Friday, March 26, 1954
You Ever Heard of Silkville?
By STAN HAMILTON
-Kansan photo by Clarke Keys
Kansas today might well have been covered with mulberry trees and silk factories if the dream of a wealthy Frenchman had materialized instead of falling flat after initial success.
For, in the late 1880s, silk proved that it could flourish in this area, geographically concerned, and except for a few things which went wrong this might be the richest silk-producing area in the world even now.
In 1868 ambitious Ernest Valeton deBoissiere of Bordeaux, a tall figure with an 18-inch white beard, purchased about 3,000 acres of idle land in the southwestern corner of Franklin county, about three miles south of Williamsburg and about 20 miles south of Ottawa. He acquired the territory from William Scotfield, for whom Williamsburg was named
MEMORIES—The board sign saying "Silkville" and the hay storage room in the background, once the schoolhouse for the thriving socialistic community of Silkville, are all that is left of the first, and almost successful silk-raising enterprise in Kansas. On the right are tracks of the Santa Fe railway and US 50S. The road at left leads to a farm on the old town property.
This Frenchman, who named his property the "Prairie Home Colony," or "Kansas Co-operative Farm," aimed to organize labor there and make it attractive and efficient on a basis of proportional renumeration. His intention was to make the manufacture of silk its main industry and he guaranteed education and subsistence to all who would join him.
He brought several French families with him and they set about to build up the settlement and attract others.
Quite wealthy to begin with, Boissiere spent more than $100,000 developing the colony, whose name in 1869 became Silkville. He constructed two churches and lodge halls, a grade school, a blacksmith shop, a cheese house, a winery, an ice house, a large stock barn, and two other buildings to house silk worms and cocoons.
One of his lodges, a three-story dormitory containing 60 rooms, including a library with 2,500 volumes, a dining room, parlor, officers' room, and 43 family apartments for colony members, was 32 by 92 feet. The floors were insulated with straw. In 1916 fire destroyed the building, which had been used as a barn and house after the death of the colony.
As the settlement grew Boissiere added 15 miles of stone and 25 miles of wire fencing, enclosing 3,100 acres. He cultivated 700 acres, including some 40 of mulberry trees, four of grapes, several more to walnut trees, and many more to orchard, vineyard, and forest trees. Five-hundred acres were reserved as hay land and the remainder was used as pasture for 1,000 head of cattle, horses, and hogs.
He brought silkworm eggs to this area from France and Japan, and after the first silk crop amounted to virtually nothing because most of his worms were killed by disease, he weeded out the remaining worms and turned the silk industry into a productive one the second year.
Soon, however, Boissière's dream turned against him. As soon as the imported French colony members learned English and started talking to their American neighbors, they found they could earn more as farm laborers and mechanics than they could with their shares of the profits from the co-operative silk industry. Also, Boissière's policy of "free love" sent many, mostly the women, away
His loom capacity eventually reached 224 yards daily and broad goods were woven there in 1870 and 1871. This success prompted other Kansas communities to engage in the business on smaller scales and at one time in the 1880s, 46 counties in the state produced some silk.
He sent specimens of his surviving, producing worms to France several years later and was told by silk leaders in that country that his silk worms were by far the finest they ever had seen. This caused silk raisers the world over to order new worm stocks from Silkville.
The leader lost most of his original settlers because of this, but he hired workmen and continued to stay in business. He exhibited his silk at Kansas fairs and in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia won first prize for the excellence of the material, proving that superior silk could be raised in this state.
At this exposition he also took first prizes for his exhibit of peaches he had grown on the farm.
on the old town property.
However, Boissière could not compete economically with the
cheap labor in China, Japan, and France, and finally was forced to abandon his silk raising ambitions.
Boissier returned to his native land and established an industrial school on his estate, and the other silk - producing towns in Kansas, which never reached the full-scale operation of Boissier's brain child, died natural deaths before 1888 or soon after. Boissier died at the age of 85 in 1894.
Now, after several more shifts of ownership, the ranch site is owned by John L. Netherland of St. Joseph, Mo. Mr. and Mrs. Elden Koons farm the land for Netherland and use the
old cocoonery and another Boissiere building as stock barns and workshops. Netherland has owned the property about 11 years and the Koons have lived there about two years.
