Louis G. Strachan
Published in Howard Courant-Citizen, September 24, 1942
70 YEARS A RESIDENT OF ELK COUNTY
An interesting Autobiography of Pioneer Citizen and Sportsman, Two
Brothers and Their Sister Still Live on farm Where the Family Settled
After Coming Here Directly From Scotland in 1872.
The following is a short history of one of the best known early
residents of Elk County. Mr. Strachan lives on the farm where he
came with his parents, brothers and sisters when a youth, and where he
has lived continuously since. Louis Strachan was never married
and after the death of his parents many years ago, assumed his duties
as the head of the family and with his brothers and sisters made the
home one of the hospitable and popular places of the county. Mr.
Strachan was quite a noted hunter and sportsman and lover of wild
game. He was a student and devoted much of his time interesting
others in an effort to save our wild game. His hunting equipment
was of the best and he knew how to use it.
The Strachan farm is one of the finest in the county, containing many
acres of rich Elk river bottom land with large pasture adjacent.
The residence where the family still lives was, when built, perhaps the
most pretentious residence in Elk county. The material was all of
the best and was hauled to the farm from Humboldt. The buildings
have always been well cared for and are still in a fine shape of
preservation.
Mr. Strachan was 86 years of age last month and mentally is bright and
an interesting conversationalist. His physical health is slightly
impaired fron a late illness but he is improving and all hope this fine
man will be with us for many more years.
I was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, about 14 miles from Aberdeen, on August 17, 1856.
In the year 1871, our cousin, Alexander Strachan visited our home in
Scotland and gave glowing accounts of the wonderful country in
Southeastern Kansas to which he and his son, Louis Strachan, had
traveled overland and locarted in the winter of 1870 and 1871. So
in April 1872, our family consisting of my father, mother, and
brothers, Adam, Tom, and Will and sisters, Janet, Maggie and Jean, and
myself sailed from Glasgow for America. The crossing took sixteen
days and was made in the ship Columbia belonging to the Anchor Lines
and which used both sail and steam for locomotion.
We arrived in New York City and there entrained for Lamont, Illinois, a
small town suburban to Chicago, and were met there by Campbell
Strachan, our cousin. At the time of our arrival in Illinois, the
debris resulting from the Great Chicago Fire still smoldered. We
remained in Lamont with the Strachan family for a week and then
continued our journey in company with our cousin Alexander Strachan by
train to Humboldt, Kansas. In Humboldt we hired a man with a team
and wagon for $20.00 to take us the remaining distance to Howard and to
the end of our long journey.
In those days there were no bridges over any of the rivers or streams
and crossings were made at natural fords. Our first set-back was at the
crossing on the Verdigris river where we were forced to wait three days
for the flood waters to subside. We ferried Fall River at
Jackson's Mill above New Albany, and proceded on our way to upper
Indian Creek where we were met by our cousin Louis Strachan, with a
team and wagon, and from there we traveled hungry to Howard as we ran
out of supplies. We arrived in Howard on May 10, 1872 and stayed
all summer in the cabin of Louis Strachan just west of Polk Daniels
lake while our home was being built and in October 1872, we move to our
present home where my sisters, brother and I now reside.
When I arrived in Howard there were very few stores. Charley
Adams and Osa McFarland had general merchandise stores and Tommy Ferrel
had a saloon. There was no school house then but a few years
later one was built on the northeast corner of the block where the
present school buildings now stand, and all of the lumber used in its
construction was hauled from Humboldt, Kansas, by team and wagon, by a
man by the name of "Cap Barnes."
Most of the hills were covered with tall blue stem grass and so tall
was the grass that a man riding horseback could barely see over the top
in many places. The trees grew mostly along the stream banks and
consisted chiefly of oak, walnut and hackberry; but as the years passed
trees took root over the countryside where they had never grown.
