Genealogy Trails
Pottawattamie County, Iowa

Head of Bluffs Stage

Says Stage Divers Beat Pony Express in Spreading News of Lincoln's Assassination Guarded Gold Dust Across Iowa

Woodbine, IA, December 22 - Stories of gun-running for John Brown, fighting for a free state in Kansas and casting his vote against slavery there before 21, of hauling General Grant in his stage across southwestern Iowa, of driving a thieving partner from camp at pistol point while yet in his teens and of riding the first railroad into Council Bluffs, are told by Granville P. Kemp of this place. Mr. Kemp, who is now 91 years of age lives here with Mrs. Kemp. They have been married sixty five years. Before coming to Woodbine they resided at Council Bluffs at various residences in the west side, including 2111 Avenue B. Mr. Kemp chooses to tell his story chronologically. It follows:

I was born ninety one years ago at Beverley, Randolph County, West Virginia, and they named me Granville P. I was barely 16 when they gave me the right to drive a stage and carry mail sacks for the government. We removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, just in time to get into the cholera epidemic there in 1849, during which time hundreds of people died. Then we moved back to West Virginia, settling at Parkersburg. We left Parkersburg in 1854 and came by steamer down the Ohio River into the Mississippi and reached St. Louis for a change of steamers, then on to Keokuk, Iowa. I was at the first state fair ever held by the state of Iowa, at Fairfield, in 1854. From this place I resumed the business of stage driving which I continued for some months, then had a chance to buy a bankrupt stock of goods to peddle in Kansas over round Atchison, Topeka, Lawrence and Ossawattomie.

I got hold of a bankrupt stock of goods and went over into Kansas to sell them. At one town they arrested me and find me $50 because, as they said, I had no right to peddle goods from a wagon without a license. The sheriff refused to receive his share of the costs, and the judge and all the officers of the court let me off as lightly as they could. There was a man I had hired to go with me who turned out to be a cut throat and tried to kill me. I had got off my wagon load of goods, and was watering the horses, and my partner's gun went off and the bullet struck in the gravel. I felt something hit my hat, but I supposed it to be gravel thrown up by the bullet. Next morning I found a bullet hole in my hat and realized that the fellow had shot directly at me. I drew my revolver, went into the bedroom, covered the man with my gun, and told him that for just a little I would shoot him as he lay. He turned white as a sheet. I let him get up to dress, then marched him into the yard still keeping him covered, and started him through the water of the creek nearby, telling him not to look back, or I would drill a hole through him. He kept on going, and was soon out of sight. I heard the rattle of a sabre, and heard an army officer behind me who asked me, after learning my story, why I had not killed the fellow: saying, "He richly deserved it, and you would have been perfectly justified in shooting him." This officer was in command of a body of calvary camped near by. I never saw my partner again.

On another occasion I caught a man in early morning trying to steal my horses. He was untying their halters and I got down on one knee and took a shoot at his shins and he ran away leaving my horses.

They had big land sales in Kansas, and I attended several of them. At one of these Gen. Jim Lane delivered an anti-slavery address. There were twenty five or thirty Missourians, all partly intoxicated, who swore they would take Lane out of the wagon and end the speech. One fat man seemed to be the leader of the bunch. Just behind Lane stood a fellow about six feet seven in height, and as I was behind him, I could see that he had a big revolver which he was holding ready partly covering it with his hat. The Missouri crowd wanted to capture Lane, but that big red haired fellow behind the speaker, with his gun ready, was too much for their courage. They let the general alone and he finished his speech.

Captain Cook came to one of these land sales and a couple of bushwhackers waylaid him and his companion and shot at both of them with rifles. Cook's companion was killed, and the captain fired his repeating rifle once or twice at the murderers, then drew both of his revolvers and with one in each hand shot them both before they could fire again or get away. Cooke went to the nearest town and told the people to go and care for the bodies of the two bushwhackers, "for," said he, "they need care." This happened near Lawrence in 1858. Mrs. John Brown kept a little store in that town and I got acquainted with her. Brown himself was away at the time I was in Lawrence. I missed getting acquainted with him.

