Annals of Shawnee Methodist Mission and Indian Manual Labor School
Creator: Caldwell, Martha B. (Martha Belle)
Date: 1939
These annals are a compilation of events concerning the Shawnee Methodist Mission year by year. The information was culled from a variety of sources. Most entries include a citation to the source. Thomas Johnson established the mission in 1830 near Turner in present Wyandotte County, Kansas. He also founded the Indian Manual Labor School, which operated in conjunction with the mission. It was moved to the Johnson County area in 1839 and the school operated until 1862. The Santa Fe and Oregon trails passed near the Johnson County location so travelers frequently stopped at the mission. The site housed the executive offices of the first territorial governor and the first territorial legislature met there. In addition to the Methodist mission, the Baptist and Quaker churches also operated missions for the Shawnee. These annals are the complete manuscript from which a condensed version was published by the Kansas State Historical Society in 1939.

Charles Robinson to T. W. Higginson
Creator: Robinson, Charles, 1818-1894
Date: August 27, 1855
This letter, written by free state governor Charles Robinson, was sent to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a prominent Northern abolitionist. Robinson discusses in general terms the troubles facing Kansas Territory, stating that he believes this struggle was not limited to Kansas, "but I regard it as one in which the whole nation is involved." Robinson also expresses doubts that the North would support the free state settlers in the territory, writing that they can only "hope" for reinforcements, not take them for granted. He asks Higginson to stir up Northerners against the bogus legislature and mentions ex-Governor Reeder and opposition to the bogus legislature.

Container from the Shawnee Indian Mission
Date: 1850-1930
This container, sometimes called a trinket box, was found at the Shawnee Indian Mission. The pot has a solid brass rim and ledge around the pot opening and three cone shaped brass feet. The enameled pot is decorated in a scroll and floral cloisonned (separated by strips of flattened wire) motif in blue, gold, white, red, pink, black and green. The interior is green. The dome shaped lid is decorated with a scroll cloisonned technique in red and blue. The interior of the lid is green enamel. The small hole on the lid's top may have held a finial.

Cyrus Kurtz Holliday to Mary Dillon Holliday
Creator: Holliday, Cyrus Kurtz, 1826-1900
Date: February 11, 1855
Cyrus K. Holliday wrote to his wife, Mary Holliday, in Meadville, Pennsylvania from Lawrence, Kansas Territory, where he had stopped on his way to visit Governor Andrew H. Reeder at the Shawnee Indian Mission. Holliday hoped to make the growing Topeka the capital of Kansas Territory. In Lawrence, a hotel keeper had died and George W. Brown, editor of the Herald of Freedom, was ill. Despite mail-delaying winter storms further east, the weather continued mildly. Holliday described his financial investments and requested money for his trip to Meadville, more urgent as the birth of their first child approached.

David Burge to Thomas Johnson, Slave Bill of Sale
Creator: Burge, David
Date: May 24, 1856
This bill of sale was issued by David Burge to Thomas Johnson as a receipt for Johnson's purchase of an African American slave named Martha for $800. Thomas Johnson was a Methodist minister and the founder of the Shawnee Methodist Mission. Johnson County, Kansas Territory, was named for Thomas Johnson.

Diary of Reverend John Thompson Peery
Creator: Peery, John T. (John Thompson), 1817-1890
Date: January 1, 1850 - August 7, 1879
This item, acquired from Mary Peery Whittaker by William E. Connelley of the Kansas State Historical Society, contains diary entries written by Reverend John Thompson Peery who was served the Methodist Church South for 52 years. According to Mary Peery Whitaker, the entries were written while Reverand Peery was a teacher at the Shawnee Mission. Entries date from 1850 to 1879.

Emanuel F. Heisler correspondence
Creator: Heisler, Emanuel F.
Date: July 15, 1912
In these two letters, Emanuel F. Heisler discusses the Old Shawnee Indian Mission near Kansas City, Kansas.

First called the Methodist Indian Mission
Creator: Connelley, William Elsey, 1855-1930
Date: March 08, 1921
This item, written by William Elsey Connelley of the Kansas State Historical Society, covers some of the history of the Methodist Indian Mission which was later known as the Indian Manual Training School and finally, the Shawnee Mission.

German Silver Earring
Date: 1840-1869
German Silver, which was a popular material for trade items in the 19th century, is actually a copper alloy with nickel included. This earring was found at the Shawnee Indian Mission in Fairway, Kansas. Some documentation indicates that it may have belong at one time to an Otoe woman named Wenowna. The earring's hinged attachment fits into a hole in the diamond shaped knob. The circular earring is decorated with scallops along the edge, a border of crescents and a circle of triangles in the center with their apex pointing toward the center.

