reserves.
In February, Mormons attempt to proselytize among the Delaware and are courteously received by Captain William Anderson, but are ordered out of Indian Country by Agent Cummins.
February 28; the Senecas of Sandusky (Mingos) sign a treaty with Special Commissioner James B. Gardiner, agreeing to move from Ohio to a reserve in Indian Country adjacent to the Western Cherokee.
Lewis Cass leaves the governorship of Michigan Territory to become Secretary of War in the Jackson adminis-tration, where he will have charge of Indian affairs.
1831
April 16; the steamboat Yellowstone, constructed on orders of Pierre Chouteau Jr. for the Rocky Mountain fur trade, leaves St. Louis on its first voyage up the Missouri.
In May, Daniel Morgan Boone is dismissed from his post as government farmer for the Kansa.
July 7; Dr. Johnston Lykins and his wife Delilah McCoy Lykins (daughter of the Rev. Isaac McCoy) arrive at the Shawnee Agency to organize the Shawnee Baptist Mission for Perry and Cornstalk's band. Construction begins on the mission buildings near the present 53rd and Walmer, Mission, Kansas.
July 15; the Yellowstone returns to St. Louis with a cargo of furs.
In mid-summer, smallpox breaks out among the Shawnee. Dr. Lykins and Subagent Campbell vaccinate large numbers hoping to stop the disease.
Joseph Parks is appointed interpreter for a delegation of Ohio Shawnee sent to Washington to discuss removal.
July 20; the mixed band of Senecas (Mingos) and Shawnee remaining at Lewistown sign a treaty with Special Commissioner James B. Gardiner and Indian Agent John McElvain, agreeing to move from Ohio to a reserve in Indian Country adjacent to the Western Cherokee and the Senecas of Sandusky.
August 8; Black Hoof having died at about the age of 90, the 400 Shawnee remaining in Ohio at Wapaughkonetta and Hog Creek sign a treaty with Special Commissioner James B. Gardiner and Indian Agent John McElvain agreeing to move to Kansas. Their remaining lands in Ohio - three tracts totalling 145 square miles - are ceded to the U.S. In return, they are to be granted 100,000 acres by patent in fee simple within the larger Shawnee Reserve, together with a saw mill, grist mill and blacksmith shop. The U.S. will defray the expenses of removal and provide one year's support after arrival. They are also to receive a cash advance of $13,000, payment for any chattel property they cannot take, and an annuity of 5% of the principal realized from the sale of their Ohio lands. The Wyandot chief Rontondee is a witness, and becomes the leading advocate of removal among the Wyandots.
1831
August 15; Captain Pipe and William Monture convey messages from the Delaware in Kansas to the Wyandot Tribal Council, and describe the land set aside for the resettlement of the Wyandots.
August 17; Special Commissioner James B. Gardiner writes to Secretary of War Lewis Cass that removal negotiations with the Wyandots are in trouble, as there have been unexplained deficiencies of $175 per year in the last two annuity payments. He also complains that his progress with the Wyandots is being hindered by his co-commissioner John McElvain, Indian Agent for the Wyandots, Shawnee and Seneca.
August 22; Gardiner reports to Secretary Cass that he has made up the $350 deficiency out of his own accounts, and requests reimbursement. The Wyandot chiefs wish to send a deputation to examine the lands near the con-fluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. They will continue to negotiate, but a favorable conclusion will depend on the deputation's report.
In September, Ira D. Blanchard begins preaching and teaching among the Delaware. Although not a Baptist church member, he receives support from Lykins and McCoy.
September 19; Joseph Parks writes to Secretary Cass from Michigan that the Shawnee on the River Huron are undecided about going west with the Ohio Shawnee.
September 26; Gardiner informs Secretary Cass that the Wyandot exploring party will soon depart. The proposed Wyandot treaty will result in the sale of 162,000 acres at $.70 per acre, or $113,400, "...which will, after defraying all contingencies, leave a large balance in favour of the United States."
Captain William Anderson, Head Chief of the Delaware Nation, dies in late September or October. For the last year and one half he has lived less than 9 miles from his old enemy, the Prophet. His successor is Captain Patterson.
In the fall, Captain Pipe, William Monture, Isaac Hill, and Solomon Journeycake leave the Pipestown Reserve for Kansas with a party of about 30 Delaware. (They were supposed to have removed on or before January 1, 1830.)
A Delaware hunting party on the plains is attacked by Pawnees. One woman escapes and makes her way to a second Delaware party on the Arkansas.
1831
October 19; the Rev. Isaac McCoy sees the survivor of the Pawnee attack, and reports that she is terribly worn and sick from her ordeal.
By October, smallpox has spread to the Delaware and Agent Cummins advises them to scatter. Nine Shawnee and 15 Delaware die before the epidemic subsides in December.
From October through December, a five man Wyandot inspection party - Silas Armstrong, John Battise, John Gould, and James Washington, led by William Walker Jr. -examines lands offered by the government in the area of the future Platte Purchase, west of the Missouri state line but east of the Missouri River. On the return journey, Walker stays with General William Clark in St. Louis, where he meets several Oregon Indians supposedly seeking missionary assistance.
October 26; a treaty is signed by General William Clark at Castor Hill in St. Louis County, Missouri, with representatives of the Delaware now in Kansas and the Cape Girardeau Shawnee now in Arkansas (the Black Bob band), giving up all claim to the Cape Girardeau grant. The Delaware do quite well, including $100 annuities for life to Captain Patterson, Captain Ketchum, and Nak-ko-min. The Black Bob band is to remove to the Shawnee Reserve, after which they will be paid. This completes the business started with the treaty of 1825, but most of the Cape Girardeau Delaware (the ostensible bene-ficiaries) are now in Texas and apparently have no say in the matter.
November 11; Nat Turner is executed in Jerusalem, Virginia for leading a bloody slave insurrection. Reaction to the revolt ends the very real possibility that Virginia might abolish slavery.
December 15; in St. Louis, the Wyandot inspection party headed by William Walker Jr. completes its report on the lands proposed for Wyandot removal.
December 27; naturalist Charles Darwin departs England aboard HMS Beagle on a voyage to the Pacific.
1832
1832 - January 4; Gardiner confidently writes to Secretary Cass that he should be able to deliver a Wyandot treaty in 4 or 5 weeks.
January 5; on learning that the Wyandot inspection party will produce an unfavorable report, Gardiner asks Cass for permission to make a treaty with the "pagan" or "savage party" for their part of the Grand Reserve. He also proceeds with plans to obtain a separate treaty for the Big Spring Reserve.
January 19; the Treaty of McCutcheonsville. Wyandots living on the Big Spring Reserve in Ohio, under pressure from Special Commissioner James B. Gardiner, sell their reserve for $1.25 an acre despite the opposition of the tribal council at Upper Sandusky. However, they still refuse to emigrate west of the Mississippi, and instead are to move to either the Wyandott Reserve in Michigan or the Huron Reserve in Canada. The treaty proposes that Joseph McCutcheon be named subagent for the Big Spring Wyandots, further separating them from those at Upper Sandusky.
January 27; the Wyandot inspection party formally submits its report to the Wyandot Tribal Council. The lands west of Missouri are emphatically rejected. His string of successes having been broken, Gardiner is outraged, accusing the Wyandots of duplicity.
That same day, birth of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) in Cheshire, England.
January 28; Special Commissioner Gardiner forwards the McCutcheonsville treaty to Secretary Cass. He denounces William Walker Jr. in particular and the Wyandot Tribal Council in general: "Those chiefs, with their white and yellow auxilliaries, are as avaricious and envious as they are subtle and insincere." He warns Cass that the council may try to arrange with the Big Spring Wyandots for the latter to move to the Grand Reserve.
February 8; by order of the War Department, Cantonment Leavenworth is redesignated Fort Leavenworth. The other cantonments in Indian Country, Gibson and Towson, are similarly renamed.
February 13; Agent John McElvain reports that many Wyandots are still in favor of removal. He suggests that 8 or 10 of their influential young men should accompany the emigrating Shawnee and Seneca and see for themselves the quality of the country.
1832
February 22; two of the Wyandot chiefs and William Walker Jr. leave Columbus, Ohio for Washington, D.C., hoping to obtain alterations in the McCutcheonsville treaty. They propose that the treaty become a national one, that the benefits of the treaty (except pay for the improvements) accrue to the Wyandot Tribal Council for distribution to the Nation, with the Big Spring Wyandots resettling on the Grand Reserve. President Jackson views the proposal favorably, but Secretary Cass kills the agreement when Joseph McCutcheon strongly objects.
In March, another Delaware hunting party is attacked by Pawnees; Chief Pushkies and two others are killed.
March 24; Joseph Smith and his counselor Sidney Rigdon are tarred and feathered in Hiram, Ohio, in the first attack against the Mormons and their beliefs.
April 6; the five Gardiner treaties are ratified and proclaimed, despite serious questions in the Senate regarding his methods in obtaining four of them.
April 24; General Clark reports to Secretary Cass that Agent Cummins had warned the Delaware in October against hunting in Pawnee country.
Permanent buildings are erected for the Shawnee and Delaware Indian Agency on the Shawnee Reserve, some seven miles south of the mouth of the Kansas River, on 152 acres near the present 63rd Street and State Line Road, Mission Hills, Kansas.
The Delaware Baptist Mission is officially established by the Rev. Charles E. Wilson.
The Delaware Methodist Mission is founded by Thomas and William Johnson. It is initially located somewhere between Anderson's Town and the Grinter ferry.
After wintering in Indiana, Captain Pipe's party arrives in Kansas in late spring or summer, the last Delaware to move to the reserve.
May 9; the Rev. Isaac McCoy considers severing his connections to the American Board when the Baptist Convention ceases to support Indian removal.
Shortly thereafter, McCoy moves his family from Fayette, Missouri to a wooded tract in western Jackson County near the border with Indian Country. He still hopes that the government will support the creation of a self-governing territory for the emigrant tribes.
1832
May 17; Secretary Cass informs Gardiner that he has been appointed to superintend the removals for which his treaties have provided.
May 22; a number of prominent Wyandots living or owning property on the Big Spring Reserve and at Solomonstown, including Henry Jacquis, Francis Driver, the three Grey-Eyes brothers, Silas and John M. Armstrong, and David Young, address a petition to President Jackson. They state that the signers of the McCutcheonsville treaty were largely of Canadian origin (three of them only recently arrived), who sold the reserve without the knowledge or consent of its rightful owners. Then Joseph McCutcheon blocked the agreement allowing the Big Spring Wyandots to join those on the Grand Reserve. The Canadian Wyandots can take their money and return to Canada, but the American Wyandots may not have that option. The petitioners want the agreement approved, with subsequent treaty payments made through Agent McElvain rather than McCutcheon.
May 26; Agent McElvain forwards the protest petition to Secretary Cass. He says that McCutcheon's interference was uncalled for and for selfish purposes.
June 6; the Black Hawk War begins when the Sauk chief Black Hawk leads a band of Sauk and Fox across the Mississippi into Illinois in an attempt to reclaim traditional lands.
June 24; a Delaware war party led by Captain Suwaunock sets out to attack the Pawnee. They burn the principal Pawnee village on the Republican River.
July 9; the office of Commissioner of Indian Affairs is created by act of Congress. The first Commissioner is Elbert Herring.
July 11; birth of Alexander S. Johnson, son of Thomas and Sarah Johnson, at the Shawnee Methodist Mission.
July 21; the Big Spring and Solomonstown Wyandots sign an agreement with the chiefs at Upper Sandusky, allowing the Big Spring Wyandots to become residents with an equal right in the Grand Reserve. Monies from the sale of the Big Spring Reserve shall be distributed to the Nation at large.
July 23; Commissioner Gardiner and Agent McElvain forward the compromise agreement to Secretary Cass. They note that only two of the signers of the McCutcheonsville treaty have signed the agreement.
1832
August 2; Lt. Col. Zachary Taylor defeats the Sauk and Fox at the mouth of the Bad Axe River in Wisconsin. Black Hawk is captured, ending the Black Hawk War.
September 11; the original signers of the McCutcheons-ville treaty protest the July 21 compromise agreement to Secretary Cass. They want the treaty monies to be paid to themselves, as originally agreed upon. Gardiner supports their position, but Agent McElvain sides with the Wyandot Tribal Council. The agreement holds.
September 17; the Rev. Thomas Johnson is made super-intendent of the Indian Mission District, the Rev. Edward T. Peery is assigned to the Shawnee Methodist Mission, and the Rev. William Johnson to the Delaware.
September 20 - December 25; conducted by Special Commissioner James B. Gardiner, the Wapaughkonetta band of Shawnee (including 16-year-old Charles Bluejacket) move from Auglaize County, Ohio to Kansas. There is considerable suffering from cold and hunger.
In the autumn, Tensquatawa poses in his house for the famous portrait by George Catlin.
November 6; Andrew Jackson is relected President.
December 28; Vice President John C. Calhoun resigns from office to become a senator from South Carolina.
1833 - February 4; Margaret Greyeyes, daughter of Esquire Grey-Eyes, marries David Young in the Wyandot Methodist Mission church.
March 1; the Walker-Disosway letter is published in the Christian Advocate and Journal and Zion's Herald. Beginning of the Oregon movement.
In March, with bribery having failed, the government threatens to remove the Black Bob band of Shawnee (now on the Cowskin River in southwest Missouri) by force if they do not go to the Shawnee Reserve. They move reluctantly and settle near the present Olathe, Kansas.
In the spring, the first Mormon Temple is begun in Kirtland, Ohio.
April 21; Prince Maximilian of Weid-Neuweid, aboard the steamboat Yellowstone, passes the mouth of the Kansas River on a scientific expedition to the upper Missouri. He is accompanied by artist Carl Bodmer.
1833
June 1 - September 15; conducted by interpreter Joseph Parks, the Hog Creek band of Shawnee move from Ohio to Kansas, the last Shawnee to move to the Reserve. The journey is without incident.
The government builds a saw and grist mill for the Delaware on Mill Creek near the Grinter ferry, in operation by July. William Barnes is appointed miller.
In July, the Mormon colony near Independence is driven out by Missouri mobs, as much for their anti-slavery stand as for their religious beliefs.
John Calvin McCoy, son of the Rev. Isaac McCoy, buys land at what is now the northwest corner of Westport Road and Pennsylvania Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri. He establishes a store in partnership with J. P. Hickman and J. H. Flournoy, and announces plans to develop a town to be called Westport. The town eventually replaces Independence as the principal outfitting center for the Santa Fe, Oregon and California Trails. Chouteau's Landing becomes Westport's river port, sometimes called Westport Landing.
September 4; the Rev. Thomas Johnson is renamed district superintendent, and the Rev. William Johnson assigned to the Shawnee Methodist Mission.
September 18 - October 12; the Rev. Isaac McCoy with his son John and 9 assistants surveys the south and west boundaries of the Shawnee Reserve.
October 1; John Campbell is replaced as subagent for the Shawnee and Delaware Agency by Dr. F. W. Miller.
October 5; the Rev. Jotham Meeker arrives at the Shawnee Baptist Mission, bringing with him a printing press from Cincinnati.
October 25; trading licenses issued to the Chouteaus' American Fur Company operations include a new post on the Delaware Reserve, near the Grinter ferry.
October 31; the Mormon colony west of the Big Blue River in Jackson County, Missouri is attacked and burned.
Father Benedict Roux, curate of the cathedral at St. Louis, is sent by Bishop Rosati to establish a Catholic parish in the habitation near Chouteau's Landing.
1833
November 4; a pitched battle between Missourians and Mormons leaves 2 Gentiles and 1 Mormon dead, and results in the eventual expulsion of the whole Mormon population of Jackson County. Most move to the counties north of the Missouri River.
That same day, the Rev. Isaac McCoy prevents two assaults on individual Mormons in Independence.
November 11; the Rev. Isaac McCoy presents a resolution in Independence that the Mormons should be allowed to provide for their own safety. He is ignored.
In November, the government arranges a peace treaty between the Delaware and the plains tribes at Fort Leavenworth. The treaty proves ineffective.
1834 - January 20; Father Roux writes that he is comfortably lodged at the Chouteau post on the Shawnee Reserve, where Francois and Berenice Chouteau are also staying.
March 11; Father Roux complains about the 10 mile ride to reach the chapel (a house provided by the Chouteaus), and the lack of provisions at his presbytery.
March 21; Jotham Meeker completes printing the first book on the press at the Shawnee Baptist Mission.
April 1; the Rev. Henry Rennick Jr., a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, is assigned as government teacher to the Delaware.
April 24-30; Missourians burn 150 Mormon houses in Jackson County.
Fort William (Bent's Fort) is completed on the upper Arkansas near the present La Junta, Colorado.
May 5; Joseph Smith leads "Zion's Camp" of 200 armed men from Kirtland, Ohio toward Independence.
May 27; the U.S. Post Office in Westport is opened, with John C. McCoy as postmaster.
June 15; the Shawnee Tribal Council adopts Rev. Meeker's orthography for the writing and printing of the Shawnee language.
June 16; Thomas Johnson visits Rev. Meeker to see about the printing of Shawnee books in the new orthography.
1833
June 17; a ferry carrying a Missouri delegation negotiating with Zion's Camp swamps in the Missouri River, and several drown. The Missourians blame the Mormons.
June 19; the Battle of Fishing River. A fight between Zion's Camp and the Missourians in Clay County is broken up by a great storm.
June 30; the territories lying west of Missouri are officially designated "Indian Country." Although the Rev. Isaac McCoy has been promised territorial status with a Presidentially-appointed administrator, they are placed under Missouri's administrative jurisdiction.
From June through August, a second Wyandot inspection party looks at (and subsequently rejects) lands in Kansas offered by the government. On July 6, the Wyandot inspection party attends Sunday services at the Shawnee Methodist Mission.
July 9; wracked by a cholera outbreak, Zion's Camp is disbanded. Joseph Smith leaves Clay County, Missouri to return to Kirtland, Ohio.
July 14; the Shawnee and Delaware Agency is replaced by the Northern Agency, Western Territory, serving the Delaware, Kansa and Kickapoo. Richard W. Cummins continues as agent, and former Kansa subagent Marston G. Clark is assigned as subagent for the Shawnee, Ottawa and others. The agency continues to occupy the Shawnee and Delaware Agency buildings.
July 25-26; a Kansas missionaries' conference is held at the Shawnee Baptist Mission. Among those present are the Revs. McCoy, Lykins, Meeker, Thomas Johnson, Jerome C. Berryman and J. Thompson Peery.
August 16; Rev. Meeker prints 200 copies of the Shawnee alphabet and monosyllable for the Rev. Thomas Johnson.
Following the report of a deputation sent to examine the Shawnee Reserve, the yearly meeting of the Society of Friends decides to establish a school among the Shawnee in Kansas.
In late October, death of Fish (William Jackson), adopted captive and Shawnee band chief. His son Paschal Fish has already begun to achieve prominence.
December 7; the Rev. Thomas Johnson preaches to the garrison at Fort Leavenworth.
1835
1835 - January 17; Rev. Meeker completes the printing of the first volume of the Rev. Isaac McCoy's The Annual Register of Indian Affairs.
January 30; President Jackson narrowly escapes assassination by a deranged house painter.
February 13; John C. McCoy files the plat of Westport at the Jackson County Courthouse in Independence, Missouri.
February 24; the first issue of the Shawnee Sun is published at the Shawnee Baptist Mission by Rev. Meeker, with Dr. Johnston Lykins as editor.
By the spring, Sam Houston is resident in Nacogdoches, Texas, acting as agent for the Cherokee and for certain New York business interests seeking land grants.
The Shawnee and Ottawa Subagency is discontinued, the tribes assigned to Richard Cummins' Northern Agency.
April 22; Seminole chiefs in Florida refuse to acknowledge an 1832 removal treaty, and Osceola is openly defiant.
May 11; General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, President of Mexico and self-styled "Napoleon of the West," having sent his brother-in-law, General Martin Perfecto de Cos, to depose the Federalist governor of Coahuila y Texas, defeats republican insurgents. Shortly thereafter he is made dictator. Mexico's federal constitution is abolished a piece at a time.
May 15; the second annual conference of Kansas missionaries is held at the Shawnee Methodist Mission.
May 17; a Committee of Safety, including James Bowie, is organized at Mina, Texas in support of Mexican federal-ism and the Constitution of 1824.
The Prophet moves from the last Prophetstown to a small house, one of four near White Feather Spring, a mile and 1/2 to the northwest.
A Delaware hunting party kills 12 Pawnees caught stealing horses.
Death of Francis Warrow at Amherstburg. Roundhead's brother Splitlog succeeds him as head chief of the Canadian Wyandots.
1835
The church of St. Francis Regis, together with a rectory, is built at Westport Landing on a 40 arpent tract donated by Pierre La Liberte near the site of the present Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Ill health forces Father Roux to leave before the church is completed.
September 10; the Rev. William Ketron is appointed Methodist missionary to the Shawnee, and the Rev. William Johnson returned to the Kansa.
October 2; a group of volunteers in Gonzales, Texas refuses to surrender a cannon to a Mexican army detachment. Shots are fired and the military retreats. Beginning of the Texas Revolution.
October 28; Texas insurgents besiege General Cos' army at the provincial capital of San Antonio de Bexar.
November 2; beginning of the Second Seminole War. Three generals in succession become bogged down in the Florida swamps and canebreaks.
December 9; death of Captain Patterson, Head Chief of the Delaware Nation. His successor is Nak-ko-min.
That same day, McCoy's second Annual Register, for 1836, is published by Rev. Meeker.
December 10; San Antonio falls to the Texas insurgents.
December 15; the Mexican army under General Cos is allowed to depart Texas with their arms under a parole.
December 29; the Treaty of New Echota. A minority group of Cherokee led by Major Ridge, his son John Ridge and nephews Elias Boudinot and Stand Watie, agree to the emigration of the entire Nation. Principal Chief John Ross fights this all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Chief Justice John Marshall rules in the tribe's favor, only to have the ruling ignored by Jackson and Cass. Most Cherokee are rounded up by the Army and detained in concentration camps.
1836 - January 13; Wyandot Head Chief William Walker Jr., chosen to complete the term of the late Tom Long, requests negotiations with the government on the removal question.
Also in January, Moses Grinter marries Anna Marshall, a 16-year-old Delaware girl.
1836
The Delaware Baptist Mission school is built near Anderson's Town (present site of Edwardsville, Kansas).
