1876 Liberty Quarter from Fort Hays, 14EL301
Date: 1876-1889
This seated Liberty quarter was recovered by Kansas Historical Society archeologists during excavation at historic Fort Hays in Ellis County. On the obverse side of the quarter Liberty is seated on a rock holding a liberty pole, resting her hand on a shield and surrounded above by 13 stars. On the reverse side is an eagle with a ribbon with the words "IN GOD WE TRUST" on it. An olive branch and arrows are positioned in the eagle's talons and there is a shield on its breast. The quarter was minted in 1876 in Carson City, Nevada. Fort Hays was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and is a State Historic Site.

1876 Penny from the Kaw Mission, 14MO368
Date: 1876
The 1876 penny was recovered during excavations at the 2018 Kansas Archeology Training Program field school at the Kaw Mission. The penny, sometimes called an Indian Head cent or Indian Head penny shows Liberty with a head dress on the obverse side. The reverse side shows an oak wreath and shield surrounding the words "ONE CENT." The Mission was built over the winter of 1850 - 1851 by the Methodist Episcopal Church South as a school for boys in the Kaw (or Kansa) tribe. The site was acquired by the state of Kansas in 1951 and it was listed in 1971 to the National Register of Historic Places.

200 block of Kansas Avenue, Topeka, Kansas
Creator: Leonard & Martin
Date: Between January 01, 1875 and December 31, 1885
224 to 234 block of Kansas Avenue. The city of Topeka was founded in 1857 along the banks of the Kansas River in present day Shawnee County.

4th Cavalry musician with helicon at Fort Riley, Kansas
Date: Possibly between 1864 and 1884
This is a photo of a 4th Cavalry musician, holding a helicon (a predecessor of the sousaphone), at Fort Riley, Kansas.

50 Camp, Crawford County, Kansas
Date: Between 1870 and 1920
A photograph of 50 Camp, or Camp 50, a small unincorporated community in Crawford County approximately 2 miles west of Arma. It was a company town of Central Coal and Coke and continues as a small residential community. Visible is a mine and mining equipment.

8th Kansas Volunteer Infantry monument at Missionary Ridge
Creator: Schmedling Photographer
Date: Between 1870 and 1900
These are three photographs of the 8th Kansas Volunteer Infantry monument on Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

A
Creator: Kansas. Governor (1879-1883 : St. John)
Date: 1879-1883
This file includes letters on topics such as agriculture, the American Institute of Christian Philosophy, bondsmen, and acknowledgement of receipts. In the first letter to Kansas Governor St. John the person requests the governor speak to the Legislature to adjust measures in securing the Fort Hays reservation as a school for the promotion of agriculture. There is a letter from Joe Anderson of Kansas City, Kansas requesting that Governor St. John be a bondsman for the Olathe Asylum. Other letters in this file discuss appointments, advocacy for temporary amendments, as well as other matters.

A.A. Rassicot family
Date: Between 1870 and 1899
This photograph shows the A.A. Rassicot family leaving Ransom, Kansas in a covered wagon heading to St. Anne, Illinois.

Aaron Lane Lanning and Sarah Emma Preston Lanning
Date: Between 1872 and 1874
This is a photograph of Aaron Lane Lanning and Sarah Emma Preston Lanning with their daughters Eva born January 12, 1869 and Hallie born February 5, 1871. Aaron Lanning was a farmer and the family lived near Melvern, Kansas.

