Did You Know This About Geary County History?”By Dr. Ferrell MillerGeary County Historical Society Board Member“The Pawnee Town Association of 1854”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1594307591544.jpeg" alt="Andrew Reeder, first governor of Kansas Territory" />
 <figcaption>Andrew Reeder, first governor of Kansas Territory</figcaption>
 </figure>In September of 1854, the Pawnee Town Association was formed to establish a town near the new Army post at Fort Riley. The Association was composed totally of military officers and territorial officials, including Major W.R. Montgomery, the commander of the Post and the first Territorial Governor Andrew H. Reeder of Pennsylvania. Governor Reeder assured the Association of his intent to convene the first Territorial Legislature at Pawnee if proper buildings could be constructed. Major Montgomery agreed to exclude the town site from the first survey of the fort reserve. Pawnee was soon a booming town of a dozen or so dwellings with a two-story capitol and a large hotel under construction. By May, the hotel could boast of having about 500 residents. There were two sawmills and three saloons, which catered to the workmen and soldiers, who were building the nearby fort. In April of 1855, Governor Reeder called the first legislature to convene at Pawnee on July 2nd. This “Bogus Legislature” met at Pawnee July 2nd through 6th in 1855 in the unfinished Capitol Building. The nickname “Bogus Legislature” came from widespread accounts of fraudulent voting in the March 30, 1855 election that selected the assembly’s initial members to the Legislature. The legislators were mostly pro-slavery Missourians, while Reeder and the Pawnee citizens were predominately Free-staters. The main acts of the session were to expel the two free-state members and to vote to transfer the capitol from Pawnee in central Kansas to Lecompton, which was located closer to the Missouri border. 	Later that summer, Jefferson Davis, the Secretary of War in Frank Pierce’s cabinet, expanded the boundaries of the fort to include the Pawnee town-site. The citizens were ordered out. In October of 1855 soldiers rode in with grappling hooks and pulled the houses and buildings down. This left only the old stone Capitol Building as a mute testimonial of the little settlement that was to have been the Capitol of Kansas. 	The First Territorial Capitol can still be seen on Fort Riley and is open by appointment. 		 “Ruth Gordon Baked Pies For The “Bogus Legislature in 1855”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1594307664755.jpeg" alt="Ruth Gordon" />
 <figcaption>Ruth Gordon</figcaption>
 </figure>	The information in this article was written by the late Marilyn Heldstab, who was a former Executive Director of the Geary County Historical Society. The article was published in the JC Union newspaper in 1993. Marilyn also gave credit for information used in her article to the late J.C. Poe, who was the local Masonic Lodge Historian in 1993. “Mr. and Mrs. G.F. Gordon were early settlers in this area when Kansas was still a territory. G.F. Gordon came to Kansas from Easton, Pennsylvania in the company of Andrew H. Reeder, the first Territorial Governor of Kansas. In 1855, he was married to Ruth Berry of Juanita, Pennsylvania. The wedding took place in the old Capitol building at Pawnee and was officiated by Chaplain David Clarkson.	Ruth Gordon, age 16, baked 70 pies for the first Territorial Legislature, which convened on July 2, 1855. Mrs. Gordon baked those pies before the days of ovens and quick mix piecrust and later told her children they were made from anything which could be found in the way of pie filling. She also told them she waited the table at which Governor Reeder dined. 	The Gordons were among the families driven from the military reservation when the borders were fixed by Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War and later the President of the Confederacy. Pawnee was found to be inside the reservation and families living there were forcibly ejected when they refused to leave. The Gordons went across the river from the old capitol building and built a log cabin. 	Mr. and Mrs. Gordon lost two children during the epidemic of “black” diphtheria during those early wintry days. The snow was so deep it was impossible to take the bodies to the cemetery and the dead were buried in the snow near the cabin until the snow melted.” 	Their granddaughter was Alverta Trebilcock. She was a long-time organist at the First Methodist Church in Junction City.

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