February 2; Canadian Wyandots sign a treaty reducing the Huron Reserve to 1/3 its former size, leaving a block of 7,770 acres, with the remainder to be sold. This results in intense factionalism, the pro-treaty faction believing that the reserve would have otherwise been entirely lost. The American Wyandots' options are becoming severely limited.
In February, frontiersman and former Tennessee congressman David Crockett arrives in San Antonio.
February 16; Santa Anna crosses the Rio Grande with 5,400 men and 21 cannon, determined to crush the rebellion in Texas.
March 2; Texas is declared an independent Republic.
March 6; the fall of the Alamo at San Antonio de Bexar. Some 180 Texans are dead, including Travis, Bowie and Crockett. Mexican losses are much higher.
March 11; Sam Houston arrives in Gonzales, Texas to take command of the army of the infant republic.
March 26; the Mormon Temple in Kirtland, Ohio is dedicated.
March 27; nearly 300 Texas prisoners from Fannin's brigade are slaughtered at Goliad on Santa Anna's orders. Texas settlers begin to flee eastward.
April 20; Wisconsin Territory is established. Division of the old Northwest Territory is nearly complete.
April 21; the Battle of San Jacinto. Sam Houston's Texans inflict a bloody defeat on the Mexican army and capture Santa Anna. Texas independence is assured.
April 23; by treaty with Special Commissioner John A. Bryan, the Wyandots agree to sell 5 by 12 miles set aside for Canadian Wyandots on the eastern edge of the Grand Reserve, together with the Cranberry Reserve and a 160 acre tract. Up to $20,000 of the proceeds may be used for capital improvements, the remainder to be distributed as annuities. The treaty is signed by just three individuals - Head Chief William Walker Jr., John Barnett and Peacock - rather than by the full council. Despite this, the government has tried to get them to agree to make the treaty for the whole reserve.
1836
April 29; Simon Kenton dies in poverty near Zanesfield, Ohio, at the age of 81.
May 12; a third annual conference of Kansas missionaries is held at the Shawnee Baptist Mission.
A new Wyandot Council House, one and one-half stories on a high brick foundation, is built near the south end of Fourth Street (inlot No. 90) in Upper Sandusky with some of the proceeds from the sale of tribal lands.
John C. McCoy and his partners sell their store building in Westport to William Miles Chick.
June 7; the Platte Purchase is approved by Congress at the urging of Thomas Hart Benton. The State of Missouri reaches its present boundaries with the addition of the northwest corner, an area the size of Delaware.
June 8; Agent Cummins writes to General Clark at St. Louis that there are 58 Wyandots living among the mixed band of Seneca and Shawnee, led by one Wyandot John. They are requesting their share of the Wyandot annuity from the sale of the Ohio lands.
June 15; Arkansas is admitted to the Union as the 25th state.
June 28; death of former President James Madison.
June 29; Mormons in Clay County, Missouri are "invited" to leave. Two new counties are formed north of Clay, with the Mormon center of Far West as a county seat.
July 4; Carey A. Harris is appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, replacing Elbert Herring.
That same day, General William Clark's son-in-law Stephen Watts Kearny is appointed Colonel of Dragoons, with headquarters at Fort Leavenworth.
Secretary of War Lewis Cass proposes the construction of a military road from Fort Snelling in Minnesota south to the Texas border, linking the forts and posts of the "permanent" Indian frontier.
The Shawnee Friends (Quaker) Mission is established near the present 61st and Hemlock, Merriam, Kansas, to continue the work begun in Ohio. The first three buildings are erected by Shawnee workmen, two houses of hewn logs and a school and meeting house.
1836
August 30; General William Clark leaves St. Louis to visit Fort Leavenworth.
September 17; at Fort Leavenworth, General Clark concludes a treaty extinguishing Indian claims in the area of the Platte Purchase.
October 21; the Delaware sign an agreement granting the government permission to open a road (Cass' military road) through their Reserve.
October 22; Sam Houston takes the oath of office as President of the Republic of Texas. Despite protests, he soon allows Santa Anna to return to Mexico.
October 24; the Westport Methodist Episcopal Church is organized by the Rev. James Porter at the home of William Miles Chick.
November 1; Martin Van Buren is elected President.
Tensquatawa, the Shawnee Prophet, dies in November at the age of 61. He is buried near White Feather Spring at the present 3818 Ruby Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. The young Charles Bluejacket is among those present.
December 8; General Thomas S. Jesup is placed in charge of the Seminole campaign. He orders nearly 8,000 soldiers into Florida against approximately 1,600 Seminole and black warriors.
1837 - January 26; Michigan is admitted to the Union as the 26th state.
Moses Pearson, superintendent of the new Shawnee Friends Mission, arrives from Ohio with his wife Sarah and five children.
March 6; General Jesup concludes an agreement with some minor Seminole chiefs, but Osceola fights on.
March 17; John G. Pratt, recently confirmed as a Baptist missionary to the Shawnee, marries Olivia Evans.
April 12; the Pratts leave Boston for Kansas.
April 13; the Northern Agency is replaced by the Fort Leavenworth Indian Agency, serving the Shawnee, Delaware, Kansa and Kickapoo. Other Indians assigned to the Northern Agency are attached to the new Osage River Subagency. The agency remains on the Shawnee Reserve and Richard W. Cummins continues as agent.
1837
In May, McCoy's third Annual Register is published. It notes that the government has erected a saw and grist mill for the Shawnee at a cost of about $8000.
May 12; John G. Pratt and his wife Olivia arrive at the Shawnee Baptist Mission. He is to take over the operation of the printing press from the Rev. Jotham Meeker. Rev. Meeker moves his family from the Shawnee Baptist Mission and establishes a mission for the Ottawa along the Marais des Cygnes River in the present Franklin County, Kansas.
June 20; death of William IV. His niece Victoria becomes Queen of Great Britain at the age of 18, and reigns for 64 years.
In July, General Jesup calls for 1,000 western Indians to be employed against the Seminoles. Eighty-seven Delaware led by Captain Suwaunock and Captain Moses are enlisted, together with a company of 85 Shawnee commanded by Captain Joseph Parks. Through an "error" they are promised $272 for 6 months' service rather than the customary $72. The error is discovered only after the volunteers have embarked.
July 17; a group of Christian Indians (Moravian Indians or Munsee) leave their reserve on the Thames River in Upper Canada to emigrate to the Delaware Reserve in Indian Country.
August 29; John M. Armstrong writes to his fiance Lucy Bigelow concerning Wyandot tribal affairs. Two self-promoted government commissioners, Joseph McCutcheon and Henry C. Brish, are attempting to collect signatures for a removal treaty despite being turned down by both the Wyandot Tribal Council and a National Convention. There is fear of another McCutcheonsville treaty in the making. A Wyandot delegation may be sent to Congress to protest the commissioners' actions, and Head Chief John Barnett has requested Armstrong's assistance, saying William Walker Jr. can no longer be relied upon because of his drinking.
September 1 - October 8; the route for a section of the proposed north-south military road between Fort Leavenworth and the Arkansas River is surveyed by Col. Stephen Watts Kearny, Capt. Nathan Boone, and Charles Dimmock, civil engineer, with Co. H, 1st U.S. Dragoons as escort. They examine the route going south, then execute the survey on the return trip.
1837
In early September, the Shawnee and Delaware volunteers depart Westport Landing by steamboat for a camp south of St. Louis.
October 16; the Shawnee and Delaware volunteers are in training near New Orleans.
October 21; Osceola is siezed by Jesup while under a flag of truce. Despite this treachery, the war continues.
October 29; the Christian Indians from Canada arrive at Westport Landing with their Moravian missionary, Jesse Vogler. They settle in the present Muncie area of Kansas City, Kansas at the invitation of the Delaware.
November 6; in response to continuing autocratic rule, rebellion breaks out among the French in Lower Canada.
In early November, the Shawnee and Delaware volunteers reach Tampa Bay in Florida. By the end of the month, 8,411 troops in three brigades launch a three-pronged attack against the Seminoles. The Shawnee and Delaware are part of a brigade commanded by Col. Zachary Taylor.
December 5-7; rebellion spreads to English settlers near Toronto in Upper Canada, but quickly collapses. William Lyon Mackenzie, leader of the revolt, flees to the U.S. and sets up a provisional government on Navy Island in the Niagara River.
December 13; the rebellion in Lower Canada is put down, its leader Louis-Joseph Papineau fleeing to the U.S.
December 25; the Battle of Okeechobee. Taylor's brigade successfully engages the Seminoles on high ground west of Lake Okeechobee, but is forced to retreat. Actual losses on both sides are small.
December 29; Canadian militia cut out the steamboat Caroline, docked at Buffalo, New York, and send it in flames over Niagara Falls. It has been carrying supplies to Mackenzie.
1838 - January 5; President Van Buren proclaims American neutrality in the Canadian revolt. Mackenzie is arrested for violation of the Neutrality Act.
January 6; Samuel Morse publicly demonstrates his telegraph for the first time.
1838
January 12; Joseph Smith flees Kirtland, Ohio as the first Mormon colony falls victim to dissension, apostasy and legal problems. He makes his way to Far West, the new Mormon center in Missouri.
January 23; John C. McCoy and Virginia Chick, daughter of William Miles Chick, are married in Westport by the Rev. Isaac McCoy.
January 26; Osceola dies in an army prison at Ft. Moultrie. Many regard the Seminole as a hero and Jesup a villain. The war in Florida drags on.
February 20; John M. Armstrong marries Lucy Bigelow, daughter of former Wyandot Methodist missionary Russell Bigelow. This is a matter of great pride for the tribe.
March 12; the Shawnee and Delaware volunteers are assembled at Tampa Bay. They have not suffered a single casualty.
March 30; the returning volunteers arrive in New Orleans, their enlistment having expired the previous day.
Johnny Appleseed shifts his missionary and horticultural work from Ohio to northern Indiana.
Death of Splitlog at Amherstburg. Joseph White, or Mondoron, succeeds him as head chief of the Canadian Wyandots, an office he will hold until his death in 1885.
April 18; death of Francois G. Chouteau at the age of 41 at his home at Westport Landing, following injury in a horse stampede. He is buried in St. Louis, but Madame Berenice Chouteau returns to her home on the frontier.
In May, the Rev. Thomas Johnson is in New York to persuade the Board of Managers of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church to open a manual labor school among the Shawnee. Their recommendation on May 30 is favorable.
In June, to resist and counterattack the Missourians, the Mormons organize the "Sons of Dan." Raids and night-riding increase.
1838
June 6-19; the Trail of Tears begins. Lt. Edward Deas conducts the first group of Cherokee emigrants by river to Fort Coffee in Indian Country. Two later military-led parties are forced by low water to travel overland; over 200 die. Principal Chief John Ross persuades Gen. Winfield Scott to permit the Cherokee to conduct their own removal overland.
June 16; licenses to trade with the Delaware, Kansa, Kickapoo and Shawnee are issued to Albert G. Boone, William Miles Chick, Cyprien Chouteau, Charles Findlay and Captain Joseph Parks.
June 20; Commissioner of Indian Affairs Harris gives his approval to the plan for a manual labor school and writes General William Clark of the department's wishes in the matter.
June 28; Queen Victoria is crowned in Westminster Abbey.
July 4; Sidney Rigdon makes an inflammatory speech in Far West that alarms anti-Mormon Missourians.
July 6; the remnant of the Kirtland faithful, between 500 and 600 people with all their goods and belongings, start by wagon from Kirtland for Far West.
July 13; the Rev. Thomas Johnson returns home to the Shawnee Methodist Mission.
In July, Ohio Congressman William H. Hunter and N. H. Swayne are appointed special commissioners to renew efforts to obtain a treaty for Wyandot removal.
August 6; election day riot between anti-slavery Mormons and pro-slavery Missourians in Gallatin, Missouri.
Beginning in August, the remaining Cherokee detainees -12,000 in all - set out in 13 separate groups for Indian Country.
In late August, a delegation of three traditionalist Wyandots - Rontondee, James Washington and John Porcupine - travels to Washington to promote a separate removal agreement.
September 1; death of General William Clark at his home in St. Louis, at the age of 68.
1838
September 10; Congressman Hunter writes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Carey A. Harris that he has been unable to reconcile the Wyandot factions. Rontondee's actions have complicated matters.
In late September the traditionalist Wyandot delegation returns to Upper Sandusky. A report to the tribal council turns into an angry confrontation. The three are arrested after Rontondee draws a knife, and spend a short period in jail.
September 26; the Missouri Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church approves the manual labor school.
October 1; Missourians besiege the river town of DeWitt when Mormons refuse to leave.
October 4; the Kirtland Saints arrive in Far West to find it an armed camp.
October 9; the Rev. L. B. Stateler, assigned to replace the Rev. Edward T. Peery, arrives at the Delaware Methodist Mission. Construction of a new mission school is soon begun near the present 78th Street and Speaker Road in Kansas City, Kansas.
October 11; Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs Daniel Kurtz suggests that the Wyandots be offered a tract in Indian Country between the Verdigris and Neosho Rivers, each individual to receive 320 acres.
October 11 - January 7; hoping to avoid conflict, John Bell leads 660 supporters of the Treaty of New Echota to Indian Country by a different route from the other Cherokee.
October 15; Mormon Apostle David Patten and a band of Danites raid and plunder Gallatin, Missouri.
October 18; the Rev. Thomas Johnson and Agent Cummins select a site for the manual labor school.
October 22; T. Hartley Crawford is appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, replacing Carey A. Harris.
October 23; Rontondee and 10 members of his faction petition President Van Buren for a separate removal treaty.
1838
October 24; the Battle of Crooked River. Apostle Patten and several other Mormons are killed, but the Missourians are driven back.
October 27; Missouri Governor Lillburn Boggs calls out the militia, ordering that Mormons be, "...exterminated or driven from the state."
October 30; a mob massacres 17 Mormons and wounds 15 others at Haun's Mill.
October 31; Joseph Smith and other Mormon leaders surrender to Missouri authorities. Only Alexander Doniphan's refusal to carry out the order keeps them from being summarily shot. Mormons give up arms, forfeit all property, and agree to leave the state.
In the fall, a second group of Munsee arrives on the Delaware Reserve. The total is about 138.
November 3; Rontondee's faction asks for permission to go to Washington for treaty negotiations.
November 14; the Gabriel Prudhomme estate of 257 acres at Westport Landing is sold for $4,220 to a hastily organized town company of 14 persons, including William Miles Chick, John C. McCoy, and William Sublette.
November 30; Joseph Smith and other Mormon leaders are jailed in Liberty, Missouri to await trial.
1839 - January 22; the Rev. Thomas Johnson writes to the Christian Advocate and Journal that work has begun on the manual labor school.
January 30; one John Thompson writes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Crawford from Columbus, Ohio, that, "...a respectable portion of the Wyandots want to move West" in the coming season. Their head man, chosen according to their old customs, is Warpole (Rontondee). The playing of Wyandot against Wyandot continues.
In February, the last Mormon refugees leave Missouri for Illinois. Far West is looted and abandoned.
March 24; the last Cherokee removal party, led by Peter Hildebrand, arrives in Indian Country. Of 15,000 Eastern Cherokee, the detention camps and forced marches have claimed the lives of 4,000 individuals.
1839
In April, Joseph Smith and his fellow prisoners are allowed to escape to Illinois. The Mormons establish a new center at Nauvoo, Illinois, on the Mississippi, which grows into a prosperous city.
That same month, William H. Hunter, no longer a congressman, is reappointed special commissioner to effect Wyandot removal. Swayne is not reappointed.
May 6; Special Commissioner Hunter makes a presentation on the removal question to a Wyandot National Convention.
Westport Landing is platted as the Town of Kansas by John C. McCoy, and nine town lots are sold in May, but litigation over the Prudhomme estate holds up development for 8 years.
John M. Armstrong is admitted to the Ohio Bar.
May 28; Special Commissioner Hunter informs Commissioner of Indian Affairs Crawford that he has reached an agreement with the Wyandot Tribal Council to send a third inspection party to Indian Country.
June 8; Commissioner Crawford approves the Wyandot inspection party, and instructs Hunter to accompany them.
June 10; confident of authorization, the third Wyandot inspection party - John Sarrahess, Summunduwot, Tall Charles, and Matthew R. Walker, led by Henry Jacquis - leaves Upper Sandusky. (Walker keeps a journal of the trip.) Traveling by steamboat, they go up the Arkansas River to Fort Gibson, where they visit the Cherokee and Seneca reserves. They are alarmed by the fighting between Cherokee factions - the Ridges and Boudinot will pay with their lives for having signed the removal treaty - and unimpressed by Oklahoma.
June 13; death of Daniel Morgan Boone at the age of 69, on his farm near the present 63rd Street and the Paseo, Kansas City, Missouri.
In mid June, Special Commissioner Hunter follows after the Wyandot inspection party, but never catches up with them.
July 25; the third Wyandot inspection party arrives in Westport after travelling overland from Oklahoma. The party is favorably impressed by Kansas.
1839
In September, Rontondee again travels to Washington, D.C. to promote Wyandot removal, accompanied by Joseph McCutcheon.
October 22; the Rev. Thomas Johnson moves his family to the site of the new manual labor school.
October 29; the West Building of the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School is opened with the Rev. Thomas Johnson as superintendent (north wing still standing).
November 7; in response to the third party's report, a fourth Wyandot inspection party led by Francis A. Hicks arrives in Westport. Special Commissioner Hunter, accompanied by Joel Walker, soon joins them.
December 18; a draft treaty is concluded by Hunter with the Shawnee for the Wyandots to purchase 58,000 acres at $1.50 per acre. It is contingent on the approval of the Wyandots and the U.S. Senate.
1840 - The Census of 1840 establishes that Ohio is already the third most populous state in the Union.
January 8; the fourth Wyandot inspection party returns to Upper Sandusky.
February 10; Queen Victoria of Great Britain marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
By February, 60 Indian children are enrolled at the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School.
June 8; the Senate rejects the Wyandot-Shawnee treaty. His efforts for naught, William H. Hunter resigns as special commissioner for the Wyandots.
July 3; a newly erected hewed-log meeting house is dedicated at the Delaware Methodist Mission by the Rev. Thomas Johnson, near the present 2200 North 85th Street in Kansas City, Kansas. A cemetery is soon established to the west of the church.
July 23; Parliament approves the Act of Union rejoining Lower and Upper Canada, now renamed Canada East and Canada West (present Quebec and Ontario).
Father Nicholas Point of St. Francis Regis Church draws up a "Plan de Westport" (actually the Town of Kansas) showing the homes and farms of 26 French families along the riverfront, on Quality Hill, and on arpent strips along either side of Turkey Creek in the west bottoms.
1840
Sam Houston is married for a third time, to the much younger Margaret Lea of Alabama. The marriage is very happy, with 8 children born between 1843 and 1860.
November 3; William Henry Harrison is elected President.
November 16; John G. Pratt and his wife Olivia return to the Shawnee Baptist Mission after spending a year in the east because of Mrs. Pratt's health. They are accom-panied by teacher Abigail Ann Webster.
In the winter, the Rev. L. B. Stateler begins the building of a new Shawnee Methodist Mission church four miles west of the manual labor school. The town of Shawnee grows up around the new building, and the Shawnee Tribal Council eventually abandons the council house in favor of meeting at the church.
1841 - April 4; Harrison dies of pneumonia after becoming chilled at his inauguration, at the age of 68. John Tyler succeeds to the Presidency.
Also in April, a new printing office is under construction at the Shawnee Baptist Mission.
That same month, former Indian Agent John Johnston is appointed Wyandot Special Commissioner and empowered to negotiate a removal treaty.
In the spring and summer, John C. Fremont maps much of Iowa Territory. Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, impressed by his abilities, becomes his patron.
May 10; Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J., leaves Westport on a missionary tour of the west, accompanied by Father Point of St. Francis Regis Church. He remarks on the "college of the Methodists" in the Shawnee lands.
In May, Joseph Smith is kidnapped by Missouri sheriffs, but released on a writ of habeas corpus and the warrant quashed by Judge Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.
May 29; Agent Cummins reports that construction is underway on the East Building at the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School. It includes school and lodging rooms, a chapel and a boy's dormitory (still standing).
June 14; the first Canadian parliament opens in Kingston, Canada West.
July 17; birth of Lucius Bolles Pratt, son of John G. and Olivia Pratt, at the Shawnee Baptist Mission.
1841
August 14; end of the Second Seminole War is announced, although no peace treaty is ever signed.
In mid-August, the Delaware blacksmith shop at Secondine burns and nearly all the tools are destroyed.
September 21; the Rev. Thomas Johnson sends a report on the manual labor school to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis. There are 78 children from 12 tribes at the school, including 20 Shawnee, 22 Delaware, and 2 Wyandots, the latter presumably from those living with the mixed band of Seneca and Shawnee.
In October, a hunting party of sixteen Delaware and one Pottawatomi is attacked by a band of Sioux on a fork of Mink Creek in Iowa. Only the Pottawatomi escapes.
October 7; Santa Anna again becomes Provisional President of Mexico and virtual dictator.
October 19; John C. Fremont and Jessie Ann Benton, 17, are secretly married in a Catholic ceremony in Washington. This is against her father's wishes, but they soon reconcile.
Also in October, the Rev. Thomas Johnson is forced to give up his posts because of ill health and returns to the east. The Rev. Jerome C. Berryman is placed in charge of the manual labor school, and William Johnson is named superintendent of the district. The Rev. L. B. Stateler is returned as missionary to the Shawnee.
December 4; the murder of Summundowat, Wyandot chief and leader of the Christian party, together with two other members of his family, by white men in Williams County, Ohio. The murderers are taken but their indictments are dismissed. The Wyandots are deeply demoralized.
1842 - January 17; Indian Subagent W. P. Richardson reports that with a five man Delaware search party he reached the site of the October battle and found 14 Delaware slain and scalped, and the bodies of 28 dead Sioux.
February 4; birth of Silas W. Armstrong, son of Silas and Sarah P. Armstrong, in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.
February 9; death of Sarah Preston Armstrong at the age of 30.
March 12-14; the first quarterly conference of the Indian Mission District is held at the manual labor school.
