The Way West

In September of 1854 Charles B. Boynton led a team of Cincinnati, Ohio, religious scholars to the Kansas frontier. Boynton was a member of “The Kansas League.” The organization rose out of an express interest to settle Kansas and Nebraska as “free institutions,” founded on principles of “practical religion.” Fort Riley was situated on the western frontier beyond developed settlement, offering the travelers a chance to see Kansas in its raw, undeveloped state.

To reach Fort Riley Boynton and his companions followed the north side of the Kansas River. “Through one beautiful afternoon we had traveled over the billowy prairie that seemed to be steeped in sunbeams, and toward evening, as the sun was sinking into the flood ... presenting a scene equal in glory to any sunset at sea; a dark-blue line, stretching along the expanse, and looking like the coast in the far distance over water, showed us that we were approaching the ‘timber’ that skirts the banks of the Big Blue, the largest and most beautiful tributary of the Kansas.”

Descending from the high prairie into the timber bottoms, the broad river “rippling in its flow” could be seen “through the dark arches of the trees.” Beyond the banks of the Big Blue the perfect growth of grass lay before them in “meadows of the prairie ... as far as the eye could reach.”

Just at dusk a large log cabin surrounded by a split-rail fence came into view. From the description the structure was actually three conjoined cabins under one roof. Apparently the extended family needed the room. Boynton noted, “Jacob himself, had scarcely more sons and daughters, and sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, children, and grandchildren, than were gathered here.” Supper was served just as the patriarch had returned from an errand. Boynton inquired if he might ask a blessing on the food. The request was readily agreed to although the woman of the house revealed that after coming to the frontier, they had lost all their manners. As in previous settings a good deal of time had passed since they had shared a blessing around the table.

Boynton was filled with awe by the pureness of the atmosphere on that cloudless night near the banks of the Big Blue. The “brilliancy of the heavens” amplified the glory of the Milky Way, “so stainless, so perfectly defined, and yet with so soft an outline.”

Borrowing from the journal of one of his companions Boynton continued. “With the sleeping prairie, silent and uninhabited ... and so pure a sky above ... The blue of the sky was dark, almost to blackness, and the stars seemed nearer, larger, and more lustrous.” Marking the eternal march of the constellations across the night sky the writer continued, “The wolves on the prairies seemed to be howling praises to their fellow Wolves, that had been, by the ancients, enthroned among the stars. I thanked God for these smiles of my starry friends, and laid up, among the treasures of memory, that night scene on the banks of the Big Blue.”

With the morning the prairie travelers once again stepped into their two-horse carriage, looking forward to another day of revelation upon the Kansas prairie. By mid-day Fort Riley came into sight standing on a low eminence rising like “an isle of beauty” from the Kansas River valley. “Doubtless the beauty of the picture was enhanced, in our eyes, because we had lately looked only on unsightly cabins.”

The freshly erected limestone buildings, glistening white in the noon-day sun presented “a very neat as well as substantial structure.” Less than a year old, established in November 1853, Fort Riley was to the awestruck travelers “a sweet-looking ‘oasis’ ... rising out of the prairie ocean.” Finding that the architect was a fellow Cincinnatian, Boynton and his companions recognized in the construction evidence of the designer’s “taste and skill.”

Although they were strangers without formal introduction, the travelers were welcomed with “open hospitality” and a seat at the table with the young officers was arranged for their relief from the hardships of travel. Tales of encounters with the wild warriors of the prairies dominated the conversation and it was admitted that they were among the most expert riders in the world.

The kindness and hospitality of the officers would long be remembered but there was an ominous air about the post that left the visitors cold. The life of the common soldier was often shadowed by cruelty and contempt. To be a soldier in Uncle Sam’s army was to be a slave burdened by discipline in its strictest form. The men from Cincinnati readily agreed that it would be a joyful day when “the nations shall not learn war any more.”

Alas, Kansas was not all wonder and grandeur, but in 1854 the new territory held the imagination of those who dreamed of life anew on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st RD Geneseo, KS Phone (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.