Sometime between 1883 and 1885, John Speer, a former director of the Kansas Historical Society, happened upon a pile of leather-bound volumes outside a used bookstore in Lawrence. Immediately upon his discovery, he contacted Judge Franklin George Adams, secretary at the Kansas Historical Society who paid the bookstore owner $33 for the priceless volumes of seemingly negligible value to other passersby.![]()
These volumes were the record books from 1807-1855 of the Office of Indian Affairs Central Superintendency in St. Louis, Missouri. How they left government custody in St. Louis and ended up on a sidewalk in Lawrence is still a mystery. William Clark (of Lewis and Clark, Voyage of Discovery fame) served as Indian Superintendent for the Central Superintendency from 1807 until his death in 1838. Included in these volumes are entries of his correspondence to others, surveys of Indian reservations, account books that recorded expenditures, property returns, and annuity payments, correspondence of Indian agents, treaties, meteorological data, and the records of the Missouri Fur Company. Many of the volumes have been transcribed and a searchable, full-text version is avavilable. To browse the volumes, click here.
These volumes were the record books from 1807-1855 of the Office of Indian Affairs Central Superintendency in St. Louis, Missouri. How they left government custody in St. Louis and ended up on a sidewalk in Lawrence is still a mystery. William Clark (of Lewis and Clark, Voyage of Discovery fame) served as Indian Superintendent for the Central Superintendency from 1807 until his death in 1838. Included in these volumes are entries of his correspondence to others, surveys of Indian reservations, account books that recorded expenditures, property returns, and annuity payments, correspondence of Indian agents, treaties, meteorological data, and the records of the Missouri Fur Company. Many of the volumes have been transcribed and a searchable, full-text version is avavilable. To browse the volumes, click here.