By Diane Euston
So much of this area’s historical structures have been destroyed over time, and little remains from the pre-Civil War era. This is especially true the closer you get to downtown Kansas City where booming real estate prices and the need to make way for transportation sealed the fate for some of the earliest buildings.
The further people travel to today’s suburbs, many of the farms that were once constructed by pioneers were burned to the ground during the Border Wars and Civil War. For as much history as we hold so dear, we really don’t have that many pre-antebellum structures – especially ones open to the public – so the ones that are standing are even more precious.
One deeply rooted in our area’s incredible history has undergone change over the past several months and will be back open to the public. The Harris-Kearney House, built in 1855 in Westport, is the oldest two-story brick residence still standing in Kansas City, Mo.
The Westport Historical Society has spent just over 50 years maintaining the home, offering immersive experiences about the area’s history. Even as work continues on the home, they are excited to be open to the public.
Early Westport
It’s truly a miracle that Harris-Kearney House is even still standing. In January 1922 when a campaign was active to save the home in old Westport from demolition, the Kansas City Journal wrote that the house “has an individuality of its own; its very appearance and proportions speak to the observer of hospitality, generosity and gentility.”
The earliest settlement of what would become Westport was Daniel Yoachum and his family. After arriving from Tennessee, he built a log house on the Santa Fe Trail at the northwest corner of Westport Rd. and Mill St. It became the area’s first hostelry and tavern. In 1833, John Calvin McCoy (1811-1889), built a two-story log building on the northeast corner of Westport Rd. and Pennsylvania on the Santa Fe Trail to serve as a trading post and residence. He entered into business trading with Native Americans and mountain men. He also began selling supplies to wagon trains going west.
A year later, McCoy platted the town of Westport around his business. He couldn’t sell most of the lots in town due to its isolation, so he told people he would give them a lot if they promised to build on it. Getting merchandise out to the wilderness was a problem. Steamboats at the time would dock at Wayne City Landing near Independence where goods were unloaded. Calvin would then have to pick up this merchandise and trek about 14 miles to his business in newly-established Westport.
While planning on picking up another stock of goods from the steamboat John Hancock in 1834, McCoy was able to convince the ship’s captain to travel further down the Missouri River to a flat rock landing at the foot of current-day Grand Ave. This cut travel to acquire goods by days, as it was only four miles to Westport. Naturally, this landing spot became known as “Westport Landing.”
There were quite a few advantages for pioneers to use this path through Westport in lieu of Independence: there was no need to ford the Blue River, sandbars near the landings north of Independence made travel dangerous, and grazing was not allowed near Independence.
By the mid-1850s, the population of Westport reached about 2,000 people and had successfully replaced Independence as the outfitting capital of western Missouri.
One of the earliest families to choose this area as a home was the Harris family of Madison County, Ky. John “Jack” Harris (1795-1873) and his wife, Henrietta Simpson Harris (1804-1881) purchased land and built a log cabin near current-day 39th and Gillham Rd. They’d come to the area with enslaved people, their five daughters and one son – the youngest, Josephine, was only three months old when they arrived.
On the eve of the California Gold Rush, John Harris saw the growth of Westport as an investment opportunity. He purchased a two-story log house at the corner of Westport Rd. and Pennsylvania owned by A.B.H. McGee that was functioning as a hostelry.. The Harris’ were now in the hotel business.
In 1852, the building burned and was replaced with a new, three-story, 32-room brick hotel. It was known as Harris House Hotel and was a popular stopover for wagon trains. Pioneers and wealthy businessmen stayed at the hotel that was full of Southern hospitality. Henrietta was known for her delicious cooking and her disapproval of any dancing. A newspaper recalling Henrietta wrote, “Her cooking must have been superb to offset the no-dancing rule.”
The family lived for a time inside the hotel and later in a residence next to it.
Businesses were built quickly in Westport as it became the eastern terminus for the Santa Fe, California and Oregon Trails. A community built by Southern families, Westport became the hub of pro-slavery groups when Kansas Territory was open to legal settlement in 1854.
The Harris-Kearney Connection
In 1855, John and Henrietta Harris took a large lot of just shy of five acres at the southwest corner of Westport Rd. and Main St. and built a large home. The bricks were molded by hand and fired with enslaved labor on site. The Harris’ held enslaved people, using their labor to build their hotel business and take care of tasks in their own home.
The original home site was surrounded by walnut, elm and magnolia trees, and a southern breeze carried the fragrance of flower beds and nearby orchards to the front porch. The quarters for the enslaved, a stable and a smokehouse were set up just south of the home.
