By Diane Euston
Kansas City’s interesting past is more often than not intertwined with controversial issues such as slavery and forced Indian removal. Without both these divisive subjects, Kansas City would have ceased to exist.
The move in the 1830s to the western edge of the United States was fueled first by Indian trade to newly relocated tribes, accessibility to cheap land and later the terminus of the Santa Fe, Oregon and California Trails leading west. A lot of these connections began in Westport and later the Town of Kansas where businesses catering to Native American tribes popped up practically overnight.
One business owner, Hiram Northrup, successfully bridged a personal connection with tribes while also profiting from them. He grew into a successful merchant, businessman and banker who was intimately connected to the Wyandot tribe.
Tragedy Surrounds His Early Life
Hiram Milton Northrup was born June 4, 1818 to Andrus Bishop Northrup (1795-1846) and Martha McHenry (1797-1820) in Olean, N.Y. His father’s family came from a large line of early settlers who came to America in 1637. His mother, Martha, grew up with her widowed mother who started a successful tavern in 1802 that also functioned as their home.
Andrus Northrup moved as a small child to Olean, N.Y. where he worked as a merchant and lumber dealer. After marrying Martha, the couple stayed in Olean.
But tragedy struck early in Hiram’s life. When he was just two years old, his mother passed away. It was at about this time that Hiram went to live with his mother’s sister, Sarah Lockwood and “formed a strong attachment to her.”
His father was still around at that point, living and working in Olean. But by the late 1820s, his father moved to Autauga County, Ala. to set up his own business interests there. He remarried and had two daughters.
When only 14 years old, Hiram’s Aunt Sarah passed away, leaving him without his motherly support and hundreds of miles away from his father.
He’d received a good common education, so he began working as a clerk in a store in Olean. A year later in about 1833, he traveled to Pennsylvania and taught in a district school, earning $8 a month.
He was just 15 years old.
In 1835, he went down the Ohio River to Cincinnati where he worked in a shipyard for a year. In regular contact with his father in Alabama, Hiram was convinced his future may be with building a business with him.
He began working in the mercantile business in Wetumpka, Ala. with his father – a business named A.B. Northrup & Son. The experience gained was of great value to him, and due to “being naturally inclined to mercantile pursuits it had given him a fair knowledge of the business methods prevailing.”
But the business venture between father and son was short lived. By November 1842, his father filed for bankruptcy. Three businesses were included in the filing, one being A.B. Northrup & Son.
Hiram picked up the pieces and gathered whatever assets he could muster while his father worked through the courts. He sold his interests and looked to the west for his next adventure.
Western Missouri was the edge of the United States when 26-year-old Hiram Northrup stepped off a steamboat near the foot of current-day Grand Avenue in 1844 at what was then called Westport Landing. What he found here was a series of shanties along the riverfront and no semblance of a town.
Westport Landing was a jumping-off point for final destinations miles away with the Santa Fe Trail carved out of the hills and toward the then-booming town of Westport four miles to the south.
The Removal of the Wyandot
History tells us that the Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced approximately 30 remaining tribes east of the Mississippi River to reserves in current-day Kansas. Tribes such as the Shawnee and Delaware arrived in the early 1830s and settled on land hugging the eastern border just steps away from the state of Missouri.
Other tribes, including the Wyandot, didn’t arrive until 1843.
For generations, the Wyandot successfully farmed on a reservation in Upper Sandusky, Ohio after being relocated just 50 years prior from Canada, so convincing them to uproot their lives was no small feat. Many Wyandot had adopted white customs and intermarried with white settlers of the region, but they still held onto some of their core traditions, including upholding a tribal government.
While full-blooded Wyandot were willing to move, the mixed-race Wyandot tribal leaders, including William Walker (1800-1874), Silas Armstrong (1810-1865) and John Armstrong (1813-1852) were opposed.
But time wasn’t on their side; a tribal vote solidified the move to Indian Territory and a treaty in 1842 sold their Ohio reservation.