1842
March 17; the Wyandots sign a treaty with Special Commissioner John Johnston, agreeing to give up the Wyandott (River Huron) Reserve of 4,996 acres in Michigan and the Grand Reserve of 109,144 acres in Ohio, and to move to Indian Country. A new reserve of 148,000 acres is to be established, but the specific location is not spelled out, the Wyandots still hoping to acquire the Shawnee lands negotiated for in 1839. They are to receive the full value of all existing improvements and an annuity of $17,500 in perpetuity, together with $500 annually for a school, $23,860 to pay debts, and $10,000 for relocation expenses. In addition, grants of one section each of any unclaimed Indian lands west of the Mississippi are made to 35 individuals - the so-called "Wyandot Floats."
April 5; Special Commissioner Johnston approves the request of the Wyandot Tribal Council that Charles Graham, their blacksmith for 11 years, be allowed to go with them to Kansas with no interruption in pay.
April 10; death of the Rev. William Johnson, "...a great loss to the Kansa." He is buried in the Shawnee mission cemetery, southeast of the manual labor school on the south side of the present Shawnee Mission Parkway.
That same month, Wyandot chiefs led by Head Chief Francis A. Hicks travel to Washington to press for treaty ratification. Joel Walker and John M. Armstrong act as legal advisors.
April 21; Charles Dickens, on his first visit to America, stays overnight at the Garrett Tavern in Upper Sandusky.
May 6; former governor Boggs of Missouri is wounded in an assassination attempt, which Joseph Smith is accused of instigating. (Years later, one of Smith's former bodyguards admits to the act.)
May 9; the Christian Indians still in Canada surrender to their brethren on the Delaware Reserve all claim to the annuity of $400 for lands in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, ceded to the U.S. They state that they lay no claim to any land the Munsee may receive in lieu of the annuity. Witnessed by Moravian missionary Jesse Vogler.
June 6-10; John C. Fremont's Rocky Mountain expedition is outfitted at Cyprien Chouteau's Shawnee trading post. They depart with Kit Carson as guide, accompanied by a son and grandnephew of Senator Benton.
1842
June 7; Col. Purdy McElvain, Wyandot Indian Subagent, is appointed to watch over and protect Wyandot lands until they can be sold. His work concluded, John Johnston resigns as Wyandot Special Commissioner.
Friend Thomas H. Stanley, accompanied by his wife Mary, arrives at the Shawnee Friends Mission to take over the superintendency.
August 9; the Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed, ending a long-standing boundary dispute between the U.S. and Canada.
August 17; the Senate ratifies the treaty for Wyandot removal.
That same day, the newly elected Wyandot Tribal Council signs amendments to the removal treaty.
The Military Road is finally completed connecting Fort Leavenworth, by way of the Grinter ferry, with newly- built Fort Scott and the military posts beyond.
The Delaware blacksmith shop is rebuilt at a cost of $140, plus $75 for tools.
September 12; Indian Agent Richard Cummins in his annual report to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs describes the Shawnee as an agricultural people, with fenced farms of 5 to 100 acres, comfortable cabins, barns, stables and other outbuildings, horses, cattle, hogs and fowl, and a wide variety of field and garden crops. (The largest such farm is that of Captain Joseph Parks, some 2,000 acres adjacent to the Missouri state line three miles southwest of Westport. He employs slaves despite the prohibition on their presence in Indian Country.)
October 17; Fremont's party arrives back in St. Louis.
In October, the Rev. Isaac McCoy moves from Westport to Louisville, Kentucky, to set up the headquarters for the American Indian Mission Association.
Also in October, Silas Armstrong marries for a second time, to Zelinda Hunter, 21-year-old daughter of James Bigtree, in Upper Sandusky.
November 4; Abraham Lincoln marries Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois.
December 1; following months of dissension, Dr. Johnston Lykins and his wife leave the Shawnee Baptist Mission.
1843
1843 - March 3; Wyandot Subagent McElvain reports that the Wyandots are busily preparing for emigration. The blacksmith shop has used up all the iron and steel supplied for 1842, and McElvain requests $400 to buy an additional supply.
Also in March, Michigan Wyandots arrive in Upper Sandusky to prepare for emigration.
Isaac Mundy and his wife Lucy establish residence at Secondine, where he is agency blacksmith and government paymaster for the Delaware.
May 10; reporter Matthew Field observes part of the Shawnee's traditional spring Bread Dance, a thanksgiving festival that is their most important religious holiday, and writes about it in a rather flip manner for the New Orleans Picayune.
May 18; Dr. Marcus Whitman arrives in Westport on a return trip to his mission in Oregon. He remains there and at the manual labor school for two weeks, waiting for an Oregon-bound train of settlers to assemble.
Also in May, Fremont's second expedition leaves Fort Leavenworth with Thomas Fitzpatrick as guide and a 12-pound howitzer donated by Kearny. They encamp near the manual labor school on May 28, departing the next day. Kit Carson joins the expedition on the Arkansas.
June 1; Dr. Whitman and his nephew, Perrin B. Whitman, depart the manual labor school to join the Oregon Emigrating Company, the first large wagon train of settlers to travel the Oregon Trail. They spend the first night on the trail with Fremont's party.
June 2; George I. Clark, Silas Armstrong, and their families (including Miss Jane Tilles, 16-year-old white ward of the Armstrongs), arrive in the Town of Kansas to prepare the way for the Wyandot emigrants. Armstrong opens a trading store in a rented building in Westport.
July 9; the first hired wagons arrive in Upper Sandusky.
July 11; the Wyandot Tribal Council requests that the Methodist Episcopal Church appoint trustees for the two acre lot containing the mission church and cemetery.
1843
July 12; the Wyandots leave Upper Sandusky. Esquire Grey-Eyes' farewell address. The emigrant roll lists 664, of whom 25 are from Michigan and 30 from Canada. Subagent McElvain reports the departure, and notes that the ill (some 10 families) will probably depart the following spring with the tribe's livestock and additional wagons. Methodist missionary the Rev. James Wheeler and his wife accompany the Wyandots despite the recent loss of a child, and Wheeler keeps an account of the journey.
Official Wyandot interpreter James Rankin Jr. remains behind in Upper Sandusky to close up the tribe's business affairs. Among others remaining behind are the families of George Garrett, Nancy McDonald, Jonathan Pointer, Joseph L. Tennery, Catherine Walker and her son John, Samuel Wells, George Wright, and Isaac Zane Jr.
July 19; the Wyandots arrive in Cincinnati.
July 21; the Wyandot emigrants leave Cincinnati aboard the steamboats Nodaway and Republic. As they pass by Harrison's grave overlooking the Ohio River, they fire a volley in salute. Matthew Walker and a group of young men take the horses west by land.
July 24; the Wyandots arrive at St. Louis.
July 28-31; the Wyandots arrive at the Town of Kansas, one boat 3 days behind the other and captained by an abusive bigot. They initially locate on a strip of U.S. government land between the Missouri state line and the Kansas River that is not part of any reservation. Some are able to rent houses in Westport, but most are forced to remain camped in the swampy bottom lands.
August 8; Agent Cummins writes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Crawford of the Wyandots' arrival in Kansas. They desperately need the $5,000 balance due on their relocation payment.
August 14; D. D. Mitchell, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, writes to Crawford from Fort Leavenworth of the Wyandot encampment at the mouth of the Kaw. He requests a copy of the Wyandot treaty, and notes that they still intend to buy land from the Shawnee.
1843
The Shawnee refuse to go through with the hoped-for sale of land to the Wyandots. The first burials begin in the Huron Indian Cemetery; eventually 60 will die from disease and exposure. Soon, negotiations begin with the Delaware for purchase of the east end of the Delaware Reserve.
September 7; Wyandot Subagent McElvain writes to Crawford from Ohio that he is concerned about the Wyandot lands and improvements to be sold. He has already filed suit in U.S. court against timber thieves.
October 1; Agent Cummins reports that the Shawnee are gradually increasing in their agricultural efforts, and the two Shawnee blacksmiths cannot keep up with the demand in making and repairing farm implements. Construction is completed on a steam-powered mill at the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School.
October 4; the Rev. Jerome C. Berryman is reappointed superintendent of the manual labor school, and the Rev. L. B. Stateler returned as missionary to the Shawnee.
Also in October, the Wyandots establish a ferry across the Kansas River at the site of the present Lewis and Clark Viaduct, and begin to relocate to the Delaware Reserve.
October 24th; the Methodist Episcopal Church appoints trustees for the former Wyandot Methodist Mission church and cemetery in Upper Sandusky.
That same day, Jonathan Philips is appointed Wyandot Indian Subagent, replacing Col. Purdy McElvain.
November 2; Subagent Jonathan Philips leaves Columbus, Ohio for Kansas. Residing in Westport, he is blatantly hostile to the Wyandots and their council.
November 17; death of Rontondee, or Warpole, onetime Head Chief of the Wyandot Nation and principal advocate of Wyandot removal, at the age of 68. He is buried in the Huron Indian Cemetery.
November 19; John G. Pratt is ordained as a Baptist minister.
The Rev. James Wheeler and his wife return to Ohio from Kansas with the first snow fall.
1843
December 10; John and Lucy Armstrong move into the first Wyandot cabin to be completed, near the present 5th Street and Freeman Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas.
December 14; a treaty between the Wyandots and the Delaware is signed. The Wyandott Purchase consists of 3 sections of land at the eastern tip of the Delaware Reserve, granted by the Delaware as a measure of respect and in remembrance of when the Wyandots gave the Delaware a home in Ohio, and 36 additional sections ceded for $46,080 (or $2 per acre). The money is to be paid in eleven installments - $6,080 in 1844, then $4,000 a year for ten years. The boundary between the Purchase and the Reserve is the present 72nd Street.
The only 2 existing houses in the Wyandott Purchase are bought by James Bigtree and James Williams. Mrs. Catherine Long and her family move into a cabin on the north side of Jersey Creek on December 17th. John W. Greyeyes builds a log house on the west side of the present 3rd Street, that later becomes part of the home of Joel Walker, and his uncle Doctor Grey-Eyes builds his cabin on the opposite side of the road. Robert Robitaille builds on the same side of the road near the present 3rd and Nebraska. Francis and Matilda Driver, Sarrahess, Tall Charles and Charles Splitlog all build on Splitlog's Hill near the ferry. On the high ground southwest of the present 4th and State, Head Chief Henry Jacquis builds a house which he sells to the Nation for the Jailer's house, and the tribal jail is built nearby. Jacquis then builds a second house on the southeast corner of the future intersection. The Wyandots' "company store," managed by Joel Walker, is moved from Westport to a long building of two rooms erected on the west side of the present 3rd Street between State and Minnesota.
December 19; Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is first published.
1844 - In February, Esquire Grey-Eyes asks for assistance in building a church although his own house has yet to be built. A log structure called the Church in the Wilderness is begun near the present 22nd Street and Washington Boulevard, Kansas City, Kansas.
February 20; the improvements on the Wyandott and Grand Reserves are appraised at $127,094.24, but the govern-ment has only budgeted $20,000. How could Indians have so much property?
1844
February 22; death of Sarah Zane Armstrong, widow of Robert Armstrong, in Bellefontaine, Ohio, at the age of 60.
February 28; the Delaware Methodist Mission school is closed, the chiefs agreeing to use the tribal school fund to send their children to the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School.
March 11; Subagent Philips hires Samuel Ellis to build the Wyandot blacksmith shop at a cost of $197.50, at the northwest corner of the present 3rd and Nebraska. The location is chosen by blacksmith Charles Graham, who builds his own house nearby.
March 12; Head Chief Henry Jacquis writes to John Caldwell, special disbursing agent for the Wyandots still in Ohio, that the Wyandot Tribal Council has authorized Joel Walker to conduct the remaining Wyandots west, and asks that he be paid $700 for expenses.
March 23; the U.S. Treasury asks for a new appraisal of the Wyandot improvements. New appraisers are appointed on the 29th.
The Wyandot Tribal Council authorizes John M. Armstrong to contract with a carpenter from Liberty, Missouri to build a tribal schoolhouse, on the east side of the present 4th Street between State and Nebraska Avenues.
Abelard Guthrie marries Nancy Brown at the home of George I. Clark, having followed her to Kansas from Ohio where he was registrar of the U.S. land office at Upper Sandusky. The match is strongly opposed by her father, Adam Brown Jr.
Hiram M. Northrup, 25, arrives in the Town of Kansas, where he enters into a partnership for trading with the Comanche Indians. When that venture ends in near disaster, he forms a new partnership in Westport with Indian trader E. P. Hart.
April 22; Commissioner of Indian Affairs Crawford approves the agreement between the Delaware and the manual labor school, as does the Secretary of War.
Although unfinished, the first services are held in the Wyandots' new Church in the Wilderness in late April.
Also in April, a new church is under construction at the Munsee United Brethren (Moravian) Mission.
1844
May 1; at the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church held in New York City, resolutions are adopted providing for the separation of the pro-slavery southern churches from the parent church.
May 11; the Ohio Shawnee in Kansas are formally deeded title to their portion of the reserve, as provided for in the treaty of 1831.
May 12; James Rankin Jr. writes to the Secretary of War from Upper Sandusky expressing his opposition to the Wyandott Purchase, which he does not believe is in the tribe's best interest.
In May, William Walker Jr. moves into the finished half of the double log house he is building on the north side of Jersey Creek (which he names), near the present 6th and Parallel Parkway.
May 24; America's first telegraph line is formally opened between Washington and Baltimore: "What hath God wrought!"
Toward the end of May, the Rev. James Wheeler and his wife return to the Wyandott Purchase from Ohio.
June 1; Dr. Johnston Lykins is appointed Physician for the Pottawatomies at the Osage River Subagency.
June 2; the first Quarterly Conference is held at the Church in the Wilderness.
June 3; the Indian Mission Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church is established. Its boundaries are the Missouri River on the north, the states of Missouri and Arkansas on the east, the Red River on the south, and the Rocky Mountains on the west. The Rev. Jerome C. Berryman is appointed Superintendent of Indian Missions and the Rev. Edward T. Peery takes his place at the manual labor school.
June 12 and 26; the Wyandot Tribal Council discusses how to get the 148,000 acres promised by the government. They select a location on the Great Osage River which the government subsequently rejects, as it has already been allotted to the Miami and New York Indians. There is fear of the Wyandott Purchase not being recognized.
June 13; death of Pierre Menard at his home in Kaskaskia, Illinois, at the age of 77.
1844
After a dry spring in Kansas, there are six weeks of rain in May and June. The great Kansas River flood.
June 14; the flood crests on the lower Kansas, the water rising 8 to 10 feet in the west bottoms in a period of 12 hours. Anderson's Town is destroyed by the flood and abandoned, as is the Delaware mill on Mill Creek and the Grinters' cabin. The Chouteaus' warehouses, residence and farm on the Missouri near the Town of Kansas are again destroyed, and the French farms and a house occupied by William Miles Chick in the west bottoms are wiped out. One of Chick's daughters, Mary Jane, widow of William Johnson, barely escapes on horseback. Turkey Creek is altered in its course.
June 15; David Frohman, Russell B. Garrett, Ethan A. Long, Tall Charles and Isaiah Walker use the Wyandots' ferry boat to save people and property in the west bottoms.
A large steamboat goes up the flooded Kansas as far as the Grinter ferry, delivering lumber for the use of traders.
In the aftermath of the rains and flooding, there is more sickness among the Wyandots; by November the death toll will be over 100 since their arrival in Kansas.
June 24; President Tyler issues a proclamation for the sale of Wyandot lands in Michigan and Ohio, at a rate of $2.00 per acre for the former and $2.50 per acre for the latter.
June 27; Joseph Smith, being held without trial on a charge of treason in Carthage, Illinois, is taken from his cell and murdered by his jailers, along with his brother Hyram.
July 1; the Wyandot tribal schoolhouse opens with John M. Armstrong as teacher.
Madame Berenice Chouteau builds a new home (her third) at the corner of the present Third and Grand Streets in the Town of Kansas, where she will reside until her death on November 19, 1888.
A large band of Sioux and Cheyenne attack and kill 15 members of a Delaware hunting party, including Captain Suwaunock, on the Smoky Hill River. Meeting Fremont on July 5 on the upper Arkansas, they ask him to, "...bear a pacific message to the Delawares."
1844
Also in July, a frame house for Rev. and Mrs. Wheeler is completed on the north side of Jersey Creek near the home of William Walker Jr.
The log church of the Delaware Methodist Mission burns, and is replaced with a white-painted, wood-frame building on the same site, called the White Church thereafter. Wyandots sometimes ride out for camp meetings and Sunday picnics.
August 8; Brigham Young assumes leadership of the Mormon Church.
Fremont returns to St. Louis in August, having explored and mapped much of the west (including a dangerous crossing into California).
September 15; special dispursing agent Caldwell pays Joel Walker only $350 for the removal expenses of the remaining Wyandots, despite the council's authorization.
September 19; Calvin Perkins is appointed as one of two agency blacksmiths for the Shawnee, replacing James M. Simpson.
September 21; Agent Cummins reports that the crops of the Shawnee are very poor because of the rains and flooding, with livestock lost and some low-lying farms completely destroyed.
September 24; death of Delilah McCoy Lykins at the Pottawatomi Baptist Mission, at the age of 35.
October 3; the Rev. J. Thompson Peery marries Mary Jane Chick Johnson, widow of the Rev. William Johnson, in Westport.
October 15; the Wyandot Tribal Council petitions for the removal of Jonathan Philips as subagent.
October 23; the Indian Mission Conference convenes its first session at Ryan's Chapel near Tahlequah, capital of the Cherokee Nation. It consists of 27 members, about one fourth of them Indians.
October 24; a "hurricane" (tornado) strikes the Shawnee Methodist Mission and the manual labor school, doing considerable damage. There is damage in Westport as well, with one girl killed and John C. McCoy's house destroyed. Ten persons are killed near Independence.
November 5; James K. Polk is elected President.
1844
In December, death of Squeendechtee, member of the Wyandot Tribal Council, at the age of 61.
December 16; death of Catherine Rankin Walker, widow of William Walker Sr., in Upper Sandusky at the age of 73.
December 26; a Lyceum (debating society) is organized in Wyandott and James Washington elected president.
1845 - January 6; Superintendent Thomas H. Harvey from St. Louis takes depositions on the charges against Jonathan Philips at a residence in Westport. William Walker Jr. acts as interrogator.
January 8; the hearing concerning Philips reconvenes in Wyandott at the council house. Harvey subsequently reports to Commissioner Crawford that many of the charges are justified, that Philips is clearly hostile toward the Wyandots and that he hasn't even visited the Wyandott Purchase since September.
In January, the government distributes corn to the tribes whose crops were destroyed in the great flood of the previous summer: 342 bushels to the Delaware, 178 bushels to the Munsee, and 480 bushels to the Shawnee.
That same month, Mexican dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna is overthrown and banished, but the new consti-tutional president is soon replaced by another military strong man.
January 29; Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" is first published.
Death of the Rev. J. Christopher Micksch, devoted Moravian missionary to the Munsees.
March 3; Florida is admitted to the Union as the 27th state.
March 6; Mexico protests the proposed U.S. annexation of Texas (whose independence Mexico has never recognized), refuses to deal with an insulting American emissary, and severs diplomatic relations shortly thereafter. Thomas Hart Benton, champion of Manifest Destiny, nevertheless initially supports Mexico's position, and Sam Houston expresses reservations on annexation.
March 29; William Walker Jr. begins to keep a daily journal of his life in Kansas: "Caught Samuel Medary and put him up in a coop to fatten (not on Quassi Quires) to be cooked for dinner on Harriet's birthday."
1845
In April, Jonathan Philips is dismissed as Wyandot Indian Subagent. He protests, but his dismissal is upheld following a hearing in St. Louis.
Captain Joseph Parks and his wife Catherine build a substantial two-story brick house on the crest of a hill near the present 51st Street and State Line Road, Mission Woods, Kansas (demolished 1905).
May 1; the split in the Methodist church over slavery becomes complete as the Methodist Episcopal Church South is organized at a convention in Louisville. The Indian Mission Conference is allotted to the new church.
May 18; Col. Stephen Watts Kearny leaves Fort Leavenworth with 280 men of the 1st U.S. Dragoons on a 2,200 mile, 99 day march over the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails.
Quakers have subscribed so generously to Indian flood relief that there are excess funds, used to erect a new main building at the Shawnee Friends Mission. The three-story, 24 by 70 foot structure includes a kitchen, dining room, dormitories, classrooms, and quarters for the superintendent's family (demolished 1917).
June 7; the new Wyandot Indian Subagent, Dr. Richard Hewitt, arrives with his wife Hannah at the Wyandott Purchase. They occupy Henry Jacquis' house at the present 4th Street and State Avenue, which becomes the U.S. Indian Agency.
June 8; death of former President Andrew Jackson at the age of 78.
June 9; John C. Fremont arrives in the Town of Kansas.
June 14; Kearny's command reaches Fort Laramie.
June 23; Fremont's third expedition, to California, sets out from Westport. Twelve Delaware commanded by Isaac Journeycake go along as scouts, and serve as soldiers with Fremont in California during the Mexican War. The party includes James Connor, James Suwaunock, and Charley and James Secondine.
In the summer, the Delaware build a new saw and grist mill with their own funds on Stranger Creek in the present Leavenworth County.
1845
Christian Indians on the Delaware Reserve number 208. These include both Munsee and Moravian Delaware from Canada, descendants of survivors of the Gnadenhutten massacre. Some settle near Fort Leavenworth.
July 29; Kearny's dragoons camp near Bent's Fort on the upper Arkansas.
August 2; Fremont's expedition arrives at Bent's Fort, and remains for two weeks for outfitting and re-organization.
Also in August, the death of Doctor Grey-Eyes, brother of Esquire Grey-Eyes and lately member of the Wyandot Tribal Council, at the age of 50.
August 24; Kearny's party returns to Fort Leavenworth.
September 14; faced with increasing violence, the Mormons agree to leave Illinois the next spring.
In September, payments begin to the Wyandots for improvements sold in Ohio. Most refuse to accept the payments, as the government's new appraisal is for only $66,941.00, little more than half the first amount, and was made after the Wyandots had left and properties had begun to deteriorate or been vandalised.
September 15; Cummins' annual report to the Superin-tendent of Indian Affairs states that the North Building is under construction at the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School. It includes a girls' school and dormitory as well as quarters for the superintendent's family (still standing). There are 137 students in attendance.
September 16; James Rankin Jr. writes to President Polk from Upper Sandusky, protesting the reappraisal of the Ohio improvements. He notes that some 200 Wyandots have died in the two years since removal, and many are destitute.
