Day 14

Thursday, October 10^th

Thursday we drove from Wymore, Nebraska to Topeka, Kansas and stopped at four trail spots.

The Pony Express Barn in Marysville, Kansas is a stone barn, built in 1859, that was used as a Pony Express livery stable.  The first westbound rider left St. Joseph, Missouri early on the evening of April 3, 1860 and arrived in Marysville at Home Station No. 1 the next morning.  Historians differ as to his name, but local tradition says he was Johnny Fry.

The museum consists of the original stable, now the oldest building in Marshall County, and an annex with the museum displays.  The displays include information about trails, railroads, and life in 19th century Marysville, Kansas.

We read about the black squirrels found  in the town park at Marysville so we stopped there for lunch.  We watched four or five chasing each other around and running up and down the trees. It was strange to see totally dark,  solid black squirrels.  Chloe liked watching them through the screen door in the trailer.  The town protects the black squirrels and I could just see Chloe pushing open the screen door and managing to catch her first squirrel, a rare black one.  At home chasing squirrels is one of her favorite pastimes. 

Marshall’s Ferry, established in 1852, was one of three major river crossings on the St. Joseph Road to California.  It was on the west side of Marysville, Kansas.  You have to drive a couple of miles on a dusty dirt road to the park at the site of the ferry.  The site is no longer on the river as it was on an oxbow  that was eliminated when the highway was constructed.  There is a full sized replica of the rope ferry used to carry emigrants, soldiers and stagecoach travelers across the Blue River.

Eight trails crossed the river here: the Oregon, Pike’s Peak and Mormon Trails, the St. Joe Road, the stagecoach, military and Pony Express routes, and the trail followed by Otoe Indians being sent to the reservation in Oklahoma.

Alcove Spring is between Marysville and Blue Rapids.  It is off the highway about six miles on a good dirt road.  Emigrants typically arrived at Alcove Spring in late spring and often had to camp for several days waiting for the Big Blue River to go down so they could ford at Independence Crossing a quarter mile away.  

Emigrant diaries mentioned the cold, clear rushing water, the tall grass and the wildflowers.  The Donner Party camped here in the spring of 1846 and Sarah Keyes, the Reed family grandmother who was seventy years old , blind and deaf died and was buried here.  When Patty Reed was rescued in the Sierras the following winter she was found holding a lock of her grandmother’s hair.   A memorial to Sarah Keyes is just above the meadow across the road from the Alcove Spring parking area.

Sarah Keyes Memorial

Chloe and I walked the short distance to the spring.  This being early October there was no water flowing over the top but a small pool was below the overhang. 

Chloe above the spring.

As I stood there some movement in the water caught my eye and looking down I saw a fairly large snake.

Is this a banded water snake?

 Names carved into the large slabs of limestone surrounding the spring are still visible.

We were almost stuck at Alcove Spring as our truck began dying as soon as we started out.  Glen would get it going and it would die again.  We think we got some bad gasoline.  We got back to the paved road and headed towards Topeka for the night.  The truck seemed to run fine the rest of the day.  

We stopped for a short time at Scott Spring another favorite emigrant camping site. It is a roadside pullout with storyboards and a metal sculpture of a wagon.

 Whenever we see a wagon we always look for lynch pins.  This "sculpture" had lynch pins.

On to Independence tomorrow!