60

A REAL ESTATE REACTION.

[1857.

When the

Again the

Much eastern capital was sunk in these paper cities. collapse came it was like the crushing of an egg-shell. genie waved his wand, and presto! the spangles and gold disappeared, and the princes of an hour were beggars again. The shares had no more market value than town lots in the moon Cities died, inhabitants deserted, houses were torn down.

The reaction caused little actual suffering; for in the elastic new countries, men's fortunes, as the Chinese proverb avers of women's hearts, stand a great deal of breaking. But the speculation-fever unsettled the mind, bred extravagant habits and contempt for the slow accumulations of legitimate business.

Of the fourteen river 'cities,' Leavenworth, Wyandotte, and Atchison alone survive. He who died o' Wednesday is no more lifeless than the other moths of cities which flitted for a noonday hour. In degree, this is the history of all new States. Here at least, involuntary man is as profuse as voluntary Nature, whose fruit-tree smiles in a thousand blossoms for every maturing germ. Inscrutable influences of climate and geography determine the centers of population, and the track of empire. Man can no more choose the focus of emigration's converging rays, than he can by taking thought add one cubit to his stature. The dense western settlements of that unknown race which melted away before the Indians, and of which no vestiges remain but stupendous earthworks, were identical with our own-near Cincinnati and St. Louis, in the Ohio, Scioto, Muskingum, and Miami valleys, and along

1857.]

RIVALRY OF AMERICAN CITIES.

61

the great lakes. Four-fifths of all civilized nations past and present, have lived within the world-encircling belt between the thirtieth and fiftieth parallels of north latitude. Our own day shows a line of great cities-Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Omaha, Leavenworth, Salt Lake, Virginia Nevada, and San Francisco-extending, almost as directly as the bird flies, across the broad continent. Here run the grooves of commerce, the routes of travel, the pathway of empire.

Before the railway era, one studying the map, soil and climate of the United States, would have selected the mouth of the Mississippi, its junction with the Ohio, and its junction with the Missouri, for the three principal cities of our great valley. But with water communication only, and in spite of the strenuous efforts of man, they sprang elsewhere. Such results arise not from mistakes nor contingencies. They are controlled by immutable laws, far beyond mortal ken. Nature keeps her own counsel. She shuts down upon her secrets of state the iron pressure of mysterious years; and Death and Life, who wait with potent arms to do her will, turn to the eager questioner lips of marble.

Leavenworth had two deciding advantages over all competitors: 1. It was near a military post. Ordinarily, this settles the question. Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, all had similar rivalries; but each was beside a garrisoned fort, receiving its protection, and-far more important-its heavy trade. 2. Leavenworth obtained 'the start.' Emigrants to new countries, who would cast their fortunes in the metropolis which is to come, must make no drafts on the future. Let them turn deaf ears to plausible theorists with elaborate maps, who prove geographically, climatically and statistically, that the great city must spring up in some new locality; but go to the largest town and wait until some rival surpasses it. In nine cases out of ten, they will find no occasion to move.

Walking back from Doniphan down the river on the Missouri side, I saw two illustrations of the rapidity with which the stream shifts its course. Like the Nile, the lower Mississippi in countless ages has raised its bed above the surrounding country and with every break in the banks swept over thousands of acres. From the deck of a steamer, passengers look down upon houses and

62

AN ENCROACHING ELEMENT.

[1857. farms. Its mud-deposits have enriched the lands along its whole course, and formed a vast tract at its mouth. This wealth of soil is chiefly gathered by the Missouri. I passed one farm from which, within a few months, the heavy current had cut away twenty or thirty acres, and undermined out-buildings until they were taken down, to save the lumber from floating away. The house, lately in the midst of a corn-field, was now tenantless, and on the very verge of the water.

Weston, Missouri, was once a leading and thriving town. Now the erratic stream had made deposits in front, until large buildings formerly on the bank, were one-third of a mile inland. At St. Joseph, forty miles above, and upon underlying quick-sands, the river was fast cutting into the city. Several acres had disappeared in a single year. Brick warehouses on the levee were now deserted, and their outer walls falling. A family in the lower part of the town were at dinner, when the ground beneath them began

1857.]

VAGARIES OF THE MISSOURI.

63

to tremble. At first they thought it an earthquake, but it proved a water-quake. They fled to a safe distance, and saw house, garden and an acre of land, slide into the encroaching element. One might contract to sell lots here and deliver them in St. Louis! It was a flight of fancy to call such property real estate.

At St. Joseph, the river originally flowed in front of First street. Now it ran along Fourth, and the intervening land had disappeared. A non-resident who purchased levee lots soon after the city was laid out, returned in 1858, to look after them. He supposed them somewhere in the bed of the stream, but had the curiosity to ascertain by survey. They proved to be on the other side of the river, in Elwood, Kansas!

A new town was begun on the Nebraska bank of the Missouri, where the stream forms the dividing line between Nebraska and Iowa. Buildings rose, lots rose likewise, and the warm imaginations of proprietors saw, in the smiling distance, a great city. Alas for human expectations! It was at the extreme point of an oxbow curve; and during a freshet, the perverse Missouri took a new path, straightened its crooked channel, and left the great commercial city of Nebraska, standing in Iowa, five miles off-as uncertain about its own identity as the heroine of the nursery legend who wondered if I be I!' It was a curious disregard of State rights, a rare form of involuntary annexation, a novel freak of manifest destiny!

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DEADLY AFFRAY AT THE POLLS.

[1857.

CHAPTER V.

I VISITED Leavenworth again on the 29th of June, believing the municipal election of that day could not pass without armed collision. Nor did it. Late at night when our steamer landed, watch-fires blazed on the levee, drinking saloons were crowded, excited men bearing guns and revolvers were gathered in little knots, or walking to and fro. A friend whom I met pacing the sidewalk with a Sharpe's rifle upon his shoulder, explained the

cause.

Most of the Pro-slavery men, satisfied that their rule was over, refrained from voting. The entire Free State ticket was elected by a vote of three hundred and eighty-five to seventy. James T. Lyle, the city recorder, was a young Georgian who during the early troubles assisted in tarring and feathering and shaving the head of Phillips, a Free Soiler afterward wantonly killed in Leavenworth. He was also present at the atrocious murder of Captain E. P. Brown, who was literally chopped to pieces with hatchets, at Easton, Kansas, in January, 1856, and his bleeding. corpse flung before his young wife, who was made a maniac by the horrible tragedy.

At the polls on the day of my arrival, a Border Ruffian ballot was offered to a German. He tore it to tatters, asking:

'Do you suppose I would vote that d-d Pro-slavery ticket?' This instantly provoked an affray in which all the bystanders took part; and upon both sides several revolvers were fired. William Haller, a young Ohioan whose property had once been burned by Pro-slavery men, urged the German to stand his ground. Lyle turned upon Haller, asking:

'What is it to you?' and raised a knife. But before he could strike, Haller stabbed him to the heart, and he fell dead.