Red Oak at Chesterfield 



A stalwart oak at Chesterfield, S. C, described as unchanged 

 since 1852, bore its part in the Civil War. To its branches was fast- 

 ened the first flag bearing the words "Immediate Separate State 

 Action." There the flag fluttered in the breeze until General Sher- 

 man arrived on the scene, and burned the jail and courthouse. The 

 tree had long been a favorite resting place for Indians, whose pipes 

 and arrowheads were found beneath it. 



Council Oak of the Santa Fe Trail 



This old tree is one of the few that remain, of the original Council 

 Grove, on the Neosho River, Kan., which was "the largest body of 

 timber between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, and 

 the most noted camping and gathering place on the old Santa Fe 

 trail." 



This famous trail was the "early highway over which the com- 

 merce of the Plains was carried on for more than a generation before 

 the whistle of a locomotive had broken the stillness of the prairies." 

 It was first used by white traders in 1822, when a caravan started 

 from Boonville, Mo., and passing through Lexington, Independence 

 and Westport (now Kansas City), traveled south across the State of 

 Kansas and on to Santa Fe, N. M., over seven hundred and seventy- 

 five miles of forest and prairies infested by Indians. 



Two years later, in 1824, trade with Santa Fe had increased to 

 such an extent that the United States Government began to show 

 an active interest in carrying it forward. The regular route along the 

 Trail began at Franklin, Mo., and entered Kansas through Johnson 

 County. This portion of it terminated at Council Grove, where it 

 was the custom to halt and reorganize the caravans so that several 

 might proceed together, finding safety in numbers. From the Grove, 

 the Trail continued southwest, reaching the Arkansas River at the 

 Great Bend, following the river to Cimarron, and crossing near old 

 Fort Dodge and the present site of Dodge City, Kan. Here it 

 divided, one branch leading to New Mexico, and the other joining it 

 after following a different road. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa 

 Fe Railway follows the Trail over part of its route. 



"There is a wonderful amount of history and romance all along 

 the Old Santa Fe Trail," says J. R. Mead, a member of the Trail 

 Marking Commission for the State Historical Society of Kansas. 

 "Enough to make volumes of absorbing interest. The trail is lined 

 with unknown, unmarked graves. From Cow Creek, west to the 

 State line, every mile has its history of battle attack, ambush, stam- 

 pede, burned wagons, murdered or captured emigrants, all kinds of 

 killings and escapes. Nearly every General of note in our Civil War, 

 sometime in his career passed over the Trail Sherman, Sheridan, 

 Harvey, Hancock, Kearney, Miles, Crook, Sumner, Col. Leaven- 



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