October 12; Texas approves a proposed state constitution.
That same day, the second annual session of the Indian Mission Conference is convened at the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School. The Rev. Jerome C. Berryman is continued as Superintendent of Indian Missions and is also placed back in charge of the manual labor school.
October 28; William Medill is appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, replacing T. Hartley Crawford.
1845
In November, feeling that they are being cheated in the matter of the Ohio appraisals, the Wyandot Tribal Council sends James Washington, Henry Jacquis, John W. Greyeyes and John M. Armstrong to Washington.
November 10; Ira Hunter is appointed assistant black-smith for the Wyandot agency.
November 16; death of John Perry, Head Chief of the Shawnee Nation.
November 27; Margaret Clark, daughter of the late Thomas G. Clark, and Hiram M. Northrup are married at the home of Rev. Wheeler in Wyandott. Northrup's business partner E. P. Hart has sold his interest in the firm to Pierre M. Chouteau. The company trades with most of the emigrant tribes, with sales eventually reaching $300,000 annually.
December 9; Fremont reaches Sutter's Fort in California.
December 29; the Republic of Texas is annexed to the United States by mutual agreement, and is admitted to the Union as the 28th state. Mexico regards this as a hostile act.
1846 - January 13; President Polk orders General Zachary Taylor to the east bank of the Rio Grande. Mexico insists that the boundary is the Nueces, 100 miles to the east.
January 14; the Kansa cede an additional 2 million acres to the U.S. government.
February 4; the first Mormon refugees leave Nauvoo and cross the Mississippi into Iowa.
February 11; Wyandot Head Chief James Washington requests that the government pay Joel Walker the $350 in removal expenses still owed from 2 years before.
February 12; a Wyandot National Convention is called to discuss the matter of Wyandot claims. A committee is appointed to draft a memorial to Senator Thomas Hart Benton.
February 13; James B. Franklin replaces Isaac Mundy as Delaware blacksmith.
March 7; Dr. Hewitt leaves Wyandott for Washington, D.C.
March 15; William W. Garrett and Mary Ann Long are married at the home of Rev. Wheeler in Wyandott.
1846
Also in March, Sam Houston takes his seat as Senator from the new state of Texas, a position he will hold for nearly 14 years. Mellowed by age, he remains passionate in defense of the Union and the rights of the Indians.
Fremont, ordered out of California by Mexican authorities, is overtaken by a dispatch from President Polk at Klamath Lake in Oregon. He turns south.
In addition to military forces on the move, this spring sees the largest mercantile caravan ever on the Santa Fe Trail, 400 wagons carrying $1,700,000 in goods; 2700 westward bound emigrants, 1500 for California and 1200 for Oregon; and 15,000 Mormons leaving Nauvoo, Illinois on the first leg of their trek to the Great Salt Lake.
April 17; the Wyandot Tribal Council grants full power of attorney to Henry Jacquis and John M. Armstrong for their negotiations in Washington. They again request the $350 still due as the balance of the removal fund.
April 21; George Armstrong is granted a divorce from Elizabeth Mononcue by the Wyandot Tribal Council. Mononcue's daughter reportedly has a most un-Christian temper.
April 24; Mexican troops cross the Rio Grande and clash with an American scouting party.
April 30; the Town of Kansas is replatted by John C. McCoy and a lot sale is held. Among the buyers are Isaac W. Zane and Hiram M. Northrup.
May 5; the Rev. James Wheeler and his wife sadly depart from the Wyandott Purchase aboard the steamboat Radnor to return to Ohio.
That same day, the Wyandot Tribal Council grants a divorce to William Clark from his wife Harriet.
May 7; Noah E. Zane and Ethan A. Long arrive back at the Wyandott Purchase from Ohio.
May 8; the Battle of Palo Alto. The Mexican War begins as General Taylor's troops defeat Mexican forces in the disputed area of Texas.
1846
May 9; the Battle of Resaca de la Palma. With Taylor's second victory, Mexican forces retreat south across the Rio Grande.
That same day, the Rev. Edward T. Peery, representing the Indian Mission Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, moves his family into the Wyandot Methodist parsonage. He has previously served at both the Delaware mission and the manual labor school.
May 9-11; Francis Parkman crosses the Shawnee and Delaware Reserves on his journey along the Oregon Trail, and describes them in his famous book (1849).
May 13; Congress accepts that a state of war exists with Mexico. Abraham Lincoln, now a Congressman from Illinois, speaks out against the injustice of the war (ending any chance of reelection), and Henry David Thoreau goes to jail for refusing to pay a war tax.
May 14; the Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs is unsure of Wyandot loyalties and forbids their joining U.S. military forces. He is ignored.
That same day, Dr. Hewitt returns to Wyandott from Washington, D.C.
May 18; General Taylor captures Matamoros on the south bank of the Rio Grande without bloodshed.
June 2; the Wyandot Tribal Council authorizes a National Convention to consider alterations in the form of tribal government.
June 4; the Wyandot Tribal Council unanimously adopts and sends a letter of full support to John M. Armstrong in Washington. He is authorized to inform the govern-ment that no attention is to be paid to communications from persons acting on their own responsibility, "...particularly from James Rankin."
June 9; 210 Senecas land in Wyandott, on their way from New York to southeastern Kansas.
In June, Col. Stephen Watts Kearny with regular dragoons and a swarm of Missouri volunteers under Alexander Doniphan heads toward Santa Fe from Fort Leavenworth. In addition to the Delaware with Fremont, 30 Delaware and Isaiah Walker join Doniphan's volunteers. Dispatch riders order Santa Fe freighters to wait at Bent's Fort, which most do.
1846
June 14; a handful of rebellious American settlers in Sonoma proclaim the Republic of California. They have little popular support but are backed by Fremont.
June 15; President Polk signs the Oregon Treaty, peace-fully dividing the Oregon country between the United States and Great Britain and ending joint occupation. Mexican hopes for a powerful British ally vanish.
June 21; death of the Rev. Isaac McCoy in Louisville, Kentucky at the age of 62.
June 29; Taylor is made major general for his "zealous and distinguished services."
In July, Kearny's troops catch up with the Santa Fe freighters at Bent's Fort.
July 7; Commodore John Sloat's naval squadron captures the California capital of Monterey. U.S. annexation of California is proclaimed.
July 9; the Wyandots adopt a new tribal constitution, reducing the number of council members from 7 to 5.
July 15; nominations are made for the Wyandots' new 5 member council.
July 20; the Mormon Battalion leaves Nauvoo for Fort Leavenworth.
July 28; death of Sarah C. Berryman, wife of the Rev. Jerome C. Berryman, at the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School.
By July, James Rankin Jr. has arrived in Kansas from Ohio.
Also in July, William Patton is appointed superintendent of the manual labor school, replacing Jerome C. Berryman who remains superintendent of the district.
August 4; the Wyandot Tribal Council grants a divorce to Margaret Hill from her husband Russell B. Hill. They also appoint Sarrahess, Tauromee and George Armstrong to a deputation to the Seneca now in Indian Country.
In August, Santa Anna is recalled to Mexico. President Polk, deceived as to his intentions, allows him to pass through the American blockade.
1846
Also in August, the advance party of Mormon emigrants establishes the camp called Winter Quarters near the present Omaha, Nebraska.
August 10; Congress charters the Smithsonian Institution.
August 13; Fremont and Stockton capture Los Angeles.
August 15; the Wyandots' annual Green Corn Feast is held in Wyandott.
August 18; Kearny enters Santa Fe, the Mexican governor having graciously yielded after a token resistance.
August 27; Francis A. Hicks writes to Superintendent Harvey that contrary to some reports, the Wyandots are not dissatisfied with Dr. Hewitt as subagent.
August 31; Commissioner of Indian Affairs Medill finally accedes to the Wyandot delegation, accepts the first appraisal for the Ohio improvements.
September 17; Santa Anna is given command of Mexico's army.
That same day, the last Mormons are driven from Nauvoo after a three-day battle with an Illinois mob. Mormon houses and businesses are looted and burned; the Temple is desecrated and then destroyed.
September 22; Kearny appoints Charles Bent governor of New Mexico.
September 24; Taylor enters Monterrey after a fiercely resisted siege of 4 days.
September 25; the Army of the West splits. Doniphan's volunteers march into Chihuahua. Kearny with 300 dragoons proceeds under orders to secure California.
September 26; Francis Parkman's party returns to Westport.
October 2; Cyprien Chouteau's trading license is renewed for his two posts on the Shawnee and Delaware Reserves.
October 5; Isaac Zane Jr. complains to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Medill that, for reasons unknown, the government agent who paid him for his Ohio improvements retained a five percent commission.
1846
Also in October, George Wright and his family, together with his mother Elizabeth Wright and other family members, arrive in Wyandott from Ohio.
Kearny encounters Kit Carson and 15 men, including 6 Delaware, hurrying dispatches from Fremont to Senator Benton announcing the conquest of California.
The 500 volunteers of the Mormon Battalion follow after Kearny, and find the path that will become the southern route for a Pacific railroad.
November 4; Charles B. Garrett attempts to claim Council Grove on the Santa Fe Trail as his Wyandot Float.
November 11; Isaac Zane Jr. gets his money. The government agent at Upper Sandusky protests that it was all a misunderstanding.
November 12; the third annual session of the Indian Mission Conference again convenes in Tahlequah. The Rev. Jerome C. Berryman is continued as Superintendent of Indian Missions and the Rev. William Patton returned to the Manual Labor School. A subsequent report notes that there are 928 members of the Shawnee Nation on the Reserve, of whom 53 are Methodist church members.
In December, General Santa Anna again becomes Provisional President of Mexico and again assumes dictatorial powers.
December 6; the Battle of San Pasqual. Kearny's dragoons suffer a minor defeat, but are still able to link up with Stockton at San Diego.
December 18; death of Sarrahess in Wyandott at the age of 60.
December 20; the Wyandot and Delaware Tribal Councils agree to allow the government to become party to the Wyandott Purchase treaty.
December 22; Abelard Guthrie writes a long letter to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Medill complaining about the corruption of the Indian annuity system, the problems faced by white men who choose to live among the Indians, and the alleged anti-American, pro-British attitudes of some Michigan and Canadian Wyandots now in Kansas (presumably including his father-in-law).
1846
Also in December, a new Delaware Baptist Mission church is completed near the new Delaware village, 4 or 5 miles northwest of the abandoned Anderson's Town.
December 24; George Armstrong and Hannah Charloe Barnett, widow of John Barnett, are married at the home of William Walker Jr. in Wyandott.
December 28; Iowa is admitted to the Union as the 29th state.
In one of the harshest winters on record, the Donner party comes to its tragic end in the passes of the Sierra Nevada.
1847 - January 1; William Walker Jr. purchases a 32-year-old black slave named Dorcas in Harrisonville, Missouri for the sum of $350. Bringing her home to Wyandott outrages many and is technically contrary to law.
January 8; the Battle of San Gabriel. Kearny and Stockton defeat the Californios, in revolt against the American occupation of southern California.
January 13; the Californio insurgents surrender to Fremont at Cahuenga.
January 24; death of Francis Driver in Wyandott at the age of 45.
February 23; the Battle of Buena Vista. Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor's 5,000 troops (and superior artillery) defeat a Mexican army of nearly 20,000 led by General Santa Anna. Santa Anna retreats south but President Polk, jealous of Taylor's popularity, orders Taylor to remain in Monterrey with his army.
February 25; the Battle of Sacramento. Doniphan's volunteers defeat a superior Mexican force near Chihuahua, then continue their victorious march through northern Mexico to the mouth of the Rio Grande, where they will take ship for home.
March 3; in response to concerns about the obvious decline in the numbers and conditions of the various Indian tribes and nations, Congress authorizes an extensive study to be carried out under the auspices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, including a census of the Indian Tribes of the United States with 172 separate categories of statistics. Directed by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the study is largely completed by 1850 and published in six volumes between 1853 and 1857.
1847
The Wyandots number 687, of whom 575 reside on the Wyandott Purchase. Ninety-three Wyandots are literate, and 77 are considered to be educated, while 240 are church members. Nine individuals are of African descent, but the census makes no distinction between slave and free. Despite their hardships, the tribe is relatively wealthy for its size, with $2,500 worth of public buildings, 1,044 acres under cultivation, over 2,600 fruit trees, 351 horses, 60 oxen, 200 milch cows, 326 head of cattle, over 2,300 hogs, $4,600 in agri-cultural implements, and an agricultural output with an estimated value for 1847 of $45,600. In addition, members of the tribe have invested $8,000 in trade for the year. The Wyandots' cash annuity (payable only to those residing on the Wyandott Purchase) is $17,500, or $29.25 per individual, with $500 set apart for the school fund (and three schools in operation).
The Shawnee on the reserve number 886, of whom 63 are educated or at least literate. Twelve individuals are of African descent, including the slaves owned by Captain Joseph Parks. The Shawnee have 2,965.5 acres under cultivation, 1,348 horses, 461 oxen, 492 milch cows, 1,048 head of cattle, over 3,500 hogs, $4,500 in agricultural implements, an agricultural output with an estimated value for 1847 of $32,386, and $5,500 invested in trade for the year. Their public improvement list is impressive, with 1 council house, 3 mission houses, 3 schoolhouses, 2 churches, 1 saw mill, 1 grist mill, and 3 public ferries. The Shawnee annuity is currently $4,500.
(One of the 3 Shawnee ferries noted is the Tooley ferry on the Kansas River, a mile upstream from Grinter's. Much used during the Mexican War, it will remain in operation until about 1860.)
The Senecas of Sandusky, now on the Neosho River in the present Oklahoma, and the nearby mixed band of Seneca and Shawnee are both small groups, numbering 158 and 273 respectively. (No mention is made of the Wyandots with the mixed band.) They subsist by farming, primarily gardens, orchards and livestock, and receive small cash annuities, $1,250 for the Seneca and $1,685 for the mixed band. Surprisingly, the Seneca have $4,000 worth of public buildings, including a saw mill, a grist mill and a council house.
1847
The Delaware now in Kansas number 903, of whom 65 are educated or literate. There are no persons of African descent among them, but there are 186 non-Delaware Indians on the reserve (presumably the Munsee, who have no separate listing). They are less agricultural than the Wyandots or Shawnee, with 1,582 acres under culti-vation, 1,480 horses, 158 oxen, 376 milch cows, 807 head of cattle, over 2,600 hogs, and a surprising $7,675.50 in agricultural implements, but an annual value of agricultural production of only $18,311.50. However, there are 19 heads of family engaged in hunting, with 3,558 skins taken in 1847 at a value of $1,709.20, and a full $11,000 invested in trade. Their public improve-ments include 2 mission houses, 1 schoolhouse, 2 churches, 1 saw mill, 1 grist mill, and 1 ferry, with a value of $2,500 (but no council house is listed). The Delaware annuity is $6,500, or $7.19 per capita.
March 11; a Wyandot National Convention enacts new laws and appoints Silas Armstrong and Matthew R. Walker as Boundary Commissioners for the Wyandott Purchase, with John Gibson and John W. Greyeyes as Supervisors.
That same day, death of Johnny Appleseed in Allen County, Indiana, at the age of 71.
March 27; Gen. Winfield Scott captures the fortress of San Juan de Ulua at Vera Cruz.
April 7; death of William Miles Chick, "first citizen" of the Town of Kansas, at the age of 53.
April 8; Scott's army advances into the interior of Mexico.
April 18; the Battle of Cerro Gordo.
May 5; the Wyandot Tribal Council grants a divorce to Sarah "Sally" Wright from her husband Charles Rice.
May 13; in a meeting held at the Delaware Council House, the Delaware, Kickapoo, Shawnee and Wyandots enter into a peace treaty with the Pawnee.
May 14; Wyandot volunteers led by Joel Walker, including Abelard Guthrie, leave Wyandott aboard the steamboat Amelia for New Orleans, Vera Cruz and Scott's army.
May 15; Scott captures Puebla.
May 24; Francis A. Hicks marries Matilda Stephenson Driver, widow of Francis Driver, in Wyandott.
1847
May 26; Wyandot Subagent Hewitt removes Charles Graham from his post as agency blacksmith. William Walker Jr. is infuriated.
June 12; a Wyandot National Convention votes unanimously to protest Dr. Hewitt's removal of Graham. They also refuse to join the Pottawatomies and Winnebagos in war against the Sioux.
June 19; for the second time, Noah E. Zane and his family leave Wyandott to return to his father Isaac's home in Ohio. William Walker Jr. is delighted.
June 26; the Wyandot Tribal Council grants a divorce to Moses Peacock from his wife Mary, as she has run off to live with Young Jackson in the Seneca country.
That same day, Charles Graham is restored to his post as Wyandot agency blacksmith.
Also in June, Hester A. Zane and Lucy B. Armstrong's sister Martha Bigelow organize the first Wyandot Sunday School, held in John M. Armstrong's school building.
John and Lucy Armstrong's log house in Wyandott is replaced with a large frame residence in the same general location (demolished circa 1904).
July 6; death of William W. Garrett in Wyandott at the age of 25. Mary Ann Garrett is a widow at age 21.
July 9; death of Mary Graham, wife of Wyandot blacksmith Charles Graham. William Walker Jr. mourns the loss of a friend.
July 15; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council.
July 24; Mormon emigrants led by Brigham Young enter the Valley of the Great Salt Lake.
A Delaware named Tom Hill incites the Nez Perce and Cayuse Indians against the white settlers in the Oregon Country.
August 10; Scott's army comes in sight of Mexico City.
September 8; the Battle of Molino del Rey.
September 12-13; the Battle of Chapultepec.
September 14; Gen. Winfield Scott's American army of just 6,000 men enters Mexico City. Santa Anna flees.
1847
Fremont quarrels in California with Kearny, who finally has him returned under arrest to Fort Leavenworth.
October 4; William Walker Jr.'s wife Hannah leaves Wyandott for a visit to Ohio.
October 5-8; Dr. Hewitt pays out the Wyandot annuity, bypassing the council. On receipt, the individuals promptly turn the money over to the council in a rebuke of the government's interference.
October 9-19; the Wyandot Tribal Council redistributes the annuity.
October 14; Hester A. "Hetty" Zane marries Paschal Fish, chief of the Fish band of the Shawnee.
October 30; writing to The National Era in Washington, D.C., Richard Mendenhall of the Shawnee Friends Mission notes that contrary to law there are perhaps 20 slaves in the area, including those belonging to Captain Joseph Parks and a half dozen at the manual labor school.
November 1; a brick church to replace the Wyandots' Church in the Wilderness is completed near the present 10th and Walker on land donated by John Arms. It is built with money from the sale of the Ohio mission school and farm.
November 4; the fourth annual session of the Indian Mission Conference convenes at Doaksville in the Choctaw Nation. Jerome C. Berryman is transferred to the St. Louis Conference, ending his connection with the Indian missions. The Rev. Thomas Johnson returns to resume the superintendency of the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School, replacing William Patton. For some reason (perhaps because it is part of the Fort Leavenworth Agency), the name is changed to the Fort Leavenworth Indian Manual Training School.
November 8; relieved of his command, Taylor says farewell to his troops in Monterrey, leaving Gen. John Wool in charge.
November 20; Hannah Walker returns to Wyandott from Ohio.
November 27; the Wyandot Tribal Council revises the National Code.
1847
November 29; the Whitman Massacre. Oregon settlers appeal to the government for aid.
From November through January, Fremont is tried by court martial in Washington. He is convicted but the decision is highly unpopular and his penalty is remitted by President Polk. Fremont resigns from the Army.
December 8; a Wyandot National Convention is called to hear the new code of laws read and proclaimed.
December 26; liberal subscriptions are made by the Wyandots for finishing their new brick church.
December 28; David Young is elected Wyandot ferryman for 1848.
December 31; birth of Francis Theodore Peery, son of Wyandot missionary the Rev. Edward T. Peery and his wife Mary.
1848 - The Year of Revolution. Bourgeois, democratic revolutions break out throughout Europe, only to be violently put down or betrayed and co-opted, setting the stage for the radical theories of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx and spurring the emigration of democratic dissidents to the U.S.
January 6; death of Henry Jacquis, member of the Wyandot Tribal Council and onetime Head Chief of the Wyandot Nation, at the age of 59.
January 8; the Rev. Ira D. Blanchard is dismissed as Delaware Baptist missionary. A new mission house is nearing completion close to the new church, near the present 118th and State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas.
January 18; George I. Clark is elected to fill the position of the late Henry Jacquis on the Wyandot Tribal Council.
January 24; gold is found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in California, although the news does not leak out until May.
January 28; a slave owned by Francis A. Hicks runs away. William Walker Jr. can't understand why.
February 2; the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the Mexican War.
February 26; the Second French Republic is proclaimed.
1848
February 28; the Wyandot Tribal Council makes out its appropriations bill for 1848. Annual salaries are set for public office: Principal Chief, $80; four council members and secretary, $60 each; two sheriffs, $40 each; National Jailer, $150; and ferryman, $250 with a $50 contingency fund. These salaries will remain unchanged for at least the next 10 years.
March 1; death of Nak-ko-min, Head Chief of the Delaware Nation. His successor is Captain Ketchum.
March 10; the Senate ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico is paid $15,000,000 for its lost provinces and released from all claims against it by U.S. citizens.
That same day, Charles Sage meets a man at Fort Leavenworth who informs him that there is a woman among the Wyandots who he resembles in features and voice.
March 14; eleven prominent Wyandots including Francis A. Hicks, William Walker Jr., James Bigtree and Esquire Grey-Eyes write to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Medill protesting the special discretionary appropriation requested by the current council.
March 29; Sally Frost (Caty Sage) meets her brother Charles at the Wyandot Council House. Speaking through an interpreter, he tells her that their father is dead but mother is still living.
April 1; the Rev. John G. Pratt and his wife Olivia arrive to take over the Delaware Baptist Mission.
April 5; Santa Anna, having resigned the presidency, is given permission to leave Mexico and sails for Jamaica.
Wyandot missionary the Rev. Edward T. Peery and William Walker Jr. (himself not a church member) force a vote of the Methodist congregation on the question of adhering to the Methodist Episcopal Church or going to the new South branch with the rest of the Indian Mission Conference. The vote is 160 to 65 in favor of the North.
April 25; a memorial regarding the vote of the Methodist congregation is sent in care of Rev. Finley to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church by Head Chief James Washington.
