Kansas City's history as told by our members
We'll be posting articles by our members from time to time. These articles will illustrate the richness of the history of the greater Kansas City area, and the work of the Native Sons and Daughters of Greater Kansas City's committment to preserving that history.
The first article submitted is from Dan Sturdevant, President for 2009.
Murder on the Santa Fe Trail
by Dave Baumgartner
When Daniel Yoacham learned that the plot to rob wealthy trader Antonio Chavez and his company as they returned to Westport from Santa Fe was hatched in the bar-room of his tavern, he had to take action.
You can almost hear ol' Dan talking to himself about, "...such a foul and dirty deed planned right here in my hostel; not good for business, at all..." as he saddled his best mule and, at the head of a quickly formed posse, began the long trip to overtake the would-be villains.
It was 1843, and Dan Yoacham had worked hard to establish his foot-print in the up-coming town of Westport, now the jumping-off point to Santa Fe, and Oregon, too. Hadn't he served eight years as Justice of the Peace and married numerous Westporters in the spacious room of his tavern, hadn't he loaned the same space to neighbors for funerals? Why, such a happening on his property was an insult. Imagine the gall of those Jackson and Clay County ruffians using his establishment as their lair.
It was about 1825 when Dan first built a two-room log cabin with fireplaces at each end in the little valley where Spring Branch Creek crossed the beginnings of the wagon-road to Santa Fe, near where today Mill Street meets Westport Road. Facing South, to take advantage of the ever-blowing prairie-wind; nature's air conditioning, the "double" cabin was always open to travelers. Dan, his wife, Rosannah, and an ever increasing passel of children, provided hot meals and a roof overhead for many a grateful visitor, none of whom minded having to use the hard, board floor for a mattress. By the mid 1830's, with the help of his friends, neighbors, and family, Dan had greatly expanded the tavern and had furnished food and lodging to notable people as Washington Irving, Daniel Morgan Boone, Kit Carson, John C. Fremont, Jothan Meeker, and Isaac McCoy. Missionaries, explorers, military men, pioneers, and free-booters stayed at Yoacham's Tavern. Oh how it irked him that evil plans would be discussed in the sanctity of his bar-room.
The perpetrators, rough-types who featured themselves tooth and claw warriors specializing in "...war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt..." claimed to be on their way to take part in the "disagreement" that the Texas Republic had with bordering New Mexico, still part of Mexico at the time. What better way to begin, they reasoned, than to intercept Don Antonio Jose Chavez, wealthy, Mexican trader, and relieve him of the $100,000 in silver and gold he most certainly had made on this most recent trading trip.
Having stopped at Yoacham's for a few drams of courage-building, spiritus fermenti and an apple pie or two, their braggadocio was probably over-heard, and their plans passed on to become general knowledge about town. Possibly, even before they left Westport, a rider was dispatched to Fort Leavenworth where a company of United States Dragoons saddled and skedaddled down the Military Road toward the Santa Fe Trail, sabers and tack jangling in time to the plodding gait of their horses. Would they be in time to prevent this vile crime?
By the time Dan Yoacham was able to get his own posse together, the pseudo-Texans had well over a two-day lead, assuring them of meeting Don Chavez well ahead of any legal interference. The hot, grubby, humid days of early summer on the plains slowed the pace of the pursuers, lathered the mules and made saddle-life about as pleasant as a two-day visit to a Shawnee sweat-lodge.
At least the names of the would-be, Texas liberators were known, making it much more difficult for them to escape justice. Led by the McDaniel Brothers, David and John from Clay County, the band included the Searcy brothers, and a bunch shoes surnames were: Brown, Towson and Mason, Morton, Harris, Talbot, Dr. de Prefontaine, McCormick, Berry, Olson and Shafer; all enlisted in the Texan Service; all prepared for the blood and thunder life of mercenaries, at least until the liquor ran out.