The two-story Greek revival home was a showstopper; it was a clear indication that Westport’s earlier, dusty, Wild-West days were being left behind for more refined structures occupied by wealthy businessmen. The house faced the Santa Fe, California and Oregon Trails that carved through the booming town of Westport.
After the Civil War, the birth of the Hannibal Bridge in 1869 moved Kansas City into the railroad game which later dismantled western wagon travel. Leading the charge of bringing the railroad to Kansas City was Charles E. Kearney (1820-1898), an early businessman who made a fortune in Santa Fe trade. He immigrated from Ireland and settled first in Texas. After serving in the Mexican War, he traveled to Independence, Mo. where he witnessed the success of freighters working in Mexican trade.
Kearney couldn’t resist getting into this flourishing business, and after three successful trips to Santa Fe, he moved to Westport, then the key terminus for the Santa Fe Trail. He boarded at the Harris House Hotel and began courting Josephine, one of John Harris’ seven attractive daughters. They married in 1852, and by 1854, he went into a partnership with William R. Bernard, who was married to another Harris daughter named Susan.
In an office next door to the Harris House Hotel, the firm of Kearney & Bernard sent “over 800 wagons to Santa Fe in 1854 and 1,217 in 1855.”
In 1855, Charles Kearney came upon a slave auction where a young girl about 11 years old named Harriet Drisdom was being sold. Harriet, known as “Hattie” to friends and family, was familiar with the Kearney and Harris families. Her family had arrived in the Westport area enslaved by Henrietta Harris’ kinfolk, the Simpsons.
Hattie didn’t want to be separated from her family that lived in and around Westport, so she begged Kearney to purchase her. Frank C. Wornall (1855-1954), who married one of Charles Kearney’s daughters, Julia, recalled much later that Kearney opened the bid at $650.
After competing bids, Charles Kearney purchased the enslaved Hattie for $1300 – an astonishing amount of money at the time for an enslaved girl.
Two years later, he freed Hattie Drisdom, but she stayed with the family and worked as cook and caretaker to his children.
Kearney fled the area during the Civil War, returning to serve as president of the Kansas City & Cameron Railroad. The company built the first permanent railroad crossing over the Missouri River in 1869. The Hannibal Bridge connected the Eastern markets to the American West.
Colonel Jack Harris ran his successful hotel until 1864. Just a year prior to leaving the business, the Battle of Westport ravaged the area, and the hotel was used as quarters for Union soldiers. Col. Harris passed away inside his beloved home in 1873.
In about 1875, Charles and Josephine Kearney moved into the Harris home in Westport with their four children, Mary, Julia, Louise and Charles. Josephine’s mother, Henrietta, continued to live in the home that she once shared with her deceased husband until she passed away in the home in 1883.
Kearney made some changes to the home, including adding to the front of the home and completing a large “L” addition in the rear.
The family lived in this lovely antebellum mansion in Westport until 1898 when Charles Kearney passed away. The house was then purchased by William Rockhill Nelson, founder of the Kansas City Star. He gave the home as a wedding present to his managing editor, Thomas W. Johnston (1862-1917).
Charles Kearney’s wife, Josephine continued to live with her children until her death in 1913; Hattie Drisdom also resided with the Kearney children until her death in 1927. With the family for over 70 years, Hattie was buried at Union Cemetery with the Kearney family. She was the first Black person ever buried in the “white” section.
Close Calls of the Wrecking Balls
When the managing editor of the Kansas City Star, T.W. Johnston died inside the home in 1917, the Harris-Kearney House was purchased by Elmer Williams. He had plans to raze the home in 1922 to make way for businesses.
At the time, Kansas City’s Centennial Organization was raising money for celebrations across the city. Westport was annexed to Kansas City in 1897, so any plans would include the historic area of Westport.
Chairman of the organization was Lizzie Allen, an active member of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR). Under her leadership, the organization began a subscription drive to save the home. The house would cost $1,000, and the building of a new foundation and moving the house would cost about $5,100.
The Kansas City Times lamented about the lack of care for landmarks, writing, “Kansas City has arrived at an age when it ought to begin to set up a past. Background is something that cannot be purchased ready made in the market, but has to be acquired by degrees like ancestors and family portraits. If we go on destroying, the time will come when we will look around for a background and look in vain. . . Some quiet refuge away from the path of business progress ought to be found where this monument of pioneer days can begin a new service and grow old in peace.”
The group had until January 7, 1922 to raise the money, and they were far from raising the money they needed. Another problem was finding a location where the house could be moved. A tract of vacant land and 40th and Baltimore two blocks away seemed to be the best fit.
Miraculously, the Centennial Committee raised just enough to make this plan work. But, moving a historic home in 1922 was no small feat.
