May Gleanings: Grasshopper Scares, Seances and "Razzooping"
27 May 1875
Corn is looking splendid.
The grasshopper scare is about over.
The organ grinder was on the streets last Saturday.
The number of grasshoppers grows beautifully less.
Spiritualistic seances are exciting the Parker folks.
The town was full of pretty grangeresses last Saturday.
There is too much “damnnonsense” in our courts lately.
The Delaware and Cherokee Indians spent a good deal of money in town during the week.
Grasshoppers! Things were looking good in 1874 until a drought, “drouth” as the newspapers always said, hit. Worse, in July the devastating arrival of the Rocky Mountain locust, commonly called the grasshopper, finished off any hopes many farmers had. They completely stripped fields, and trees and bushes were left denuded within a matter of hours. People were left to literally starve.
The worst effects were in Western Kansas, but Southeast Kansas wasn’t unscathed. It’s hard to tell how things fared in Montgomery County. The newspapers were such town boosters and were so sensitive to outsider perceptions of anything that would result in less investment in their town that they downplayed and negated the presence of the insects. Yet the frequent mentions indicate at the very least an anxiety. There were several more mentions on this one page alone.
In 1918 when Eliza Corbin Patchett died in Coffeyville, an old friend wrote a tribute. Eliza was my grandmother’s great-aunt. The writer said he first met her in “the grasshopper year. Dry weather and the grasshoppers had cleaned up everything on the frontier farm, one of the horses brought from Illinois had died and the only cow was dry….Those were hard times, but some of the best citizens of Kansas passed through the years of adversity.” Certainly, this is saying that the Patchett farm in Fawn Creek Township was devastated by the grasshopper.
Coffeyville, Kansas was founded as a trading post in 1869, strategically located as the “gateway to Indian Territory,” as the Osage were forced out. The railroad arrived in 1871. The organ grinder would have ridden from town to town, operating on the streets for no more than a day or two, then moving on. The barrel organs they operated were heavy and played a limited repertoire. In fact, there were jokes that people paid them to leave. Most children in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century in Northeastern cities were very familiar with them, and delighted by the ones who were accompanied by a monkey collecting coins in a tin cup. For Coffeyville children they were far more of a novelty. Their presence was reported.
Seances and other aspects of spiritualism were fairly common in 1870s Kansas, as in large parts of the country. Historians usually date the beginning of its rise in popularity to the aftermath of the Civil War. With so many losses, and so many grieving survivors, many sought the reassurance that there is an afterlife. It was also a time of such great change, with urbanization, industrialization and immigration that was unsettling to many.
In 1868 the State Association of Kansas Spiritualists formed. The proceedings of its annual convention in Leavenworth were recorded in the Leavenworth Daily Commercial in 1873.
There were seances such as those mentioned in Parker, and there were lectures and magazines devoted to spiritualism. In 1878 “Mrs. Dr.” C.W. Lawrence began a lecture in Lawrence, Kansas with these comforting words: “As Spiritualists, we know the soul’s existence is a demonstrated fact…living after it leaves the body in the spiritual sphere…” The text of her lecture ran in full in the Lawrence Tribune.
27 May 1876
Roses are in bloom.
Beautiful weather.
Strawberries, ten cents a quart.
Business is lively around the depot.
Ice water is in fashion nowadays.
Horse trading has been lively all this week.
Land prospectors on the streets every day.
Coffeyville supports four blacksmiths.
The Indian trade has not been quite so large this week.
Nightly practice by the Cornet Band fills the air with melody.
An emigrant train with about 35 cattle passed through town going to Arizona.
3 May 1879
Streams full.
New potatoes.
Corn booming.
Glorious rains.
Cattle sleek and fat,
Base ball loometh up.
Consecration of the Episcopal church one week from to-morrow.
Miss Annie Burns, of Room No. 2, city schools, gave her students a picnic yesterday.
Three hundred and forty-four persons, male and female, over the age of twenty-one years of age reside in Coffeyville.
24 May 1879
Picnic season is at hand.
The young colt neigheth.
Blackberries and plums will be abundant this year.
A Strawberry and Ice Cream festival will be given by the Episcopal ladies next week.
Mayor Heddens is no respecter of persons. Several days ago, several women were arrested in this city, and fined on charges of keeping bawdy houses. One of them was unable to pay her fine and costs, and was placed in the city prison.
Indians, trading in town Saturday, left a good deal of money with our merchants.The Indian trade of Coffeyville is an important feature of its commerce.
20 May 1882
Lots of roses.
Cherries are about ripe.
Several families have put out their croquet sets.
Flannels are being discarded.
On Wednesday, Wells Bros. shipped 2,800 pounds of wool, and this week, 2,000 pounds.
2 May 1885
The cyclone season is now at hand.
The succulent strawberry will soon make its appearance.
A party of young people were out horseback riding Saturday.
Round trip tickets to the World’s Fair are now being sold at Kansas City for $15.
Coffeyville has a good supply of ice for the summer.
The circus has come and gone, and the small boy can go back to his occupations….and resolve to be a circus performer at such future time, to dress in tights and ride the elephant, do the flying trapeze act, or some….kindred portion of circus life.
The World’s Fair referenced was the World Cotton Centennial Exhibition held in New Orleans. Nearly a third of all U.S. cotton was handled in the city. The fair ran through June. Fifteen dollars was pretty steep for most farmers in the Coffeyville area.
19 May 1887
Green peas.
New potatoes.
Gooseberry pies.
The osage orange is in bloom and the orange balls forming.
The catalpa, one of our prettiest trees, are in full blossom.
Rabbits are very numerous this year, and they do considerable damage to the gardens.
The appearance of our streets any day during the week will convince the most skeptical that the town is razzooping.
The strawberry is now in the full vigor and prime of life, We are sorry their stay is so brief.
It is frequently the case that people drive into the city to trade, and leave children sitting in carriages and wagons without tying the horses. It is astonishing that any thoughtful person would take such risks.
“Razzooping” was a slang word for “booming.” In 1887 a new newspaper in Cain City, Kansas was even named the Cain City Razzooper. On 22 Sept 1887 the editor of that paper printed good wishes from the Jetmore Reill: “Wm. J. McHugh is the razzooping razzooper of this razzooping journal, and as his razzooping qualities are well known in this city and county, all the newsboys wish “Billy” success.”
In spite of the razzooping and high hopes, Cain City in Rice County boomed only briefly. Chicago promoters attempted to create a town, but it never caught on and quickly died. The Cain City Razzooper lasted a year. The word razooping was equally short-lived.
Sources:
“Spiritualism - Lecture Delivered by Mrs. Dr. C.W. Lawrence Before Head Center Grange,” Lawrence Tribune, 27 June 1878, p. 4.
Tribute to Eliza: “West Coffeyville,” by G.W. Akers, Coffeyville Daily Journal, 12 July 1918, p. 4.
Nartonis, David. “The Rise of 19th-century American spiritualism, 1854-1873,” Journal For the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 49 No. 2 (June 2010), pp. 361-373.
Copyright Andrea Auclair © 2023
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