It was in present day Rice County, just about where the Santa Fe Road crossed little Cow Creek, where the ruffians spotted Don Antonio and his returning crew. They swooped down upon them so quickly that the teamsters were completely taken by surprise and were promptly relieved of their earnings, which didn't come close to the $100,000 prize expected. In fact, it was more like $12,000 consisting of one silver ingot weighing 69 lbs. a pouch of gold-dust weighing 4 lbs, a sizeable heard of mules, a gold ingot of about 1-1/2 lbs. and some miscellaneous, silver coins, still a sizeable amount in 1843.
Regrettably, the McDaniel brothers took their supposed allegiance to the Texas cause too literally and with five of the staunchest racists in their gang, marched the gentle Don Antonio a few miles down the creek where they shot him; murdered him, and threw his body into the muddy water. His only crime was in being a successful, Mexican trader. Retribution, however, was not long in coming as the dragoons and the posse converged on the banditti.
If there was a fight, it wasn't much of one, and the gang was rounded up, transported to Jefferson City, Missouri and brought to trial in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Missouri. Kansas at that time was Indian Territory and under Federal jurisdiction, hence no legal trial could be concluded in either Westport or Kansas. Dan Yoacham felt vindicated and continued to run his tavern and conduct trade over the Trail until 1846 when he contracted yellow fever while on a trading trip to Santa Fe and died. He is buried in an unmarked grave, somewhere along-side the Trail.
You'll be happy to know that the McDaniel brothers were found guilty of murder, transported to St. Louis, Missouri and hanged in 1844. Their dream of sharing in the glory of the Texas Republic shattered like the always-cheerful smile on Don Antonio's face when they murdered him. Five other raiders received prison terms and the loot was recovered, even though special subpoenas had to be served on Sam Owens, Clerk of the Jackson County Court, before he would surrender any of it to Federal authority.
Of special interest is the case of Dr. Joseph de Prefontaine, one of the bandits sentenced to prison for his part in the robbery and murder plot. It seems that the good doctor had been run out of St. Louis for gross malpractice and quackery before coming to Jackson County and opening his medical practice. Testimony showed that he had a bad habit of presenting a sizeable bill for services rendered to the estate of almost anyone recently deceased, regardless of any other physician in attendance. Some times he got away with crime; this time he didn't.
Sources:
Christopher, Adrienne, "Daniel Yoacham, Pioneer Innkeeper of Westport," The Westport Historical Quarterly, Volume 1, no. 3, Kansas City, Missouri, 1965
Goff, William A., Old Westport, The Westport Historical Society and William Goff, Kansas City, Missouri, 1977.
Berry, Louise, The Beginning of the West, The Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas, 1972 .
Note: In 2005, the Native Sons and Daughters of Greater Kansas City
funded and placed an excellent historical marker at the
location in the article. We have it located, photographed, and provided directions to the marker.
THE THREAT ON KAW1 POINT---
REDOUBT AT THE KANSAS RIVER
Copyright © 2008 by Dan C.D. Sturdevant
At the confluence of the Kansas River and Missouri River, at present-day Kansas City, on June 27, 1804, the men of the Lewis and Clark expedition built a “redoubt,” a long, temporary barricade of trees and bushes, six feet high, “to defend ourselves against the Indians, fearing that they might make an attack on us...” 2
The Corps of Discovery was a military expedition and decisions by the captains as to general military defense would be expected, so why did the captains order the building of a redoubt at this location?
St. Louis being a hotbed of in talk, the co-captains would have been seeking and listening to all kinds of information prior to May 1804, preparing to start up the Missouri River. Stories ranged from the profitable and unprofitable trade to the harrowing to the cultural.
