BLOOD AND HONOR: The People of Bleeding Kansas

By Andy May

To live in the Kansas Territory in 1854 and survive through the Civil War would take courage and stamina. The entire population that year was either pro-slavery or they were against slavery. As Andy May reveals in this remarkable, well researched history of that period, there were both noble and shameful motivations in the two factions. The anti

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andy May Petrophysicist
• Release date: Nov 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781646698813

Andy May

Andy May is a writer, blogger, and author. He enjoys golf and traveling in his spare time. He retired from a 42-year career in petrophysics in 2016. He is also an editor for the popular climate change blog Wattsupwiththat.com where he has published numerous posts. He is the author of four books and the author or co-author of seven peer-reviewed papers on various geological, engineering and petrophysical topics. His personal blog is andymaypetrophysicist[.]com.

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© 2019 Andy May

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Dedication

TO THE PIONEERS OF KANSAS

Other Works by The Author

CLIMATE CATASTROPHE! SCIENCE OR SCIENCE FICTION?

Acknowledgements

To my wife Aurelia for her patience during the preparation of another book by her husband.

To the State Historical Society of Missouri, the Kansas State Historical Society, LegendsofKansas.com and Google Books, without these online resources, this book could not have been written.

Table of Contents

Dedication here

Other Works by The Author here

Acknowledgements here

Foreword here

Preface here

Introduction here

Tables of Free-State and Pro-Slavery People here

1854 here

The Beginning here

Boston to Kansas here

Founding Lawrence here

Leavenworth here

Atchison and Weston, Missouri here

The First Kansas Election here

1855 here

Pardee Butler Arrives here

August Bondi Arrives here

The Bogus Legislature Meets here

The Big Springs Convention here

The Farmer is a Free Man here

An Early Snow here

The Topeka Convention here

The Killing of Charles Dow here

The Arrest and Rescue of Jacob Branson here

The Wakarusa War here

The Burial of Barber here

Christmas, 1855 here

1856 here

The Murder of Rees P. Brown here

The Formation of the Republican Party here

The Shooting of Sheriff Jones here

The Arrest of Charles Robinson here

The Sacking of Lawrence here

The Lawlessness Begins here

Robinson Moved to Franklin and then Leavenworth here

The Pottawatomie Massacre here

The Capture of Jason and John Brown Jr. here

The Battle of Black Jack here

Bull Sumner Disperses the militias here

The Lecompton Treason Prisoners here

Sumner and Shannon replaced here

The Aftermath of the Dispersal here

The August War here

John Brown’s Militia here

The Sacking of Osawatomie here

The Aftermath of the Sacking of Osawatomie here

Governor John W. Geary here

Lecompton here

The Aftermath of Hickory Point here

The Resurrection of the Courts here

More Free-State immigrants here

The Business of the Territory here

1857 here

The Lecompton Territorial Legislature here

The Appointment of William Sherrard here

Governor Robert J. Walker here

The Lecompton Constitutional Convention here

Governor James W. Denver here

Montgomery Called to Bourbon County here

1858 here

Fraud in the January 4, 1858 Election here

Captain James Montgomery, A Jayhawker here

Marais des Cygnes Massacre here

The Leavenworth Constitution here

James Lane shoots Gaius Jenkins here

The March on Fort Scott here

A Brief Period of Peace here

New Troubles in Fort Scott here

1859 here

Runaway Slaves, Kidnapped Negros here

John Doy’s Second trial here

John Doy’s Escape here

Allen Pinks here

The Kansas Republican Party here

1860 here

George W. Brown Drills the First Oil Wells in Kansas here

The Cherokee Neutral Lands here

The Great Drought of 1860 here

Murders on the Border here

The 1860 Presidential Election here

1861 here

Concluding Remarks here

References here

And Partial Bibliography here

List of Figures here

With captions here

Index here

About the Author here

Foreword

To live in the Kansas Territory in 1854 and survive through the Civil War would take courage and stamina. The entire population that year was either pro-slavery or they were against slavery. As Andy May reveals in this remarkable, well researched history of that period, there were both noble and shameful motivations in the two factions. The anti-slavery, or Free-State side included the abolitionists. They may have had the purest of motives; however, there were some anti-slavery settlers that just didn’t want to compete with slaves for work. The pro-slavery faction was the faction of the South. In their minds, blacks were born to be slaves.

Andy May’s in-depth research and attention to facts makes this history come to life. It is the story that has been missing from our American History textbooks and it is not taught in colleges and universities. While this time in our history has been romanticized by Hollywood, those renditions are less than accurate. That is a shame since this period in the Kansas Territory is the prelude to the Civil War and served as the catalyst for that dreadful time in the nation.

