Artifacts Astray-Now on Display

By A. N. Winkler

Late last fall, WCHS board member Michael Stubbs and Wabaunsee County historian Greg Hoots brought 43 boxes (about the size of shoe boxes) of stone artifacts from the Kansas State Historical Society to the museum.  These prehistoric stone artifacts were crafted by Native Americans and plucked from Wabaunsee County fields and streams near the turn of the 20^th century.  The artifacts consist of points, blades, hatchets, scrapers, celts, drills, implements and core (chunks of flint stone left over after the tools have been made), and were collected by Wabaunsee County Probate Judge John T. Keagy.  This extensive collection has deep historical roots with Wabaunsee County and was placed on loan to the museum by the Kansas State Historical Society. 

 Although it could begin thousands of years earlier, the story of the Wabaunsee County artifacts will begin with the year 1540, when Spanish explorer Vasquez de Coronado became inflamed by tales of wealthy cities to the north of New Spain (Mexico).  With about 350 Spaniards and 800 Indians, he left Mexico to search for the “Seven Golden Cities of Cibola,” in a land called Quivira.  He entered what is now southeastern Arizona and went across New Mexico into the upper Rio Grande River Valley of Texas.  He then proceeded through the Oklahoma panhandle into southwest Kansas where they crossed the Arkansas River between the present day towns of Dodge City and Ford in June of 1541.  Coronado followed the river east until he found a village of Wichita Indians near present day Lyons.  Not only did these people of Quivira have no gold, they wore no clothes and lived in grass huts.  The Indians were afraid of the Spaniards because they had never before seen horses and thought the men on horseback were half man and half beast.  It was during his explorations of Quivira that Coronado was told of another province two sunsets to the east called Harahey.  At some point, Coronado summoned the chief of the Harahey named Tatarrax and arranged a meeting with him and about 200 practically naked men.  Some accounts say that Coronado went east as far as Lindsborg before returning to Mexico to report there were no riches to be found in Quivira.

Juan de Padilla, a soldier-priest who accompanied Coronado, returned to Quivira in 1542 rather than Mexico with the hopes of converting more Indians to Christianity.  His party consisted of a few servants and guides, a horse, mule, a few sheep, items for celebrating mass, and ornaments for gifts to win the confidence of the Indians.  After spending some time with the friendly Quivirans, Padilla decided to travel east to gain more converts.  He entered Harahey (east central Kansas) where he met a war party and was killed.  Others in his company were able to escape back to Mexico to tell of Padilla’s fate.  He is considered to be the first Christian martyr killed in the limits of what is now known as the United States.

 About 350 years after Coronado and Padilla had explored the lands of Quivira and Harahey, Jacob Vredenburgh Brower of St. Paul, Minnesota purportedly rediscovered them.  By studying old maps and historical writings which were still preserved in the archives of Spain, Brower claimed to establish the boundaries of these two Native American nations. 

 Brower was a well-known archaeologist who had discovered burial mounds and an ancient village site at Itasca Lake, Minnesota, and also discovered 1,125 ancient mounds at Mille Lac in 1900.  He was an author of several papers dealing with his archaeological discoveries, and had served on the Minnesota Legislature, the Register of the U. S. Land office at St. Cloud, MN, and as an Itaska State Park Commissioner.  His interest in Coronado’s Kansas explorations and archaeology eventually led him to meet with John T. Keagy of Alma. 

J. V. Brower

Keagy was born in Pennsylvania in 1840 and was wounded in the Civil War at Fair Oaks, Virginia in May of 1862.  He was discharged in December of 1862 and then began to study law.  He came to Alma in 1870 and was later elected as county attorney and also served several terms as probate judge.  Keagy also spent much time doing archaeological research and claimed to find 60 ancient village sites and camping grounds along Mill Creek, Deep Creek, and other Kansas River tributaries. 

 Brower and Keagy along with several other interested men decided to organize the Quivira Historical Society.  This was done at office of Judge John Keagy in Alma on October 29, 1901.  The officers elected were: J. V. Brower of St. Paul, MN, President; Elmer Blackman of Lincoln, NE, Vice President; Edward A. Kilian, Alma, Secretary, and John T. Keagy, Alma, Chairman of the Executive Committee.

 Edward Kilian was known as a scholar in the Alma area.  He had been in the Civil War and was wounded in November of 1861 at Wilson’s Creek, MO and discharged.  A year later he enlisted again and served until September of 1864.  He had taught school in three states and was involved with historical and archaeological research.  He wrote many articles for magazines and literary journals.  He was principal of Alma Schools for three years and then retired and eventually moved to Manhattan.  He was known to have one of the best libraries in Wabaunsee County. 

