Beecher Bible and Rifle Church
Cache is located near a marker dedicated to the Beecher Bible
and Rifle Church. Cache container is a large lock-n-lock painted
green with "Official Geocache" markings. Please be respectful to
the area and leave the cache better than you found it.
Until 1854, when Kansas was opened for settlement, the spot on
which this old landmark church stands was just part of a vast ocean
of tall prairie grass, under the ever-changing skies. To the north
lay the Kaw River, crowding the bluffs beyond. A few miles to the
east stood hills of spectacular beauty, and the prairie rolled
gently away toward the south and west. The silence was broken only
by the winds or by the song of a meadow-lark, and at night by the
music of the prairie wolves. The land belonged to the Indians, to
the roving herds of buffalo and antelope, and to the great flocks
of migratory birds.
The Kansas-Nebraska Bill, passed in May, 1854, changed all this
forever. It provided that Kansas could become a free state or a
slave state, depending on how the people of Kansas voted. The race
was on to stake out claims, and to vote Kansas "free," or
"slave."
Two years later, in 1856, there were already about sixty people
living within a few miles of this place that they called Wabaunsee,
an Indian name meaning "Dawn of Day." Here, on the south bank of
the Kaw River, 100 miles west of Kansas City, a settler had built a
tiny store. In New England "Kansas Fever" ran high. The people of
New Haven, Connecticut, raised money to send a group of colonists
to Kansas, sixty or more men, led by one of New Haven's most
respected citizens, Charles B. Lines. These were well educated men,
many with professional training.. They left good jobs and good
homes behind them. They were not just adventurers, with little to
lose by going west; they were men making a sacrifice for their
ideals.
Before the Connecticut-Kansas Company left for Kansas, a meeting
was held in North Church, in New Haven. Professor Silliman, of
Yale, pledged $25.00 for a Sharps rifle for the Company. Then Henry
Ward Beecher, the great minister from Brooklyn, pledged that his
congregation would give the money for twenty-five rifles if the
audience would give another twenty-five; people in the crowd
responded in great excitement, and soon twenty-seven had been
promised. A few days later Mr. Beecher sent Mr. Lines $625 for the
rifles, and with the money came twenty-five Bibles, the gift of a
parishioner.
The Company left New Haven at midnight, on March 31st, after a
torch light parade across town to the steamboat to New York. The
next day they were on a train to St. Louis, a three-day journey of
great discomfort. From St. Louis they sailed up the Missouri River
on the steamboat Clara, as far as Kansas City. There they bought
thirty wagons and sixty oxen, along with farm implements, tents,
and provisions for thirty days. They started west on the Oregon
Trail, stopping for a few days in the free-state town of Lawrence.
Then they continued along the trail to Uniontown, near present-day
Willard. Here, instead of following the trail across the Kaw river,
they veered left and continued west, south of the river, until they
reached the place their scouts had selected, Wabaunsee, "The New
Haven of the West."
In late April, 1856, (almost a month away from New Haven)
Wabaunsee suddenly became a busy tent city. Streets were laid out,
and city lots and tracts of prairie land were divided among the men
of the Company. The settlers already on the scene welcomed the New
Englanders, and some of them joined the worship services that were
held on Sundays, first in tents, then in cabins or dug-outs. The
new settlers found pioneer life very hard. Some became ill or
discouraged and returned home. Those who remained until August were
then called to go to the defense of Lawrence. Organized as "The
Prairie Guard", under their elected captain, William Mitchell, they
spent six weeks fighting the border ruffians.
The winter of 1856-57 was one of suffering in Wabaunsee, but
things seemed more hopeful in the spring, when the wives and
children came to join the men. Now that a permanent settlement
seemed assured, there was a desire for a permanent church
organization. In late June, 1857, fifteen of the members of the
Colony and thirteen other settlers met to organize "The First
Church of Christ in Wabaunsee," with the Rev. Harvey Jones as
Pastor. Of this group of twenty-eight charter members, nine were
women.