There is a family connection in this book as well. Andy May’s great, great, granduncle was Caleb May, a signer of all three Kansas Free-State Constitutions. By 1857, about three-fourths of the voting population was anti-slavery and a growing minority were for equal rights for blacks. By 1861 a majority were for equal rights. This was a remarkably rapid change in views. It seemed that when people moved to Kansas, they often quickly became anti-slavery, as Caleb May did. The idea that slavery was morally wrong was an emerging idea.

As Andy May explains:

Outlawing slavery in the United States, or, at least the spread of slavery, was a moral imperative for the Free-State and Republican Parties. The majority Democrat’s imperative was to avoid war, which was clearly inevitable if the Northern anti-slave states tried to outlaw slavery everywhere in the country . . . In his 1860 election campaign, Lincoln campaigned fiercely against the idea that slavery was a political issue, it was a moral issue and when he convinced enough of the public of this, war was the result and slavery was no more.

In the Bible we find the verse There is nothing new under the sun. Andy May’s written research includes numerous examples of the laws being used unjustly for political ends. We also clearly see what happens when the public loses confidence in the impartiality of the justice system - they take the law into their own hands . . . When judges and law enforcement lose the respect of the public, law and order becomes the first victim.

This is the story of the Blood and Honor conflict in Kansas leading up to the Civil War. It is the story of the People of Bleeding Kansas. It is a reminder of what can happen when Right collides with Wrong.

Martin Capages, Jr. PhD

Author of The Moral Case for American Freedom.

Preface

These are true stories about real people in the Bleeding Kansas period from 1854 to 1861. The dialog has often been updated for clarity from that reported – or even invented from indirect quotes in the sources for dramatic effect. But we remained true to the characters as we came to understand them. The characters are presented as they were at the time, the focus is on how their experiences during this trying time changed them, especially how it changed their attitudes about Negros and slavery. In the 1850s, Negro or colored were the polite way to refer to black folks. We use these terms for this reason, we tried to stay in the times as much as possible. Out of respect for Dr. William E. B. Du Bois, a biographer of Old John Brown, and a source for this book, we capitalize Negro. Dr. Du Bois was a prominent historian of the period and the first Negro to earn a PhD from Harvard. Negro was his preferred term (Tharps, 2014).

This book is not purely history, nor is it quite historical fiction, it falls somewhere in between. Selected references are provided for additional reading and insight. Most of the events are presented as they were described by participants, they are firsthand accounts from people like August Bondi, Samuel Walker, James Abbott, Sara Robinson, Dr. Charles Robinson, Dr. John Doy, James Redpath, Pardee Butler, William Tomlinson, George W. Brown and many others. They sometimes conflict with one another in detail and when this happened, the most believable version of the story was chosen. Sometimes alternative versions are discussed when they seem equally believable. Standard and well-researched histories, such as those by Nicole Etcheson, Oswald Villard, Antonio Rafael De la Cova and Alfred Theodore Andreas are used to fill in the larger picture. The 19th century language is preserved, when it is clear.

The people of both sides, pro-slavery and anti-slavery, are described as accurately as possible. The characters often used the n word, so it appears in the book. If I knew that other profanity was used, I included it as well. This story is about a turbulent period when attitudes about the ancient institution of slavery and Negros were changing rapidly. As attitudes changed, language changed, it is an important part of the story.

---Andy May

Author of Climate Catastrophe! Science or Science Fiction?

Introduction

We forget today that prior to the 19th century and the rise of industrialization slavery was commonplace everywhere in the world and present on every continent. Slavery was legal in China until 1910, it became illegal in most of Africa and Turkey about the same time. Legal slavery persisted in most of the Middle East until the 1960s, and in Mauritania until 1981. The movement to ban slavery began in 1792 in Denmark, but it was spotty and ineffective until well into the 19th century. Spain, Denmark, Great Britain and France were the only major counties to ban slavery completely before 1862, when the U. S. banned it (Reuters, 2007). So, the U. S. was an early leader of the then radical movement to eliminate this ancient institution with its roots in pre-history. People of all races and ethnicities were commonly owned as slaves, however in the U. S. slaves were usually African American in the 19th century.

The history of Kansas from 1854 to 1861 is shown as an arc of change. In 1854 the residents were mostly pro-slavery and most of those that were anti-slavery were not for freeing the Negro slaves everywhere or for racial equality. The radical new idea of eliminating slavery nationwide had not emerged in Kansas yet. Some early Kansas residents, like Old John Brown and Pardee Butler and their families, were for racial equality from the beginning. But most anti-slavery residents did not want either slaves or free Negros in Kansas. Their reasons had to do with prejudice and economics. Slaves were used on very large farms that provided devastating competition for small family farms. In 1854 the anti-slavery people of Kansas feared competition from slaves.

