BY ANDY  TAYLOR
Montgomery County Chronicle

Without fanfare or even public notice, Montgomery County quietly slipped into her 140th year of organized existence on Wednesday.

It was on June 3, 1869, when Gov. James M. Harvey officially organized Montgomery County after the county met the requisite population of 600 souls.

The county borders were actually set in 1867, some six years after statehood. However, the county as an organized unit was never officially declared until Harvey’s proclamation made 140 years ago this week.

According to William G. Cutler’s “History of the State of Kansas” published in 1883, Harvey officially declared Verdigris City as the temporary county seat of Montgomery County. He also appointed H.C. Crawford, H.A. Bethuran and R.L. Walker as the first county commissioners and E.C. Kimball as county clerk.

Also appointed to county offices were Capt. Daniel McTaggart, county treasurer; E.K. Kountz, probate judge; and S.B. Moorehouse, justice of the peace.

There were only three townships established in the newly-organized Montgomery County. The three townships were nine miles in width and covered the west to east boundaries of the county. Stacked like rectangles, the northernmost township was called Drum Creek Township with Verdigris Township serving as the middle township. Westralia Township was the southernmost township.

Among the other first acts of business approved by the first county commission of Montgomery County was the naming of the Oswego Register as the official county paper (Oswego was the closest town to Montgomery County to have a newspaper), and to permit W.C. Dickey and Daniel McTaggart to establish a ferry on the Verdigris River at a point near Verdigris City. W.L. Bailey and H.C. Crawford also were allowed to operate a similar enterprise near the settlement of Westralia along the Verdigris River near present-day Coffeyville.

Prior to its borders being established in 1867, the area contained within present-day Montgomery County was part of Wilson County, which extended from Wilson County’s current northern border south to the Oklahoma border. The pre-1867 Wilson County was established in 1855 by an act of the Kansas Terroritorial Legislature.

Osage Indians inhabited the area of Montgomery County prior to the county’s organization in 1869. According to Cutler’s Kansas history written in 1883, the first white settlers began encroaching on Osage lands in 1866 or 1867. Ottawa, Kan., located in Franklin County, was the closest railroad destination to Montgomery County, meaning that travel to the southern region of Kansas required ample resources and nerve of early-day settlers. Settlers began moving into the largely unorganized area of Montgomery County, forcing confrontation with the Osages, shady land speculators and other emigrants.

To quote from Cutler’s book, “Although numerous settlements had already been made, yet it was not until 1869, that the resistless march of emigration first crossed the Verdigris River to occupy and possess the ‘promised land’ that lay beyond. Alarmed at this bold step on the part of the settlers, to thus intrude upon and occupy their territory, the Indians began to protest against further invasion, and attempted to prohibit emigration from crossing the Verdigris; but to no purpose.

“During the winter of 1869, the banks of the Verdigris were alive with camps and campers. Families spent the winter, living in covered wagons or in huts constructed of hay. On the spot where Independence stands, about 40 families lived in these hay houses during that winter, and the place was known to the Indians as Pashe-to-wah, or Haytown. So rapid, indeed, was the influx of settlers, that in the brief period of three years, between 1867 and 1870, the population of the county had increased from a few scattered settlements to the number of 7,564.

“Everything now began to show signs of permanence and stability. Rumors of prospective railroads became noised abroad; improvements, both public and private, were made, and of a costly character; town builders were busily at work, establishing towns, which in their view, were sure to become important railroad points and the county seat; the county was filled with every manner of bogus characters who preyed upon the ignorance and credulity of settlers; here were real estate agents and claim speculators, who for a few dollars would locate a man on whatever place suited him, whether the same had been taken before or not; and not unfrequently the one agent would locate several parties on the same claim; speculators sold claims to which they never had a shadow of title or right.”