Several events survive in writing to inform us what Meriwether Lewis may have learned, one story coming from the trading party of Perrin du Lac with the Kansa Indians in 1802. Perrin du Lac reported: “The Kanses [Indians] are tall, handsome, vigorous and brave. They are active and good hunters. . . . Among the questions which this people put to me was the following: “Are the people of your country slaves to their wives like the [other] Whites with whom we trade?” Being fearful of losing my credit if I did not appear superior to the other Whites, I replied that they loved their wives without being their slaves; and that they [the white men] abandoned them [the white women] when they were deficient in their duty.” 3
The Kansa Indians lived at least 75 miles west of the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers in 1802, near present-day Manhattan, Kansas. Though Perrin du Lac and his group had traded successfully with the Kansa Indians, du Lac and his party experienced trouble on the return journey at the confluence of the Kansas with the Missouri River: “We saw a party of the Sioux approaching; we therefore immediately reimbarked . . . We had hardly gained the opposite shore when we were saluted with a discharge of musquetry; but night coming on, the savages abandoned their pursuit. . .” 4
So Captain Clark would write in May 1804 of planning for: “oppisition from roving parties of Bad Indians which it is probable may be on the R[iver].” 5
KAW POINT
As the Kansas River, commonly called the “Kaw,” flows into the Missouri River, the north bank on the Kaw comes to a point of land meeting the west bank of the Missouri. The photograph attached shows an October 2002 view from a bridge above the Kansas River, looking to the northeast, with the Kaw in the foreground, Kaw Point in the middle and the Missouri River flowing from left to right on the far side of Kaw Point. The Kaw is roughly 100 yards wide in this 2002 photograph, the Missouri roughly 225 yards wide; Captain Clark reported in June 1804 the width of each river being at least double the 2002 widths, at 230 and 500 yards, respectively.
The men would have stood behind the redoubt facing inland, with their backs to the Rivers.
THE REDOUBT IN THE JOURNALS
June 27, 1804 writings from expedition members include Captain Clark: “Complet[ed] a strong redoubt or brest work from one river to the other, of logs and bushes six feet high”6 and John Ordway: “All the party out early this morning cutting the Timber off a cross [across] the point and made a Hadge [hedge] a cross [across] of the timber and bushes to answer as defense and made room for Cap to take obser [observations of the stars].”7
The length of the Kaw Point redoubt is unknown, but 50 yards may be a good guess.8 Note also that Lewis needed some trees down to make latitude and longitude studies.
DEFENDING KAW POINT CAMP JUNE 1804---THE NATIVE AMERICAN DEFENSE/THREAT
The convergence of major waterways made the Kaw Point area open to conflict at any time. The Kansa, the Sioux, the Iowa, and other tribes might have been in the area for any number of reasons: to scout/defend their territory, to trade, to war on other Native Americans, to contest any Euro-Americans, etc.
SOME RECORDED NATIVE AMERICAN--EURO-AMERICAN CONFLICTS IN KAW POINT AREA
Surviving writings establish Euro-American/Indian fights on the lower Missouri and the Kaw Point area around this time. Some selected events, other than du Lac in 1802, above:
Iowa/Euro-Americans. In 1795, Benito and Quenache de Rouin, in two boats
with at least another two men, after successfully trading with the Kansa Indians, came east, down the Kaw toward the confluence of the Kaw and the Missouri. The Rouin group was attacked by 160 Iowa Indians, the Iowas continuing their war with the Kansa and in the process chancing upon the Rouin party. The Iowas pillaged the canoes, beat the men and caused “the greatest misery in the world.” 9
2. Kansa/Euro-Americans. In October 1805, an American party, charged with returning an Arikara chief to his nation up river on the Missouri, was forced to “retreat to St. Louis” 10 without returning the chief. The American force had come upon “a Body of Canzes [Kansa] Indians, about twenty leagues below the mouth of the River of that name . . . .” Not satisfied with turning back the said party, “This body of Canzes after their first, very rude and unfriendly interview . . . marched up the River and took Post at a difficult and narrow pass, where they decoyed two American hunters on shore who were descending the River, one of whom they killed, and the other after shooting an Indian made his escape, but unfortunately fell in with our Camp in the night, and not answering the challenge was fired upon and mortally wounded--” 11 by the American camp sentry.