By 1857, the Free-State settlers outnumbered the pro-slavery settlers by three-to-one, and the government changed from pro-slavery to Free-State. By 1861, most settlers were not only anti-slavery, but also for racial equality and the free immigration of Negros into the state. This arc of change happens earlier in Kansas than in the rest of the country, but the same thing eventually happens everywhere.

There are a lot of characters in this book, so we supply the following lists of the most important Free-State (anti-slavery) and pro-slavery people here for reference. These are all real people.

Tables of Free-State and Pro-Slavery People

1854

The Beginning

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Figure 1. Public domain image of the sign for the New England Emigrant Aid Company. Public domain image, source: Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia public domain image.

February 21, 1854 the corporation eventually named the New England Emigrant Aid Company was founded in Boston, Massachusetts by Eli Thayer. The original name was the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society, but it was changed in 1855 after receiving support from across New England and a decision to make it a for-profit company. The purpose of the company was stated to be directing emigration westward and aiding and providing accommodation for the emigrants after arriving at their place of destination. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the Senate March 4, 1854, the House passed it on May 29, and President Franklin Pierce signed it into law on May 30, 1854. A key provision of the law was that popular votes in Kansas and Nebraska would determine whether the soon-to-be states would be free or slave.

The last state admitted to the Union, at the time, was California in 1850. It was admitted as a free state. That made 16 free states and 15 slave states. The next state to be admitted should be a slave state according to the pro-slavery people to even the balance, but the Kansas-Nebraska Act stated clearly that popular sovereignty would prevail, and it repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 that let Missouri enter as a slave state and Maine enter as a free state. The idea of taking turns when entering free and slave states was now dead.

Eli Thayer was an abolitionist (that is, anti-slavery) and believed that without intervention Kansas would become a slave state as it was bordered by Missouri, a slave state. The southern Democrats assumed Kansas would be a slave state for the same reason. However, the Kansas Territory had a small population and immigration could make a difference. So, in 1854 Thayer hired Dr. Charles Robinson to be the New England Emigrant Aid Company’s official financial agent in Kansas. Dr. Robinson was an abolitionist and a very impressive, cool-headed person of proven personal bravery. In the words of Eli Thayer in his 1889 book: [Charles Robinson had a] brave devotion to his duty, he had the clearest foresight, and the coolest, calmest judgement in determining the course of action best adapted to secure the rights of the free state settlers (Thayer, 1889). In June 1854 Robinson headed to Kansas, with Charles Branscomb to find a suitable location where the Emigrant Aid Society could start a town of New England Free-Soil immigrants. The Free-Soil Party was the prevailing anti-slavery party at the time.

A census in January 1855 showed the population of Kansas to be 8,501. How many people the Emigrant Aid Company helped relocate in Kansas is unknown, but by the end of 1855 they had transported well over 1,200 and possibly as many as 2,000. In contrast the neighboring slave-state of Missouri had a population, in the 1860 census, of 1,182,012. Missourians were mostly pro-slavery and very anxious to see Kansas enter as a slave state, they already had the free states of Illinois and Iowa to their east and north.

According to Professor Nicole Etcheson’s well-researched book (Etcheson, 2004) fifty-seven percent of the Kansas settlers in the first two years were from Missouri or other southern states. Northern states provided a third of the settlers, with only four percent of the total settlers from New England.

Whether Kansas became free or slave, in theory, could be determined by just a few hundred votes. It probably had fewer than 800 white settlers in May of 1854 (Etcheson, 2004). Slavery was the dominant issue in national politics at the time, and Kansas was to become the stage for a grand competition between the southern slave states and the Free-Soil northern states. As these two groups competed, often violently, for votes in the Kansas territorial elections, the state came to be called Bleeding Kansas.

Early visitors to Kansas, prior to it being opened for settlement included Samuel Walker. He visited Mt. Oread, with Thomas Barber, Oliver Barber, and Thomas Pierson, from his home in New Paris, Ohio in May of 1854. They were all enchanted with the place and meant to return when they could settle there. Samuel Walker was born in Pennsylvania in 1822 and he married his wife, Marian there in 1842, before moving to Ohio. His grandfather was a soldier who came to the United States from Northern Ireland and fought in the Revolutionary War against England. His father, James Walker, was also a soldier and fought in the War of 1812. In Ohio, Walker made his living as a cabinet maker (Cutler W. G., Douglas County, Part 26, 1883).