Abbie Bright
Date: 1870
Abbie Bright at age 22 photographed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Abbie Bright correspondence
Creator: Bright, Abbie, 1848-1926
Date: 1861-1903
Abbie Bright was born on a farm near Danville, Pennsylvania, on December 17, 1848. She had three brothers, Dennis, Hiram and Philip, all of whom enlisted in the army when the Civil War broke out. Abbie had three sisters, Rebecca, Peninah, and Mary, all of whom aided the war effort. In 1870 Abbie traveled to Indiana and Kansas to visit Hiram and Philip and wrote an account of her trip in a diary (also available on Kansas Memory as record unit 223662). While in Kansas she acquired 160 acres as an investment. This series of correspondence includes letters describing the brother's wartime activities. There are also letters to and from other individuals who were involved in the Civil War. These writings make a significant contribution to Civil War research. Other letters pertain to Philip and Abbie Bright's westward migration. Philip moved to Wyoming, Kansas, Texas, and Arizona but died in 1873 and the letters at that time mostly concern his death. The 1902 and 1903 correspondence apparently regards the sale of Abbie's land in Kansas. A complete transcription is available by clicking on "Text Version" below.

Abbie Bright diary
Creator: Bright, Abbie, 1848-1926
Date: 1868-1921
Born in Pennsylvania in 1848, Abbie Bright traveled to Kansas in 1870 as a young woman and her diary is primarily an account of this trip. It gives excellent accounts of daily life and settlement activities. The "diary" is actually composed of two different manuscripts and both are presented here. The first is an eighty-six page loose-leaf diary with consistent entries from September 2, 1870 - December 20, 1871. The second is a bound composition book with 129 written pages. This book begins with a childhood reminiscence written in Iowa in 1914 (p1-23), followed by a reminiscence of her Kansas trip written in Iowa in 1921 (p24-36) that covers Aug 23, 1870 - Jan 30, 1871. The book then includes some recipes dated 1868-1871 and a receipt dated 1884 (p37-41), and finally consistent diary entries from February 2, 1871 - December 21, 1871 (p41-129). A complete, revised transcription of both manuscripts is available by clicking on "Text Version" below. A previous, annotated transcription that combines the 1870-1871 entries from both manuscripts was published in the Kansas Historical Quarterly in 1971 and is available through a link below.

Abbie Bright miscellaneous items
Creator: Bright, Abbie, 1848-1926
Date: 1870-1878
These documents comprise the miscellaneous series in the Abbie Bright collection. The series includes an undated drawing of the camp of the Fifteenth Regiment on Elk Fork; notes of W[illiam] Ross dated 1870 on frontier life in Kansas; and an 1878 land patent written out by J. A. Williamson, Washington, DC, to the late Philip Bright.

Abilene in its glory
Creator: Baker-Co
Date: 1874
An illustration of a train of cattle leaving Abilene, Kansas. The illustration was copied from Joseph G. McCoy's Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and Southwest, 1874. The illustrator is Henry Worrall

Abilene, Kansas
Date: 1875
A photograph showing Broadway Avenue, looking north in Abilene, Kansas.

About Nicodemus, The Daily Journal
Creator: Lawrence Daily Journal
Date: April 30, 1879
This article from the Lawrence Daily Journal discusses a newspaper article from the Chicago Tribune written during the Exoduster Movement in 1879 providing a brief history of the black community of freed people at Nicodemus, Kansas settled in 1877. Nicodemus is now a historic site administered by the National Parks Service.

Abraham (Bullet Hole) Ellis
Creator: Martin Leonard V.
Date: Between 1862 and 1889
This sepia colored photograph shows Abraham (Bullet Hole) Ellis. Abraham was elected to the Kansas Territorial Legislature in 1858 and to the first Kansas state legislature of 1861. In 1862, Ellis was shot by William Quantrill, the bullet passed through a sash and fur cap, crushing both plates of the skull and lodging against the inner lining. It lay buried in the wound for seventy hours. Abraham wouldn't fully recover from the wound for five months. The ball and twenty-seven pieces of bone are now in the Army and Navy Medical Museum in Washington, D.C.