This forced removal included Hiram Northrup’s future wife, Margaret Clark. Born in 1828 at the Upper Sandusky Reserve in Ohio, Margaret was the daughter of Thomas Clark and an unknown Wyandot woman.
But the story of Margaret and her family’s removal to current-day Kansas was a bit different than the other Wyandot. Sometime after her birth, Thomas decided to move back to the Anderdon Reservation in current-day Essex County, Ontario – the lands the Wyandot had acquired in 1790.
In January 1837, Wyandot Chiefs from this area of Canada reached out to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs about their condition. One of the four chiefs is identified as “Ty-er-on-youh, or Thomas Clark.” The letter indicates that only 86 Wyandot were living in Ontario.
By the time of the forced removal of the Wyandot in July 1843, there were only 30 members left at the Ontario location. Eight of these people were Thomas Clark and his family.
Margaret Clark and her family pushed south to join the Upper Sandusky, Ohio Wyandot. On July 12, 1843, they left in 120 wagons. There were about 644 Wyandot walking 150 miles to Cincinnati where they purchased tickets on two steamboats – the Republic and the Nodaway – to take them to Westport Landing.
The Wyandot were generally healthy up until their arrival to Westport Landing, only losing one member to disease. But this trajectory was about to change.
They were promised 147,000 acres in Indian Territory, but when they arrived, there was no land allotted to them.
Some tribal leaders could see the writing on the wall and made moves to ensure that the tribe had provisions. Silas Armstrong opened a trading house in a rented space in Westport, just steps east of the border in Missouri.
With no immediate options for the 600-plus Wyandot, the tribe camped in between the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. Disease was rampant as they lived on the riverbanks during the fall and winter. About 100 Wyandot – including Margaret Clark’s father, Thomas – passed away from disease.
This was approximately one-seventh of the population.
They buried their tribal members on the tallest hill in the area; this was the beginning of the Huron Indian Cemetery, now formally known as the Wyandot National Burying Ground.
By December 1843, the tribe successfully purchased 36 sections of land – a little less than 25,000 acres – at the fork of the rivers from the Delaware for approximately $48,000.
Successful Business and Success in Love
Upon his arrival at Westport Landing in 1844, Hiram Northrup connected with four others to develop a business trading with the Comanche Indians in Texas and Mexico. While on their way, Hiram and his group only made it to current-day southeastern Kansas near the Verdigris River before one of the men died and several got very sick. To add insult to injury, the Osage robbed them of all their goods.
This wasn’t going to deter Hiram. He returned to Jackson County, Mo. and entered into a partnership with E.P. Hart in Westport focused on the lucrative Indian trade. He traveled to St. Louis, “an entire stranger without capital” and was able to secure $3,500 in goods from dealers. The following year, Hart sold out his interest, and a few years later, Hiram owned the business outright.
He did set aside some time to fall in love. Hiram, 27, met and married 17-year-old Margaret Clark in current-day Wyandotte County, Kan. at the Methodist Meeting House on November 27, 1845. It is said to be the first marriage that was registered as occurring in Wyandotte County.
Margaret was described as “fair and beautiful, neat and tasteful, modest, unobtrusive and prudent.” These qualities attracted Hiram, but there was one obstacle. It was alleged that she spoke very little English when they met, and “they required a translator during their courtship.”
The couple had four boys: Milton Catlin (1846-1924), Andrus Bishop (1849-1892), Thomas Clark (1851-1876) and McHenry (1854-1857).
What started as a trading business with just a few tribes developed into a large commercial business connected with dozens of tribes spreading over thousands of miles to the west.
Business was booming, and the warehouse on the levee helped to wholesale products out to Native American tribes while also outfitting travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. There was trade, too, with the Native American tribes; he would purchase goods from them, including valuable furs, that were shipped out east to markets.
The firm “did the largest general merchandising business on the old levee for a score of years, and its trade with the Indians was one of the important commercial factors of the town.”
