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The
jury awarded a damage of four dollars and a half for the plaintiff's
doctor bill, and they hung out, for a long time against giving anything,
until the judge instructed them they must render a verdict for that
amount, as Mr. Morphy had clearly proven that he had paid the doctor four dollars and
a half, as a result of the whipping; so you can see, he would not give
the firm any too much praise, in writing them up. He says:
"Those gentlemen do an immense business and make a specialty to cater to
the immense
Texas trade. The jingling spur, the carved ivory-handled Colt,
or the suit of velveteen, and the many, many other
Texas necessaries, you
here find by the gross or cord. An upstairs room, thirty by seventy-five
feet, is devoted entirely to clothing and saddlery. In their warehouses
and yard, it is no uncommon thing to find from sixty to eighty thousand
buffalo robes and hides. This house also does a banking business for the
accommodation of its customers. Mr.
John Newton, the portly and benevolent charge de affairs of the office,
will accommodate you with five dollars or five thousand dollars, as the
case may be. We generally get the former amount. Mr. Samuels, who has
special charge of the shooting irons and jewelry stock, will entertain you
in Spanish, German, Russian, or Hebrew. The assistance of Mr. Isaacson,
the clothier, is demanded for parrlevous, while Bob, himself, has to be
called on when the dusky and dirty 'child of the setting sun' insists on
spitting and spouting
Cheyenne and
Arapaho and goes square back on the
king's English. They employed over a dozen outside men to check off the
wagons that were loading, and their sales were on an average of a thousand
dollars a day, Sundays not excepted, or three hundred and fifty thousand
dollars a year, and several years it was over four hundred thousand
dollars." There was no article you could mention we did not handle.
Our remittances to banks in
Leavenworth were frequently as high as fifty
thousand dollars. This was owing to stock men depositing their whole pile
with us, and drawing against it as they needed it. We have had parties
leave with us endorsed, certified checks, as high as fifty thousand
dollars each, to pay for cattle or close some deal for them. Strange to
say, there was but little currency in circulation, and, notwithstanding
the railroad agent was instructed to turn over his receipts of greenbacks,
and take our check for same, we had to have shipped to us, by express,
from two thousand dollars to five thousand dollars in currency every few
days.
The Santa Fe railroad was another great factor in making the wealth and
splendid prosperity of
Dodge City.
Indeed, it was the first cause of the development of
Dodge City's
greatness. It was this road, you might say, that made us. It, at least,
gave us a big start. Hundreds of its employees made it their home from
the very beginning. Dodge was
not only its terminus, for awhile, but it always has been the end of a
division. The officers of the road and the people of the town have always
enjoyed great harmony. They have treated us justly and kindly, favoring us
whenever and in whatever way they could, and, in return and to show them
gratitude, the Dodge people have
worked right in with them; and never have they been at outs, or has the
least thing ever arisen which would lessen the friendship between them.
Even yet, (1913), the railroad company is making great improvements in
buildings, grades, yardage, etc., at
Dodge City.
Another great feature belonging to
Dodge City,
and which brought many people there at an early date, is its beautiful,
health giving climate and pure air. It was, and is, a great resort for
invalids afflicted with the white plague. This should be the stopping off
place for all those badly afflicted with this dread disease, as the great
change in altitude, from lowlands to mountains, is often to sudden. I have
known many people to stop off here until they got accustomed to light air
and great altitude, and then go on to the mountains, and, in time, be
completely cured. Others would stop only a short time and take the
consequences. Others, after a short stay here, would feel so much better
they would return home, thinking they were cured, and make a grand
mistake. A lovely lady, the wife of one of
Missouri's greatest lawyers,
stopped off here a short time, and her health improved so wonderfully that
she went back to
Missouri, but we heard of her death a short time
afterwards. I have known several parties who would receive so great a
benefit from a short stay in Dodge,
they would insist, against the wishes of their doctor and friends, on
going on to the mountains, and come back, in a few weeks, in a box, or
return to die among their eastern friends. You see, they did not stay in
Dodge long enough to get used to
the great altitude of the mountains.
Dodge City
was conspicuous in the sight of newspaper men, and complimentary notices
of its business men were often unique. For instance, the Walnut City
Blade, says:
"The gentlemen of
Dodge City
are whole-souled fellows and fine business men. Although our acquaintance
was limited, we can say that Sutton, Whitelaw, Winnie, Gryden, Bob Wright,
Shinn, Klaine, and Frost are each a whole team with a mule colt
following."
As an instance of the splendid liberality of
Dodge City
in times of emergency, as already mentioned, its response to Governor St.
John's petition for the cyclone sufferers has been given. Another
instance, among any number that might be given, was the conduct of
Dodge City
toward the yellow fever situation, in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1878.
September 10th, of that year, a mass meeting was called for the purpose of
alleviating the sufferers of Memphis from the terrible yellow fever
scourge.
The people only had a few hours' notice of the meeting, but, in such short
time, two or three hundred gathered. A few speeches were made by some of
our prominent citizens, when Mr. P. L. Beaty jumped upon a stand and said:
"I have been a victim of this yellow fever, and know how these people in
the South suffer; here's what talks I" at the same time throwing a ten
dollar bill into the hat, amidst wildest enthusiasm. Other speeches
followed, while contributions flowed into the hat in splendid style, the
poor bootblack dropping in his nickel, and the rich merchant his ten
dollar bill. The total amount collected was over three hundred dollars,
which was promptly forwarded to the Howard Association of Memphis.
Instances of charity equal to that of
Dodge City
are as scarce on the records as, elsewhere, the rarity of Christian
charity is plentiful. Hurrah, for little
Dodge! She is still bad in war,
good in peace, and has a bigger heart, for her size, than any town in
Kansas. A short time after this meeting, it was found that the terrible
scourge of yellow fever still held Memphis in its grip; and at another
mass meeting to relieve the suffering,
Dodge City
sent more than double the former amount.
This puts me in mind of a little priest, by the name of Father Swineberg,
who was a little fellow with a big heart, with charity for all and malice
toward none, no matter what the denomination. He was very highly educated,
could speak fluently more than a half-dozen different languages, and
visited Fort Dodge to look after his flock and minister to the wants of
his people, years before
Dodge City
was established. It was the writer's happy luck to be able to accommodate
him several times, in driving him from one post to another, looking after
the needs of the church and his ministerial duties, and, in that way, the
writer and he became warm friends.
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