pirogue, used by the early French fur traders, was especially adapted to navigation in shallow water. The craft was made with two canoes, fastened together with a light frame-work on which a platform was built for the cargo. Both oars and sails were used in navigating the pirogue. The bateau, used also by the French voyageurs, was a clumsy, flat-bottomed boat, fifty to seventy-five feet long, and used generally for transporting cargoes down stream. It was propelled up stream with great difficulty. The Mackinaw boats were cheaply constructed and generally were intended for a single voyage down stream. These craft were about fifty feet long with a twelvefoot beam, and gunwales that extended three feet above the water line. The keelboat was a more substantial craft. It had a carrying capacity of ten to twenty-five tons. The keelboats usually were from fifty to seventyfive feet long with a beam fifteen to twenty feet. The bow and stern were pointed. Sometimes men walked along the shore and pulled the boat with a cable. Poles, oars and sails also were used in navigating the keelboats. Accompanying the trappers and traders, and sharing all of their hardships, but none of their gains, were the missionary priests. The wilderness held no terrors for these hardy zealots and their names are interwoven with the early history of the Western wilds. Their fortitude, their examples of rectitude and their enduring faith brighten the annals of those early struggles toward civilization. The Jesuit missionaries always were in advance of the civilizing influences that came to the wild tribes of Indians; fearlessly they groped their way into the wilderness. They penetrated the heart of the mountains and were found at the campfires of the Indians, teaching them the amenities of life, and in the rude huts of the fur traders. Foremost among the heroic missionary priests was Peter John de Smet. He came to America from Belgium in 1821 and joined the Jesuit society, proceeding immediately to the frontier where he labored a quarter of a century among the Indians of Missouri and the neighboring territories. In a series of letters and sketches Father de Smet told of his work among the wild tribes. The priest made an extensive exploring expedition to the Rocky Mountain region in the spring of 1840 to observe the customs of the Indians and to further his missionary work. The caravan of which the Jesuit was a member was under the command of Captain Andrew Dripps, one of the founders of the Missouri Fur company. In a letter written from the bank of the Platte river, June 2, 1841, Father de Smet gave this account of his visit to Westport: "In seven days from my departure from St. Louis, namely on the 30th of April I arrived at Westport, a frontier town on the west of the United States. It took us seven days on board a steamboat, to perform this journey of 900 miles, no unfair average of the time required to travel such a distance on the Missouri, at the breaking up of the winter, when, though the ice is melted, the water is still so slow, the sand banks so close together and the snags so numerous that the boats cannot make great headway. We landed on the right bank of the river, and took refuge in an abandoned little cabin, where a poor Indian woman had died a few days before, and in this retreat, so like that which once merited the preference of the Savior and for which was thenceforth to be substituted only the shelter of a tent in the wilderness, we took up our abode until the 10th of May-occupied as well as we might be in supplying the wants created by the burning of our baggage wagon on board the steamboat, the sickness of one of our horses which we were compelled to leave after us, and the loss of another that escaped from us at the moment of landing." CHAPTER II. INDEPENDENCE AND WESTPORT. Kansas City's early history is the history of Independence and Westport, towns that were important business centers in their day. The villages had a separate existence, but they were a part of one great community in the northwest corner of Jackson county. When the pioneers came to the county the early part of the Nineteenth century they perceived that somewhere near the juncture of the Missouri and Kaw rivers, at the gateway to the West, was the place for a city. They had a definite idea, but were not certain of the exact location. Two attempts were made before the proper site was discovered. Independence was founded in 1827, and until 1840 it appeared that this was to be the great city of the West. Then the preponderance of trade centered at Westport, which had been established in 1833, and for fifteen years it seemed that this was to become the city of destiny. Kansas City was founded in 1839 at the river landing and quickly overshadowed both Independence and Westport. At last the site favored by Providence had been discovered. The little settlement at the river landing has developed marvellously in fifty years. From the river the city has grown out past Westport. The historic town was consolidated with Kansas City in 1899 and now is part of the Fifth ward. Independence still (1908) retains a separate town government, but in reality it is a suburb of Kansas City. The business rush of other days is gone and the silent spirit of the past haunts the old public square. Kansas City is growing rapidly and it is a question of only a few years until Independence, too, will be merged in the larger stream. Daniel Morgan Boone, the third son of Daniel Boone, the Kentucky pioneer, was the first white man, according to a well-founded tradition, to visit the site of Independence. He crossed the wilderness alone from Kentucky to St. Louis, in 1787, when he was eighteen years old. For twelve years he spent the winters trapping beaver on the Little Blue river and other streams in the vicinity of Kansas City. Boone said Jackson county was the best country for beaver in those days that he had discovered. The pioneer was the commander of a company in the war of 1812. Afterwards he was appointed farmer to the Kaw Indians and was stationed four years near Lecompton, Kansas, on the Kaw river. Boone finally settled on a farm near Westport, where he died in 1832 from Asiatic cholera. Jackson county was organized by an act of the Missouri legislature, December 15, 1826. David Ward and Julius Emmons of Lafayette county, and John Bartleson of Clay county were appointed to select a site for the county seat. The commissioners preempted one hundred and sixty acres, employed John Dunston to survey it, and made a report at the first meeting of the circuit court, March 29, 1827. The session was held at the home of John Young, Judge David Todd of Howard county presiding. A plat of the town was made by George A. W. Rhodes and approved by the county court. The first sale of lots was held July 9 to 11, 1827, and the cash received was $374.57. Some of the lots were sold on credit. In regard to the naming of Independence, William Gilpin wrote in the Western Journal and Civilian in 1854: "Long ago, in 1824 and 1825, two counties sundered by the Missouri river, and flanked by the Western border line, sought at the same time their incorporation by the Legislature. On the North, the inhabitants mostly emigrants from Kentucky, and advocating that gentleman's elevation to the presidency, calling their county Clay, and its seat of Justice, Liberty. On the South, as if in rivalry, emigrants from Virginia, Carolina and Tennessee, selected the name of Jackson for their county, and Independence for their City." The county court of Jackson county held its first meeting in Independence, July 2, 1827. The judges were: Henry Burris, presiding, and Abraham McClellan and Richard Fristoe. L. W. Boggs, afterwards governor of Missouri, was clerk of the court. The county court made an order, September 3, 1827, asking for bids for a court house. The proposals were opened, February 4, 1828, and the contract was awarded to Daniel P. Lewis who made a bid of $150. A log jail, sixteen feet square and two stories high, was built in 1827. Jackson |