The business was so successful that Hiram looked to bring on reliable employees to assist him. After one of the 14 original founders of Kansas City, William Miles Chick, passed away in 1847, his son, Joseph Smith Chick, then only about 19 years old, looked to the levee for his own opportunities.
Joseph S. Chick walked into Hiram Northrup’s store and walked out with the job of clerk.
For the next several years, Joseph Chick lived with the Northrup’s and kept the books at the store on the riverfront. In 1852, he entered into a partnership with Hiram, and the firm officially changed its name to Northrup & Chick.
Dr. W.L. Campbell recalled in 1908, “The firm of Northrup & Chick was known all over the West. They were wholesale outfitters and supplied the trains on the Santa Fe Trail. At one time their warehouse contained more than 15,000 buffalo hides.”
They established trading posts throughout Indian Territory and into New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and the Cherokee Nation. It is said that their annual revenue reached over $300,000.
But change was on the horizon- a change that would affect Hiram both professionally and personally.
Making the Most of Tumultuous Times
In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened up Indian Territory to white settlement, causing an influx of migration to what was then called Kansas Territory. Free state towns such as Lawrence, Manhattan and Topeka were established.
The first goods sold wholesale to these newly-established towns came from Northrup & Chick.
Treaties with the tribes living in what was supposed to be a permanent relocation were once again forced to move if they wouldn’t become citizens of the United States.
The Wyandot tribe, who had adopted Hiram Northrup as a member, had to look at their reservation lands and make a decision. Members of the tribe received individual land allotments if they chose to stay, while others decided to move to current-day Oklahoma.
About 200 members, including the Northrups, stayed.
When Hiram married Margaret, he did build a log cabin for their family at near current-day 8th and Minnesota Ave. Because of his business interests, the couple, for the most part, resided in Kansas City, Mo. at the corner of 4th and Main.
Due to the increase of white settlers hellbent on ensuring Kansas Territory became free of slavery, the border became very dangerous. Despite this, Hiram and his partner, Joseph Chick, found ways to capitalize on the situation.
In 1857, they opened their own branch of the Union Bank of Missouri in Kansas City – the first banking house west of Lexington and south of the Missouri River. They called it Northrup & Co. A year later, Council Grove, Kan. on the Santa Fe Trail – the site of an early trading post – was incorporated by Hiram and three others.
Always an ally to the Wyandot, Hiram was sent by the Council to Washington, D.C. to collect overdue money promised to the tribe under their last treaty. He successfully recovered over $53,000.
When the Civil War broke out, it was essential for the success of businesses to remain neutral and continue under Union control. But bands of Jayhawkers, led by notorious leaders such as Charles Jennison, inflicted damage on civilians in lieu of protecting them.
On November 16, 1861, a band of over a dozen Jayhawkers entered Northrup & Co. around noon and robbed them of just shy of $4,000. Luckily, a large amount of their money had been strategically hidden.
Yet this type of incident caused Hiram and his business partner, Joseph Chick, to look to the east for safety. They disposed of their banking and mercantile businesses, and in about 1862, the partners moved with their families to New York City.
There, they established a new banking house at 33 Nassau Street and later moved their operation to Wall Street. Hiram became a member of the New York Stock Exchange and dealt heavily in Kansas bonds.
When Kansas City emerged from the Civil War with little money and no credit, Northrup & Chick in New York City loaned their adopted hometown $60,000 for public improvements.
The Panic of 1873 drained their coffers, and after over a decade in New York City, Hiram Northrup and his partner turned back to the town that was blossoming after the arrival of the Hannibal Bridge.
It was time to go home to Kansas City.
Life in Wyandotte County
Returning to the area with his wife and three grown sons, Hiram Northrup moved onto the lands allotted to him and his wife in Wyandotte County. Their home at 8th and Minnesota was enlarged before they arrived in 1874.