3. Kansa/Euro-Americans. North of Kaw Point on September 14, 1806, Captain Clark wrote: “this being the part of the Missouri the Kanzas nation resort to at this Season of the year for the purpose of robbing the pirogues . . . for the Smallest insult we Shall fire on them . . . we met three large [Euro-American] boats bound [upriver] to the Yanktons and Mahars . . . those young men received us with great friendship . . . those men were much affraid of meeting with the Kanzas [Indians].”12
MUCH ADO
No contact occurred from the Native Americans during the three-night stay at Kaw Point in June 1804. “This [Kansa] nation is now out in the plains hunting the Buffalow.” 13
MARCHING TOWARDS “PROHIBITION”
The captains enforced solemn duties on their men, especially sentries who should be on the watch for a night attack. What did occur at Kansas River of a military nature involved Americans punishing Americans. Sentry John Collins drank on the job; and the June 29 court martial charge asserted against Collins: “getting drunk on his post this morning out of whiskey put under his Charge as a Sentinal and for Suffering Hugh Hall to draw whiskey out of the Said Barrel intended for the [whole expedition] party . . . .” Collins’ penalty was “100 lashes on his bear Back.” 14 Collins’ fellow inebriate, Hugh Hall, received 50 lashes for unauthorized drinking.
The expedition had been safe those days in late June 1804. 15 The redoubt as a defense seemed to fade in favor of islands in the Missouri River as the expedition proceeded. The captains and the men went upstream a little wiser on June 29, 1804 and human beings can be noted for their streaks of intelligence.
FOOTNOTES
1 “The explorers and early mapmakers called the tribe and the river Cans, Causa, Kansa, Kances, Kanza, Konza, Quans, etc. Eventually the stream was named the Kansas River, though it is commonly called the Kaw.” Floyd Benjamin Streeter, The Kaw, The Heart of a Nation (New York, Farrar and Rinehart, 1941), p. 4.
2 Gary E. Moulton, ed. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 13 volumes (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001), Vol. 11, p. 32. (Whitehouse). Hereafter cited as JLCE, with the appropriate journal keeper’s name.
3 Before Lewis and Clark, 1785-1804, A. P. Nasatir, ed., Red River Books Edition (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002) p. 708. Journal of Perrin du Lac.
4 Before Lewis and Clark, p. 711.
5 Ernest S. Osgood, ed., The Field Notes of Captain William Clark, 1803-1805 (New Haven: Yale University Press 1964), p. 21.
6 JLCE, Vol. 2, p. 325 (Clark).
7 The Journals of Meriwether Lewis and Sergeant John Ordway, Kept on the Expedition of Western Exploration, p. 61 (Ordway).
8 Space enough for: 1. “tents” pitched for about 45 men; 2. about 4 campfires; 3. repairing one or more canoes.
9 In Before Lewis and Clark, p. 316. Spanish lieutenant governor Trudeau’s letter to one Valle, 1795.
10 William E. Unrau, The Kansas Indians (Norman Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, 1971) p. 82.
11 Governor Wilkinson to the Secretary of War, December 10, 1805, Clarence Edwin Carter, ed., The Territorial Papers of the United States, Volume XIII, The Territory of Louisiana-Missouri (Washington, United States Government Printing Office) 1948, p. 298.
12 JLCE, Vol. 8, p. 360 (Clark).
13 JLCE, Vol. 2, p. 327 (Clark).
14 JLCE, Vol. 2, p 329 (Clark).
15 The Lewis and Clark Historic Park at Kaw Point, at One Fairfax Trafficway in Kansas City, Kansas, immediately off of I-70, has a replica of the redoubt. See HYPERLINK "http://www.moksriverbend.org" www.moksriverbend.org.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Moulton, Gary E., ed. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 13 volumes (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).
Nasatir, A. P., ed., Before Lewis and Clark, 1785-1804, (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002).
Osgood, Ernest S. ed., The Field Notes of Captain William Clark, 1803-1805 (New Haven: Yale University Press 1964).
Streeter, Floyd Benjamin, The Kaw, The Heart of a Nation (New York, Farrar and Rinehart, 1941).
Unrau, William E., The Kansas Indians (Norman Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, 1971).