The historic Harris-Kearney House Museum in Westport can tell many stories, according to local historian Diane Euston, secretary of the Westport Historical Society.
It holds stories about life on the frontier and trade in the mid- to late-19th century, and about some of the first white pioneers to settle around Kansas City.
“But we need to tell the story of enslavement and the Native American tribes that were affected by the settlement of this area,” Euston said. “Looking at the future and how museums work, it is very important that we tell the full story.”
The 1855 Harris-Kearney House Museum has been under wraps for the past 18 months undergoing extensive renovations. On July 21, the Westport Historical Society will hold a grand reopening of the museum, and Euston hopes the changes there will be deeper than wallpaper and paint.
Like many regional institutions around the country, the staff at Kansas City’s oldest two-story brick house has been reevaluating the history presented at the museum.
“As you're walking through the house to visit, it’s not just telling you the history of the house, the history of the family, and the history of Westport,” Euston said last week, as paintings were hung over freshly-painted walls and antique furniture moved back into place.
“It's really tackling those overarching concepts that we often don't talk about in westward expansion,” she said.
To do that, an upstairs room in the home is dedicated to exploring the story of Harriet “Hattie” Drisdom Kearney, who was 9 or 11 years old when she was purchased for $1,300 by Col. Charles Kearney.
Two years later, in 1857, Hattie Kearney was given her freedom, and lived the rest of her life with the Kearney family. She was the first African American buried in the section of Kansas City’s Union Cemetery set aside for white people — in the Kearney family plot.
Since 2018, a brass plaque “stopping stone” in the home’s front walkway recognizes the former slave. The installation is part of a national movement to honor the memories of enslaved people in the places where they were held.
"We have names of some of the enslaved (people) that would have worked for the Harris family, but don't know any information about them,” Euston said. “The fact that we have a little bit of information on Hattie gives us the opportunity to at least tell her story.”
The Harrises and the Kearneys
Col. John Harris and his wife, Henrietta Harris, built the brick home in 1855 at the corner of Westport Road and Main Street, where the Santa Fe Trail turned west.
Between 1847 and 1864, the family ran the Harris House Hotel at Pennsylvania Avenue and Westport Road, just a few blocks away. It was Westport’s first hotel and a popular way station on the Santa Fe Trail, serving pioneers, trappers and traders.
The hotel hosted famous guests like U.S. Sen. Thomas Hart Benton, wilderness guide and trapper Kit Carson, and author Washington Irving.
Eventually, the home passed to the Harris’ daughter Josephine Harris and son-in-law Col. Charles Kearney, who lived in the home until 1909.
In 1922, the home was saved from demolition and moved to its current location, at 40th Street and Baltimore Avenue.
Westport wagon joins the collection
In the weeks leading up to the museum’s reopening this July, newly-elected President of the Westport Historical Society Marty Wiedenmann Jarvis has been busy overseeing projects around the house.
She also found room for a few new artifacts.
“One of our really exciting donations in the last couple of weeks is the wheels and the axle from the Westport Shopping Center wagon,” Wiedenmann Jarvis said, noting the artifact will have a permanent home on the lawn at the museum.
The Conestoga-type wagon stood for more than six decades at the Old Westport Shopping Center at Westport Road and Southwest Trafficway, but had deteriorated beyond repair. In May, it was removed and replaced with a replica.
When the wagon was removed, Wiedenmann Jarvis said, it revealed a secret.
“When it fell apart, the date that's inscribed in the axle became visible,” she said. “The date says ‘1838,’ and that's five years after Westport was founded so it's pretty cool.”
The grounds of the museum also received attention during the closure. Sallie Capen, a member of the historical society, donated 150 of what she calls “pioneer daylilies,” now planted along the museum’s fenceline.
“I call them pioneer daylilies because I collected them over the years from long-abandoned homesteads,” Capen said.
“There was very often one large pine tree and a patch of these daylilies — they were always the same flowers and the same type of pine tree,” she said. “These were places that were farmed by the early settlers to our area in the 1800s.”
The 1855 Harris-Kearney Historical House Museum reopens to the public from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, July 21, at 4000 Baltimore Ave., Kansas City, Missouri 64111. For more information, go to WestportHistoricalKC.org.