I lacked a few months of being 21 years old, but they didn't mind that. I voted to make Kansas a free state. Lane's speech to which I have just referred was made at this election. Coming away from the town where I voted, a man came out of the house and said, "What have you in that wagon?" "Sharp's rifles and revolvers for John Brown," I replied. He jumped over the fence and said, "I'll just take a look at those guns." and started to grab my horse's bridle and stop the team. I picked up my rifle and said, "Here's one of them now. You come any nearer to the horses and I will make a hole through you that you could look through to see moon rise." He drew back, and I drove off.

After my stay in Kansas I came to Council Bluffs and drove the stage over the two southern tiers of counties. I drove over one of the routes from Council Bluffs to St. Joseph and from Woodbine to the town of Lewis. Senators and representatives and generals of the army often rode with me. Members of the different state legislatures were frequently on my stage. Once General Curtis came from the plains to Omaha, and they drove the stage across the Missouri on the ice. I had to walk ahead and pilot the driver over. He called to me, "come quick. I believe the general is dying." We got the general out, stretched him on the river bank, and he breathed his last. They sent his body east for burial. General Sherman was one of my passengers, and his fare was $2. He gave me two greenbacks, the first I had ever seen. On another occasion General Grant was on board, during his candidacy for president in 1867. One of his army captains sat on top of the stage with me, the general inside. I had a team of very mettlesome horses, and as this was in the night, and I did not want to talk, I cut the captain off with short answers. You see, I had been up all of the night before, driving and was tired. He asked if I had much experience, and just to get the joke on him I told him I was a perfectly green driver without experience. He was scared stiff, for the horses were mettlesome and the road was slippery. When we got through, the captain climbed down and went on a great rate about greenhorn drivers, and a big fellow called "Canada Bill," hearing him told the captain, "Kemp drive a stage before you were born." Just then the general spoke up and said, "Captain, that was one time you got let down."

I read The Nonpareil all through the Civil War. We watched for it and read it with good relish all the while, just as I have done ever since.

I quit staging in 1867. Before doing so, however, they put me in charge of the different stage routes, such as the Bluffs to St. Joe, the Bluffs to Des Moines and the Bluffs to Sioux City. I had to superintend the building of all sheds and depots on the lines. We hauled lumber from Des Moines for the purpose. Once they gave me a sawed off shotgun and I was special guard on a stage trip from the Bluffs to Des Moines. The reason they gave me that job was that there were 400 pounds of gold dust on board and several of the stages had been held up and robbed. I never staged on the west side of the river. When Lincoln was assassinated, the stage company arranged to have the vehicle driven at high speed to carry the news. A stage from Des Moines came to the Bluffs, with special relays of horses, in eighteen hours and fifty minutes. The usual time was thirty six hours, so they cut it down one half. The news was relayed by the stage boys out of Omaha. The pony express started out, too; but the stage boys beat the pony express fellows to Denver, and the news that the president had been shot was printed and papers being sold on the street when the express rider got in. That was one of the things that helped put the pony express out of business.

Mr. Kemp's wife, now 83, sat by her husband during the telling of the story. She has been by his side for sixty five years. Mr. Kemp, in closing the afternoon's conversation, said, "But I'm not entirely a stager. I rode the first train hauled by steam between Council Bluffs and Bartlett in 1867. It had a wood burning engine."

[Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Published December 23, 1928, submitted by Ann]

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Woodbine Man With Wild Bill in Bloody Kansas Campaign, But Did Not Know It

Woodbine, Iowa, Dec. 24 -- Granville P. Kemp, aged 91, of this place veteran stage driver, and who still is in his teens, took part in the anti-slavery movement in Kansas, was on the platform with Wild Bill Hickok during one of Gov. Jim Lane's addresses against slavery and did not know it, it has been revealed here.

A letter to The Nonpareil from William E. Connelley, state historian of Kansas, reveals this. Sunday, The Nonpareil published a story of Mr. Kemp's life, in which he recalled being on the platform with Lane while the later was defying the proslavery Missourians, and said that a large man stood behind Lane with a hat covering his gun. Mr. Kemp did not know the identity of this man, but Mr. Connelley says it was Wild Bill.

Mr. Connelley reading the advance proofs of Mr. Kemp's story, says the later was mistaken in saying that he secured guns at Lawrence from the wife of John Brown, the famous manager of the underground railway. It must have been another Mrs. Brown, or a woman agent of Brown, because Mrs. Brown was not in Kansas at that time, Mr. Connelley says.

[Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Published December 24, 1928, submitted by Ann]