1848
Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley by Ephraim George Squier and Dr. E. H. Davis, the definitive work on the remains of the Ohio Mound Builders, is issued as the first publication of the Smithsonian Institution.
May 11; death of Dr. Jesse Harvey, superintendent of the Shawnee Friends Mission. His widow Elizabeth Burgess Harvey continues as superintendent, assisted by her 3 adult children, until 1850.
May 16; the Wyandot Tribal Council declares Smith Nichols of age and releases him from his guardian.
May 29; Wisconsin is admitted to the Union as the 30th state.
Thomas Coonhawk prepares a plat of the City of Wyandott, with named streets and lots of one acre and more in extent (document now lost).
June 16; Sally Frost again meets her brother Charles at the council house. They are joined by a second brother, Samuel Sage, who is extremely frustrated by Sally's inability to speak English.
June 25; Wyandot blacksmith Charles Graham marries widow Mary Bartleson.
July 3; the Delaware "boarding school" reopens with the Rev. John G. Pratt as superintendent and Elizabeth S. Moore as teacher.
July 15; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council.
July 17; Captain Joseph Parks recaptures an escaped slave named Stephen in Illinois, only to have local abolitionists help him escape to Canada. Although slavery is illegal in Indian Country, Parks asks for government reimbursement for the loss of Indian property at the hands of whites.
July 25; the Wyandott Purchase treaty between the Wyandots and the Delaware is finally confirmed by a Joint Resolution of Congress.
July 29; loyal Wyandot church members petition the Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church to send a new missionary.
August 9; Joel Walker and his companions are welcomed home from the Mexican War.
1848
August 10; freighter Alexander Majors' first wagon train sets out from Missouri for Santa Fe.
August 14; Oregon Territory is formally established by Congress after much debate over slavery.
August 15; the Wyandots' annual Green Corn Feast and council election are held in Wyandott. Francis A. Hicks is elected Head Chief.
August 19; The New York Herald reports the discovery of gold in California.
August 29; Michael Frost and Irvin P. Long are elected Wyandot sheriffs for 1848-49. A committee of 13 is appointed to review the constitution.
August 30; William Walker Jr. and Silas Armstrong decide to call a Wyandot National Convention (including non church members) on the question of church affiliation.
September 1; William Walker Jr. takes the question of church affiliation before a convention of the Nation, which chooses the Methodist Episcopal Church South after a heated debate in which Walker, Silas Armstrong, Matthew R. Walker, John D. Brown, Francis A. Hicks and David Young support the South and Esquire Grey-Eyes, George I. Clark and John M. Armstrong support the North.
September 7; Rev. Peery and his adherents take control of the new brick Wyandot Methodist church.
September 8; the Wyandots' new affiliation resolution, addressed to the Ohio Conference, is sent to Cincinnati for publication.
September 9; Esquire Grey-Eyes and John M. Armstrong write to the Rev. James B. Finley, protesting the conduct of the convention and informing him of the appropriation of the new church.
September 15; the fourth Quarterly Conference of the Wyandot Methodist Mission is held, chaired by Presiding Elder L. B. Stateler and Rev. Peery. Although passed on their characters, Esquire Grey-Eyes, George I. Clark, James Bigtree, John Hicks Sr., his son Little Chief, and John M. Armstrong all refuse renewal of their licenses as church officers.
Also in September, a new church building is dedicated at the Shawnee Baptist Mission.
1848
September 23; a Wyandot National Convention is called to hear the report of the committee on revising the tribal constitution. An elected Legislative Committee of 5 members is established to assist the tribal council.
September 25; a classical department called Western Academy is organized at the manual labor school, with the Rev. Nathan Scarritt as principal.
September 26; Agent Cummins in his annual report states that the Shawnee have made the greatest progress of any tribe on the border, with some of their farms comparing to the best within Missouri.
In October, a number of the younger Wyandots go on a buffalo hunt.
October 11-17; Delaware, Miamis, Peorias, Sauk and Fox, Shawnee, and Wyandots meet at Fort Leavenworth to renew the old Northwest Confederacy. Wyandots are confirmed as Keepers of the Council Fire. When representatives of the Seneca ask to participate, they are reminded that the Six Nations were never members of the confederacy.
October 18-23; Bishop James O. Andrew of the Methodist Episcopal Church South visits Indian Country. He preaches at White Church on the 18th, and visits the manual labor school the next day.
October 20; Fremont sets out on his disastrous fourth expedition. The party is joined by James Secondine and several other Delaware on the 22nd.
October 21; Bishop Andrew arrives at the Wyandot Methodist Mission. He preaches in the brick church the following day (Sunday).
October 27; nine prominent Wyandots petition Congress to enforce the prohibition against slavery in Indian Country, a move obviously aimed at the Walkers.
October 29; the congregation of the Wyandot Methodist Episcopal Church is finally and irrevocably split when the members adhering to the Ohio Conference are barred from the brick church.
October 31; his health destroyed in Mexico, death of General Stephen Watts Kearny in St. Louis at the age of 54.
November 7; Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican War, is elected President, defeating Lewis Cass.
1848
November 28; the Rev. Edward T. Peery is replaced as Wyandot Methodist missionary by his brother, the Rev. J. Thompson Peery, a strong southern partisan. The Indian Subagent, Dr. Hewitt, bars any northern missionary from the Reserve.
December 1; a missionary sent by the Ohio Conference, the Rev. James Gurley, arrives in Wyandott.
That same day, a letter is sent to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Medill protesting the Wyandot Tribal Council's interference in the free exercise of religious preference. It is signed by John M. Armstrong, (John) Battise, James Bigtree, James T. Charloe, Lewis Clark, Esquire Grey-Eyes, John Lewis, John Pipe, John Solomon and (Jacob) White Crow.
December 5; President Polk confirms the discovery of gold in California, triggering the gold rush.
December 10; Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon, is elected President of France.
December 12; David Young is elected Wyandot ferryman for 1849.
December 20; the Wyandot Tribal Council sends a letter of recommendation for Dr. Hewitt to President Polk, as Hewitt wishes to settle in California and possibly obtain a position there.
December 21; the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee rule that only the Methodist Episcopal Church South should be allowed on the Reserve.
1849 - 100,000 Americans go west in this year.
January 9; a Wyandot National Convention is called to hear the revised code of laws read and proclaimed. Thomas Pipe is elected sheriff to replace Irvin P. Long, who has resigned.
January 19; a National Convention of Wyandots who are not church members is held, and proposes that both missionaries be expelled from the Reserve.
February 5; at 1:00 a.m. the two Wyandot sheriffs and Matthew R. Walker arrest Rev. Gurley at the instigation of William Walker Jr. and take him before Subagent Hewitt. Dr. Hewitt, drunk, orders Rev. Gurley out of Indian Country.
1849
February 27; the Wyandot Legislative Committee approves the appropriations bill for 1849.
March 3; Congress creates the Home Department (Department of the Interior), and the Bureau of Indian Affairs is transferred to the new Cabinet office from the War Department.
March 29; William Walker Jr. notes that the Asiatic Cholera epidemic has reached the Town of Kansas.
March 31; Dr. Hewitt appoints William Walker Jr. government interpreter for the Wyandots (at $400 per year), replacing John M. Armstrong who has held the office since 1844.
That same day, William Donalson resigns his position as one of two Shawnee blacksmiths after 12 years of service.
April 20; several Wyandots form the Wyandott Mining Company and prepare to join the gold rush. Members include Theodore F. Garrett (captain), William Bower, Matthew Brown, Philip Brown, Charles B. Garrett, Russell B. Garrett, Dr. E. B. Hand, Adam Hunt, assistant blacksmith Ira Hunter, Irvin P. Long, William Lynville, and R. Palmer.
April 28; death of Virginia Chick McCoy, wife of John C. McCoy, of cholera.
James C. Grinter, younger brother of Moses Grinter, settles at Secondine. He marries Anna Grinter's sister, Rosanna Marshall, and assists as ferryman until 1855.
May 3; Judge Joseph Chaffee, stepfather and former guardian of Isaiah Walker, arrives in Wyandott from Ohio intending to join the Wyandott Mining Company.
May 9; Ira Hunter resigns as Wyandot assistant black-smith. Charles Graham's "Negro boy" Richard takes his place in the shop for the next two months.
May 23; death of Judge Joseph Chaffee, probably from cholera.
May 29; Dr. Hewitt is dismissed as Wyandot Indian Subagent for his expulsion of Rev. Gurley.
May 30; death of Thomas Elliot, clerk in the Chouteau store at Secondine, of cholera. (His grave is found in 1950, 1/4 mile east of the Grinter house.)
1849
May 31; Orlando Brown is appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, replacing William Medill.
That same day, the members of the Wyandott Mining Company set off for California. They are joined by Washington H. Chick, Evan G. Hewitt and F. B. Tibbs from the Town of Kansas.
June 20; the Wyandott Mining Company reaches Fort Laramie. Several horses are stolen by Sioux, but four Wyandots track them, march boldly into an encampment of 300 Sioux, announce who they are and why they came, take their horses and leave unharmed.
July 7; Thomas Moseley Jr., Dr. Hewitt's replacement as Wyandot Indian Subagent, arrives in Wyandott.
July 10; death of Pierre Chouteau in St. Louis at the age of 90. Together with his half-brother and 8 sons, he has been a major figure in the opening of the west.
July 16; the Wyandot Tribal Council charges that Dr. Hewitt has retained the annuity payments of 24 persons for the latter half of 1848, together with half the school fund. Subagent Moseley (supported by William Walker Jr.) states that Hewitt did not transfer any funds to him when he arrived, and that records for the last half year or so are lacking.
July 17; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee.
July 28; George Steel is elected Wyandot ferryman to replace David Young, who has resigned.
July 30; Guilford D. Hurt is appointed assistant blacksmith for the Wyandot agency, replacing the departed Ira Hunter.
July 31; Lucy B. Armstrong writes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Brown, protesting the government's withholding John M. Armstrong's salary as Wyandot interpreter for the time he was in Washington on tribal business, Dr. Hewitt's dismissal of Armstrong without cause, Moseley's upholding of Walker's appointment, and Moseley's avowed pro-slavery views. She notes that there are just three slaves owned in the Wyandot Nation, but the blacksmith has 5 or 6 and now Moseley threatens to bring in more.
1849
August 9; Richard W. Cummins is dismissed as agent for the Fort Leavenworth Indian Agency, ending 19 years of service. He is replaced by one Luke Lea. Isaac Mundy returns as Delaware blacksmith, replacing Cornelius Yager.
August 10; Joseph Coon Jr. is murdered in Wyandott by Robert Cherokee.
August 14; elections for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee are held in Wyandott. Francis A. Hicks is reelected Head Chief.
The cholera epidemic in Kansas worsens. Six Wyandots and at least eight Delaware die. The Wyandots' Green Corn Feast, normally held in mid August, is cancelled.
Also in August, the Rev. J. Thompson Peery is replaced as the southern Wyandot Methodist missionary by the Rev. B. H. Russell, and the Rev. T. B. Markham arrives in Wyandott to represent the Ohio Conference. Rev. Peery is transferred to the manual labor school, and Nathan Scarritt is returned as principal of Western Academy.
September 8; William Walker Jr. hears the Rev. Thomas Johnson preach at a camp meeting and is much impressed.
September 18; Martha R. Walker, daughter of William Walker Jr., marries William Gilmore of Independence, Missouri. Her father is not overjoyed.
September 22; the first volume of William Walker Jr's. daily journal ends: "Clear and beautiful morning."
October 7; death of Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore at the age of 40, under appropriately mysterious circumstances.
October 8; Subagent Moseley buys a house and property owned by Joel Walker for $1,000 for use as his own residence. He then asks for government reimbursement, and recommends that the government purchase permanent residences for the blacksmith and assistant blacksmith.
October 9; Lucy B. Armstrong repeats her charges against Moseley.
October 12; the Rev. Thomas Johnson sends his annual report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. There are 121 students at the manual labor school, including 32 Delaware, 39 Shawnee, and 12 Wyandots.
1849
Also in October, the Wyandott Mining Company reaches California and begins operations near Lassen Lake.
In November, the Wyandot Tribal Council sends Head Chief Francis A. Hicks, George I. Clark and Joel Walker to Washington to press for settlement of claims to 148,000 acres as provided for in the treaty of 1842.
November 26; the government purchases the Wyandot blacksmith's house from Isaac W. Zane for $250. It is located on Lot 26 of Wyandott City, a 2 acre parcel.
November 29; the government purchases the Wyandot assistant blacksmith's house from Robert Robitaille for $200. It lies on a 6 acre tract bounded by Lot 18, Front Street and the Missouri River.
November 30; William Walker Jr. begins the second volume of his daily journal: "This day I received the book on which I am now writing, which was kindly sent to me by Brother Joel from St. Louis."
December 25; Samuel Bigsinew and Clarissa Carpenter are married at the home of Isaac W. Zane in Wyandott.
c. 1850 - A member of the Brown family builds a substantial stone house which is still standing at the present 3464 North 26th Street, Kansas City, Kansas. It later becomes the home of merchant and Indian agent Fielding Johnson.
1850 - January 4; Wyandot blacksmith Charles Graham requests the government reimburse him for the use of his slave Richard as assistant blacksmith the previous summer.
January 25; Graham writes to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, requesting reimbursement for the monies still due him for his expenses during the removal 7 years before.
January 29; Henry Clay, supported by Daniel Webster and Stephen A. Douglas, proposes the Compromise of 1850. California is to enter the Union as a free state and the slave trade abolished in the District of Columbia, but other new territories will be formed without reference to slavery and a national fugitive slave law passed. Southern extremists threaten secession otherwise.
That same day, a Wyandot National Convention is called to hear the revised code of laws read and proclaimed. The appropriation bill for 1850 is reported. A proposal to emigrate to Minnesota is soundly defeated, 72 to 5.
1850
The Wyandot delegation in Washington goes beyond their stated purpose and proposes a new treaty which would allow Wyandots to become United States citizens and the lands of the Wyandott Purchase to be divided and taken in severalty.
March 6; Commissioner of Indian Affairs Brown writes to Secretary of the Interior Thomas Ewing in favor of the proposed Wyandot treaty, stating that it is a triumphant vindication of the government's policies.
March 16; Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is first published.
March 20; Fort Leavenworth Indian Agent Luke Lea sends a letter to the Wyandots' northern Methodist missionary, the Rev. T. B. Markham, forbidding him to preach to the Shawnee.
April 1; the Wyandot delegation in Washington concludes a treaty giving up all claim to the 148,000 acres promised in the treaty of 1842 in exchange for $185,000 (or $1.25 per acre): $100,000 to be invested in U.S. government stocks at 5% per annum, with the interest to become part of the Wyandots' annuity payments, and $85,000 to extinguish the tribe's debts. More importantly, the treaty as drafted would allow Wyandots to become U.S. citizens and to take their lands in severalty.
April 15; the city of San Francisco is incorporated.
April 20; several prominent Shawnee, including William Rodgers and Paschal Fish, send a letter to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Brown protesting Agent Lea's order to Rev. Markham.
April 29; the Rev. Nathan Scarritt marries Matilda M. Chick, daughter of the late William Miles Chick, in a ceremony performed by the Rev. Thomas Johnson.
May 7; a Wyandot National Convention is called to discuss the provisions of the proposed treaty that would grant citizenship and allow the taking of lands in severalty, with John M. Armstrong as president and William Walker Jr. as secretary. After extensive debate, the convention is adjourned for one week.
1850
May 14; the Wyandot National Convention reconvenes. After approval of one amendment to the terms, the proposal for citizenship and severalty is approved 63 to 20, with 8 abstentions. The vote is certified by the Wyandot Tribal Council.
May 15; a second group of Wyandots, led by Abelard Guthrie, heads for California.
Also in May, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South changes the boundaries of the Indian Mission Conference, transferring the Kansas missions to the Lexington District of the St. Louis Conference. A Kansas Mission District is subsequently reestablished.
May 21; the Wyandot Tribal Council admits Hiram M. Northrup, Isaac Zane Jr's. widow Hannah, and George Garrett's widow Nancy (sister of William Walker Jr.) to tribal membership. George Wright and Lewis Clark are also admitted but without equal rights. The latter four are all late arrivals from Ohio.
May 23; Subagent Moseley transmits the results of the Wyandot treaty vote to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Brown. He is opposed to the treaty, reporting that it is only supported by the "white men" in the nation and their intoxicated dupes: "There are perhaps about 20 families that could be converted into good Citizens under our Government. The balance are Indians, and nothing but Indians."
In May and June, the Pottawatomi, supported by other emigrant tribes including the Shawnee and Delaware, make war on the Pawnee.
June 3; the Town of Kansas (unincorporated) is officially organized by the Jackson County Court.
That same day, John M. Armstrong writes despairingly to the Rev. James B. Finley that largely at Subagent Moseley's instigation, the family of George Wright was denied a place on the annuity roll and use of the agency blacksmith shop. He notes that his uncle Isaac Zane's widow and family were similarly threatened.
June 15; a Wyandot National Convention is called on the question of whether or not later arrivals from Ohio are to be equal participants in the proposed treaty. The matter is adjourned until after ratification.
1850
Also in June, John Arms, John M. Armstrong, John Lewis and David Young write to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs protesting Subagent Moseley's handling of the Wyandot annuity.
July 1; Luke Lea is appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, replacing Orlando Brown.
July 15; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee.
July 19; death of President Zachary Taylor. Millard Fillmore succeeds to the Presidency.
August 13; elections for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee are held in Wyandott. George I. Clark is elected Head Chief.
August 15; Catherine Parks, wife of Captain Joseph Parks, is a Wyandot, the daughter and only heir of Ronaess, or Racer. She files a claim with the Wyandot Tribal Council for a share in the Wyandot annuity dating back to 1831, as well as for reimbursement for 320 acres her father was to have received through the 1817 treaty.
August 20; the Wyandot Tribal Council rejects Catherine Parks' claims for a variety of sound reasons.
September 9; California is admitted to the Union as the 31st state.
September 10; the Wyandot Tribal Council again tries to get the missing annuity monies from the latter half of 1848.
That same day, a post office is established at Delaware (Secondine) with Indian trader James Findlay as postmaster.
September 18; Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act, allowing slaves to be pursued and re-taken in the free states and territories.
September 24; the new Wyandot treaty is ratified by the Senate in radically modified form. All mention of citizenship and severalty has been removed, leaving only the single article concerning payment in lieu of land.
1850
Cyprien Chouteau builds a two-story brick store building in Westport, which becomes home to Westport's newspaper. Still standing (though altered) at 504 Westport Road, Kansas City, Missouri.
The Ewing brothers begin construction of a two-and-one- half-story, brick store building in Westport adjacent to Chouteau's (completed 1851). It is subsequently sold to Albert Gallatin Boone, grandson of Daniel Boone. Still standing at 500 Westport Road.
After a long period of meeting in a tree grove and in members' homes, a new Wyandot Methodist Episcopal Church is built of logs on land donated by Lucy B. Armstrong at the northeast corner of the present 38th Street and Parallel Parkway. The Rev. James Witten has replaced the Rev. T. B. Markham as missionary representing the Ohio Conference.
November 28; a Wyandot National Convention is held, again with John M. Armstrong as chairman and William Walker Jr. as secretary. The convention votes unanimously to accept the treaty of 1850 as amended.
December 17; Isaac W. Brown is elected Wyandot ferryman for the year 1851.
1851 - January 10; after 30 years in the Senate, Thomas Hart Benton loses his seat because of his opposition to repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the extension of slavery into the territories.
February 8; the Wyandot Tribal Council appoints Head Chief George I. Clark and Joel Walker to pursue claims under the treaty of 1850. They go to Washington to draw the $85,000 as stipulated: $37,000 to pay legal fees, $16,000 to pay off the balance of the Delaware debt, and $32,000 to be divided as a per capita annuity. There is much dissension as to which of two legal firms (one backed by Walker, the other by John M. Armstrong) should be paid the fee. Moseley notes that neither firm has yet produced a signed contract, though both claim to have one.
February 27; the Fort Leavenworth Indian Agency and Wyandot Subagency are abolished as of July 1, to be replaced by a Kansas Agency serving the Delaware, Munsee, Shawnee, Stockbridge, Wyandot, and Christian Indians, with Thomas Moseley Jr. as agent.
1851
March 6; John M. Armstrong requests that the removal expenses of the Wright family be paid by the government, as the Wyandot Tribal Council refuses. Elizabeth Wright was raised as a Wyandot and is so listed on the treaty of 1817. Susan and David Wright are of Wyandot blood.
March 25; John C. McCoy commences a survey of the Wyandott Purchase.
April 7; William Walker Jr. and John C. McCoy travel together to Independence to attend the session of County Court for Jackson County.
May 1-26; D. D. Mitchell, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis, makes a detailed examination of the Fort Leavenworth Indian Manual Training School. He is critical of its operation, particularly the profits made from the operation of the farm and mill, and feels that missionaries are responsible for the spread of political discord over slavery among the border tribes.
May 19; Subagent Moseley transmits copies of John C. McCoy's map and field notes of the survey of the Wyandott Purchase to Washington. Two other sets are retained by the Wyandots and the Delaware.
May 25; Charles Sage travels to Wyandott to again visit his sister, Sally Frost. He engages William Walker Jr. to write his sister's history, a task that Walker never fulfills.
July 14; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee.
That same day, death of Wyandot agency blacksmith Charles Graham, of cholera. William McCown is subse-quently appointed Wyandot blacksmith at $480 per year, and Samuel Drummond appointed assistant blacksmith at $360 per year. Both reside in Jackson County, Missouri.
July 25; Hannah Dickinson Zane petitions Commissioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea concerning the Wyandot Tribal Council's withholding annuity monies from her in payment of a debt incurred by her late husband, Isaac Zane Jr. The debt has already been paid, and was in fact overpaid, leaving her destitute.
August 1; the Wyandots pay in full the $16,000 balance remaining of monies owed to the Delaware for the Wyandott Purchase, three years ahead of schedule.
1851
August 4; William Walker Jr. finishes reading Charles Dickens' latest book, The Personal History of David Copperfield.
August 10; death of John Van Metre, clerk for the mercantile firm of Walker, Boyd & Chick, of cholera. Fellow clerk William Taylor (a non-Wyandot) dies the same day.
August 12; elections for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee are held in Wyandott. George I. Clark is reelected Head Chief. When some dissatis-faction is expressed with the legislative committee, 13 special delegates are elected to revise the tribal constitution.