After two years of raising funds for a church building, mostly
in New Haven, they started construction of the sturdy stone
church-that still stands in Wabaunsee. The stones were hauled from
quarries, on sledges drawn by oxen. The mortar was mixed by hand,
and the long shingles, called "shakes," were made with crude hand
tools. The rows of straight-backed pews were divided down the
center of the church by a low wooden partition that separated the
men from the women. From the balcony across the rear of the church
a ladder led to the belfry. The church-yard was edged with hitching
posts, and there were newly planted trees and lilacs in appropriate
spots.
The new church was dedicated in May, 1862. By that time some of
the members had already gone to fight in the Civil War. Soon there
were only a few boys and older men to carry on the work in
Wabaunsee. But after the war was over the town began to grow again.
It never became the great city the people from New Haven had
envisioned, but the area grew into a thriving farm community. The
church became one of the largest and most influential Congregation
churches in Kansas. Only a few of the Connecticut families remained
to bring up their children in Wabaunsee, but those few were a
strong influence there, and in Kansas.
The pioneers of Wabsunsee sent their children to Washburn
College or to t a Kansas State Agricultural College, to become
teachers, ministers, or missionaries. These young people then went
to far places in the world to work, but they never forgot
Wabaunsee. When the church needed repairs they always gave
generously to assist the Willing Workers Society, that group of
church ladies forever busy with ice cream socials or oyster suppers
given to raise money to help pay the minister's salary or the
mortgage payments on the parsonage.
In 1907 old friends of the church came from far away to help
celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the First Church of Christ in
Wabaunsee. Only two of the original Company still lived in
Wabaunsee then, but they both played a large part in the Jubilee
celebration.
In 1913 there was a renewal of interest in the church when a new
minister came to start an experiment in. rural development.. The
Rev. Anton Boisen, later to become a very famous man, organized the
people to build sidewalks, improve the churchyard and the cemetery,
and to better their economic and social lives. But the population
of the area was dwindling, and so many people left, as an indirect
effect of World War 1, that after 1917 it was no longer possible to
keep a resident minister. After that there were guest ministers
from time to time, and services held with the Methodist church of
Wabaunsee. An effort was made to federate the two churches, but
this failed, and soon the old stone church was practically
deserted. The last entry In the official record book was made in
1927.
The descendants of the "Beecher Colony" organized "Old Settlers
Association" in 1932. The last Sunday of August was designated "Old
Settler's Day by the Association. Throughout the years "Old
Setters" gathered on this day as well as Decoration Day to
reminisce and to honor men and women who had made that church a
symbol of freedom around the world. Homecoming continues to be
celebrated on the last Sunday in August. Former members spent more
than one thousand dollars in the renovation of the Church in 1948.
This same group, a few years later, raised a similar sum to erect a
monument gate for the Wabaunsee Cemetery entrance. the gate design
was by Maude Mitchell, the daughter of William Mitchell. He was a
captain of the "Old Prairie Guard."
In 1950 residents of Wabaunsee formed a new church group, and
began to hold weekly services. This was said to be the first
inter-racial Congregational Church in Kansas, a fact which
impressed many as a fitting tribute to the Connecticut-Kansas
Colony. The Church's Centennial, in August, 1957, saw the old
building much as it had looked when completed, almost a hundred
years before. The old pews were still uncomfortable, the floors
still dark and creaky, and the windows still tall and narrow. But a
year later much had been changed. A youth group, under the
sponsorship of the Kansas Pilgrim Fellowship, spent two weeks in
Wabaunsee, working with members of the church, to renovate the
building. They put in a new floor, a tile ceiling, and replaced the
old coal stoves with modern heaters. Soon after that the
parishioners of a church about to be inundated by the waters of
Tuttle Creek Reservoir donated its pews to replace the old ones in
the Wabaunsee church. More recently stained-glass inserts have
placed in the old windows.