Wild game was abounding. Deer, antelope, wild turkey, quail and
prairie chicken could be easily found in great numbers in the early
days. The sportsman in the early seventies used to have great
sport running wild turkeys with horse and hounds up and down Wild Cat
creek. These birds when flushed would fly about a half mile
before lighting, and then would run. When repeatedly flushed
their flights became shorter until they ran, rather than flew, from the
hunter. On one occasion, after a heavy snow, the prairie chickens
moved in from the prairie during the day and sat by the thousands in
the trees along Elk River, and then returned to the prairie in the
evening; and
on a trip to Indian Territory, where the town of Bartlesville,
Oklahoma, is now located, I saw great flocks of quail that covered the
ground along the Caney river, like flocks of blackbirds. It was
no trouble to get game for the table and I have stood in the door of my
house and shot prairie chickens.
Mink, otter, racoons, wild cats, muskrats, and skunk were plentiful among the furbearing animals.
Fish were plentiful in the strams. They could be caught easily and
would lie on the riffles in plain sight and would strike any bait
thrown to them. There were lots of bass, hickory-shads,
red-horse, buffalo, shovel heads and a few land lock salmon, but there
were no crappie nor channel catfish.
Then, the western part of Kansas saw this great migration of hundreds
of buffalo and buffalo robes were selling at $2.00 when we first
arrived but by 1874 the price had risen to $5.00 per robe.
The banks of Elk river gave evidence of huge encampment of Indianas
having spent considerable time up and down the river and Chief Upwalia
of the Osage Indians told Eugene White, a former old settler of this
country, that he and his people used to hunt along Elk river many years
before the white men came.
To the best of my knowledge the first frame building built between the
head of the river and Elk Falls was constructed on what is now the
Jontra farm. A man by the name of Garrison Bowewn homesteaded the
site and went into the woods, with only an ax and saw and hued out the
planking and siding for the building. The building was put together
with practically no nails or iron of any kind, even the hinges on the
door were made of wood. The house was two-roomed when completed
and his family of six sons, two daughters and wife lived in it for many
years.
It was necessary in those days to make occasional trips to
Independence, Kansas, for supplies and it was a three days
journey. We would start early in the morning the first day and
make it to a camp site nine miles from Independence; the second day we
would arrive at Independence and do our trading and return to the nine
mile camp site; and then the third day we would drive home.
The closest mill in those days was located on the creek about where the
Moline Solvay Process Company plant is now located and it was owned and
operated by John Hansen. Initially the mill possessed only a
corn-cracker, but later equipment was installed for grinding wheat into
flour. Still later, the mill was built at Elk Falls, Kansas, by
Lige Hall, who was managing the mill at New Albany, when we stopped
there enroute from Illinois to Howard. This mill when completed
was the best in miles around and was patronized by people living
considerable distances from it.
In 1874 I watched the first funeral procession enter into the present
Howard cemetery bearing the body of Crockett McDonald and which was
interred just south of the Memorial monument in the center of the
original cemetery area.
The first settlers on Elk River as I remember them were as
follows: A man by the name of Leedy owned a cattle ranch at the
foot of the Flint Hills; Bascom Nesbit and Bill Pyle owned farms on
down the river; Stewart Hawthorne (Fleak place), Tom carter, Isaac
Benefiel, Joe Huffer, Phil Crawford, Lot Bowen, Garrison Bowen, Mott
French (Hitt place), Joe French (Kilpatrick place), Adam Clark (Fleak
farm), Bill Pierson (Pickell farm), McBeth, John Hughes, Pete Hughes,
Ruthruff (Barber farm) Humphrey, Pittman, Longfellow (the mill site),
Alex O'Neal and a man by the name of Eddie, who homesteaded the Osborn
farm, were also among the early settlers along Elk river.
I homesteaded eighty acres of the land of the farm where my brother
Will Strachan and my sister Maggie Strachan and I now reside, and I
believe we are the only persons now living on Elk river who homesteaded
the land in the early seventies, where they now reside. --LOUIS G.
STRACHAN
Submitted by L. Morgan