Judge John T. Keagy

From about 1897 to 1912 Keagy, with the assistance from farm boys who lived in the area, had amassed about 10,000 stone objects from around Wabaunsee County and those bordering it.  Some of his local finds were on the Frank Schmidt farm a mile south of Alma, and to the southwest of Alma were the Fix farm (near Volland), Diehl farm (Illinois Creek), and the H. J. Palenske farm.  Two village sites were found on the Rickershauser farm south of Alma (along Hessdale Road), one was Quivira and the other Harahey.  In his writings, Keagy also noted the collections of Charles Codington, Ralph Sage, Clarence Simon, Edward Kilian, and Robert Winkler, all from Wabaunsee County.

Unfortunately, Keagy gave his extensive collection to the Minnesota Historical Society at St. Paul, MN because conditions “were not favorable in Kansas.”  He was determined to place his collection “where it would be appreciated and as a reward to the explorer (J.V. Brower), who at his own expense published two volumes “Quivira” and “Harahey” to perpetuate the earliest Kansas History.”

 Not everyone agreed with the findings of the Quivira Historical Society.  Some of the differences were the identity of the Harahey Indians, whether they the Kaw or Pawnee.  Others questioned how far east Coronado actually came and the boundary lines of the Quivira and Harahey nations.

 One of the projects completed by the Quivira Historical Society was to erect four monuments within the boundary of Harahey to commemorate the Spanish explorations of 1541-42 at the cost of $2,000 each.  The first was erected at Logan Grove, two miles south of Junction City on the property of Robert Henderson in honor of Coronado.  It has since been moved to a park in Junction City along Washington Street called Coronado Park. An obelisk was placed at the city park in Manhattan in honor of Tatarrax, Chief of the Harahey.  At the Father Padilla Memorial Park in Herington is a monument in honor of Juan de Padilla, the first Christian martyr to die on United States soil.  There is also a monument honoring Padilla twenty miles to the east on a hill west of Council Grove that was not erected by the QHS.  It claims to be the location where Padilla died on December 25, 1542.

 The QHS monument in Alma is on the grounds of the Wabaunsee County Courthouse and is in honor of the Harahey Indians.  The granite obelisk is on a limestone base and is 14 feet tall.  On it are the following words:  Harahey – Discovered by Coronado 1541 – Rediscovered by J. V. Brower 1896 – Erected by John T. Keagy for Quivira Historical Society 1904 – Kansas – USA. 

A dedication for the Wabaunsee County monument was held on October 29, 1904.  Although it was reported that 2,000 people showed up for the Herington monument dedication, only about 50 came to the Alma dedication to listen to an hour address given by J. V. Brower.  The “Alma Enterprise” newspaper states in the November 4, 1904 issue that the “shaft which is granite was erected and paid for by Mr. Brower and Judge Keagy, and a thousand years will see it still in its place and telling its story to generations to come.”  The monument itself has now endured a 105 years but the story behind it is unknown to most people in Wabaunsee County.

Harahey Monument at Alma

In August of 1904, only three years after the Quivira Historical Society was formed, John Keagy was instrumental in organizing the first Wabaunsee County Historical Society.  A group of men met at the courthouse and stated that their purpose was to collect records, pioneer narratives, and other material illustrative to the history of Wabaunsee County.  John Keagy was elected treasurer and the annual meeting was to be held the second Tuesday of each August.  Artifacts were collected and displayed in the Wabaunsee County Courthouse.  Many of the items from this collection as well as the handwritten catalog of them compiled by John Keagy can be viewed at the Wabaunsee County Museum in Alma.  By the late teens, the Quivira Historical Society as well as the early Wabaunsee County Historical Society had dissolved.  However both societies left a legacy and a story for us to relate to.  Fragments from the past not only tell us where we’ve been but also where we are going.

 Although the basis of negotiations is unknown to me, sometime during 1923 the J. V. Brower collection of Kansas artifacts (the Keagy Collection) was returned to the Kansas State Historical Society.  Duplicate newspapers from the KSHS collections were given to the Minnesota Historical Society in exchange for the Kansas part of the Brower collection.  However, the collection had diminished research value because the site where the artifact was collected was not recorded.  The KSHS did use them in temporary exhibits over the years and now have loaned them to the Wabaunsee County Historical Society.  Some of these stone artifacts are now on display at the museum.  The WCHS appreciates the loan of these artifacts and looks forward to showing them to Wabaunsee County residents.   These long absent artifacts are now close to their origins and give an interesting glimpse of prehistoric life in Wabaunsee County.