Delaware Crossing and the Grinter Ferry
Just east of this marker, at a point where an old Indian trail led to the water's edge, Moses Grinter established the first ferry on the Kansas River. The year was 1831, and Grinter became the earliest permanent white settler in the area. His ferry was used extensively by travelers over the Fort Leavenworth - Fort Scott military road, and by traders, freighters and soldiers traveling between the forts or to Santa Fe. This place was known as Military or Delaware Crossing, and sometimes as Secondine, and here the first non-military post office in Kansas was established on September 10, 1850.
In 1857 Grinter built the large brick house still standing to the north and lived there until his death in 1878. He and his part Delaware wife are buried in the churchyard one-fourth mile beyond. The Union Pacific, Eastern Division, built through here in 1863-1864. In 1869, as the Kansas Pacific it was the first railroad to reach the western border of the state.
The Chouteau family, long prominent in the fur trade, operated posts in this vicinity as early as the 1820's. Delaware, Wyandot, Munsee and Shawnee Indians were among Eastern tribes resettled in this area beginning in 1830. Near here were the Delaware agency, smithy, and Baptist and Methodist missions. By the 1870's remnants of these tribes had been removed to reservations in present Oklahoma.
Marker is on Kaw Drive (Kansas Route 32) near 78th Street, on the left when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