Today, though, only a white board sign saying "Silkville," three old stone buildings, a stock loading pen, and several clumps of mulberry trees stand near the Santa Fe railway track as a silent monument to the silk industry in the Wheat State. The sign and school house, now used for hay storage, are visible from U.S. Highway No. 50 S between Williamsburg and Agricola.
State Historical Museum Contains Vast Collection
By R. H. CHESKY
It seems unlikely that two such diverse items as a Mexican dressed flea and a Concord stage coach are rarely housed under the same roof. Yet, objects like the flea and the stage coach are only two of 35,000 items in the collections of the Kansas State Historical museum—collections which are as intriguing and varying as they are valuable to the people of Kansas. $ \textcircled{1} $
The museum, though, is but a part of a much larger and more comprehensive agency—the Kansas State Historical Society and Department of Archives. For more than 75 years this agency with the cumbersome name has been the most important force in the state for the assembling of historical data about Kansas and Kansans.
Prime movers in the efforts to establish the society were editors and publishers of Kansas newspapers. Lending more than vocal support, however, these men pledged all of the back files and new issues of their papers to the new society.
Their promises have been faithfully honored through the 79 years of the society's existence, with the result that newspaper collection in the state historical library is now the largest in the U.S. outside the Library of Congress. Names such as William Allen White of Emporia, Charles M. Harger of Abilene, and Jess C. Denious of Dodge City are prominent on the roll of past presidents of the society.
The State Department of Archives was added to the society in 1905 with approval by the state legislature of one of the first archive bills
The historical society came into being in 1875, after three earlier historical societies had been still-born in the tumultuous early period of statehood. Operating continuously since 1875, the society now manages a program which has few rivals in size and scope among the several states.
passed in a Midwest state. Responsible for the collection of official state documents, the Department of Archives added a function to an agency which was already active in a wide range of areas. Letters and manuscripts, maps and charts, books by and about Kansans, photographs and reproductions—all are grist for the mill of the historical society.
From early whisky bottles and Spanish swords to silk hats and airplanes, there seems to be nothing in which the museum staff has no interest. It's small wonder, therefore, that the collections are a favorite among visitors to Topeka's Memorial building, headquarters of the historical society and museum.
There seems to have been no specific date when a decision was made to create a state historical museum, and items of the type now found in the museum were contributed to the historical society from the very beginning of its life. The first biennial report of the society in 1879 records the donations of such objects as bone fragments from ancient Indian burial mounds near Ft. Leavenworth, and a candle box in which election ballots were hidden under a woodpile near Lecompston in the elections of 1857.
More than 45,000 persons have visited the museum in each of the past five years, and there are no signs of diminishing interest on the part of the public. In fact, attendance records are set in each successive year.
University Daily Kansan
Page 4
Sack of Lawrence Was Notable Kansas Event
By TOM STEWART
The "Sack of Lawrence," possibly the most significant episode in early Lawrence and Kansas history, is today in danger of being completely forgotten, because its name is so easily confused with that of a later sensational event—the Lawrence "Raid," or "Quantrill's Raid."
Quantrill's attack on this city, curred in August 1863 and is known as the most savage attack ever made on the non-military citizens of an American city. Wife of about 300 Missouri guerrillas, he shot every male adult that could be found in the city from 5 a.m. until 9 a.m., Aug. 21, 1863.
Jurors decided that the free-state leaders of Lawrence, many of them the city's most prominent citizens, were thus guilty of treason. Another target they aimed at was the Free-State hotel (now the Eldridge). They said it was "regularly parapetted and port-holden for use of cannon and bullets," but he designed as a stronghold for resistance to law, thereby endangering public safety and encouraging rebellion and sedition . . ."
What makes the attack so appallishing is that, though Lawrence was known as the center of anti-slave sentiment in this area, many of its citizens were engaged in no sort of effort to defeat slavery. Yet, Quantrill's men, who ostensibly destroyed Lawrence because of its significance in the slavery issue, murdered black-smiths and dry-goods merchants as though they might be prominent Abolitionists.
Historians say that the Free-State was not a fortress. They think the feeling against it on the part of the pro-slavers was due to the fact that, with a good hotel, Lawrence was encouraging anti-slave Easterners to move here.
But the facts of Quantrill's Raid are well known because they have been told and retold by participants and their families. In fact, the last survivor of the raid died just last year.
The grand jury also condemned the town's two-papers, the Herald of Freedom and the Free State. These were, the group decided, "publications of the most inflammatory and seditious character."