Dr. Charles Robinson studied at Amherst College and later went to medical school in Woodstock, Vermont, where he graduated with honors. However, Robinson quickly became bored with medicine and joined a party of gold-seekers headed to the California gold fields in 1849. During the trip to California, Robinson camped at Mt. Oread in the Kansas Territory, the eventual site of Lawrence, Kansas, and like Walker he loved the area.

Boston to Kansas

The New England settlers began arriving in northeastern Kansas in July of 1854 and settled near Mt. Oread on the first of August. The town was initially called Wakarusa after the river south of the town but was renamed Lawrence on October 6, 1854 after Amos Lawrence of Boston. The Missourian pro-slavery people called it Yankee Town.

The 1,400-mile trip from Boston to Kansas City took eleven to fourteen days, it could be accomplished mostly by train as far as St. Louis, then by navigable rivers like the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Another route used by some immigrants was to Chicago, by train or boat, then the 96-mile Illinois and Michigan Canal (I&M Canal, 2019)) from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River. The canal was completed and opened in April of 1848 after almost 12 years of on-again, off-again construction. It made travel to Kansas City both quick and very comfortable for the time.

If going by boat, travel from Boston involved taking the Erie Canal to Buffalo, New York, then a steamboat to Chicago through the Great Lakes. There they transferred to canal boats for the I&M canal ride to LaSalle, Illinois, followed by a transfer to a steamboat on the Illinois River. They traveled from there to the Mississippi at Grafton, Missouri, and then to the Missouri River north of St. Louis. The Missouri River would take them to Kansas City and Leavenworth. The trip from Chicago to Kansas City could be completed in less than seven days at a cost of less than $20 per person ($658 in 2019). The one-way fare from St. Louis to Kansas City was only $3 ($99 in 2019), for a solitary traveler, willing to sit on the deck outside for the three-day trip.

The first emigrants included Dr. John Doy, a physician, who helped organize the initial party of 29 settlers, all men. This group was to explore the area, find a suitable location for a town and make sure the area had enough water and fertile soil. Doy had emigrated to Rochester, New York from England around 1850 and was a homeopathic physician. He had a keen sense of adventure and when he heard about the plan to settle anti-slavery New Englanders in Kansas he quickly volunteered to help in the effort. Doy was relatively short and a bit portly.

Doy’s group traveled to St. Louis by train, where they purchased cabin tickets on the steamboat Polar Star to Kansas City for $12 (Doy, 1860). When they neared Kansas City, they made sure their arms were ready for a fight, but no one bothered them, and they did not bother anyone else. After the trip by the original 29 settlers, the New England Emigration Aid Company was able to secure a reduced fare of $10 for the steamboat trip from St. Louis to Kansas City. They also negotiated a 25% discount with the railroads from the normal ticket prices (Etcheson, 2004).

The men bought two yokes of oxen, that is four oxen and two yokes. The yokes are a wooden beam used to connect two oxen. Some of the others hired a four-horse team and wagon to transport their supplies. Once the oxen and wagon were loaded with their supplies they set off. First, they traveled through the Shawnee Territory, which they found very beautiful. It is now known as Johnson County. The wagon driver eventually took them to where Lawrence now sits, although he tried, and failed, to extort more money than originally agreed.

Doy and his group set up their tents and organized their gear. Then, a quick survey showed that the area had very fertile ground, plenty of trees and good water. They also found a good supply of fine sand in the Kansas River nearby and lots of high-quality limestone to use as building stones and for making quick lime and cement. A clay bed was nearby that could be used for making bricks.

Under the terms of their contract with the New England Emigrant Aid Company, each emigrant paid for his own fare and travel expenses, but the company negotiated discounts helped. The company also obtained equipment, including the best Sharps carbines and rifles, wagons, livestock and farming equipment at very low prices. As many as 200 settlers were sent on each trip, indeed the purpose of the company was to find as many immigrants as possible and to make each trip as cheap as possible.

John Doy and the other New England immigrants were anti-slavery and were meant to provide a counterbalance to pro-slavery immigration from Missouri and other southern states. They called their effort the Kansas Crusade. The pro-slavery Missourians knew this was the intent and were determined to drive the New Englanders away. Doy and the New Englanders tended to call all pro-slavery people Missourians, regardless of where they were from. Many New England immigrants did not stay in the territory very long, they often quickly returned to New England, due to the harsh Kansas life. The Missourians saw this, and concluded the New Englanders only came to vote in the elections and then return home, so they set about doing the same thing (Etcheson, 2004, pp. 39-40).

