Kansas Historical Notes - February 1943
February 1943 (Vol. 12, No. 1), pages 108 to 112.
Transcribed by lhn;
digitized with permission of the Kansas Historical Society.
At the annual meeting of the Shawnee Mission Indian Historical Society of Johnson county held September 28, 1942, the following officers were elected: Mrs. Clifton Shepard, Merriam, president; Mrs. C. V. Scoville, Shawnee, Vice-president; Mrs. Percy L. Miller, Overland Park, recording secretary; Mrs. Frank M. Carroll, Merriam, corresponding secretary; Mrs. Frank M. Lyle, Westwood View, treasurer; Mrs. Wm. F. Brazier, 5005 Maple Lane, curator; Mrs. Carl Harder, Merriam, historian, and Mrs. Walter B. Gresham, parliamentarian.
The annual business meeting of the Hodgeman County Historical Society was held at Hodgeman October 16, 1942. Newly elected officers are L. W. Hubbell, president; Mrs. O. W. Lynam, vicepresident; E. W. Harlan, secretary; Mrs. O. L. Teed, treasurer, and Mrs. Margaret Raser, historian and chairman of the program committee. The directors are Mrs. Leigh Newport, Lee Jackson, L. W. Hubbell, S. H. Pitts, Mrs. O. L. Teed, E. W. Harlan, L. H. Raser and Mrs. O. W. Lynam. New officers of the Riley County Historical Society, elected at the annual meeting held at Manhattan October 17, 1942, are F. R. Smith, president; Mrs. F. F. Harrop, vice-president; Mrs. Medora H. Flick, secretary; Mrs. Caroline A. Smith, treasurer; Mr. Smith, Gertrude B. Failyer, Mrs. Flick, S. C. Charlson, Mrs. Harrop, Walter McKeen, Mrs. L. F. Payne, Joe Haines and Mrs. Smith, directors. Visitors from nearly every state have shown interest in the cabin-museum maintained by the society. F. I. Burt is the custodian.
Jesse W. Greenleaf was elected president of the Kiowa County Historical Society at the annual meeting held in connection with the pioneers' party at Greensburg October 20, 1942. Other officers are Bert Barnes of Mullinville, Frank Brown of Haviland, and Mrs. Sam Booth of Belvidere, Vice-presidents; Mrs. Chas. T. Johnson of Greensburg, treasurer, and Mrs. Benj. O. Weaver of Mullinville, secretary. The Clark county chapter of the Kansas Historical Society has completed Volume III of its Notes on Early Clark County, Kansas. The booklet, dated from September, 1941, to August, 1942,
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consists of reprints of the reports of the chapter's annual meeting and of historical articles published in The Clark County Clipper, of Ashland. An index fills eight of the 96 pages. The volumes are edited by Mrs. Dorothy Berryman Shrewder and Mrs. Melville Campbell Harper and are published by the Clipper. The annual meeting for 1942 was held at Ashland on November 28. Newly elected officers are Mrs. T. T. Smith, president; Mrs. Henry Mull, Vice-president; W. H. Shattuck, honorary first Vice-president; Chas. McCasland, honorary second Vice-president. Other offIcers were reelected. The chapter has Voted honorary life memberships to every Clark countian who enters the armed forces.
Dr. James F. Price, secretary-director of the Kansas Industrial Development Commission, gave the featured address at the annual meeting of the Native Sons and Daughters of Kansas in Topeka January 28, 1943. He spoke on "Creating a Balanced Economy in Kansas." Newly elected officers of the Native Daughters are Mrs. George L. McClenny, Topeka, president; Mrs. F. S. Hawes, Russell, Vice-president; Mrs. W. H. von der Heiden, Newton, secretary, and Mrs. John C. Nelson, Topeka, treasurer. Mrs. Charles H. Benson, Topeka, was the retiring president. Officers of the Native Sons are W. M. Richards, Emporia, president; Richard Allen, Topeka, vice president; Nyle H. Miller, Topeka, secretary, and Frank "Chief" Haucke, Council Grove, treasurer. Glenn Archer, Topeka, was the retiring president of the Native Sons.
The Lyon county chapter of the Kansas Historical Society had its annual membership meeting in the chapter's museum at Emporia January 30, 1943. The newly elected officers are George R. R. Pflaum, president; Mrs. Robert L. Jones, vice-president, and John A. Roberts, second Vice-president. Reelected officers are J. S. Langley, treasurer, E. C. Ryan, secretary, and Mrs. Fanny Randolph Vickery, Mrs. Lulu Purdy Gilson and Lucina Jones, historians. Directors elected for three-year terms are W. A. White, Ethel Mahaffey, Mrs. Mary Davis, Margaret Lowe and Mrs. Dollie Flynn Sheets. Other directors are Richard Langley, Park Morse, Dr. O. J. Corbett, Alice Evans Snyder, Robert D. Lumley, Clarence .Paine, Mrs. Mary Evans McKinney, Tom Price and Catherine H. Jones. Harry A. Wayman was the retiring president. The society has over 300 members and maintains a museum which is open to the public from 2:30 to 4:30 p. m. on Saturdays.
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At the annual meeting of the Crawford County Historical Society at Pittsburg February 12, 1943, the following officers were reelected: Ralph H. Smith, Pittsburg, president; H. B. Price, Cherokee, first Vice-president; Mrs. Alice Gregg, McCune, second Vicepresident; Ralph J. Shideler, Girard, recording secretary; Mrs. O. P. Dellinger, Pittsburg, corresponding secretary; Mrs. G George Elliott, Pittsburg, treasurer, and H. W. Shideler, Girard, Mrs. L. H. Dunton, Arcadia, and Mrs. J. U. Massey, Pittsburg, directors for three years. The organization plans to gather information on Crawford county citizens who go into the armed services, and their names will be listed on special honor rolls for public display. Records of civilian defense work done by the various boards and organizations will also be kept.
