The first Indian mission and school in present Kansas was established in September, 1824, about five miles west of this site. The missionary Benton Pixley followed Chief White Hair and his band of Great Osages, who had migrated from Missouri about 1815. The new "Mission on the Neosho" was a branch of Harmony mission, operated in Missouri by Presbyterian and associated denominations. Several Osage tribes lived nearby, and some of the chiefs and the Indian agent were antagonistic to Pixley. Indian rowdies often disturbed religious meetings, and the school failed to attract pupils. In 1829 the field was abandoned. In 1844 A. B. Canville established a trading post among the Osages three miles west of this site. There on September 29, 1865, the Osages signed a treaty with the Federal government agreeing to a reduction of their reserve in Kansas. A few years later they were removed to Oklahoma.