In 1857, the town of Wyandotte was organized and was incorporated two years later. The Northrup’s land allotments were in the shadows of this settlement, and he was front and center as the Wyandot tribe tried to adapt to changing times.
To be fair, the area was still a rough frontier town. At the close of the Civil War, Wyandotte City had about 300 families but “scarcely had any streets.”
Hiram wasn’t ready to retire, so after his return, he established a new banking house with his youngest son, Thomas in the town of Wyandotte. They called it H.M. Northrup & Son.
Like most of Hiram’s life, success was intermixed with tragedy. His son, Thomas died in October 1876 at 24 years old. The business, although still successful, changed their name to Northrup Banking Company.
The area that once was the home to the Wyandots was quickly transforming into a lively municipality to the east of downtown Kansas City, Mo. The towns of Wyandotte, Armourdale, Armstrong, Riverview and Kansas City, Kan. were the homes to industry, the stockyards and single-family homes.
In a decision that would continue to baffle people across the nation, political leaders and citizens alike opted in 1886 to combine these five municipalities and become known as Kansas City, Kan., thus confusing people about which state Kansas City actually is in for generations to come.
In response, Hiram Northrup wrote to area newspapers to explain why “Wyandotte City” should have been the chosen name. “First, it was a historical name,” he contended. “It was settled by the Wyandotte nation of Indians, who established a trading post and named the town Wyandotte. The Wyandotte Indians were civilized, and made the first treaty with the government whereby they became citizens and had their lands divided.”
His valid argument (still valid to this day) went unanswered.
On June 28, 1887, tragedy once again struck the Northrup household when Hiram’s beloved wife, Margaret passed away. She was 58 years old.
The newspaper wrote, “In her manner she was quiet and unassuming. She was an affectionate and faithful wife, and a kind and indulgent mother.”
In January 1892, Hiram’s son, Andrus passed away at 42 years old. That left Hiram with one living son, Milton.
He was wealthy, successful and a prominent member of society. But this success couldn’t wipe away the series of tragedies that struck him personally.
A Foundational Member of the Community
In a time when Native American tribes were considered by many to be second-class citizens, Hiram Northrup partnered with them and continuously advocated to ensure they weren’t pushed to the wayside.
He took the land that was allotted to his wife and him and laid out the Northrup Addition to Wyandotte County; a park which still exists was named in his honor while he was still living. It sits just a few blocks west of the Wyandotte County Courthouse.
Much like so many members of his family, Hiram’s health began to fail around the New Year in 1893. He laid inside his home, steps away from the Indian burial ground where his wife and children were interred.
His life was cut short when he died of heart failure after battling the flu on March 22, 1893.
He was 74 years old.
When he arrived at the future site of Kansas City, Mo. in 1844, there were a few shanties and only the faint hope that this place would develop into something fantastic. In his lifetime, he watched this city grow to over 200,000 citizens.
Just months after his death, his bank – for so many years a successful pillar in the Wyandotte County community- went down with the Panic of 1893.
Hiram Northrup’s holdings at the time of his death equaled about $300,000 at the time, and his will certainly open up one’s eyes to what he deemed most important.
He gave $1,000 to the Women’s Benevolent Association and $1,000 to St. Margaret’s Hospital. He left money and property to his surviving son and to his grandchildren.
But the first item of business in his will dealt directly with the Wyandot. The will reads, “The sum of $5,000 in cash is bequeathed to the Wyandotte Nation of Indians, to be placed in the hands of the chiefs, without bond, for distribution among the poor of the tribe.”
He was placed in a grave, marked with a large red granite marker, at the Wyandot National Burying Ground. Today, despite later efforts to remove the cemetery altogether, this monument stands well above the city below, a timeless testament to the ongoing legacy of the tribe.
As the Kansas City Times eloquently wrote, “His biography is so intimately associated with the growth and development of Kansas City and the territory west of it that it has become part of the history of the great southwest.”
Hiram Milton Northrup was, in so many ways, the quintessential pioneer of Kansas City’s colorful past.