the preceding cession or relinquishment, the undersigned, William Clark, agrees, on behalf of the United States, to pay as a present to the said Ioways and band of Sacks and Foxes seven thousand five hundred dollars in money, the receipt of which they hereby acknowledge. Article 2. As the said tribes of Ioways and Sacks and Foxes have applied for a small piece of land, south of the Missouri, for a permanent home, on which they can settle, and request the assistance of the Government of the United States to place them on this land, in a situation at least equal to that they now enjoy on the land ceded by them: Therefore I, William Clark, superintendent of Indian affairs, do further agree, on behalf of the United States, to assign to the Ioway tribe, and Missouri band of Sacks and Foxes, the small strip of land on the south side of the Missouri River, lying between the Kickapoo northern boundary-line and the Grand Nemahar River, and extending from the Missouri back and westwardly with the said Kickapoo line and the Grand Nemahar, making four hundred sections; to be divided between the said Ioways and the Missouri band of Sacks and Foxes, the lower half to the Sacks and Foxes, and the upper half to the Ioways. Article 3. The Ioways and Missouri band of Sacks and Foxes further agree that they will move and settle on the lands assigned them in the above article, as soon as arrangements can be made by them; and the undersigned, William Clark, in behalf of the United States, agrees that, as soon as the above tribes have selected a site for their villages, and places for their fields, and moved to them, to erect for the Ioways five comfortable houses; to enclose and break up for them two hundred acres of ground; to furnish them with a farmer, a blacksmith, school master, and interpreter, as long as the President of the United States may deem proper; to furnish them with such agricultural implements as may be necessary, for five years; to furnish them with rations for one year, commencing at the time of their arrival at their new homes; to furnish them with one ferry boat; to furnish them with one hundred cows and calves, and five bulls, and one hundred stock-hogs when they require them; to furnish them with a mill, and assist in removing them, to the extent of five hundred dollars. And to erect for the Sacks and Foxes three comfortable houses; to enclose and break up for them two hundred acres of ground; to furnish them with a farmer, blacksmith, schoolmaster, and interpreter, as long as the President of the United States may deem proper; to furnish them with such agricultural implements as may be necessary, for five years; to furnish them with rations for one year, commencing at the time of their arrival at their new home; to furnish them with one ferry boat; to furnish them with one hundred cows and calves, and five bulls, one hundred stock-hogs when they require them; to furnish them with a mill; and to assist in removing them to the extent of four hundred dollars. Article 4. This treaty shall be obligatory on the tribes, parties hereto, from and after the date hereof, and on the United States from and after its ratification by the Goverment thereof. The Platte country was destined to become one of the developing features of Kansas City. As early as the winter of 1810-1811 John Jacob Astor's first expedition to locate the "Northwest Fur Company" commanded by Wilson Price Hunt spent four months hunting and fishing in the dense forests and beautiful streams with which the country abounded. So great was the fame of this "hunting ground" that it reached the ears of the famous pioneer hunter and trapper of Kentucky and Missouri, Daniel Boone, who, it is claimed, at the age of eighty-two, lured by tales of the wonderful hunting grounds at the headwaters of the Little Platte and the One-hundredand-two Rivers, made that his last hunting trip. Joseph Robidoux Sr. connected with the American Fur Company, located near the confluence of the Black Snake Creek with the Missouri in 1803 and remained there among the Indians as a fur trader. For many years Kings Hill and its one log cabin occupied the present site of the city of St. Joseph. The population of Kansas City increased in ten years from 1830-1840, five thousand. Opening the Platte country had much to do with this increase. Families came from Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio, and Tennessee. Men located in Clay county and other border counties, went into the Platte country to "make claims" either for themselves or their children. The ordinary way to locate a claim was to strip the bark from the side of a tree and inscribe a legend similar to this, "This is my claim, taken by me on the 19th day of November, 1838, and every person is hereby notified not to jump it"-Henry Mills. Immigration into what has been known as the Platte Purchase since 1837 