NEW-YORK JOURNEY THROUGH KANSAS; WITH SKETCHES OF NEBRASKA: DESCRIBING THE COUNTRY, CLIMATE, SOIL, MINERAL, MANUFAC- THE RESULTS OF A TOUR MADE IN THE AUTUMN OF 1854. BY REV. C. B. BOYNTON AND T. B. MASON, COMMITTEE FROM THE "KANSAS LEAGUE," OF CINCINNATI. With a New and Authentic Map, from Official Sources. CINCINNATI: MOORE, WILSTACH, KEYS & CO., NO. 25 WEST FOURTH STREET. 1855. H.S. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by MOORE, WILSTACH, KEYS & CO., In the Clerk's office of the District Court of Ohio. Stereotyped by CINCINNATI. ocked May 1913 COMMISSIONERS' PREFACE. OUR first intention, after our return from Kansas, was to present only a brief formal report of the principal facts connected with the geography, soil, climate, productions, and resources of the country. But we soon found that the material we had collected was ample for a work of a different character; and it was the opinion of judicious persons with whom we consulted, that the interests of the cause would be best promoted by weaving this material into a cheap book of a somewhat popular caste, by which a wider circulation could be given to the facts themselves. This course was decided upon, after consultation with the officers of the Societies by whom we were sent out, and the statements of the book have the official sanction of the Commissioners. CHARLES B. BOYNTON, CINCINNATI, October, 1854, (iii) PREFACE OF THE WRITER. IN September, 1854, a small party was commissioned by "The American Reform Tract and Book Society," and "The Kansas League," in Cincinnati, to explore and report upon the climate, soil, productions and general resources, and promise of Kansas. With this party the writer united himself, partly for the purpose of aiding in executing the commission, and partly in the hope of recruiting his exhausted strength by a ramble over the "prairie land" of Kansas. After the return of the party, it was thought that perhaps many of the scenes and incidents of that far, and almost unexplored Territory, which had so deeply interested us, might, through description, awaken an interest in others; and that the facts themselves, if conveyed partly through the medium of narrative, would make a more vivid impression, and obtain a wider circulation. (v) |