Although many observing from outside Kansas believed that the Missourians were all pro-slavery, this was not the case. Pardee Butler, an abolitionist who moved to pro-slavery Atchison County in 1855, observed that:

The prevalent sentiment of the squatters from Missouri was, ‘We will make Kansas a free white State; we will admit no Negroes into it.’ These men regarded the Negro as an enemy to themselves. They said: ‘We were born to the lowly lot of toil, and the Negro has made labor a disgrace. Neither ourselves nor our children have had opportunity for education, and the Negro is the cause of it. Moreover, an aristocracy at the South has assumed control of public affairs, and the Negro is the cause of that. Now we propose to make Kansas a free white State, and shut out the Negro, who has been the cause of all our calamities.’ (Butler, 1889, p. 51)

So, at least initially, there were many anti-slavery settlers who were anti-Negro as well. This would change with time, and many who were anti-Negro when they came to Kansas, would eventually welcome Negros to the state and fight to make them equal to white men. One example of a man who went through this conversion was Pardee Butler’s neighbor, Caleb May.

Founding Lawrence

When John Doy’s group of 29 settlers arrived at Mt. Oread on August 1st, 1854 only Charles (nicknamed Clark) Stearns and his family lived there. The new settlers purchased the Stearns home and paid them $500 (about $16,450 in 2019) for the whole claim with their improvements. The cabin (located roughly at the current address of 620 Massachusetts Street) was converted into a general store. The Stearns family moved to a new claim close by. The 29 settlers had endured insults and threats all the way from the Kansas City levee to Mt. Oread from pro-slavery ruffians.

Once they began to settle their claim, the Missouri ruffians immediately began to place stakes in the ground, marked trees and pretended to take claim to the same land the company had set aside for a town. The Missouri ruffians also tried to prevent the settlers from claiming land and invaded the New England immigrant’s settler meetings and tried to control them. Many threats were made and there were attempts to start fights. In the end the New England squatter party decided that no person, who was a resident of another state, should be allowed to vote in any town meeting. Around the first of September a second, larger, New England immigrant party of about 200 people, arrived and joined the settlement in Lawrence.

While ignoring or driving off constant attempts to harass the New England settlement, the settlers managed to build a sawmill and several boarding houses and stores. They also platted a region of 2.5 miles by 1.5 miles for the town of Lawrence and each settler laid claim to his allotted 160 acres near the town. Many of the 160 acre lots were also claimed by the pro-slavery Missourians, but there was no way to resolve cross claims at the time. That would have to wait until the area was properly surveyed and a government land office was available.

The Missourians main objective was to drive off the New Englanders, but their other motive was money. They wanted their claims to be as legitimate as possible, so that when the area was surveyed, and a land office established, they would have to be purchased by the New Englanders just as the Stearns claim was. This meant preventing the New Englanders from doing the required land improvements, if possible.

Dr. John Doy’s 160-acre claim was jumped by a Missouri border ruffian and lawyer named J. N. O. P. Wood and nick-named alphabetical for obvious reasons. Fighting off this claim-jumper cost Dr. Doy a great deal of money. Doy had to mortgage his farm to pay for the legal fight. His neighbors were his son and Samuel F. Tappan, who later became a prominent citizen of Lawrence. Tappan and Doy’s son, Charles, also had their claims jumped.

Tappan was a journalist and cabinet maker in Boston before immigrating to Lawrence. He was born in Massachusetts, near Boston, in 1831. Tappan was from a very prominent New England family and only 23 when he

Figure 2. Samuel F. Tappan, circa 1865. As a Lt. Col. in the first Colorado Regiment. Source: (U.S. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs, 1865) Public domain image.

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immigrated to Kansas.

The Missouri claim jumpers tore down the houses built by Tappan and Charles Doy and used force to keep the men from cultivating their land. They did this because land improvements are required to perfect a claim.

Dr. Doy explains claim jumping as follows,

’Jumping a claim’ is a technical term applied when a second comer squats upon land already occupied. Before the surveys are made, it is impossible to determine where the lines will run, and hence difficulties as to title often occur between honest men of equally good faith. Where the first squatter is poor and the second rich or surrounded by troops of friends, the latter may prevent the former from improving a disputed claim, and thus perfecting his title. (Doy, 1860, p. 12)

But, claim jumping was not the only problem faced by the Lawrence settlers. One of the Missourian pro-slavery leaders, Mr. John Baldwin, grew tired of simply harassing the settlers and brought in a wagon containing several armed men on October 5, 1854. While the New England settlers were constructing permanent wooden and stone buildings on the town site, John Baldwin simply had a tent to secure his claim to the same land and spent his day glaring at the settlers and verbally harassing them.