Abraham Burnett
Date: Between 1850 and 1870
A portrait of Chief Abraham Burnett, 1812-1870, of the Pottawatomie Nation. Also known by his birth name, Nan-Wesh-Mah, and as Abram B. Burnett, in 1838 he and other Pottawatomies were removed from their homes in Indiana to the Mission Band Pottawatomie reservation in southeast Kansas Territory. In 1848, Burnett established a large farm in what was to become known as the Burnett Mound area along Shunganunga Creek in Topeka, Kansas, where he and his family farmed and traded horses until his death in 1870.

Abraham Burnett and John Peyton
Date: 1860s or 1870s
Portrait of Pottawatomie chief Abraham Burnett with, possibly, John Peyton standing by his side.

Abstract of articles purchased during the 4th quarter, 1878
Creator: Potawatomi Indian Agency
Date: October 01, 1878-December 14, 1878
This item details the goods and services purchased for the Kansas Agency in the final quarter of 1878. This abstract lists who purchased the item, what item was purchased, as well as the price of the item. Items purchased include buttons, coffee, nails, rice, scissors, and many other items needed for the Kickapoo tribe that lived on the Kansas Agency. During this period, the Kansas Agency was officially known as the Potawatomi Agency but was often referred to as the Kansas Agency because it was the only one in Kansas at the time.

Abstract of articles purchased during the third quarter of 1879
Creator: Linn, H.C.
Date: July 01, 1879-September 01, 1879
This item contains a list of items purchased by U.S. Indian Agent H.C. Linn for the Kansas (Potawatomi) Agency in the third quarter of 1879. Items include beef, bastard files, bacon, lye, nails, and other things. The abstract indicates that the purchases were for the Kickapoo tribe living at the Kansas Agency.

Abstracts of title from the James Stanley Emery Collection
Date: 1869-1872
Abstracts of title from the James Stanley Emery collection. James was born in Franklin County, Maine in 1826. Educated at Waterville College, he was admitted to the bar in New York in 1854. He was involved with the New England Emigrant Aid Company, coming to Kansas with the second party of immigrants, and generally in free state activities in Kansas to ensure that it became an anti-slavery state when it entered the Union. Through the following years, he worked in numerous states for the cause. Emery was a member of the Leavenworth constitutional convention and served on the Kansas Legislature in 1862 and 1863. He was a lawyer and worked as a journalist for the New York Daily Times. President Abraham Lincoln appointed Emery U.S. District Attorney for Kansas in 1864. In 1891 he was president of the Kansas State Historical Society. Emery died in Lawrence in 1899.

Action of Other Cities on the 'Exodus' Question
Creator: Wyandotte Gazette
Date: April 25, 1879
This article includes information about Exoduster relief efforts in both Topeka and Lawrence. In Topeka, the Kansas Freedmen's Aid Association had appealed to other counties, asking them to form local aid societies to assist refugees in their respective areas. Lawrence citizens held a meeting in Fraser Hall to discuss the Exodus; the attendees recognized the legitimacy of the Exodus and were willing to provide aid and support for the emigrants.

A - D
Creator: Kansas. Governor (1873-1877 : Osborn)
Date: 1873 - 1876
The documents in this file address various topics related to the State of Kansas. This description does not cover all the topics in this file. A letter on December 2, 1875, from H. M. Aller, introduces three individuals to Kansas Governor Osborn and states that he vouches for these men's financial and social integrity. A letter on March 26, 1875, from James Brown, informs the Governor a re-survey was made by the order of the Secretary of the Interior in 1871. In the letter, Brown states the southeast corner of Kansas is 20 miles below Boston and hopes the Governor will issue a proclamation extending the jurisdiction of the State of Kansas. A letter on January 7, 1875, from W. P. Campbell, writes to Governor Osborn relating to the consolidation of the fifth, seventh, and ninth Judicial District.

Addie Colburn to Governor John St. John
Creator: Colburn, Addie M.
Date: Between May 25, 1879 and May 28, 1879
Addie M. Colburn of Tecumseh, Kansas, requests Kansas Governor St. John drop by the Teft House in Topeka to discuss temperance business with her.