In an effort to bring Lawrence into line, the Douglas county grand jury met in May 1856. It issued a statement declaring that, since the laws and officials of the state were provided for by the laws of the United States, any resistance to local authority was "high treason."
In 1856. Lawrence citizens were in an uncomfortable position. They were refusing to recognize the authority of any elected officials in the state because these office-holders had been put into office shortly before they became officers, which large numbers of Missourians —imported for that purpose—had voted. Naturally, the "Bogus" men were pro-slave.
Therefore, it is right that the circumstances of the equally important Sack of Lawrence should be reviewed, because that attack took place at an earlier and more crucial time in the town's history.
Because these situations could not be tolerated, the grand jury authorizer, Richard Donaldson, a pro-slayer, to execute writs for bringing in the offenders.
On May 11, Marshal Donaldson reported that he had been unable to execute the writs because he had been "evidently resisted by a large number of citizens of Lawrence." He issued a proclamation asking for law-abiding citizens of the territory . . . to appear at Lecompton . . . in numbers sufficient for the execution of the law."
On May 13, a resolution passed by a Lawrence citizens' meeting declared that, "The . . . marshal was resisted in no wise . . . except by the law, and was never to make." They went on to say, "We . . . declare our willingness to ac-
They appealed to Gov. Shannon, who wrote back that he could not interfere with the actions of a U. S. marshal.
The strange thing is that the proclamation was not posted in Lawrence, nor did Lawrence people realize any attempt had been made to execute the writs. They heard the story from others though, and began to worry when they found that Marshal Donaldson had posted his notice only in pro-slave towns, some of them in Missouri.
quiesce in the service upon us of any judicial writ . . . and will furnish him a pose for that purpose; . . .
but we are ready to resist, if need be, to the death, the ravages of an invading mob."
The words "invading mob" were well chosen, because it is claimed that Missourians were crossing the border almost before Marshal Donaldson's original notice went up. This has caused some historians to suggest that the whole affair was planned.
On May 14, Donaldson answered the Lawrence resolution. "May I gentlemen, what has produced a wonderful change in the minds of the people of Lawrence?" He referred again to the resistance he claimed was shown on his earlier visit, and then asked, "How am I to rely on your pledges when I am well aware that the whole population of Lawrence is armed and drilled, and the town fortified?"
It was a week later that Marshal Donaldson, *Deputy Marshal Fain*, Douglas County Sheriff Sam Jones, and several hundred men appeared on the rim of Mt. Oread. They had with them some artillery.
At 11 a.m., Mr. Fain rode in and made arrests according to the writs he carried. He met no resistance.
When he returned, he told the posse its services were needed no longer, that he had made his arrests. Sheriff Jones then asked the men to accompany him into Lawrence, in case she needed help in serving his writs.
This turning of the pose over to Sheriff Jones is considered to be the fine point of the project. The people of Lawrence had allowed Fain to do his work because he was a federal officer. Now, the mob was to be brought in by a local officer, one of the "bogus" officials.
The sheriff rode down Massachusetts street to the Free-State hotel. He demanded all the arms hidden in town. Wishing to be rid of the mob in their streets, the townpeople complied by giving up a cannon which was hidden beneath a nearby building.
then the "posse" opened fire with their artillery on the hotel.
Sheriff Jones, who had commanded this, expected the cannon-fire to demolish the hotel, but he could see it wasn't going to work. He then had some powder exploded inside, but Sheriff Jones piled what one historian calls the "vulgar torch," and the building was burned.
Having made the arrests and destroyed the institutions named the Lecompton grand jury, Sherri Jones' mob began to pillage private homes. Nearly every house in the town was broken into, trunks were smashed open, and valuable possessions were destroyed or carried off by the looters.
While this was going on, other members of the mob broke into the two newspaper offices. They smashed the presses and threw all the type into the Kaw river.
This episode occurred only two years after the first settlers reached Lawrence. It and Quantrill's Raid are only two in a long succession of attempts made by pro-slave forces to crush this outpost of free-state spirit.
Shawnee-Mission Was Indian School
Shawnee-Mission, one mile from the Missouri-Kansas line and eight miles from the mouth of the Kansas river, was an early-day Indian mission labor school, under the direction of the Methodist Episcopal church.
The institution was erected in 1850, and consisted of three buildings, accommodating about 100 students. It was the num-
 usually attending.
The Rev. Thomas Johnson, first Methodist missionary in Kansas, was supervisor.
Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" appeared in 1851.