On October 6th, Baldwin escalated the disagreement and stated that this was his claim and no improvements were allowed. His associate, a Mr. Starr, then began to lay out a rival city which he called Excelsior on the claim that contained Lawrence. In the meantime, a wagon of armed Missourians pulled up to Dr. Charles Robinson’s tent and Baldwin’s sister jumped out of the wagon and began packing up his tent and its contents and loading them into a wagon. The armed men stood guard over this operation.

The Lawrence city marshal, Joel Grover, rushed to the scene, unarmed, followed by Edwin Bond with a revolver. Bond seized the pro-slavery wagon’s horse by the bridle and ordered Robinson’s property returned. The intruders allowed the tent to be replaced and threatened to have two hundred Missourians on the spot in a short time. With that said, they retreated to Baldwin’s tent across a ravine.

At 4PM on the sixth, they came back and offered this note:

Dr. Robinson: You and your friends are hereby notified that you will have one-half hour to move the tent which you have on my undisputed claim, and from this date desist from surveying on said claim. If the tent is not moved within one-half hour, we shall take the trouble to move the same. Signed, John Baldwin and Friends.

The following reply was sent immediately:

To John Baldwin and Friends.

If you molest our property, you do it at your peril.

C. Robinson and Friends.

E. D. Ladd, the postmaster of Lawrence, told the complete story in an October 23, 1854 letter, that was later published in the Milwaukee Sentinel. The following story is based upon this letter and Dr. Charles Robinson’s account of the events. (Robinson C. , 1892, pp. 81-88)

Prior to the notice, eighteen pro-slavery Missourians, mounted and armed, assembled at Baldwin's tent, which was about 110 yards from the New Englander’s camp. Immediately after Dr. Robinson’s notice was served, 30 New Englander’s armed themselves with their .52 caliber Sharps carbines and stationed themselves about 50 yards from Robinson’s tent. The enemy being about the same distance from it, the three occupying the angles of a right-angled triangle, Robinson’s tent being at the right angle.

Subsequent to this, Dr. Robinson told a delegate from the enemy's post, to submit disputes to the arbitration of disinterested and unbiased men in the squatter’s courts that currently exist, or of the United States Courts. Baldwin had a legal adviser, who was a speculator that expected to make a heap of money from Dr. Robinson by forcing him to pay them to go away. Baldwin and his men insisted that, at the termination of the notice, they would forcibly remove Robinson’s tent, and if they failed in the attempt, the New Englander’s fate would be sealed, their extermination certain, for three thousand, and if necessary thirty thousand, men would immediately be raised in Missouri to sweep the New Englander’s and their enterprise from the face of the Earth. The half-hour passed, and in the meantime the New England military company, formed the evening before, did some marching and counter-marching, in single file and by platoons, in as clumsy a fashion as can be imagined, in fact the captain himself was as green as the greenest recruit. But the troops, as ridiculous as they may have looked, were determined.

Plus, the New Englanders had new .52 caliber Sharps, accurate at 300 yards (500 yards by an expert marksman) and the distance to the pro-slavery ruffians was less than a third of that. The large .52 caliber bullet had a muzzle velocity of 1200 ft/sec and struck the target with devastating force. In contrast the Missourians were armed only with old smoothbore muskets and pistols shooting balls that were notoriously inaccurate, even at 50 yards. And, even if they hit one of the New Englanders with one of their balls, it was very unlikely to stop him. The Sharps barrel was rifled and fires an actual bullet in a very straight path. The large bullet and high velocity will kill any man it hits in a vital area. The New Englanders knew this and so did the border ruffians. So as green as the New England militia were, they were better armed and there were more of them.

It was clear that if a Missouri ruffian laid a finger on that tent, he would be shot, and any group offensive would mean open warfare and none of the ruffians would survive. The New England militia had about four hundred prepared paper cartridges in hand, between their carbines and revolvers, and they were prepared to use them all. The half-hour passed, and another quarter, the Missouri border ruffians discussed what to do in full view, occasionally making a movement as if about to do something, then seating themselves upon the ground for further discussions.

While the New England militia were waiting, John Hutchinson asked Dr. Robinson what he would do if they made a move to remove his tent? Would he fire to hit them, or would he fire over them? Dr. Robinson replied that he would be ashamed to fire at a man and not hit him. (Robinson C. , 1892, p. 82) Immediately after this reply, a settler, who had pretended to be one of them, went over to the ruffian camp, which soon dispersed. It was supposed at the time that the spies report brought the war to an end for that day. The border ruffians then mounted and dispersed.