That same day, Isaac Singer is granted a patent for the sewing machine.
August 15; the Wyandots' annual Green Corn Feast is held in Wyandott.
August 25; Agent Moseley reports that for a year the Delaware have refused to send their children to the manual labor school, and the Delaware mill on Stranger Creek is a complete wreck.
The Delaware Tribal Council complains that troops at Fort Leavenworth are taking coal and wood belonging to the Delaware.
The Rev. Nathan Scarritt resigns as principal of Western Academy to devote his time to preaching.
September 18; Agent Moseley writes to Superintendent of Indian Affairs Mitchell that he is ill, and that "...there are not 20 well persons out of 600 of the Wyandots."
September 29; death of James Rankin Jr., member of the Wyandot Tribal Council, uncle of the Walker brothers, and reportedly a participant in the Burr-Wilkinson conspiracy, at the age of 76.
October 7; a Wyandot National Convention is held to consider the proposed tribal constitution.
1851
October 9; Catherine Zane Long and her 5 sons petition Commissioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea concerning the Wyandot Tribal Council's withholding annuity monies from them in payment of a debt incurred by the late Alexander Long in 1836. At the time, the council payed $1000 to make good the debt, which was expended on public im-provements on the Wyandot lands. The council now seeks to collect that money from the family, which in turn claims that the council owes it $150.
October 13; death of Catherine Zane Long, widow of Alexander Long, of cholera at the age of 58.
October 20; James T. Charloe is elected to fill the position of the late James Rankin Jr. on the Wyandot Tribal Council. The council adopts the tribal consti-tution drafted by the special committee. The new constitution divides the council into a head chief, four councilmen, and a secretary, with a five member legis-lative committee, a magistrate and two sheriffs, all elected by vote of the tribal members at the annual Green Corn Feast, to be held on the second Tuesday in August. William Walker Jr. expresses contempt for the changes.
That same day, death of David Young from consumption.
November 3; widower John Pipe marries Nancy Rankin at the home of her mother, Elizabeth Rankin, in Wyandott.
November 8; Agent Moseley lists his disbursements for the latter half of 1851: $7,957.50 for the Wyandot annuity, $792.50 to the tribal council for expenses, $250 for the school fund, and $1066.98 to the firm of Walker, Boyd & Chick for iron and steel for the Wyandot blacksmith shop.
November 14; Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick is first published.
November 19; death of George Armstrong, elder half- brother of John and Silas, at the age of 50. Hannah Armstrong is a widow for the second time.
December 2; prohibited by law from succeeding himself as president of France, Prince-President Louis Napoleon siezes power in a coup.
After an extended dispute over the proper method of selection, whether by election or hereditary right, Captain Joseph Parks is elected Head Chief of the Shawnee Nation and Graham Rodgers Second Chief.
1852
c. 1852 - Dr. Joseph O. Boggs builds a two-story, frame house in Westport, which subsequently becomes the home of the Rev. Nathan Scarritt. Still standing at the present 4038 Central, Kansas City, Missouri.
1852 - January 3; death of Eliza S. Witten, wife of Wyandot missionary the Rev. James Witten. She is buried next to the log Methodist Episcopal Church. This is the first burial in what will become Quindaro Cemetery.
Ten Wyandots die in January (two in the Seneca country), most of them victims of cholera.
February 13; the Wyandot Tribal Council is called into special session to try to settle a violent quarrel between Adam Brown Jr. and his son-in-law, Abelard Guthrie. Brown shot at Guthrie, and both were arrested. Brown soon leaves for Canada.
February 16; Wyandot Legislative Committee member John Kayrahoo is murdered by Isaiah Zane, who is subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison.
February 24; the Wyandot Legislative Committee approves the appropriations bill for 1852.
A steam-powered grist and saw mill built by Mathias Splitlog begins operation on Splitlog's Run a half mile south of Wyandott. The Wyandots also have a second, older mill, on a tract near the Kansas River just south of the ferry landing.
March 31; death of John M. Armstrong at the home of his mother-in-law in Mansfield, Ohio, at the age of 38, while traveling to Washington on tribal business.
April 16; the Wyandot Tribal Council buys John M. Armstrong's school building for use as a council house. The school moves to the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
April 17; death of Hester Zane Fish, wife of Shawnee chief Paschal Fish. William and Hannah Walker are deeply upset by the death of "our Hetty."
In April, William McCown is replaced as government blacksmith for the Wyandots by Samuel Priestly.
May 6; William McCown, Ira Hunter, and William Lynville - all former members of the Wyandott Mining Company - set out with their families for Oregon.
1852
May 8; a Wyandot National Convention authorizes the council to continue to pursue the rejected portions of the treaty of 1850. Head Chief George I. Clark, Matthew Mudeater, and Joel Walker are chosen to negotiate citizenship and the taking of lands in severalty.
May 13; death of John Jackson, chief councillor of the mixed band of Seneca and Shawnee, of cholera in the Town of Kansas.
May 18; the Wyandot Tribal Council formally commissions the delegates to Washington, D.C., and authorizes them to enter into a treaty on behalf of the Nation. Agent Moseley sends a letter of endorsement.
May 31; the Rev. Jotham Meeker reports many people sick and dying of cholera in Westport and the Town of Kansas.
In June, four Army deserters kill a Delaware and leave his woman companion for dead at Cottonwood Creek, 40 miles west of Council Grove, stealing their goods and horses and fleeing into Missouri. The four are caught and tried in St. Louis: two are hung, one acquitted, and one turns state's evidence to save himself.
June 13; a memorial service is held for John M. Armstrong in the Wyandots' brick church, the sermon being preached by the northern missionary, the Rev. James Witten.
June 19; Adam Brown Jr. returns to Wyandott from Canada, along with William Clark and his wife.
Two sons of Captain Ketchum, Head Chief of the Delaware, are killed by a Sioux war party while trapping furs along the Upper Platte.
July 13; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee.
July 19; President Fillmore again rejects the Wyandot request for citizenship. He agrees that lands held in common can be divided in severalty, but Wyandots cannot become U.S. citizens because they do not reside within the U.S. The Wyandots subsequently set up a standing Treaty Committee to continue to work on the proposal.
August 10; the Wyandots' annual Green Corn Feast and council elections are held in Wyandott. John D. Brown is elected Head Chief.
1852
September 14; death of Calvin Perkins, government blacksmith for the Shawnee since 1844.
September 24; Captain Joseph Parks again requests that his wife Catherine be allowed to share in the Wyandot annuity.
September 29; death of Francis Cotter Sr. in Wyandott.
October 1; the Rev. Daniel Dofflemeyer is returned to the Wyandot Methodist Mission for the south church.
October 12; Wyandots elect Abelard Guthrie delegate to Congress. Missouri Senator David Atchison has the Army at Fort Leavenworth threaten Guthrie with arrest for "revolution." In a subsequent rerun of the election held at the Fort, Guthrie easily defeats the candidate backed by Atchison and the Army.
October 19; Agent Moseley lists his disbursements for 1852: $19,897 for the Wyandot annuity, $1,655 to the tribal council for expenses, and $250 for the school fund for the latter half of the year.
Also in October, Charles Bluejacket is appointed to replace Captain Joseph Parks as official government interpreter for the Shawnee.
November 2; Franklin Pierce is elected President.
November 16; a new missionary sent by the Ohio Conference, the Rev. M. T. Klepper, arrives with his wife in Wyandott to replace the Rev. James Witten.
December 1; death of James Washington, member of the Wyandot Tribal Council, onetime Head Chief of the Wyandot Nation, descendent of Half King and last surviving member of the Beaver Clan, at the age of 65.
December 2; Louis Napoleon establishes the Second Empire through a rigged plebescite and is crowned Emperor of France as Napoleon III.
December 10; Curtis Punch is murdered in or near Wyandott by John Coon Jr. and Martin Bigarms.
December 11; John Hicks Jr. is elected to fill the position of the late James Washington on the Wyandot Tribal Council.
1852
December 14; Nicholas Cotter is elected Wyandot ferryman for 1853.
December 18; death of Neh-nyeh-ih-seh, widow of Mononcue.
1853 - January 1; Captain Joseph Parks is reelected Shawnee Head Chief.
January 18; following a trial in the Wyandot Council House, with William Walker Jr. as prosecuting attorney and Silas Armstrong attorney for the defense, John Coon Jr. is executed by firing squad for the murder of Curtis Punch.
January 21; death of Sally Frost (born Catherine "Caty" Sage), adopted Wyandot captive and widow of Tarhe, Between-the-Logs, and Frost, at the age of 66. She is buried next to Mrs. Witten in the Methodist Episcopal Church cemetery (Quindaro Cemetery).
February 13; Isaiah Walker and Mary Williams are married at the home of Silas Armstrong in Wyandott.
February 14; death of John Hicks Sr. in Wyandott at the age of 80.
February 22; the Town of Kansas is incorporated as the City of Kansas, but popular usage quickly converts that to Kansas City. (That name does not become official until 1889.) When the newly elected mayor, William S. Gregory, is found to be ineligible, Council President Dr. Johnston Lykins becomes the new city's first mayor.
That same day, the Wyandot Legislative Committee approves the appropriations bill for 1853, including $125 for enclosing and keeping in repair the National Burying Ground.
The first volume of Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes of the United States is published. Inscribed copies are given out by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Lea.
March 3; Congress authorizes the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to open immediate negotiations for re-cession of lands held by emigrant tribes in Kansas.
March 11; the Wyandot Tribal Council approves the Legislative Committee's appropriations bill for 1853.
March 24; George W. Manypenny is appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, replacing Luke Lea.
1853
Jim Bridger, famous as trapper and guide, settles in Westport.
In April, Cyprien Chouteau's license to trade with the Delaware is renewed (as is his Kansa license a month later), but his Shawnee post has apparently closed after some 25 years of operation.
April 28; Tom Coke, who a month earlier had assaulted Solomon Kayrahoo with an iron poker, is killed by Thomas Mononcue. Mononcue is sentenced to four years solitary confinement for 2nd Degree Manslaughter, a sentence his defense attorney William Walker Jr. feels is unjust.
May 31; the Rev. Thomas Johnson buys two female slaves named Jane and Mary, ages 8 and 2 1/2, from one N. H. Scruggs for $550.
In June, Thomas Moseley Jr. is replaced as agent for the Kansas Indian Agency by Maj. Benjamin F. Robinson.
June 16-23; J. W. Gunnison's Pacific railroad survey party camps near the Shawnee Methodist Mission while gathering supplies.
June 25; death of Nancy Rankin Pipe, daughter of the late James Rankin Jr. and cousin of William Walker Jr.
July 12; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee.
July 14; Commodore Matthew Perry presents a letter to Japanese officials requesting trade relations. The request is backed by the presence of Perry's fleet.
July 26; a convention held at the Wyandot Council House organizes the Provisional Government of Nebraska Territory, and elects William Walker Jr. as Provisional Governor, George I. Clark as Territorial Secretary, and R. C. Miller, Isaac Mundy and Matthew R. Walker as members of the Council. Resolutions support Thomas Hart Benton's dream of a transcontinental railroad.
August 1; Provisional Governor Walker issues a procla-mation for holding an election on the second Tuesday in October for territorial delegate to Congress.
August 9; the Wyandots' annual Green Corn Feast and council elections are held in Wyandott. Tauromee is elected Head Chief.
1853
September 6; George W. Manypenny, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and the Rev. Thomas Johnson visit the Wyandots.
September 14; John C. Fremont and party arrive in Westport to outfit for a new expedition.
September 20; a bolting convention held in Kickapoo nominates the Rev. Thomas Johnson as Provisional Government delegate to Congress. This move is backed by Senator David Atchison of Missouri.
September 22; Fremont's fifth and last western expe-dition sets out, but Fremont becomes ill and returns to Westport on the 24th. The party continues without him.
September 27; Fremont's expedition is joined near the present Topeka by 10 Delaware led by Captain Wolf, hired by Fremont on the 16th.
The Westport Methodist Episcopal Church South purchases a lot at the northwest corner of the present 40th and Washington, Kansas City, Missouri. The Rev. Nathan Scarritt is pastor.
In October, Neconhecond is chosen to succeed the late Secondine as chief of the Wolf Band of the Delaware.
October 11; election of the Provisional Government delegate to Congress. The Rev. Thomas Johnson defeats Abelard Guthrie, with the combined backing of Atchison, the Army, the Kansas Mission District, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Manypenny. Despite his feelings on slavery, William Walker Jr. supports Guthrie, a Benton Democrat.
October 31; Fremont rejoins his expedition.
November 2; Agent Robinson reports that he has received $17,200 to pay the Wyandot annuity, but the Wyandot Tribal Council states that the sum should be $2000 more.
The Wyandot Tribal Council votes to remove Peter D. Clarke and Hiram M. Northrup from the tribal annuity roll, on the grounds that their permanent residences are elsewhere: Northrup in the City of Kansas and Clarke in Canada (vide Article 11, treaty of 1842).
1853
November 23; the Wyandot Tribal Council writes to the Department of the Interior to formally refute a charge by Abelard Guthrie, published in the Missouri Democrat. Guthrie has charged that Commissioner Manypenny, on his visit to Indian Country, told the Wyandots, "That all white men living in the Indian country, unless author-ised by the government, are outlaws, and could claim no protection from the government, and that the Indians could murder or rob them with impunity."
November 28; Joel Walker purchases the former Wyandot Subagency buildings from the government.
In December, the Rev. Thomas Johnson goes to Washington but Congress refuses to seat him and he is relegated to the galleries. He is nevertheless consulted on the boundary between Kansas and Nebraska.
That same month, after again being recalled from exile by the Conservatives and again elected President of Mexico, Santa Anna declares himself President for Life with the title Serene Highness.
December 13; John Johnston submits a claim for pay for serving as Wyandot Indian Subagent for the period April 1841 - June 1842.
December 16; Agent Robinson writes to Superintendent of Indian Affairs Cummins, asking if the remaining Wyandot annuity for 1853 is to be paid out in the usual manner as requested by the council. Apparently Commissioner Manypenny has proposed some alternate disposition.
December 18; Peter D. Clarke protests his removal from the Wyandot annuity roll, stating that the house in Canada is one he had built for his mother, and noting that eight Wyandots who have been in California since 1849 are still on the rolls.
December 24; in a letter to Missouri Senator David Atchison regarding the value of Matthew Barnett's Ohio improvements, John W. Greyeyes describes Abelard Guthrie as "...a contentious being."
December 30; the Gadsden Purchase. The United States buys 45,000 square miles of desert from Mexico for $10,000,000, precisely defining the national boundary and securing a southern route for a Pacific railroad. (A high price, but the U.S. needs the land and Santa Anna needs the money.)
1854
c. 1854 - Silas Armstrong builds a substantial, two-story brick house of eight rooms in Wyandott, at the present northwest corner of 5th Street and Minnesota Avenue.
1854 - January 1; Captain Joseph Parks is reelected Shawnee Head Chief.
In February, while the Kansas-Nebraska Act is still being debated, Eli Thayer organizes the New England Emigrant Aid Company.
February 20; a liberal revolt breaks out in Mexico against Santa Anna.
February 28; a meeting of 50 slavery opponents at a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin leads to the organ-ization of the Republican Party.
March 28; the Crimean War begins.
That same day, the Rev. Thomas Johnson returns from Washington.
April 5; the government informs the Shawnee of a proposal for the purchase of their land. A delegation of eight is chosen to go to Washington for negotiations.
April 11; Delaware and Shawnee delegations leave Kansas City aboard the steamboat Polar Star, en route to Washington, D.C. They are accompanied by Agent Benjamin F. Robinson and the Rev. Thomas Johnson.
That same day, the Wyandot Tribal Council grants a divorce to Martha R. Walker, daughter of William Walker Jr., from William Gilmore.
May 6; the Delaware sign a treaty agreeing to reduce the size of their Reserve to 275,000 acres and give up their outlet to the west. The ceded lands are to be surveyed, then sold at auction. The northern boundary between the Diminished Reserve and the Delaware Trust Lands is the present Wyandotte County-Leavenworth County line. The U.S. is to pay $10,000 for the outlet, together with any monies realized from the sale of the Trust Lands, in the form of a tribal trust fund. The Delaware give up all existing annuities in exchange for $148,000, $74,000 to be paid in October, 1854, and $74,000 in October, 1855, "...to aid the Delawares in making improvements." The treaty is signed by the three band chiefs Sarcoxie, Neconhecond, and Kockatowha; Secondine, though deceased, is granted an annuity of $2,000 which is subsequently claimed by his son James Secondine.
1854
As part of the Delaware treaty, the Munsee are granted 4 sections of land near Fort Leavenworth, and are expected to move off of the Wyandott Purchase.
May 10; the Shawnee sign a treaty ceding their Reserve back to the government, giving up 1,400,000 acres for $829,000, or less than $1.00 an acre. The remaining 200,000 acres are to be ceded back to the Shawnee, in an area within 30 miles of the Missouri state line where the Shawnee have their principal settlements.
May 11; Agent Robinson writes Commissioner Manypenny regarding the claims of Peter D. Clarke and Hiram M. Northrup for reinstatement to the Wyandot tribal rolls. He generally supports Clarke's claim.
Also in May, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South organizes the Kansas missions into a separate Kansas Mission Conference.
May 26; the Wyandot Tribal Council approves the Legislative Committee's appropriations bill for 1854.
May 30; The Kansas-Nebraska Act is passed and signed into law by President Pierce, ignoring established Indian claims, opening the territory to white settlement and setting aside the Missouri Compromise, so as to allow the slavery question to be settled by "popular sovereignty."
The government establishes a reserve for the "absentee" or Red River Delaware on the Brazos River in Texas. These are descendants of the old Cape Girardeau band, led by Black Beaver.
June 25; end of the second volume of William Walker Jr's. daily journal: "At night we were alarmed by Harriet's illness. Nervous headache and vertigo. I have thus closed my scrap and fragmentary Diary. This the 25 day June A.D. 1854."
June 28; at the urging of Napoleon III, the British cabinet authorizes an expedition against the Russian port of Sevastopol in the Crimea. The allies are soon joined by the Kingdom of Sardinia.
June 29; the first party of settlers sponsored by the New England Emigrant Aid Company, led by Dr. Charles Robinson, arrives in Wyandott.
July 11; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee.
1854
August 1; the Robinson party arrives at the site of Lawrence, Kansas. The townsite is surveyed by Samuel N. Simpson.
August 8; the Wyandots' annual Green Corn Feast and council elections are held in Wyandott. Tauromee is reelected Head Chief.
August 9; Henry David Thoreau's Walden is first published.
August 11; Grove Masonic Lodge, first Masonic lodge in Kansas, is founded at the home of Matthew R. Walker in Wyandott. The lodge is still in existence as Wyandot Masonic Lodge #3.
August 21; the government cedes 200,000 acres back to the Shawnee. The reduced reserve is to be divided into individual allotments of 200 acres each, with approxi-mately 900 Shawnee remaining on the reserve. Most Shawnee take their land in severalty, but there are no provisions for citizenship. The Black Bob band is allowed to retain a common reserve rather than take allotments, and other unallotted land is set aside for the Absentee Shawnee. The treaty gives three sections of land containing the manual labor school to the Methodist Episcopal Church South, 320 acres to the Friends Mission, 120 acres to the Baptists, and sets aside 5 acres for the church and cemetery at Shawneetown.
Abelard Guthrie, whose wife's mother was Shawnee, attempts to switch his tribal membership in order to claim her allotment.
The pro-slavery town of Leavenworth grows up south of the fort on land illegally appropriated from the Delaware Trust Lands (some officers from the fort are involved). The Delaware agree to sell 320 acres for $24,000 after the fact.
October 7; Kansas Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder arrives at Leavenworth and establishes executive offices at the fort.
October 24; death of James T. Charloe in Wyandott at the age of 50.
October 25; charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava.
1854
October 31; Agent Robinson informs Superintendent of Indian Affairs Cummins that the Wyandots have repaired the National Ferry at considerable cost, and wish to make arrangements to retain $1,100 from the annuity.
November 5; the British and French defeat the Russians at Inkerman. The siege of Sevastopol begins.
November 6; one S. D. Houston writes to Senator Atchison on behalf of some settlers on the Blue River in Kansas Territory. The Wyandots with floating land titles are proposing to locate their floats on a long strip up the Blue, one mile on each side, and the settlers are asking Atchison to oppose this in Washington.
November 24; Governor Reeder moves his offices to the Fort Leavenworth Indian Manual Training School.
That same day, a Wyandot National Convention is held at the council house, with William Walker Jr. as chairman and Robert Robitaille as secretary. The convention again authorizes the council to negotiate a new treaty on the questions of citizenship and severalty.
November 29; John W. Whitfield of Missouri, a pro- slavery candidate supported by the Rev. Thomas Johnson, is elected Kansas territorial delegate to Congress in an election widely believed to be fraudulent.
December 1; Agent Robinson certifies the record of the November 24 Wyandot National Convention.
December 5; Topeka is founded by Company emigrants.
December 9; Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" is first published.
c. 1855 - John Harris, proprietor of the Harris House hotel in Westport, builds a two-story, Greek Revival style house at the present southwest corner of Westport Road and Main Street, Kansas City, Missouri. (Moved one block to 4000 Baltimore Avenue in 1922; still standing.)
1855 - January 1; Captain Joseph Parks is reelected Shawnee Head Chief.
January 8; the Wyandot delegation now in Washington, D.C. (the tribal council and secretary), informs the government that the rights to locate floats in available land have not been exercised due to the inability to obtain advice as to where "available" land might be.
1855
January 9; the Wyandot delegation suggests that the annuity of $25,000 be commuted to a single lump sum of $500,000 to be divided amomg the members of the Nation.
January 12; death of the Rev. Jotham Meeker.
January 19; the Wyandot delegation asks the Treasury Department for permission to inspect the payroll of annuities for 1853.
