Winter Meeting
The Chapter's Winter meeting is scheduled for 1:15 p.m., January 20, Municipal Building, Kinsley, Kansas. A covered dish dinner will be served. Members should bring a dish to share. Table service and drinks will be provided. As tradition dictates, the Faye Anderson Award will be presented, Officers for 2008 will be elected, and the winners of the 2007 Poster Contest will be recognized. Speaking will be Harry Myers, newly appointed Manager of the Santa Fe Trail. Harry's resume reads as follows.

Harry Myers retired from the National Park Service after 28 years of service. His last position was as the team leader for the Long Walk National Historic Trail Feasibility Study involving the Navajo Nation and the Mescalero Apache Tribe. He previously served as superintendent of Fort Union National Monument. New Mexico, Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial, Ohio, and has served at Omaha, Nebraska, Fort Scott National Historic Site, Kansas. Myers graduated with high honors from Western Illinois University (Macomb, Ill.) with a B. S. in Recreation and Park Administration and served three years in the W. S. Army including a tour of duty in Vietnam.

He is the author of numerous articles on the Santa Fe Trail and a popular speaker of geographical history and early trail routes, Hispanic trade on the Santa Fe Trail, and the impact of arrival of Europeans on American Indian Tribes.

He is a recipient of the Santa Fe Trail Award of Merit in 1993, named Santa Fe Trail Ambassador in 1995, Santa Fe Trail Jack D. Rittenhouse Memorial Stagecoach Award for lifetime achievement in research and writing and most recently the 2007 Marc Simmons Writing Award.

After retiring, he served as a Historical Research Consultant to the New Mexico State Historian, reviewing and scanning material from the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives.

Fall 2007 Minutes
The Wet/Dry Routes Chapter met for its fall meeting on October 20, 2007 at Larned. Following a demonstration of Dutch oven cooking by Alice Clapsaddle, 43 members and guests were treated to a hearty meal of beef stew, biscuits, cookies and cowboy coffee. The business meeting included a report on the Santa Fe Trail Symposium at Trinidad, Colorado attended by twenty-eight members of the chapter representing three different states. Announcements were made concerning the Award of Merit presented to the Chapter for the Zebulon Pike Plaza and the Jack Rittenhouse Life Achievement Award presented by Dr. Leo Oliva to President David Clapsaddle. In other business, a report was given with regard to the October 13 trip on the Fort Hays/Fort Dodge Road and the upcoming trip to visit the DAR markers in the three county area.

The booklet recently published by the Chapter on the DAR markers was distributed and the Chapter voted to reproduce the 1866 booklet of rules and regulations for employees of freight companies. The winter meeting is scheduled for January 20, 2008 at 1:15 p.m. at the Kinsley Municipal Building. Harry Myers, Santa Fe Trail manager will present the program.

Thank You
At the time the Chapter released Santa Fe Trail Daughters of the American Revolution Markers in Pawnee, Edwards, and Ford Counties, Kansas copies were sent to all the DAR chapter in the state. Your editor recently received: Thank You. Members of the Wet Dry Routes Chapter, for the booklet about Santa Fe Trail DAR Markers in Pawnee, Edwards and Ford Counties. It is a very nice addition to our Santa Fe Trail materials, and we enjoy the comments about the stone itself and its relationship to the trail. Thank you. Alice Walker, Chapter Regent, Four Winds DAR Chapter.

Paint at the Plaza
A special thank you to Jack Singer for his assistance in doing some touch up painting at the Zebulon Pike Plaza. Little known is the fact that in Jack's resume is an entry related to his tenure as a professional painter. At any rate, he was an excellent monitor for your editor who is known as a rather sloppy painter.

Mulberry Creek Markers
After several months of delay, the markers for the Mulberry Creek location have been installed. A limestone post inset with a bronze plaque was set to replace the original marker with inaccurate information placed several years ago. That marker identified the confluence of the Arkansas River with Mulberry Creek as the site of the lower crossing later research has determined that the river crossing was actually many miles west near the present town of Howell, Kansas. In addition to the limestone marker, an interpretive sign was placed at the Mulberry Creek site.

