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MAP OF DOUGLAS COUNTY.
POPULATION.
1870 1880 ---- ---- Clinton Township............................. 1,030 1,005 Eudora Township, including Euudora City...... 1,901 2,029 Grant Township............................... 583 576 Kanwaka Township............................. 913 919 Lawrence City................................ 8,329 8,510 Lecompton Township........................... 971 1,004 Marion Township.............................. 879 1,417 Palmyra Township, including Baldwin City..... 2,431 2,478 Wakarusa Township............................ 2,401 2,388 Willow Springs Township...................... 1,163 1,374 ------ ------ 20,592 21,700 Eudora City 572 Baldwin City 325 EARLY SETTLERS.Previous to May 15, 1854, the county was not open to settlement by white people, being held by the Shawnee Indian as a part of their reservation under the treaty between them and the Government in 1825. On the former date a new treaty went into effect, by the terms of which the Shawnees reserved 200 acres to each member of the tribe, or 200,00 acres in all, most of it in Johnson County. The most of that lying in Douglas County selected by them under the treaty was embraced in Eudora Township, in the northeastern part of the county. As soon as the land was thrown open to settlement, "squatters" came in from Missouri and from the Western and Northwestern States to secure claims, the region, now Douglas County, having been long known as a desirable location, from the fact that one of the great highways of travel between the East and California traversed its entire width. It was also the route over which the Pottawatomie trade mainly passed, one of the great crossings of the Kansas River being at the trading post of Uniontown, in what is now Shawnee County. These, however, were not the first white men in Douglas County. In 1842, Gen. John C. Fremont, on his first tour of exploration to the Rocky Mountains, after leaving Cyprian Chouteaus's trading house on the Kansas River, six miles west of the Missouri line, on June 10, which trading house was in latitude 39 degrees 5' 57" longitude 94 degrees 39' 16", elevation above the sea, 700 feet - encamped near the present location of Lawrence on the 12th, and describes the spring near the residence of the late Bruce. He says of the location: "We encamped in a remarkable beautiful situation on the Kansas bluffs, which commanded a fine view of the river valley, here from four to five miles wide. The central portion was occupied by a broad belt of heavy timber, and nearer the hills prairies were of the richest verdue."Many other California emigrants passing over this route were particularly struck with the beauty of the scenery, and the magnificence of the view in the vicinity of Lawrence - among them Dr. Charles Robinson, who afterward became one of her pioneer settlers and most honored citizens. Along the California road, the first settlers located. This road entered Douglas County at the eastern line of what is now Eudora Township, at the crossing of the little stream then called Captain's Creek, and near the Methodist Mission of Dr. Still. Passing two miles west, Dish's Hotel was reached-a stopping place to which the Free-State settlers were always cordially welcomed by the Shawnee proprietor. The road crossed the Wakarusa at the house of Blue Jacket, a Shawnee chief, about a mile east of the reserve line. Two miles from the crossing of the Wakarusa, the town of Franklin was afterward laid out on the claim of Mr. L. B. Wallace, formerly of Indiana. Associated with Wallace was a Virginian - Mr. Church, a famous violinist. Mr. Wallace's house was one mile west of the site of Franklin. About four miles further west, the road wound up a sharp prominence and "Hog Back Point" was reached, the future Lawrence lying just to the north. Six miles further was another rise in the prairie, the table-land then reached being near the locality of a famous spring, near where Judge Wakefield afterward settled. Eight miles further on - the road still passing over the high prairie with a full view of the Kansas and Wakarusa Valleys to the north and south - the "forks" of the road, the future site of Big Springs was reached, and, a mile beyond, the road passed out of Douglas County. Among the settlers who came into the county and settled along and in the vicinity of this road in the spring and early summer of 1854, were the following: J. W. Lunkins, of South Carolina, April 13; A. R. Hopper, May 9; Clark Stearns and William H. R. Lykins, May 26; A. B. and N. E. Wade, June 5; J. A. Wakefield, June 8; Calvin and Martin Adams, June 10; J. J. Eberhart, June 12; Brice W. Miller, June 6; J. H. Harrison, June 124; H. S. and Paul Eberhart, June 15; S. N. Wood, June 24; Mr. Rolf, June 24; L. A. Lagerquest, July 4; James F. Legate, July 5; William Lyon, and Josiah Hutchison in July. On the Wakarusa, south of the road, Joel K. Goodwin settled in May, and William Breyman, July 18. T. W. and R. F. Barber settled near the site of Bloomington in 1855, and Oliver Barber at the same place, June 1. 1857. During the same month, John A. Bean, N. Alquine and M. Albin settled a little further west, where now is the village of Clinton, and a store was opened by the latter. As early as May, Napoleon N. Blanton was at Blanton's Bridge, which crossed the Wakarusa four miles directly south of Lawrence, and G. W. Zinn, A. W. and A. G. Glenn, M. S. Winter and William Shirley, were among the settlers of 1854 on the site of Lecompton. In the southeast of the county on the present site of Vinland, Jacob Branson, Charles W. Dow, Franklin N. Coleman, George Cutler, F. B. Varnum, William White, Josiah Hargus and Harrison W. Buckley, took claims during the year, and a little further south, at Baldwin City, was Robert and Richard Pierson, Jacob Cantrel and L. F. Green. Douglas, two miles south of Lecompton, was laid out on the claim of Paris Ellison, G. W. Clarke and others being associated with him as town proprietor; and late in the year, William Harper and John Chamberlain settled at the forks of the California road at Big Springs. The account of the arrival of the Eastern emigrants and the settlement of Lawrence is given in that sketch of that city.
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