Quindaro Townsite - History

History

Quindaro was founded in the 1850s by abolitionists, settlers sent by the New England Emigrant Aid Society; Wyandots, and freedmen. The Society had aided more than 1200 settlers in their migration, hoping to secure Kansas as a free territory. The decision was to be left to the vote of the territory's residents.

Quindaro was one of several competing small ports on the Missouri River. Planners seeking to establish a Free-State port noted the site's advantages:

At a point six miles above the mouth of the Kansas river, on Wyandotte Indian land, they found a fine natural rock ledge where the river ran along the bank six to twelve feet deep, making a convenient landing. Plenty of wood and rock were at hand for building purposes and fertile land was adjacent.

Abelard Guthrie, credited as the founder who purchased land for the settlement, named it after his wife Quindaro (meaning "bundle of sticks" or "strength through numbers") Nancy Guthrie. She was a member of the Wyandot tribe and had persuaded them to sell land to her husband.

Construction started in January 1857, and the town soon contained numerous stone houses and starts of several businesses. Its sawmill was the largest in Kansas. The lower townsite near the river was the commercial core, and most residences were higher on the bluff, at the upper townsite. In the first year there were 100 buildings completed, with many of stone and brick, "including hotels, Dry Goods, Hardware and Grocery stores, a Church and School house."

John Morgan Walden was one of many young men attracted to Quindaro, where he founded a Free-Soil paper called Quindaro Chindowan. The name Chindowan was a Wyandot word for "leader". Walden also was a missionary to freedmen and later became a bishop in the Methodist Church.

After the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854, a western branch of the Underground Railroad was developed in Kansas. Quindaro was linked to this and the Lane Trail. It provided a new route of escape for slaves from Missouri. It was most important in the years before Kansas was established as a free state in 1861. Quindaro became a legendary port for fugitive slaves and, later, blacks arriving as contraband during the American Civil War.

Clarina Nichols was a writer for the Quindaro Chindowan, a friend of Susan B. Anthony and fellow crusader for the rights of women and children. She was an important Conductor and Station Master of the Underground Railroad in Quindaro. She left a letter telling about a time when a Freedom Seeker named Caroline was brought to her house. Caroline's slave master and other slave hunters were camped on the edge of town and looking for her. Clarina tells of hiding Caroline in an empty cistern overnight and then sending her on the road North as soon as it was safe.

Due to economic pressures that afflicted much of Kansas, the commercial townsite declined. Later arriving African-American residents settled in the upper town on the bluff. The economy declined because of over-speculation in Kansas, and in 1862 the legislature withdrew the town charter, putting the town company out of business. Difficulties in reaching the interior from below the bluff hampered commerce, and changes after the war reduced the need for the port. In addition, the topography was difficult, surrounding Wyandot land limited expansion, and problems with land titles inhibited growth. After being abandoned, the early lower commercial townsite became overgrown, with some areas covered by earth falling from the bluffs. In the early 20th century, all of the townsite was incorporated into Kansas City

Even before the war ended, however, in 1862 Eben Blachley, a Presbyterian, started classes in his home for the children of former slaves. Other white men also got involved and organized the Quindaro Freedman's School (later Western University, which was chartered in 1867. It was a historically black university (HBUC) started at the upper town site of Quindaro. Its principal in 1872, when the state legislature added a four-year normal school, was Charles Henry Langston, a leading black abolitionist and activist, educator and politician in Ohio and Kansas.

In the early 20th century, Western University became known for its outstanding music program.

"Western University at Quindaro, Kansas, was probably the earliest black school west of the Mississippi and the best black musical training center in the Midwest for almost thirty years during the 1900s through the 1920s."

In the early 1900s, Western University also added a full industrial curriculum, with buildings to house livestock and another for a laundry. Later a building was added for teaching auto mechanics and repair. The university closed in 1943, and nothing but cornerstones of some early buildings still exist. Some buildings were lost to fire, others to demolition as sites were redeveloped. The last structures remaining were three faculty houses, which were demolished near the end of the 20th century.