The three diocesan Catholic newspapers in Kansas are being preserved by the Kansas Catholic Historical Society. The organization also collects parish records and assists in correcting and editing parish histories. Officers of the society are W. W. Graves, St. Paul, president; Rev. Wm. Schaefers, Wichita, vice-president; Angelus Lingenfelser, Atchison, secretary, and Edmund Pusch, Atchison, treasurer. The directors are Rev. George Towle, Leavenworth; Rev. Edwin Dorzweiler, Victoria; Sister Mary Paul Fitzgerald, Leavenworth; Sister Regina Baska, Atchison; Sister Mary Evangeline Thomas, Salina; William Hayes, Atchison, and Julia Maguire, Topeka.
John Brown and the Legend of Fifty-Six is the title of a new 794-page book by Dr. James C. Malin, associate editor of this magazine and professor of American history at the University of Kansas. The work, the result of many years of painstaking research by Doctor Malin, was published by the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia.
The Philosophical Society has printed the following description of the book and its importance:
<"This book, by a well known American historian, is a critical study of the problem of the John Brown legend, one of the major folk stories of the American people. It is therefore not a biography of John Brown but a penetrating analysis of old and new historical evidence throwing a brilliant searchlight on Brown's character and his role in the Antislavery movement. It has its origins largely in the Kansas troubles of 1856 which contributed so much to the national folklore associated with the name of John Brown.
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"Part One reviews what the contemporary world knew of John Brown and Kansas. Part Two traces the evolution of the Kansas phase of the national hero-martyr legend about Kansas. Part Three is a restudy of the Kansas troubles in the light of wholly new manuscript materials, and the revaluation of the role of John Brown.
"In the sense that the legend focused around the Kansas phase of Brown's career, the work is an intensive study in local history, interesting in its own right, but given a peculiar importance because of its critical bearing upon national history. From the standpoint of a study in historiography and the evolution of the John Brown legend, it is unique, and should be of interest to students of literature and to sociologists as well as to historians. It is based upon the largest and most significant body of new manuscript materials relating to John Brown and the amazing legend associated with his name and personality that has become available in over half a century. It is recognized by students and specialists as the only major scholarly contribution to the subject in this generation."
The early history of oil and gas production in Kansas was briefly reviewed in Gerald Forbes' Flush Production; The Epic of Oil in the Gulf-Southwest (253 pp.), published by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, October 24, 1942. Mr. Forbes mentioned early drilling in Miami county (1860, 1861, 1873, 1882 and 1889), in Montgomery county (in the 1880's), and at Neodesha in Wilson county (1892). The latter pool, he said, "caused the first Kansas conservation law" when the legislature of 1891 "required the use of casing to prevent the intrusion of water into the oil-bearing formations." The first proration in the state "occurred in 1929 when the prolific Ritz-Canton, Greenwick, and Voshell pools were discovered." A "Chronological Table of Kansas Oil Pools, 1915-'30," reported discovery of the El Dorado, Butler county pool, in 1917; Rainbow Bend, Cowley county, 1923; Gorham, Russell county, 1926; Ritz- Canton and Voshell, McPherson county pools, 1929, and Hugoton (gas), Stevens county, in 1930.
Dr. Carl Coke Rister's biography of David L. Payne was published by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, December 2, 1992. The new book, of 245 pages, is titled Land Hunger: David Payne and the Oklahoma Boomers. From Payne's arrival in Kansas in 1857 to his death and burial in Wellington in 1884, he was identified with the history of this state. He served in Kansas regiments during the Civil War, and later in campaigns against the
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Indians. Never able to settle down permanently, he attended two sessions of the legislature representing Doniphan and Sedgwick counties, and spent the latter part of his life attempting to lead settlers into "Oklahoma" territory prior to congressional action, and contrary to orders issued to United States troops to keep them out. Doctor Rister, who has done considerable research in the collections of the Kansas Historical Society, is also author of Southern Plainsmen (1938) and Border Captives (1940), and is co-author of Western America (1941).
A booklet of 111 pages, entitled Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest, by J. Frank Dobie, has recently been issued from the University of Texas Press of Austin. By "literature of the Southwest," Dobie meant "writings that interpret the region, whether they have been produced by the Southwest or not." And "the principal areas of the Southwest," he wrote, are "Arizona, New Mexico, most of Texas, some of Oklahoma and anything else north, south, east or west that anybody wants to bring in." Included among the division headings were: "How the Early Settlers Lived," "Women Pioneers," "Pioneer Doctors," "Stage Coaches, Freighting," "Pony Express," "Cowboys and Range Life," "Cowboy Songs and Other Ballads," and "Buffaloes and Buffalo Hunters."
The author catalogue of printed books of the Library of Congress, heretofore available only in a few of the larger research libraries, is now being published in book form by the lithoprint process, 18 cards to the page, in about 160 Volumes of 640 pages each. The entire set, covering the Library of Congress catalogue to July 31, 1942, will cost about $750. The publication was arranged by a committee of the Association of Research Libraries in cooperation with the Congressional Library. Among the subscribers are the following Kansas libraries: Kansas State College Library, Manhattan; The Abbey Library, St. Benedict's College, Atchison; the University of Kansas Library, Lawrence, and the Wichita City Library. For the present the Kansas Historical Society, one of the few depository libraries filing the original cards, will continue as usual excepting that a new catalogue has been started for cards issued since July 31.
O. J. Rose's "Looking Back Over Fifty Years," mentioned in The Kansas Historical Quarterly of November, 1942, page 417, has been added to and reprinted as a 75-page booklet commemorative of the golden wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Rose.