January 31; after five years of effort, the Wyandot Tribal Council signs a treaty dissolving their tribal status, becoming U.S. citizens and taking their lands in severalty. The Wyandott Purchase is ceded to the U.S. government, the lands to be surveyed, subdivided and reconveyed by patent in fee simple to the individual members of the tribe. The Huron Indian Cemetery and two acres for each Methodist church are reserved; the four acre ferry tract is to be sold to the highest bidder. The government is to pay $380,000 in three annual payments beginning in October, 1855, together with any of the 1842 annuity remaining. The $100,000 invested under the treaty of 1850 is to be paid in two equal installments beginning in 1858, though the interest can continue to be used for schools and other national purposes until then. The land grants of the treaty of 1842 - the 35 Wyandot Floats - are reaffirmed, on any government land west of Missouri and Iowa. Despite his signature, opposition to the treaty is voiced by Tauromee, and eventually 69 tribal members choose to defer citizenship. Gradually an Emigrating Party (later called the Indian Party) takes shape, which proposes relocation to Indian Territory.
The Munsee vacate the Wyandott Purchase where they have been living more or less illegally for the last twelve years. The United Brethren (Moravian) mission becomes the property of Isaiah Walker.
February 15; Joel Walker submits a statement of the Wyandot delegation's expenses, in the amount of $2,200.
March 5; a new agreement is signed between Commissioner of Indian Affairs Manypenny and the Methodist Episcopal Church South concerning the operation of the manual labor school. The name is changed back from the Fort Leavenworth Indian Manual Training School to the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School; the emphasis on manual training is soon dropped in favor of academics.
March 8; Governor Reeder calls for elections for the Kansas Territorial Council and House of Representatives.
1855
March 10; the Shawnee and Wyandot Indian Agency is organized with Robert C. Miller as agent. He lives in Westport and travels to the reserves only when on tribal business.
March 15; birth of future Wyandot historian William E. Connelley, son of Constantine and Rebecca J. McCartin Conley, in Johnson County, Kentucky.
March 30; the first election of the Kansas Territorial Legislature is one of the most fraudulent elections in U.S. history - 6,307 votes are cast although the terri-torial census shows only 2,905 qualified residents. The result is overwhelmingly pro-slavery.
April 2; Dr. Charles Robinson writes to Eli Thayer from Lawrence requesting 200 Sharps rifles and two field guns.
April 20; Moses Grinter is authorized to open a trading post with the Delaware.
The Shawnee Baptist Mission is closed, but a new barn is erected at the Shawnee Friends Mission, which continues in its original purpose of education.
June 7; the Rev. Thomas Johnson buys a 14-year-old slave girl named Harriet from B. M. Lynch for $700.
June 25; a free-state convention in Lawrence repudiates the Kansas Territorial Legislature.
July 2-6; the Kansas Territorial Legislature, with the Rev. Thomas Johnson as President of the Council, meets in Pawnee just long enough to deny seats to the few elected free-state members and move the capital (over Governor Reeder's veto) back to the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School.
July 10; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee.
July 16 - August 30; reconvened at the Rev. Thomas Johnson's Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School, the Kansas Territorial Legislature drafts the infamous "bogus laws."
1855
July 30; Benjamin F. Robinson, Lot Coffman and John C. McCoy are appointed, the former by the government and the latter two by the Wyandot Tribal Council, as commissioners to oversee the division and allotment of the Wyandott Purchase among the individual members of the tribe.
August 8; the Kansas Territorial Legislature selects the pro-slavery settlement of Lecompton as permanent capital, but does not move until the next spring. Congress appropriates $50,000 for a capitol building which is never completed. The legislature also estab-lishes Johnson County, named in honor of the Rev. Thomas Johnson.
August 9; for the last time, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna resigns his powers and again goes into exile. Liberal republicans in Mexico institute La Reforma. Benito Juarez begins to achieve prominence.
August 14; the Wyandots' annual Green Corn Feast and council elections are held in Wyandott. Tauromee is reelected Head Chief.
August 16; Governor Reeder protests the actions of the Territorial Legislature and is removed from office by President Pierce. The new governor is Wilson Shannon.
That same day, the Rev. Pardee Butler is foolish enough to preach abolition in the pro-slavery town of Atchison. He is beaten, threatened with hanging, and set adrift in the Missouri River, bound to a two-log raft with an "A" painted on his back.
September 3; Governor Shannon arrives at the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School.
September 3 - October 27; Martin M. Hall surveys the township lines of the Wyandott Purchase. William Caldwell, Deputy Surveyor for Kansas and Nebraska, then begins subdivision into sections.
September 7; John Calhoun, Surveyor General of Kansas and Nebraska, moves his office from Fort Leavenworth to Wyandott, in a double log house (the former company store) owned by John D. Brown near the present 4th Street and State Avenue. A saloon soon opens across the street. The two youngest clerks in the office begin to supply whiskey to some of the younger Wyandots.
September 8; the Russians surrender Sevastopol to the allies after a 10 month siege.
1855
Also in September, the death of Francis A. Hicks, one-time Head Chief of the Wyandot Nation, at the age of 55. Matilda Hicks is a widow for the second time.
In October, John Brown arrives in Kansas.
October 8; the Wyandott post office is established, with W. J. Osborne as postmaster. He is less than diligent in his job, so that most mail is handled by the Surveyor General's office.
October 23 - November 11; a free-state convention in Topeka draws up an anti-slavery constitution for Kansas and organizes an alternate legislature.
October 24; a conservative Wyandot Tribal Council begins work on the draft treaty rolls, ruling that various individuals have forfeited all rights and titles and are debarred from sharing in either monetary payments or allotments: Sarah Bigtown by willfully leaving a Wyandot husband and uniting her fortunes with George Gideon, a Munsee chief; Lewis Clark is a Seneca and his wife (Sarah "Sally" Wright) a Negro; Catherine Clark is a citizen of Upper Canada; David V. Clement, though his wive and child are restored to the rolls; Jared S. Dawson and family have no identity as Wyandots; Isadore Deshane and family are Kickapoos; Adam Hunt is a citizen of Upper Canada now residing in California; Hiram M. Northrup and family; Rosanna Stone and her daughter Martha Driver by uniting with the Seneca; Noah E. Zane and family by absenting themselves from the Nation (they are in Wheeling, Virginia); etc. Others are restored to the rolls: Lucinda Armstrong, Sarah "Sallie" Half John, Henry C. Norton, Thomas H. Williams, David Wright, and Hannah Dickinson Zane.
October 26; the Wyandot Tribal Council takes up the Incompetent and Orphan lists and proceeds to the appointment of guardians.
October 30; Agent Robert C. Miller makes the first payment of monies under the treaty of 1855 to Wyandots enrolled on the Competent list.
November 1; the Wyandot Tribal Council revises the draft of the Incompetent list.
November 2; the Wyandot Tribal Council repays a $1,500 loan from Captain Joseph Parks (with interest). Agent Miller appears to pay those on the Incompetent and Orphan lists, but the payment is delayed as the guardians have not yet executed their bonds.
1855
November 23; the Wyandot Tribal Council revises the list of guardians.
November 29; the Wyandot Tribal Council appoints Silas Armstrong National Jailer after jailer Isaac W. Brown is accused of extortion.
December 1; the Shawnee and Delaware offer their services for the defense of Lawrence against a possible attack from Missouri.
December 2; the Wyandot Tribal Council appoints William Matthews and S. C. Matthews as public blacksmiths, the government-paid position apparently having ended.
December 12-13; the Wyandot Tribal Council approves the bonds for guardians of those on the Incompetent and Orphan lists. Most seem reasonable, but Joel Walker is the guardian for 43 (!) persons on the Incompetent list.
December 15; the guardians having been bonded, Agent Miller completes the first Wyandot treaty payment.
That same day, the Topeka Constitution is approved 1,731 to 46 in an election boycotted by pro-slavery adherents.
December 27; Thomas J. Barker arrives in Wyandott after helping to survey the first 60 miles of the line between Kansas and Nebraska. He becomes a cook in Isaac W. Brown's boarding house, called the "Catfish Hotel," at the southeast corner of the present 4th Street and State Avenue.
1856 - Bleeding Kansas.
January 1; Captain Joseph Parks is reelected Shawnee Head Chief.
January 15; election for state officers under the Topeka Constitution. Dr. Charles Robinson is chosen governor.
January 24; President Pierce denounces Reeder, Robinson, and James H. Lane in a speech.
February 1; the name of the Delaware post office is officially changed to Secondine.
February 11; in Wyandott, Silas M. Greyeyes and Anthony Hat burn the houses of James T. Charloe's widow Amelia and her daughter Lucy B. Charloe after being refused lodging for the night.
1856
March 4; the free-state legislature elects Reeder and Lane to the Senate and petitions Congress for admission to the Union under the Topeka Constitution.
Isaiah Walker opens a store, the first private business in Wyandott, on the north side of the present Nebraska Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.
March 30; the Treaty of Paris ends the Crimean War.
April 7; 300 armed men under Col. Jefferson Buford leave Montgomery, Alabama for Kansas.
April 8; a drunken mob burns both the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church South in Wyandott. (Lucy B. Armstrong believes they were incited by pro-slavery clerks from the Surveyor General's office.)
April 22; the Wyandot Tribal Council grants a divorce to Silas Armstrong's daughter Lucinda from her husband Joseph W. Armstrong (a Delaware), on the grounds of cruelty.
April 23; in response to the events of the last three months, the Wyandot Tribal Council assembles the people of the Nation, "...for the purpose of lecturing the young men for commiting Depredations upon their Neighbors and property and public property."
April 26; the new Shawnee and Wyandot Indian Agent, William Gay, makes a treaty payment to Wyandots on the Competent list.
That same day, the Methodist Episcopal Church South conveys two of its three sections under the Shawnee allotments and related personal property to the Rev. Thomas Johnson, in return for which he is to assume the church's $10,000 debt to the government.
April 30; a government plat of the Wyandott Purchase is prepared from the Hall survey.
In May, the death of Tall Charles, sometime operator of the Wyandot National Ferry, at the age of 55. Tall Charles is buried in Huron Indian Cemetery.
Also in May, a pro-slavery grand jury meeting in Lecompton indicts Reeder, Robinson, Lane, George W. Brown, George W. Dietzler, Gaius Jenkins, George W. Smith, and Samuel N. Wood for treason.
1856
May 21; a pro-slavery posse nearly 800 strong led by former Senator David Atchison of Missouri sacks Lawrence on the pretext of serving the grand jury indictments. The town is looted, Charles Robinson's house is burned, the Free State (Eldridge) Hotel is blown up, and two newspapers have their presses smashed and type dumped into the Kansas River.
May 22; Charles Sumner of Massachusetts is caned senseless on the floor of the U.S. Senate by South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks.
May 23; the Pottawatomie Massacre. On learning of the sack of Lawrence, John Brown vows to "cause a restraining fear" among pro-slavery forces. He rides with four sons and two others to the pro-slavery settlement of Pottawatomie Creek, and coldly butchers five pro-slavery men.
May 24; the Rev. Thomas Johnson buys a 15-year-old slave girl named Martha from David Burge for $800.
May 31; in retaliation for the Pottawatomie massacre, a pro-slavery party led by Henry Pate raids Palmyra (Baldwin, Kansas) and takes three prisoners.
June 2; the Battle of Black Jack. Brown attacks Pate's camp in a grove of black jack oaks three miles east of Palmyra. Pate surrenders to Brown's numerically inferior force but is later freed by the arrival of dragoons from Fort Leavenworth.
While searching for John Brown, 170 Missourians led by John W. Whitfield attack and loot Osawatomie, Kansas.
June 17; the nominating convention of the new Republican Party meets at Philadelphia and nominates John Charles Fremont for President. He is for a free Kansas and opposes the Fugitive Slave Law.
Perhaps feeling threatened by the pro-slavery agitation, George Wright moves from Wyandott to Indian Territory, where he becomes an official interpreter for the Seneca and Shawnee. He is subsequently omitted from the 1855 treaty lists, while his son David is placed on the Orphan list.
In the summer, violence erupts on the Shawnee Reserve, as much over timber claims, town sites and squatters' rights as over slavery. Osage River Agent Maxwell McCaslin writes that the Shawnee face an "absolute reign of terror."
1856
June 21; Shawnee and Wyandot Indian Agent William Gay and his son are stopped by 3 men about 2 miles west of Westport. They demand to know if he is pro- or anti- slavery. He answers that he is from Michigan and in favor of a free state. He is shot dead and his son severely wounded.
Also in June, the death of John Arms, onetime member of the Wyandot Tribal Council, at the age of 45.
July 4; on instructions from President Pierce and Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, dragoons from Fort Leavenworth force the free-state legislature in Topeka to disband.
July 8; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee.
July 10; the Delaware chiefs petition the Wyandot Tribal Council concerning the government's new survey and plat of the Wyandott Purchase, which they say extends beyond McCoy's line of 1851.
Alexander Majors, principal in the Santa Fe freighting firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell, builds a large, two-story frame house some five miles south of Westport. The inset front porch with its second floor balcony looks west over Majors' extensive holdings on both sides of the state line, including barns, corrals, and pastures for mules and oxen. Still standing at the present 8145 State Line Road, Kansas City, Missouri.
July 26; the Mendias chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, named after Lydia B. Walker, is organized at the home of Matthew R. Walker in Wyandott.
August 9; the Delaware Indian Agent posts a notice that Sarcoxie has sole right to land a ferry on the north bank of the Kansas River opposite Lawrence, and that no other can operate without the consent of the Nation.
August 10; the steamboat Arabia hits a snag and sinks in the Quindaro Bend of the Missouri River, going down with a large and varied cargo. (The recovered remains are now in the Arabia Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.)
August 12; the Wyandots' annual Green Corn Feast and council elections are held in Wyandott. George I. Clark is elected Head Chief.
1856
August 19; the new Wyandot Tribal Council requests that the Wyandott Commissioners make modifications in the treaty lists: to strike out Eudora Fish and Leander J. Fish (children of Paschal and Hester Zane Fish), and Sarah Zane, and to add Sarah Barbee (formerly Sarah Sarrahess), Rosanna Stone and her daughter Martha Driver, and all infants born between March 1 and December 8, 1855. The case of Noah E. Zane is to be reexamined.
August 21; Wilson Shannon resigns as Kansas Territorial Governor. The pro-slavery Territorial Secretary, Daniel Woodson, assumes control and proclaims the territory in open rebellion. Atchison marches into Kansas with a "Grand Army" of Missourians.
August 30; the Second Battle of Osawatomie. Atchison's 400 Missourians drive out 40 defenders led by John Brown, loot and burn the town. One former Missourian is captured, tried and shot for "treason against Missouri."
September 1; the Wyandot Tribal Council orders the four acre ferry tract to be surveyed and sold to the highest bidder. $137.50 is paid to Isaac W. Brown for repairs to the jail.
September 2; the Rev. Thomas Johnson and 9 others sign an open letter to the citizens of Missouri, claiming that Little Santa Fe, Westport and Independence are threatened by free-state forces and begging for immediate assistance.
September 3; Sarcoxie writes to the commandant of Fort Leavenworth asking for protection for the Delaware: "We have been invaded, and our stock taken by force, and our men taken as prisoners, and they threaten to lay our houses in ashes." Ordered to remain neutral, the Delaware are ready to take up arms against the pro-slavery forces.
September 8; Bishop George F. Pierce of the Methodist Episcopal Church South visits the Rev. Thomas Johnson at the manual labor school. The next day they ride out past the Friends mission and visit the encampment of Atchison's forces, who are preparing for a second attack on Lawrence.
September 11; the new Kansas Territorial Governor, John White Geary, arrives in Lecompton. He disbands the militia called by Woodson and dissuades Atchison and Whitfield from again entering Kansas.
1856
September 12; the first regular session of the Kansas Mission Conference is held in the pro-slavery town of Kickapoo.
September 13; the Battle of Hickory Point. James H. Lane and company attack a pro-slavery band that has sacked Grasshopper Falls (Valley Falls, Kansas). The skirmish ends in a truce after one man is killed and nine wounded.
September 15; the Wyandot Tribal Council sells the Wyandot National Ferry tract to Isaiah Walker, acting on behalf of a syndicate, for $7,000 (payable in two equal installments, in October 1856 and October 1857). Silas Armstrong later challenges Walker's title.
October 7; the Wyandot Tribal Council (no longer having the legal authority to act) requests that Shawnee and Wyandot Indian Agent Anselm Arnold attend to the case of arson committed by Anthony Hat and Silas M. Greyeyes, and procure instructions from the Bureau of Indian Affairs on how to proceed.
October 22; the Wyandot Tribal Council sells the Wyandot Council House (former Armstrong school) and the jail to Silas Armstrong for $120, on condition that Armstrong will keep the council house in repair so that the council can continue to use it for meetings. The Dwelling House (agent's residence?) is sold to Isaac W. Brown for $312.50.
Work begins on the construction of a new two-story, brick house for Moses and Anna Grinter, with John Swagger as builder, on the crest of the hill overlooking the ferry. The bulk of construction on the Greek Revival style residence, the Grinter's third house, is done the following year. Still standing at the present 1420 South 78th Street, Kansas City, Kansas.
Construction also begins on a new church for the Wyandot Methodist Episcopal Church South, on land donated by Hiram M. Northrup and his wife adjacent to the Huron Indian Cemetery. The wood frame structure, called the White Church, is finished the following winter.
November 4; James Buchanan is elected President.
In November, Delaware Trust Lands ceded in the treaty of 1854 are sold by auction at Fort Leavenworth, with ensuing scandal.
1856
Also in November, Thomas J. Barker buys a half interest in Isaiah Walker's store, the business becoming Walker and Barker, General Merchandise. The Wyandott post office soon moves to the store.
November 22; Commissioner of Indian Affairs Manypenny announces that because of delays with the land survey, many Shawnee allotments under the treaty of 1854 have yet to be assigned.
November 28; Lot Coffman resigns as Wyandott Commissioner and is replaced by Robert J. Lawrence.
The Quindaro Town Company is formed to establish a safe port of entry into Kansas for free-state settlers. Company officers are Joel Walker, President; Abelard Guthrie, Vice President; Samuel N. Simpson, Secretary; and Dr. Charles Robinson, Treasurer. The townsite is assembled from the allotments of 13 Wyandots, including Esquire Grey-Eyes, Ebenezer O. Zane, Matthew Brown, and Abelard and Nancy Brown Guthrie. The town is named in Mrs. Guthrie's honor.
In December, ten men - W. Y. Roberts, Thomas H. Swope, Gaius Jenkins, John McAlpine, Dr. J. P. Root, T. B. Eldridge, S. W. Eldridge, Robert Morris, Daniel Killen, and James M. Winchell - determine to purchase and organize Wyandott for development. However, the first four soon ditch their partners for three Wyandot associates. The Wyandott City Company is subsequently organized on December 9 at the home of Isaac W. Brown. Company officers are Silas Armstrong, President; W. Y. Roberts, Secretary; Isaiah Walker, Treasurer; and John McAlpine, Trustee; with Gaius Jenkins, Thomas H. Swope, and Joel Walker as partners.
Also in December, the plat of Quindaro is laid out by Owen A. Bassett. It covers the area from A (the present 42nd) Street east to Y (17th) Street, and from 10th Street (Parkview Avenue) north to the Missouri River, with the town's main business street, Kansas Avenue (27th Street), taking the place of Q Street. The plat includes Quindaro Park, one of the first public parks in Kansas. A promotional copy of the plat shows Quindaro as the hub of a number of as-yet-nonexistent railroads, and includes a very attractive portrait of Nancy Brown Guthrie.
1856
December 23; a Wyandot National Convention votes unanimously that the treaty of 1855 should be so construed that patents for lands should be issued to heads of families.
December 27; the Wyandot Tribal Council appoints Head Chief George I. Clark, Silas Armstrong, Matthew Mudeater and Joel Walker as a delegation to Washington to see that the terms of the treaty of 1855 are carried out.
c. 1857 - Sarah "Sally" Driver, looking very pretty in her fashionable riding habit, goes riding with Surveyor General Calhoun, and they subsequently pose for a photograph, presumably in Kansas City.
1857 - January 1; Captain Joseph Parks is reelected Shawnee Head Chief.
That same day, ground is broken for the first building in Quindaro.
January 3; the Wyandot Tribal Council hears the appeals of David V. Clement and Presley Muir regarding their debarment from the treaty lists. Clement is enrolled but Muir is decided against, as he is in "parts unknown" and his family is in Canada. As subdivision into allotments has already begun, Clement is to be paid a cash equivalent from the contingency fund. (Appraised value is $279 for each share.)
January 12; the second Kansas Territorial Legislature meets in Lecompton. The Rev. Thomas Johnson is again elected President of the Council.
January 13; Hiram and Margaret Northrup sell 15.37 acres on the east end of their allotment to Gaius Jenkins of the Wyandott City Company for $1,800, except for 1.44 acres containing the Huron Indian Cemetery and adjacent Methodist Episcopal Church South.
January 26; Agent Anselm Arnold pays out the first half of the second installment on the 1855 Wyandot treaty payment to those on the Incompetent and Orphan lists.
February 1; the citizens of Quindaro begin construction of a stage road to Lawrence, a distance of 31 miles.
February 12; Westport, Missouri is incorporated. Its population approaches 2000.
1857
February 13; the Wyandot Tribal Council writes the delegation in Washington, D.C. to inform them that today four delegates of the Emigrating Party - Tauromee, John S. Bearskin, John W. Greyeyes and Michael Frost - have left for Washington. Acting Head Chief John D. Brown has paid them $300 for expenses.
February 15; Bassett's plat of Quindaro is filed with the Leavenworth County Register of Deeds in Delaware City. The four-story Quindaro House hotel opens at 1-5 Kansas Avenue (Colby and Parker, proprietors).
March 4; Geary is forced to resign as territorial governor after armed thugs in Lecompton threaten his life.
March 6; the U.S. Supreme Court issues the Dred Scott Decision. Under the Constitution, no Negro can be a citizen, and no state or territory can prohibit slavery. The ruling is denounced and ignored in the northern states; it becomes "open season" on free blacks in border states and territories.
March 7; a procession some 50 strong, led by flag, fife and drum, marches from the Eldridge House hotel (the former Silas Armstrong residence) at 5th and Minnesota, around the Wyandot Council House, to Walker and Barker's store, as the first lots in Wyandott are placed on sale (although the plat is not yet completed).
The first non-Wyandot house to be built in Wyandott is a pre-fab imported from Cincinnati by Dr. Joseph P. Root. Erected on the southeast corner of 4th and Nebraska, it is soon dubbed "the Pill Box."
Death of Jonathan Pointer in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, at the age of 74. His request to be buried beside John Stewart is disregarded.
Also in March, Alfred Gray settles in Quindaro.