Governor's Message vetoing the Kickapoo ferry
Creator: Reeder, Andrew H. (Andrew Horatio), 1807-1864
Date: July 21, 1855
This item is a printed letter by Governor Andrew Reeder to the legislature, informing them that he had vetoed the bill to incorporate a ferry in Kickapoo, Kansas Territory. Reeder reminds the legislature that they were to meet at Ft. Leavenworth and not at the Shawnee Manual Labor School.

Information sign at the Shawnee Indian Mission in Fairway, Kansas.
Date: 1939
This is a photograph showing an information sign on the grounds of the Shawnee Methodist Mission in Fairway, Kansas.

John Gill Pratt
Creator: Henry, E. E.
Reverend John Gill Pratt was a Baptist missionary to the Delaware Indians and served as superintendent of the Delaware Baptist Mission. He had some training as a doctor and worked as a printer at the Shawnee Manual Labor School in Kansas Territory. Pratt was involved in some of the treaty negotiations with the Delaware Nation during the Kansas territorial period.

John Gill Pratt and Olivia Evans Pratt
View of Reverend John Gill Pratt and his wife, Olivia Evans Pratt, at the Delaware Mission School in Wyandotte County, Kansas Territory. Reverend John Gill Pratt was a Baptist missionary to the Delaware Indians and served as superintendent of the Delaware Baptist Mission. He had some training as a doctor and worked as a printer at the Shawnee Manual Labor School in Kansas Territory. Pratt was involved in some of the treaty negotiations with the Delaware Nation during the Kansas territorial period.

Johnston Lykins
Date: Between 1840 and 1860
Johnston Lykins was a well-known missionary, physician, and translator who worked with the Pottawatomi and Shawnee Indians who had moved to Indian Territory (present-day Kansas) after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. In 1831, after serving as a missionary to the Indian tribes in Indiana and Michigan, Lykins and his first wife Delilah (McCoy) Lykins moved to Indian Territory. Lykins and his father-in-law, Isaac McCoy, established the Shawnee Indian Baptist Mission in present-day Johnson County, Kansas. In addition to his responsibilities as a physician, Lykins worked as a translator and developed a system of Indian orthography that allowed the Shawnee people to read and write in their native language. He edited and published the first paper printed in Shawnee, called the Sinwiowe Kesibwi (Shawnee Sun). In the spring of 1843, Lykins founded a mission among the Pottawatomi near what is today Topeka. Due, perhaps, to inter-denominational conflicts and other problems with the mission, Lykins left the Pottawatomi mission and moved to Kansas City, Missouri. He served as the second mayor of Kansas City in 1854, and he remained in residence there until his death in 1876.

Journal of the Council of the Territory of Kansas, 1855
Date: July 2 through August 30, 1855
This document identified the actions of the First Territorial Council (Senate), which first met at the town of Pawnee near Fort Riley on Monday July 2, 1855. On July 6, 1855, the House of Representatives approved a resolution sent to them by the Council that moved the meeting of the Legislature to the Shawnee Manual Labor School beginning July 16, 1855. This session of the Council concluded this first session on August 30, 1855. Included in the volume were various messages from the Governor and Acting Governor. The appendix contained reports of various committees--judiciary, special committee on exempting slaves from execution, bounds of counties and districts, elections, convention, public printing. The appendix also had the "opinion of the Supreme Court in regard to the legality of the present session" by Samuel Lecompte and Rush Elmore, a memorial from the legislature of Kansas to the President of the United States requesting the removal of Andrew Reeder, and the Rules and Orders under which the House of Representatives conducted business. The last fifty-two pages were an index to the volume. The members of the Council were: Thomas Johnson and Edward Chapman, 1st Council District; A. M. Coffey and David Lykins, 4th Council District; William Barbee, 5th Council District; John W. Forman, 7th district; William P. Richardson, 8th district; D. A. N. Grover, 9th district; L. J. Eastin and Richard R. Rees, 10th district. The elections in the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th Council Districts were disputed, but Andrew Macdonald, 2nd Council district, H. J. Strickler, 3rd district; and John Donaldson, 6th district, were sworn in as members of the Council. John A. Haldeman served as the Chief Clerk.

Journal of the House of Representatives of the Territory of Kansas
Creator: Kansas. Legislature
Date: July 2 through August 30, 1855
This printed document reported upon the actions of the First Territorial House of Representatives when it first met at the town of Pawnee near Fort Riley on Monday, July 2, 1855. On July 6, 1855, the House of Representatives approved a resolution sent to them by the Council (Senate) that moved the meeting of the Legislature to Shawnee Manual Labor School beginning July 16, 1855. This first session of the House of Representatives concluded on August 30, 1855. Included in the volume were various messages from the Governor and Acting Governor. The appendix contained reports of various committees--judiciary, a special committee on exempting slaves from execution, bounds of counties and districts, elections, convention, and public printing. The appendix also included the "opinion of the Supreme Court in regard to the legality of the present session" by Samuel Lecompte and Rush Elmore, a memorial from the legislature of Kansas to the President of the United States requesting the removal of Andrew Reeder, and the Rules and Orders under which the House of Representatives conducted business. The last 31 pages are an index to the volume.

