The founding of an Indian mission along a branch of Wea Creek occurred more than 20 years before the First Kansas Territorial Legislature approved the incorporation of the City of Paola. The Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Society approved this location for a mission in 1833 and the site is now part of the corporate limits of the City of Paola. Nothing remains but scattered artifacts of the buildings built in 1834 by the Presbyterian missionaries. The most visible relics are the stones of the collapsed spring house foundation. This mission was established to serve the Indians who were promised a permanent home in Indian Territory by President Thomas Jefferson. The Miami, Wea-, Piankeshaw, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Potawatomie, and Shawnee tribes were resettled to present day Miami County, Kansas. In the early 1820's, missionaries horn various denominations began to establish missions in what later became the State of Kansas. Here they could work and reside among the native peoples they sought to teach, providing good role models of a "Christian life." These missions were intended to "Christianize," civilize, and transform the Indians into Americans. Religious services were held regularly. Missionaries were often forced to use interpreters to translate their sermons until English had been taught. The missionaries typically focused much of their effort on the children in the tribe. Some of the schools offered academic training, such as, reading, writing, and recitations. Many of the mission schools provided primarily vocational training, and were referred to as "manual labor schools." Girls received instructions in the domestic arts, while boys were trained in farming, milling and smithery. Between 1821 and 1856, the Presbyterian Church established nine missions in the Missouri-Kansas area. One of these missions was established near Wea Creek. The mission society of the Presbyterian Church contracted to build a log house, one and a half stories tall. The Rev. and Mrs. Wells Bushnell and Rev. and Mrs. Joseph Kerr and teacher Miss Nancy Henderson moved into the partially completed mission building on April 17, 1834. By late June the mission house for school and church services had been built, along with a smoke house, com crib, spring house and other little conveniences. Illness and death forced original missionaries to leave and they were replaced by others who were later transferred because of the limited number of students and the need for Indian missionaries elsewhere. The buildings of the Wea Mission were taken over in 1838 by the Osage (Marais des Cygnes) River sub-agency of the Department of Indian Affairs. During the summer of 1839, small pox vaccinations were given at the agency location to 479 Indians horn area tribes. In 1843, the sub-agency was moved to a new location in eastern Kansas and the Wea Mission was again vacated. In March of 1843 the Indian Mission Association of the Southern Baptist Convention appointed Rev. and Mrs. David Lykins as missionaries to the Wea Indians. David Lykins, his wife Abigail Ann Lykins and Miss Sara Ann Osgood established the Wea Baptist Mission. The school enrolled as many as 42 children at one time, serving the Wea, Piankeshaw, Kaskaskia and Peoria Indians. The mission, strongly desired by the Indians, received substantial financial and moral support horn Baptiste Peoia. In 1854, the Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankeshaw and Wea tribes united to form a single confederated tribe with Baptiste Peoria as Chief. David Lykins was adopted as a member of the tribe and given the name Ma-cha-ko-me-ah. He was chosen to represent the confederated tribe as a trusted delegate to Washington for treaty negotiations. Rev. Lykins went to Washington D.C. and brokered terms of a treaty made with the Indian tribes of Kansas and signed by President Franklin Pierce. The last report on the mission was submitted in the fall of 1855. The Baptist Mission existed for approximately ten years and was reluctantly closed due to political strife in that era. As a result of being adopted by the Confederated Indian Tribe and because of the Federal treaty signed in 1854, David Lykins was given 800 acres of land by the United States Government. The original patent presented by President James Buchanan included the Wea Mission site. The Miami County Register of Deeds indicates that David Lykins sold or conveyed the Mission Site property to Baptiste Peoria on June 3, 1854. The Paola Town Company was established by A.M. Coffey, Isaac Jacobs, David Lykins, and Baptiste Peoria and was incorporated by the First Territorial Legislature. David Lykins was a pro-slavery Council member of this legislative body and Lykins County was organized and named in his honor on July 3, 1855. Oil was first found in a well in Kansas about 200 yards southeast of the Wea Mission site. In 1860, three oil wells were dug in the Paola vicinity. David Lykins joined Dr. G.W. Brown, editor of the Lawrence Herald of Freedom in obtaining leases on some 30,000 acres for exploration. The outbreak of the Civil War broke up the drilling operation. David Lykins was arrested in June of 1861 and upon being released fled to Colorado Territory. He died August 13, 1864 and is buried in Denver, Colorado. Shortly after Kansas became a state in January 1861, the state legislature changed the name of the county to Miami in honor of the Miami Indians who were living in the southeastern portion of the county. Robert McGrath and family, immigrants from Ireland, purchased the SE quarter of Section 15 from Baptiste and Mary A. Peoria in December of 1865. They moved into the Wea Mission where they enjoyed the largest house in Miami County, complete with spring and spring house. The Mission house was destroyed by fire in 1909 when a tenant living there had left a lamp burning. The property remained in the McGrath family until purchased in 1945 by Henry H. Carrothers. His heirs deeded the Wea Mission site to the City of Paola in 2001 for preservation. The Kansas State Historical Society has determined that the Wea Mission Site is eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. In 1997, an archeological study was authorized by the Kansas Department of Transportation and conducted by the State Historical Society. Many artifacts were collected during the study and items of interest continue to be found. |
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| The Wea Mission Site |