A steam shovel had to chop away the edge of a terrace next to the home on Main Street in order to create a slope so the home could be moved. In April 1922, the house was cut in two pieces and gingerly relocated up the hill to its new home at 4000 Baltimore.
In the meantime, another epic landmark in Westport was torn to the ground. The Harris House Hotel, in business until 1912, wasn’t as lucky as the home. Even though the Daughters of Westport tried to lease the Harris House Hotel and make it into an old tavern, the building was purchased along with two lots next to it for $70,000.
This “monument to the early West” was torn to the ground in November 1922.
At 4000 Baltimore at the new site of the 1855 Harris-Kearney House, 1,000 bricks from the razed Harris House Hotel were carefully placed and made into a sidewalk in front of the home.
The Rocky Road to an Open MuseumThe Harris-Kearney House was formally opened New Years night in 1923, but attendance was limited to members of the association. Local organizations used the home as a meeting place and for small events.
By 1939, the house was in danger yet again; the furnishings and relics at one time leant to the house were taken away, and peeled paint on the front door marked signs of lack of ongoing maintenance.
Before Julia Kearney Wornall (1858-1935) passed away, she made her husband, Frank, promise that he wouldn’t let the home she grew up in be destroyed. Frank knew the problem was always about money, so he worked after his wife’s passing to get “the old house on a firmer financial foundation.”
He approached the Missouri Valley Historical Society to see if they would merge with the Harris Home Association, suggesting they could use the location to showcase the historical society’s collections. Plans failed.
The house was sold at public auction in January 1942 to a physician who changed the interior footprint so it could be used as a clinic and doctor and dentist offices.
In 1950, concerned and proud citizens set up Westport Historical Society. Their first large project was erecting signs at different sites in Westport that told the history.
Meanwhile, the Harris-Kearney House was “restored” in 1970 so it could be used for law offices, but the firm in charge fell into bankruptcy two years later.
Westport Historical Society set up a trust fund to raise money to purchase the home and turn it into a museum and library. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places with hopes it would remain intact.
In March 1976, the City Council approved investing $75,000 into the property, and Westport Historical Society had to raise about $75,000 for restoration efforts. In July, they got the keys to the old home and held quilting classes, yard sales, book, plant, and bake sales on the property to pay for restoration. The house opened to visitors in 1982.
Reopening a 21st Century Museum
Since the Westport Historical Society took over, the house has remained open to visitors – until the pandemic. In February 2020, I joined the board of directors of the organization.
After briefly opening in 2022, the museum closed again for renovations, thanks in part to a generous donation by Tammy and Andy Reid. A change in leadership at the annual meeting in March 2024 delayed the reopening again.
Luckily, a devoted group of individuals led by new president Marty Weidenmann Jarvis has worked tirelessly to revamp the Harris-Kearney House so that it is a relevant 21st century museum and historical society.
The new board members and I believe there were more people who lived and worked in Westport that have a history to be told. We believe everyone’s story matters; if we are to advance into a more equitable, just, and inclusive future, we must embrace the truths of history. Everyone had involvement in our American story.
We have a room dedicated to Hattie Drisdom that in 2018 was recognized as the area’s first “Stopping Stones,” a national endeavor designed to bring attention to the persons and places impacted by enslavement. I will continue to research Hattie’s history so that her full story can be told.
The museum also has the first exhibit of Black history in Westport. This exhibit will be about the Steptoe neighborhood, an all-Black neighborhood settled by formerly enslaved people starting in the late 1860s.
In addition, local artist R. Gregory Summers will exhibit his incredible series of early Kansas City paintings throughout the home with historical backgrounds written by me of the scenes he has beautifully recreated.
The refreshed grounds, lawn, and newly-planted flower gardens are ready for visitors. Board member Ryland Foster and volunteer Carol O’Neal Younts dedicated hundreds of hours transforming the landscaping in j months from poison ivy and weeds to the exquisite showpiece, including native flowers and grasses, seen today. And, the wheels and axle from the 1838 Conestoga-style Covered Wagon that once stood at Westport Shopping Center will now be permanently on display.
The museum will host an open house Sunday, July 21 from 1-5 p.m. Everyone is welcome! Regular hours of operation will be Friday through Sunday, 1-5 p.m. More information is available on our new website, www.westporthistoricalkc.com.
This home is not just the story of one family; it’s the story of our unique history. It will only survive and thrive with the help and support of the community who sees the value of preservation for years to come. “Westport was,” a 94-year-old Frank C. Wornall told the Kansas City Times in 1951, “before Kansas City ever became.”
Discover more from Martin City Telegraph
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.