The Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 17 (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 17 Meanwhile, the locating committee Of the two companies was trav eling over the Kansas prairies in search of a townsite. This group consisted Of George H. Stebbins and Lotan Smith of New York state and Joseph W. Kerr and George W. Barnes of New York City, rep resenting the American Settlement Company, and Dr. William F. Owen of Pennsylvania, representing the Western Pennsylvania Kan sas Company. They had traveled from St. Louis to Kansas City on the steamer Polar Star. Other passengers on this trip were Andrew H. Reeder, newly appointed governor of Kansas territory, and James M. Winchell of New York, who settled in Osage county and later was president of the Wyandotte constitutional convention. Winchell accepted an invitation to accompany the exploratory party in their Search for a location for the new colony. A townsite actually had been selected in advance, and believing that it occupied the Old Indian trading post Of Council Grove, about 140 miles out on the Santa Fe trail, the locating committee had al ready christened their new town Council City. However, they were not sure Of the exact location, and when they learned that Council Grove was Situated on an Indian reservation and was not available for settlement they transferred the name of Council City to a new site. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.