Some of the more honest pro-slavery Missourians did come over to the town and chat. The New Englanders got the impression that they were somewhat embarrassed to be part of the farce.

Leavenworth

Ft. Leavenworth is located across the Missouri River from Platte County Missouri, south of Weston. Early in 1854 it was clear the Kansas-Nebraska Act was going to pass, and Kansas would soon be open to settlers. Even the Wyandot and Delaware Indians supported the bill. Technically the fort was on Delaware land, but it was a special military reservation and they supported it due to the security the fort provided them.

Those that expected to move into Kansas and stake their claims were anxious to do so, since the early settlers would get the best claims. All the potential early settlers had already been into Kansas and had picked out their spots. Frederick Starr was living in Weston, Missouri and wanted to stake a claim just south of the fort.

In Figure 3, shown on following page, we see Frederick Starr’s planned claim immediately south of the military reserve. This map was drawn free hand by Starr in a letter to his father dated August 1, 1854 (Starr, 1854):

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Figure 3. Hand drawn map, showing Weston, Missouri, the Ft. Leavenworth military reservation and the claim that Frederick Starr wants to obtain (identified with the arrow). (Starr, 1854), letter of August 1st, 1854, page 5. Public domain image, source: The State Historical Society of Missouri, digital collections.

The early settlers of the Leavenworth area formed squatter’s associations. The first of these was David Atchison’s Salt Creek Squatters Association. David Atchison was very influential. He was originally from Kentucky and was currently a member of the U. S. Senate. Previously, he had been President pro tempore of the U. S. Senate. He graduated from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky and, while there, became friends with Jefferson Davis. After graduating and being admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1829, Atchison moved to Liberty, Missouri, where he set up a successful law practice and farmed. In 1833, Alexander Doniphan joined the practice and the two men became close friends.

The Salt Creek Squatters Association excluded abolitionists and Frederick Starr did not join it. The members knew that it may be a while before an official land office opened with a proper land survey, so they each agreed to support and protect each other’s claims, if the claims were clearly marked and if each of them had a tent or cabin constructed on them within two weeks. There were several resolutions that most of the associations adopted. No one was protected if he held more than one claim. The associations maintained a Register of Claims to record a description of all claims and the owner’s names at a set fee of fifty cents each. They also appointed a vigilance committee to settle disputes (Kansas Historical Society, 1937).

This was when the colloquial expression Squatter Sovereign was created. The idea was that when a man claimed a plot of land, he became a sovereign of that land and was free. He was independent and a servant or employee of no one. At the time, productivity was so low, an employee or hired hand did not make enough to be independent, usually his room and board comprised most of his pay. Thus, he was only modestly better off than a servant or slave. After the industrial revolution this would change. Later, Dr. John Stringfellow and Robert Kelley, both from Weston Missouri, would create a pro-slavery newspaper in Atchison, Kansas that they named the Squatter Sovereign to celebrate the idea.

Some of the confusion over claim boundaries can be seen in Figure 3. In it, Starr shows two lines for the southern boundary of the military reserve, the northern one was estimated by George Gist, John Gist, and Samuel Farnandis the southern line is what Starr believes is the true line in August of 1854. South of this line is the plot of land that Starr wanted to claim, it is on Delaware Indian land.

The association that Starr eventually joined was called the Leavenworth Association, which had 32 members. The association eventually found that they did not have as much land as they thought, so each member’s claim was smaller than they had hoped, but they had laid claim to the best land in the area. Together, they laid out a town they named Leavenworth. As part of this association, Starr expected to get forty acres in approximately the location shown on the map. But, at the time he wrote the letter, he was unsure if he would be allowed to keep it. It was contested and it was on Indian land. Starr was encouraged by the influence of the prominent members of his association. It was founded by Major Ogden and Major McLain of the U. S. Army, and contained four lawyers, 4 preachers and three doctors.

They set aside two acres for the current, and first, Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder. This seems to have been a bribe to gain his support and protection. (Starr, 1854) Governor Reeder is credited with creating the name border ruffian when he applied the name to Dr. John Stringfellow and his brother. Mrs. Stringfellow says that once Reeder used the term it was taken up proudly by Dr. Stringfellow’s older brother Benjamin and it soon became a part of the language at the border (Johnson, 1962, p. 32).

Figure 4. Governor Andrew Reeder. Source Wikimedia Commons, public domain image.

