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Two weeks after the sorrowful Reindeer tragedy at Hawesville, KY, on Monday, March 27, England and France declared war against Russia, beginning the Crimean War. And unconcerned with the faraway 4-day-old war in Europe, Christian Bobst of Ohio led an eager group of five other men out of St. Joseph, MO, on March 31st, beguiled by the concept of a better life somewhere in the direction of California, the mecca of gold prospectors. The adventurous band left their families and household goods safely behind in St. Joe on a springtime Friday, and headed northwestward along the California Trail toward the verdant Nemaha River valley in the sprawling territory of Nebraska. Bobst and others were delighted with what they observed in Nebraska, and on Friday, April 14, two weeks after leaving St. Joe, they staked out claims of land to become perhaps the very first white settlers in Pawnee county. Christian Bobst and Robert Archer completed construction of dwelling places ahead of anyone else. The industrious pair returned to St. Joe for their families and furnishings, and arrived back in Pawnee county on Tuesday, June 30. Many more Easterners would settle in Pawnee county during the approaching decade. On Tuesday, May 30, the Kansas and Nebraska Territories were officially designated by federal law and the whole area was opened up for settlement. Isaac Cody immediately filed a claim in May, bringing his family across the Missouri River to settle at Leavenworth in the new Kansas Territory on Wednesday, June 10. The parents and sisters of the future "Buffalo Bill" were among the very first settlers in Kansas. |
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