Kansas. The land of golden horizons
Date: Between 1940 and 1960
This pamphlet lists the many attractions Kansas has to offer. A number of photos can be seen covering various subjects, from Kansas agriculture to Kansas' strides in technology.

Kansas Film Commission site photographs, subject military academies - nursing homes
Creator: Kansas Film Commission
Date: 1980s-2000s
These are panoramic photographs of locations in Kansas created by the Kansas Film Commission to promote scenes to film companies. The panoramics were created by taking individual photos and taping them together. The photographs are arranged alphabetically by subject and then location. The subjects included in this part of the collection are military academies, mining areas, museums, and nursing homes.

Liquor Bottle from Shawnee Indian Mission, 14JO362
Date: 1860-1973
This liquor bottle was found at the Shawnee Indian Mission in Johnson County. The Mission was built in 1839 for the Shawnee Tribe and closed in 1862. The life of the building did not end there as during the Civil War troops were quartered there and later it saw use as a dance hall, dairy bottling plant, apartments and a boarding house until become property of the state in 1927. The bottle has remnants of a Federal Tax Strip down one side of the finish and bottle, a cork cap and the wording "FULL 1/4 PINT." The bottle presents a bit of a conundrum as the bottle style and cork cap argue for a time period between the 1860s to the 1920s, but the style of Federal Tax Strip dates from 1934 to 1973.

Olathe - What the first woman saw
Creator: Millikan, Emily L.
Date: 1907
In this item, Mrs. Emily L. Millikan recounts her experiences related to her May 28, 1857 arrival in the Kansas Territory. Arriving with her brother, Dr. J.B. Whittier, Millikan explains that she was the "first woman resident" of Olathe, Kansas. Millikan also discusses such things as traveling via wagon, visiting the Shawnee Mission, and meeting Native Indians. Millikan states that the first women she encountered in Olathe were "two big squaws who unexpectedly stuck their heads through a broken pane of glass in the room where I was and greatly startled me."

Paper Doll from the Shawnee Indian Mission, 14JO362
Date: 1839-1927
This paper doll was found in the southwest room of the East Building at the Shawnee Indian Mission in Johnson County. The Mission was built in 1839 for the Shawnee Tribe and closed in 1862. The life of the building did not end there. During the Civil War troops were quartered in the Mission, and later it saw use as a dance hall, dairy bottling plant, apartments, and a boarding house until become property of the state in 1927. The paper doll appears to be dressed in a below the knee skirt, dress, or jacket with ankle-length pants or pantaloons showing beneath it.

Pocket Knife Handle from Shawnee Indian Mission, 14JO362
Date: 1897-1927
This bone pocket knife handle was found near the West Building porch area at the Shawnee Indian Mission in Johnson County. The Mission was built in 1839 for the Shawnee Tribe and closed in 1862. The life of the building did not end there as during the Civil War troops were quartered there and later it saw use as a dance hall, dairy bottling plant, apartments and a boarding house until become property of the state in 1927. The pocket knife has the wording "OFFICE KNIFE THE UNION" painted onto it and may have been manufactured by the Union Cutlery Company of Olean, New York, founded in 1897.

Proslavery Meeting
Creator: Tebbs, W[illiam] H
Date: August 2, 1855
The document summarizes the proceedings of a meeting held by proslavery supporters to determine the proper time and place to hold a convention during which they would nominate a candidate to the U. S. Congress. They decided to have the convention on August 29, 1855, at the Shawnee Manual Labor School.

Reminiscence of John Sedgwick Freeland
Creator: Freeland, John Sedgwick
Date: 1895
Mr. Freeland gave a detailed account of the slaves owned by Judge Rush Elmore and his wife. The reminiscence contained some stereotypical views and phrases concerning African Americans. This account was prepared by either F. G. or Zu Adams after an interview with Mr. Freeland. They contacted a number of early Kansas settlers requesting information about slaves brought to Kansas Territory. While all of the information collected was based on reminiscences, it still provides useful information that is difficult, if not impossible, to find elsewhere. Miss Adams and her father F. G. Adams were employees of the Kansas State Historical Society.

Sallie Bluejacket
Date: Between 1854 and 1860
An engraving of Sallie Bluejacket, daughter of Reverend Charles Bluejacket.