Mulberry Creek
Confluence With the Arkansas River

South of this point is the confluence of Mulberry Creek and the Arkansas River. There in 1823, the Cooper party crossed the Arkansas to pursue Mulberry Creek to the southwest becoming hopelessly lost, the party suffering from thirst, finally made their way back to the Arkansas. There also the U.S. Survey Team camped on September 6-8

Many thanks to Bob Rein and Steve Wetzel for their assistance in placing the markers.

DAR Trip
Eight members and guests of the Fort Larned Daughters of the American Revolution Chapter participated in a tour of the sixteen DAR Santa Fe Trail markers in Pawnee, Edwards, and Ford Counties in November. Of particular interest was that ten of these markers have been moved, some several times, since their original placement in 1907. Many thanks to Dr. Merlene Baird, Regent of the Fort Larned DAR for arranging the trip and to Joyce Book, our capable chariot driver.

Wet/Dry Routes Chapter DAy Trip
Thirteen Members of the Wet/Dry Routes Chapter toured the Fort Hays/Fort Dodge Route, the eastern end of the Santa Fe Trail in 1867-1868. Visiting Forts Hays and Dodge, the group stopped at numerous sites: rut locations, stream crossings, and Sawlog Creek where Boyd's ranche was visited by Richard Blinn, his wife Clara, and their son Wilie in April, 1868. This is the same Clara and Willie Blinn captured by the Cheyennes in the fall of 1868 and taken captive to Indian Territory. There in November of the same year, both Clara and Willie were killed during the attack on Black Kettle's Washita village by Lt. Col. George A. Custer and troops of the Seventh cavalry.

Historic Document Reprinted
Following the Mexican War (1846-1848) two major shifts happened in the Santa Fe Trail traffic. First, the bulk of American freighting became military in nature transporting supplies to Fort Union which was the supply base for other posts in the Southwest . Second, these freight shipments were monopolized by huge freighting companies which were able to secure government contracts. These companies issued written instruction to their employees which specified in detailed manner the work of the drivers, wagon masters and others associated with company responsibilities. In 1866, Tom Cranmer published Rules and Regulations by Which to Conduct Wagon Trains Drawn by Oxen On The Plains. The Chapter is in the process of republishing this document. Copies will be available at the January 20 meeting. Following the meeting the booklet will be for sale available via The Last Chance Store, P.O. Box 31, Woodston Kansas 67675, $2.00 including postage.

Other stuff about the preparation of food on the Trail
For the most part, the personnel in the caravan would be divided into messes of five-six men who would be responsible for the preparation of meals for their group. Tom Crammer, who compiled Rules and Regulations by which Wagon Trains, wrote:

We always find it best to move a train on the road by messes, from the fact that men generally prefer messing together from friendship, and then if an accident happens to a man on the road, he could more justly depend on his mess-mates for assistance than on any one else; besides, they want their wagons together on account of greasing.

Sometimes a cook was employed. Crammer described the cook's duties as follows:

It is the duty of the cook, after he has been furnished with wood and water, to prepare the meals of his mess. He should depend on none but himself to take care of his cooking equipage. When we drive before breakfast, which is a general rule, he should have a cold snack of refreshments for his mess-mates immediately after starting. It is also his duty to see that the sick of his mess are properly cared for. He should invariably put his mess "kit" in its proper place at night before he retires, also at noon before the cattle are in the corral. Though he is as mentioned in Article 1, excused from all other duties except to yoke, drive and unyoke his team, prepare for yoking, and, of course, assist in all other duties while the train is in motion.

Crammer's publication was printed in 1866 when the huge freighting firms, operating under strict regulations, were the major America freighter on the Santa Fe Trail.

Dues are always Due to the
Fastest Hand in the West
Chapter dues in the amount of $10.00 per family, are due at the Winter meeting or may be mailed to Alice Clapsaddle, 215 Mann, Larned, Kansas, 67550. Checks should be made out to the Wet/Dry Routes Chapter. Dues and email addresses are welcome.
"Printable Dues Form".
Do Not send our dues to the Santa Fe Trail Center

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