March 18; John H. Millar completes the plat of Wyandott City. The plat covers the area from Summunduwot (the present Orville) Avenue north to Garrett (Wood) Avenue, and from Warpole (14th) Street east to the Kansas River. It includes two parks (Huron Place and Oakland Park), but excludes several large tracts including properties owned by Lucy B. Armstrong, Hiram M. Northrup, and Mathias Splitlog.
March 19; a U.S. post office opens in Shawneetown.
1857
March 26; President Buchanan appoints Robert J. Walker of Mississippi as Kansas Territorial Governor.
March 30; after negotiations for the establishment of a jointly operated ferry with the Wyandott City Company fail, the Quindaro Town Company lets a contract to build a free ferry across the Kansas River near the present 38th Street and Kaw Drive, to open trading connections with the Southwest.
The Wyandott City Company grades the Southern Road to link Wyandott to Shawneetown, and establishes its own free ferry across the Kansas River a mile and 1/2 downstream from Quindaro's.
April 7; George W. Veale arrives in Quindaro aboard the White Cloud from Evansville, Ohio.
April 10; Thomas J. Barker, who has already been performing the duties, is appointed Wyandott postmaster.
April 13; Frederick P. Stanton arrives in Kansas to replace Daniel Woodson as Territorial Secretary.
April 14; the steamboat LIGHTFOOT of Quindaro, a 100' stern wheeler of 75 tons burden and 18" draft built by Thaddeus Hyatt of New York, makes its first (and probably only) trip up the Kansas River from Wyandott.
That same day, a public school for Quindaro is organized at a meeting chaired by Dr. Charles Robinson. Enough money is collected to defray expenses for one year.
April 17; James W. Denver is appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, replacing George W. Manypenny.
April 18; each Delaware is paid $57.50 from the proceeds of sales of the Delaware Trust Lands.
That same day, the Wyandott City Company votes to name the park or town square including the cemetery "Huron Place." The "Indian Cemetery in Huron Place" eventually is shortened to "Huron Indian Cemetery," although the Wyandots almost never call themselves Hurons.
Also in April, the Rev. Eben Blachly, a Presbyterian minister, arrives in Quindaro with his wife Jane. He subsequently begins holding services in Wyandott, a mission leading to the eventual founding the First Presbyterian Church.
1857
April 21; Agent Arnold pays out the balance of the second installment of the 1855 Wyandot treaty payment to those on the Incompetent and Orphan lists.
A large and detailed map of Leavenworth County, Kansas Territory, drawn by Richard Quinn and attested to by the Chief Clerk in the Surveyor General's office, is published by Leopold Gast and Brother, Lithographers, St. Louis. It includes individual maps of Leavenworth City and the recently platted Wyandott City.
The Surveyor General's office is moved from Wyandott to the territorial capital of Lecompton.
May 2; on application of a Mr. Goodrich, the Wyandott City Company votes to set aside one of the Church Lots in Huron Place for the Presbyterian Church, New School. (No lot is claimed until 1882, however.)
In May, St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church is founded by the Rev. Rodney S. Nash on 4th Street between Kansas (State) and Minnesota in Wyandott, just south of Dunning's Opera House.
May 13; the first issue is published of the Chindowan, the Quindaro newspaper edited by J. M. Walden, with offices in the J. B. Upson Building at 7 Kansas Avenue. Mrs. Clarinda I. H. Nichols is associate editor and columnist.
May 14; Millar's plat of Wyandott City is filed with the Leavenworth County Register of Deeds.
In mid-May, the stage road from Quindaro to Lawrence opens. "Robinson, Walker & Co.'s Daily Passenger and Express Line" charges $3.00 for the six hour trip.
May 24; Territorial Governor Robert J. Walker addresses the citizens of Quindaro from the deck of the steamboat New Lucy.
June 12; the Quindaro post office opens, with Charles S. Parker as postmaster.
June 16; a temperance meeting is held in Quindaro. A "vigilance committee" closes the two saloons the next day.
June 23; Gaius Jenkins conveys the parcels he has acquired on behalf of the Wyandott City Company to Trustee John McAlpine.
1857
June 26; Articles of Association and Co-partnership for the Wyandott City Company are drawn up and signed; 150 shares of stock valued at $1,000 per share are to be issued, each of the seven partners taking 15 shares.
July 2; a town meeting is held in Quindaro to discuss the formation of a town government. A committee is formed to study the matter.
July 7; the committee on a town government for Quindaro reports that it would be premature - the Vigilance Committee is sufficient for the time being.
That same day, the first issue is published of the Wyandott Reporter, the first newspaper in Wyandott.
July 9; the Wyandot Tribal Council sells the "old schoolhouse" to Robert Robitaille for $40.
July 12; death of Captain Ketchum, Head Chief of the Delaware Nation, at the age of 77. A church member for 22 years, he is buried in the Delaware Indian Cemetery next to the White Church. His will designates his sister's son James Connor as head chief, but he declines in favor of his brother John, who is apparently the U.S. government's choice.
July 14; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee. The council orders the discon-tinuation of the school in District No. 1 under the direction of John D. Brown, as no Wyandot children are attending.
St. Paul's Presbyterian Church is organized in Quindaro by the Rev. Octavius Perinchief, but a church building is apparently never built.
August 1; Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols resigns as associate editor of the Chindowan.
August 11; the Wyandots' annual Green Corn Feast and council elections are held in Wyandott. George I. Clark is reelected Head Chief.
August 16; Owen A. Bassett returns to Quindaro from Nebraska, bringing with him a 6 pounder (cannon) which the residents christen "Lazarus" because of its habit of disappearing, then rising from the dead, whenever the Army or territorial authorities come snooping.
1857
August 17; Captain Joseph Parks, the Rev. Thomas Johnson, and Charles Bluejacket are appointed to oversee the construction of a new Shawnee Methodist Mission church at Shawneetown.
Also in August, construction begins on the first brick house in Quindaro. It is erected on P Street by Henry Steiner & Co. The brick Methodist Episcopal Church is also under construction.
Delaware led by Fall Leaf serve as scouts on an Army expedition against the Southern Cheyenne.
The Wyandot Methodist Episcopal Church is rebuilt on land given by Lucy B. Armstrong at the northeast corner of 5th and Washington. This new church is of wood frame construction.
In the summer Matthew Mudeater conducts approximately 200 disillusioned and demoralized Wyandots to Indian Territory. They reach the Neosho Agency before the end of August, and are given refuge on Seneca land. Members of the Emigrating Party begin negotiations for purchase of a portion of the Seneca Reserve. Mudeater returns to Wyandott.
August 31; Maj. Andrew J. Dorn, Seneca Indian Agent, writes to Elias Rector of the arrival of the Wyandot emigrants on the Seneca Reserve.
September 1; Shawnee and Wyandot Indian Agent Anselm Arnold reports that the Shawnee allotments under the treaty of 1854 have finally been completed, leaving about 130,000 acres for white settlement.
September 6; death of the Rev. James B. Finley at the age of 76.
September 7 - October 28; a convention in Lecompton, with Surveyor General John Calhoun acting as president, drafts a pro-slavery constitution for Kansas.
September 8; death of Joel Walker in Wyandott at the age of 44. His widow Mary Ann and nephew Isaiah Walker are administrators of his estate. Abelard Guthrie replaces him as president of the Quindaro Town Company.
September 21; the Wyandot Tribal Council writes to John Haverty, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis, concerning the Wyandots who have emigrated.
1857
September 22; the Wyandot Tribal Council appoints School Directors for 1857-58: Matthew Mudeater, Treasurer, Robert Robitaille, District No. 2, and Noah E. Zane, District No. 3. District No. 1 remains discontinued.
September 24; Captain Joseph Parks appears before the Wyandot Tribal Council on behalf of his wife Catherine, again claiming lands in Ohio supposedly granted to her father. The council states that it is not in their jurisdiction, all former claims having been annulled by the treaties of 1842 and 1855.
September 25; the Wyandot Tribal Council conducts its regular business of settling estates. Mary Steel is heir to her brother Henry C. Greyeyes, George Wright heir to his son David, and Irvin P. Long is appointed to administer the estate of the late Isaac Williams Jr. and his wife Susan. (All four of the deceased are listed on the tribal rosters completed in 1859.)
September 30; Agent Arnold writes to Superintendent Haverty concerning the Wyandot emigrants.
In October, the Quindaro Town Company begins operation of a steam-powered saw mill, largest in the territory.
October 10; the Wyandot Tribal Council requests that Commissioner of Indian Affairs Denver make the balance of the October treaty payment as soon as possible. They are concerned about the needs of the Wyandot emigrants on the Seneca Reserve.
October 21; Surveyor General Calhoun issues a list of 34 Wyandot Floats in accord with the treaties of 1842 and 1855. They include lands in the townsites of Lecompton, Topeka, Lawrence, Manhattan, Emporia, Burlington, and the future Kansas City, Kansas.
Throughout this year, the Underground Railroad is reportedly in operation in Quindaro, aiding slaves escaping from Missouri. It will continue to do so until well after the outbreak of war.
November 12; the Wyandot Tribal Council pays out monies to public officials for 1855-56, and authorizes the payment of $50 to Matthew Mudeater for repairs to the Huron Indian Cemetery.
November 16; Jacob Henry signs a contract with the Quindaro Town Company to establish a brick kiln on 3 acres of land on the Missouri River east of Y Street.
1857
November 19; the unallotted Shawnee Indian lands are thrown open for purchase and preemption.
December 17; Kansas Territorial Governor Walker resigns.
December 21; voters in Kansas approve the Lecompton Constitution 6,226 to 569. Many votes are believed to be fraudulent, and the election is boycotted by free-state men. A second election is called for.
That same day, President Buchanan appoints Commissioner of Indian Affairs James W. Denver as Kansas Territorial Secretary and acting governor.
December 22; the Wyandot Tribal Council resolves to send an account of the loss of Amelia Charloe and documents of testimony in the arson case to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, "...that justice may be attained of the incendiaries."
December 31; Ottawa is chosen as the capital of Canada by Queen Victoria.
c. 1858 - Isaiah and Mary Walker build a new house on the crest of a hill northwest of the center of Wyandott, near the present southwest corner of 6th and Freeman. Called "Turtle Hill," the two-story brick house, its five fireplaces graced with marble mantles, is reputedly the finest residence west of Missouri. It becomes the social center of the community, known for lavish parties (demolished 1959). A large barn is erected to the east, across the present 6th Street.
1858 - January 1; Paschal Fish is elected Head Chief of the Shawnee Nation, replacing Captain Joseph Parks. Fish owns and operates a trading store and ferry on the site of the present town of Eudora (named for his daughter), some 6 miles east of Lawrence.
That same day, another $93,860 is paid to the Delaware from the proceeds of sales of the Delaware Trust Lands, each individual receiving $95.
January 3; William Prevator is baptised in Wyandott by Father Theodore Heinman, sent from Leavenworth by Bishop Miege to establish a Catholic mission.
1858
January 4; the third Kansas Territorial Legislature convenes.
That same day, two elections are held, one for the approval of the Lecompton Constitution and one for state officers. Forty-three votes cast at Delaware Crossing (Secondine) somehow swell to 379 pro-slavery votes when counted at Lecompton, enough to carry Leavenworth County. The genuine ballots are later found hidden under a wood pile. A Congressionally-appointed Board of Commissioners for the Investigation of Election Frauds later finds that the forgeries were committed by John D. Henderson, secretary of the Lecompton Convention, with the knowledge of convention president John Calhoun. Despite the fraud, the free-state party carries both elections, defeating the constitution and pro-slavery candidates.
January 8; the Territorial and Topeka legislatures meet in Lawrence in an attempt to resolve their differences.
January 18; death of Catherine Clark, wife of George I. Clark, in Wyandott at the age of 49.
January 21; President Comomfort of Mexico is forced to resign by a conservative revolt, and flees to the U.S. His legal successor is Chief Justice Benito Juarez. Beginning of the War of the Reform, or Three Years' War.
January 25; death of George I. Clark, Head Chief of the Wyandot Nation and onetime Secretary of the Provisional Government of Nebraska Territory, at the age of 55. Silas Armstrong becomes Head Chief.
January 27; the stone Quindaro Congregational Church is dedicated on the southwest corner of 8th Street and Kansas Avenue (Sewell and 27th Street). The Rev. Sylvester Dana Storrs is pastor.
February 2; against the advice of Denver, President Buchanan asks Congress to approve Kansas' admission to the Union under the Lecompton Constitution. Denver reports that free-state supporters are clearly in the majority in the territory.
That same day, the Wyandot Tribal Council meets to investigate the state of the public affairs of the Nation in view of the death of the "much lamented" George I. Clark. They decide to place an advertisement in the local papers giving notice that only Wyandots may be buried in the Huron Indian Cemetery.
1858
February 8; Wyandott Commissioner John C. McCoy reports that the commission's work is almost completed, but complains that widows should not be counted as heads of household as women are incompetent to manage their own affairs.
February 9; The incorporation of Quindaro is approved by the Kansas Territorial Legislature, but the legal description is defective and the proposed city charter is rejected by the voters. An unincorporated town government is subsequently established, and Alfred Gray is elected as Quindaro's first mayor.
That same day, James Barnett is elected to fill the vacant seat on the Wyandot Tribal Council.
February 11; incorporation of the Wyandott City Company is approved by the Kansas Territorial Legislature.
February 16; the Wyandot Tribal Council appoints Hiram M. Northrup guardian of the minor children of George I. and Catherine Clark (Margaret Northrup is cousin to the Clark children). The council signs a contract with Millar & Bro. to survey and mark the corners of each allotment.
February 23; the Wyandot Tribal Council writes to Little Town Spicer, Chief of the Seneca Nation, offering to assist in the negotiations between the Seneca and the Emigrating Party Wyandots, as they don't seem to be getting anywhere.
February 27; Delaware agency blacksmith Isaac Mundy dies in a hunting accident at the age of 43, and is buried in the Delaware Indian Cemetery next to the White Church. His widow Lucy moves to Weston, Missouri.
Also in February, the Webb Ferry is established in Quindaro by Otis Webb, Dr. Charles Robinson and Charles H. Chapin, and is incorporated by the Territorial Legislature. The steamboat Otis Webb, a 100' side wheeler of 100 tons burden and 26" draft built at Wellsville, Ohio, provides a link between Quindaro and Parkville (and probable assistance to escaping slaves).
In March, the free-state legislature in Topeka disbands for lack of a quorum.
March 2; the Wyandot Tribal Council decides to have tombstones erected in the Huron Indian Cemetery for all former chiefs that have died in Kansas.
1858
March 12; the thirty-fifth and last Wyandot Float, that of John M. Armstrong, is claimed by his widow Lucy B. Armstrong.
Also in March, Father William Fish is sent to Wyandott by Bishop Miege, replacing Father Heinman and formally organizing a Catholic parish.
March 24; the Wyandot Tribal Council requests that the Wyandott Commissioners meet with the Nation at John D. Brown's house next Friday, to explain the plat of the Wyandott Allotments and relieve various concerns. They also request that the commissioners not sign any certif-icates until they meet.
April 10; death of Thomas Hart Benton in Washington, D.C., at the age of 76.
April 25; The brick Quindaro Methodist Episcopal Church is dedicated on the east side of 0 Street between 8th and 9th Streets (29th between Sewell and Sloan). The Rev. Ephraim Nute of Lawrence is pastor.
April 28; Isaiah Walker deeds a half interest in the four acre Wyandot National Ferry tract to Charles B. Garrett, Joel W. Garrett, Samuel E. Forseyth, and the heirs of Joel Walker, his partners in the original purchase.
May 8; a reporter for the New York Tribune visits Westport, the manual labor school (now falling into disrepair), and the fine home of Captain Joseph Parks. Parks states that despite his ownership of slaves he is in favor of a free state.
May 9; The cornerstone of St. Mary's Catholic Church is laid by Father Fish on the southwest corner of the present 9th Street and Ann Avenue in Wyandott, on property donated by Hiram and Margaret Northrup.
May 10; Lucy B. Armstrong appeals to the acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs, complaining that the Wyandott Commissioners have divided her personal allotment into two separate parts, with her house on the allotment of one of her minor children, and that her brother-in-law Silas Armstrong is claiming part of her property.
That same day, the Webb Ferry becomes the Quindaro Ferry Company. The ferry service is renamed the Parkville and Quindaro Ferry the next day. The Otis Webb sometimes runs upriver as far as Fort Leavenworth.
1858
May 11; Minnesota is admitted to the Union as the 32nd state.
That same day, Head Chief Silas Armstrong and Matthew Mudeater notify the acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs that there are trespassers attempting to squat on Wyandot lands, and ask that they be removed.
May 12; acting governor James W. Denver is appointed Territorial Governor of Kansas. Peace and order finally arrive in his term, and Denver, Colorado (then within the territory) is named in his honor.
May 14; Henry Steiner becomes the sole owner of the Quindaro Brewery at 45 N Street, having bought out his partner Jacob Zehntner.
May 19; the Marais des Cygnes Massacre. Charles A. Hamelton and 30 Missourians take 11 free-state men from their homes, line them up by a ravine and shoot them; 5 are dead, 5 wounded, and one escapes by feigning death. The resultant national outcry marks the effective end of pro-slavery efforts in Kansas.
The Southern Bridge is built by Daniel Killen with Irish workmen two miles southwest of Wyandott, replacing the free ferry. First bridge across the Kansas River, the wood structure on timber piles costs $28,000, raised by subscription. (A series of bridges will occupy the same location until the last is destroyed in the 1951 flood.) Within six months, Quindaro's competing ferry is out of business.
June 1; the plat of the First Addition to Quindaro is filed with the Leavenworth County Register of Deeds by Abelard Guthrie, Joseph Lyman, Dr. Charles Robinson and Otis Webb. It adds 40 blocks south of 10th Street, to the present Brown Avenue (12th Street on the plat).
June 3; James H. Lane brutally kills Gaius Jenkins in a quarrel over a land claim near Lawrence. Lane is subsequently acquitted of murder, claiming defense against violent trespass.
June 8; the Wyandott City Company successfully petitions for establishment of a town government (unincorporated) on behalf of the Inhabitants of the Town of Wyandott. Trustees are Charles S. Glick, Daniel Killen, William McKay, George Russell, and William F. Simpson, and officials are chairman, clerk, assessor, collector, and constable. The population is 1,259.
1858
June 12; publication of the Chindowan is suspended in Quindaro due to financial problems. The paper is quickly revived by O. B. Gray, Vincent J. Lane, N. B. Newman, and George Veale, with A. S. Corey as editor. The paper continues publication until 1859.
June 14; Charles E. Mix is appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, replacing the departed James W. Denver. Commissioner Mix overrules the Wyandott Commissioners and allows women who were widows at the time of the treaty of 1855 to be counted as heads of household in the Wyandott Allotments.
June 16; Abraham Lincoln, in a speech in Springfield, Illinois, says that the issue of slavery must be resolved, declaring, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
June 26; Hiram M. Northrup files a plat prepared by Millar and Bro. of 12 blocks south of Kansas (State) Avenue and west of 7th Street as Northrup's Part of Wyandott City, reserving most of Block 117 for his own use. Northrup's property south of Barnett Avenue remains unplatted until 1888.
John B. Wornall and his wife Eliza, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Johnson, build a substantial Greek Revival style brick house some two and one-half miles south of Westport. Still standing at the present 146 West 61st Terrace, Kansas City, Missouri.
The Munsee or Christian Indian Reserve near Fort Leavenworth is sold and the Munsee are consolidated with the Swan Creek Chippewa in Franklin County, Kansas. The United Brethren mission moves with the Munsee, and remains in operation until 1905.
July 13; nominations for the Wyandot Tribal Council and Legislative Committee.
July 27; the Wyandot Tribal Council pays out $10 to each tribal member from interest accruing out of the monies invested in U.S. stock under the treaty of 1850.
August 2; the Lecompton Constitution is voted on for a third time by Kansans at the direction of Congress. It is decisively defeated in a reasonably fair election.
August 7; the first issue of the Wyandott Gazette is published by S. D. McDonald. Suspended after one year.
1858
August 10; the Wyandots' annual Green Corn Feast and council elections are held in Wyandott. John Sarrahess is elected Head Chief.
August 16; a telegraph message from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan is transmitted over the newly laid trans-Atlantic cable.
August 21; the Shawnee Tribal Council meets to consider withdrawing their funds from the manual labor school and establishing some other system of education. A committee is appointed to make a recommendation.
That same day, the famous debates between Illinois senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas begin.
August 24; Oak Grove Cemetery is established by the Town of Wyandott on a hill crest a mile north of town, on land purchased from Sophia Walker Clement, daughter of William Walker Jr.
Also in August, Millar and Bro. finally make the survey of the Wyandot Allotments that the Wyandot Tribal Council contracted for in February.
August 31; Lucy B. Armstrong protests that her enemies now seek to have her children listed as orphans on the allotment rolls. (In the Common Law, widows normally have no interest other than a "dower right" in their husband's estates; only the children are considered to be heirs. Wyandot custom is different, however.)
Abelard Guthrie files suit against Dr. Charles Robinson and Samuel N. Simpson, his partners in Quindaro. The situation worsens when Simpson reportedly "seduces and ruins" Guthrie's "deaf, dumb, and feeble minded" sister-in-law Margaret Brown, and Guthrie horse-whips him.
September 3; ten Wyandot widows, including Hannah Armstrong, Matilda Hicks and Lucy B. Armstrong, protest the handling of their and their children's allotments. McCoy and Robinson still refuse to treat them as heads of household, despite Commissioner Mix's directive.
September 7; the new Wyandot Tribal Council orders the secretary to examine all council papers from the last two years. The council appoints School Directors for 1858-59: John Sarrahess, for a reestablished District No. 1, Robert Robitaille, District No. 2, and "Red Head" Noah E. Zane, District No. 3.
1858
September 14; Lucy B. Armstrong and Matilda Hicks ask the Wyandot Tribal Council for support in their fight with the Wyandott Commissioners.
September 15; at the request of John W. Greyeyes, the Wyandot Tribal Council sends a letter to Maj. Andrew J. Dorn, Seneca Indian Agent, informing him that a treaty has finally been agreed upon between the Seneca and Emigrating Party Wyandots for purchase of part of the Seneca Reserve. (No treaty is signed, however.)
September 17; Commissioner of Indian Affairs Mix again declares that widows at the time of the treaty of 1855 are to be treated as heads of household under the Wyandott Allotments.