began in 1838 quietly as compared to the opening of new territory of to-day. It has been estimated that not more than three hundred persons went into the country the first year. This increased population, however, and a somewhat fitful movement into the new territory from the South or Kansas City side of the river, made the necessity for a better means of transportation other than canoes, urgent. Pierre Roi whose father, Louis Roi had lived at the foot of Grand avenue since 1826, with the instinct of trade evidenced by all the people of the French settlement, established a flatboat ferry to accommodate the first settlers and facilitate the intercourse between Kansas City and the territory of Platte. The history of the ownership of the land on which Kansas City is situated is as follows: The land was in possession of the Indians, the original owners, when this territory was discovered by Coronado in 1542; first claimed as a part of the colony of Virginia in 1609; next by France in 1682; granted by France to the commercial domain of Crozat in 1712; granted to the Mississippi company in 1717; both surrendered to France in 1732; ceded by France to Spain in 1762; retroceded by Spain to France in 1800; sold by France to the United States and became a part of the Louisiana purchase in 1803; became a part of the district of Louisiana in 1804; a part of the territory governed by the governor and judges of Indiana Territory in 1804 and 1805; made a part of the territory of Louisiana in 1805; became a part of the territory of Missouri in 1812 and a part of the state of Missouri in 1821; the Indians' title to the land was extinguished in 1825 and the first permanent white settlement was in 1828; the first plat of the new town was filed in 1839, the name officially designated as the "Town of Kansas" in 1850, the "City of Kansas" in 1853, and "Kansas City" in 1889. A row of business houses along the Levee, back of them a bluff with narrow streets cut through, and farther back homes that stood trembling on the verge of high hills; this was the picturesque Kansas City of the early '50s. From a narrow footing at the edge of the Missouri river, Kansas City has pushed back across the ridges. After half a century Kansas City has overcome the hills. In looking backward through the years to the dim horizon of fifty years ago, one can scarcely realize the wonderful transformation that has taken place, topographically, in Kansas City. It required wonderful perseverance and energy to make Kansas City sightly. Obstacles in the shape of elevations or depressions were met at every turn, tons and tons of rock have been torn from the crest of the hills and used to fill up the valleys and ravines, and out of the chaos a beautiful city with magnificent thoroughfares, has arisen. The cliffs and valleys that were left undisturbed later were utilized to beautify the driveways and boulevards. In the beginning of Kansas City, business houses were built along the Levee, facing the river, with their backs leaning against the high bluffs. Few of the houses were more than two stories high. In 1856 the grading down of Main street began, and an Herculean task it was to cut through the cliffs. The town with remarkable pluck and zeal rapidly pushed south and Grand avenue, Main, Delaware, Wyandotte streets and Broadway were cut through the hills, in some places eighty feet deep. Said Colonel Theodore S. Case: "As late as 1870, the site of our town was ridiculed. The newspapers in the surrounding towns were all fighting Kansas City bitterly. It was a standing news item that several persons had been killed in Kansas City by falling off some of the bluffs in the main part of the city onto the tops of four-story buildings." But the old Kansas City has almost vanished and it is essential to have a chapter on 'Kansas City as it was' in order to help the older inhabitants to recall the changes and to make the present and future generations appreciate what immense labor was required and what great energy was necessary to develop the topography of the town. In the early days of Kansas City no one realized the inestimable value of the strata of stone piled up, and no one considered the clearing of such irregular land until the crowded condition along the Levee created the necessity that gave the people the fortitude to grade a street through rockThere was plenty of work for to make a "cut" from forty to fify feet deep. picks and shovels and in later years for powder to assist in blasting out huge rocks. At Eleventh street and Grand avenue, a high hill had to be cut down, while at Eleventh and Walnut a ravine had to be filled. "The changes made in the earth's surface show how determined Kansas City people were to have a city. Nothing could stop that sort of men. If a hill was in the way, they cut it down. If a ravine interfered, they threw the hill into it." |