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Governor Andrew Horatio Reeder took the oath of office on July 7th, 1854 in Washington, D.C. and arrived in Kansas on October 7th. At the time he was in full sympathy with the South and the institution of slavery. Reeder was born in Easton, Pennsylvania on July 12, 1807. He read for the law in a local law office and passed the Pennsylvania bar in 1828. Reeder was a loyal member of the Democratic Party and was appointed governor of Kansas by President Pierce on June 29, 1854.

John Stringfellow was born in Virginia in 1819 and attended the Columbian University in D.C. He later went to medical school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1845. He moved to Missouri after graduating to join his older brother, Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow, who was Attorney General of Missouri at the time. After arriving in Missouri, John married Ophelia Simmons, the niece of Missouri Governor Edwards. During the Missouri cholera epidemic of 1849, Dr. John Stringfellow set up a temporary hospital in a warehouse and spent three months caring for the sick day and night. Dr. Stringfellow was pro-slavery, and could be violent at times, but he was a compassionate man. In 1853 the Stringfellow brothers and their families moved to Platte County Missouri and John set up a medical practice there.

Dr. John Stringfellow was among the first Missouri citizens to move to Atchison, Kansas in 1854. He was the city’s first town secretary. He and Robert S. Kelley founded the Atchison Squatter Sovereign newspaper and published the first edition in February 1855 (Clark C. , J. H. Stringfellow, Speaker of the House, 2019c).

Robert S. Kelley was also born in Virginia and attended Dartmouth College, which he hated. He ran away from the college to Lowell, Massachusetts where he went to work for a local paper called the Advertiser. Knowing that if he contacted his parents, they would force him to return to college, he didn’t communicate with them for five years. He stayed at the Advertiser the whole time and thoroughly learned the printing and newspaper business.

Later Kelley learned his family had moved to Missouri, so he traveled there to join them and started a Democratic newspaper in 1853 called the Democratic Platform in Liberty, Missouri. This was a time when newspapers were affiliated with one political party or another, much like today. He abandoned this paper and moved his presses and equipment to Atchison and founded the Squatter Sovereign with Dr. John Stringfellow. About the experience publishing the Squatter Sovereign, Kelley would later say, There was no such thing as concession at the time. We were all extremists, whether advocating or opposing slavery. During my editorial life, I was in constant strife with political opponents (Weiser, Historic People of Kansas, 2017e).

The Leavenworth Association had the best land, was envied by many, and attacked by competitors, who tried to weaken or jump their claims. At the time of Starr’s letter to his father, the Association had fought back all attacks successfully. Since June they had had 20 to 40 men on the site clearing brush and preparing for a survey to lay out lots for sale. On August 1st Starr (Starr, 1854) wrote they were getting daily inquiries asking when the lots would be ready for sale. They had already received offers of $500 ($16,450 in 2019) for corner lots. He estimated that the Association would pay out as much as $1400 to prepare the land for sale. Each member had paid $50 to the Association for costs, a total of $1600 ($52,630 in 2019).

Frederick Starr and the others in his association understood the Leavenworth lots were probably on Delaware Indian land and that the treaty the Delaware Indians signed with the U. S. Government promised the tribe the price from the highest bidder. The Delaware Land Sale had yet to be scheduled and the final land survey was not completed. Because the treaty takes precedence over the normal land claim process that applies to the rest of the Kansas Territory, this placed an additional risk on the city lots.

The Delaware Indians sent a petition to the U. S. government asking that the Leavenworth Association lands be returned to them. In response the Association assured the Delaware chiefs that they would pay the price fixed by the government for the land if they could stay. The chiefs agreed and withdrew their petition and work on the claims continued. This meant that sometime in the future, they would face a Delaware Indian Land Sale where they would have to give up the land or pay the Indians a government set price to buy the land a second time (Legends of America, 2019).

Major McLain and Major Ogden were accused of manipulating the survey of the Ft. Leavenworth military land reserve to allow room for the town. They also guaranteed that the Delaware Indian Land could be settled legally, even before the deal with the Delaware chiefs. In fact, Major Ogden was described as pushing hard to create Leavenworth, mostly on Delaware Indian land in the first place (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1879, p. 1369).

David Atchison was furious with the Leavenworth Association. They had managed to lay claim to the best land, even though his Salt Creek Association was formed first. He and his partners knew that Delaware land was supposed to be excluded from settlement, so he suspected foul play. Further, he knew suspected abolitionists had joined the Leavenworth Association and his Association had excluded the same men. Atchison knew Frederick Starr was an abolitionist and he suspected Major E. A. Ogden of Ft. Leavenworth of being one. In the end, Atchison lost his battle and Leavenworth was formed and the lots