THE ANNALS OF AN HISTORIC TOWN.

By F. W. BLACKMAR.

It sometimes happens in the making of a commonwealth that a certain small and obscure community bears such an important part in a great struggle as to justly earn for itself historic renown. It becomes the initial point of the contest, the key to the situation, or perhaps the point at which turns the tide of triumph. To such conditions may be referred the modest town of Lawrence, well-known in Kansas as the "Historic City." There was a time when the thoughts of the people of the Republic was centered on this town, then an insignificant appearing frontier hamlet. Its local interests became territorial interests, and its deeds of national significance. While one part of the people of the States were gloomy over defeat, another exultant over victory, and both conjecturing over the future, the thoughts and dreams of men were being verified on the prairies of Kansas. While they talked on certain propositions, the pioneers of Kansas struggled and fought over them. The national life had lapsed into distrust and inaction; the representatives of the people in Congress assembled had shunned a great moral question. They had staked out a territory in the wilderness of the West and said, this is a duelling ground; here the struggle shall be settled. "The field of battle was thus removed from the halls of Congress to the plains of Kansas.* National issues were referred to a local community to settle. But the nation did not escape so easily, for the attempt to shift this responsibility to the plains of Kansas caused an agitation that eventually precipitated the whole nation in a great struggle, and dearly it paid for the evasion of the question.

One scarcely realizes as he now looks upon this conservative rural town of 10,000 inhabitants, that it could have been

*Robinson: The Kansas Conflict, p. 6.

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the scene of the confusion and strife which history records; that its local life could once have been of so much national importance; that this quiet scene could have been a national duelling ground. But looking from the front of the main building of the University of Kansas, situated on Mount Oread, rising 200 feet above the town, the eye beholds a land of marvelous beauty. Well improved farms of great fertility, fields of corn and wheat alternating with orchards laden with fruit, and the wooded copse, greet the eye in every direction. The valley of the Kaw and the rolling plains are covered with the homes of a happy and prosperous peeple. The town at the foot of the hill on the north and east is symbolical of quiet and peaceful home life. But in the memory of men who walk the streets of the town in the pursuits of the peaceful arts great changes have been wrought before their eyes. Indeed, they were the actors in the scenes which made these great changes. To them this peaceful scene is alive with historic interest; the past to them is a record of struggles, of strife, of war, of bloodshed, and of a final victory.

rence.

Close in on the brow of the hill, a short distance from where the university now stands, are the ruins of a fort, erected to withstand the invaders of Price. At the other end of the hill was located the fort to defend against the border ruffians. A few rods in front, on the eastern slope of the hill, once stood the house of Governor Robinson, burned in the sack of Lawrence. To the left of Blue Mound is the site of the town of Franklin, once famous as a rendezvous of the enemies of LawNear it flows the Wakarusa, on whose banks mustered the Kansas militia, formed largely of Missourians, in the famous Wakarusa war. In front and two miles toward the east is Oak Hill cemetery, where rest scores of fallen heroes, where sleep in a single grave seventy victims of the Quantrell raid. Prominent in the town are buildings where once were forts and fortifications. The Eldridge house rises on the ruins of the old Free State hotel. To complete the historic picture, it may be stated that the university at first bore the significant title of the Free State College.

Fifty years ago this lovely land was in the possession of the Shawnee Indians. It was then a landscape of wild beauty, alternating with prairie, and forest, and winding stream. Forty-three years ago the scene was vivified and the stillness broken by a continuous line of emigrants winding their way on

the old California road toward the el dorado of the Pacific slope. Four years later the first company of Lawrence settlers pitched their tents on the north brow of Mount Oread. Thirty-eight years ago the Lawrence association and the Free State men were in arms, arrayed against the hordes of Missouri in the Wakarusa war. Soon after the town was sacked and burned by the border ruffians. Two years thereafter the regular Federal troops were called out by Governor Walker to put down the inhabitants of a "rebellious town." It was alleged that the town was in a state of revolution against Territorial authorities. Thirty years ago the town of Lawrence was sacked and burned by Quantrell and his ruffians, and the year following the town was fortified against the Confederate army under Price, which fortunately came no farther than Kansas City. Thus, in ten years of continuous strife and toil, the town was built. The events of Bennington, Saratoga, and Boston of old-time glory did not exceed in patriotism, courage, and suffering the sturdy and persistent settlers of this town and its environs. Nor, indeed, could any of these towns recount the atrocious deeds and the horrible scenes which characterized the early history of Lawrence. The people of Lawrence were to fight over again the war for political and religious liberty begun so long ago in New England. Their deeds were the prologue to the last drama of nation-building.

Owing to its peculiar position and relations the history of Lawrence is worthy of special treatment, and it will be the object of this paper to present some salient features of this early life, the events of which began in 1854. It was on August 1 of this year that the first party of emigrants, 29 in number, sent out by the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company arrived at the site of Lawrence and pitched their tent village on the northern point of Mount Oread. They came to St. Louis by rail and thence to Kansas City by boat, and then proceeded with ox teams to Lawrence. They were met at St. Louis by Dr. Charles Robinson, the agent of the company, who gave them substantial assistance, and then returned to the East to conduct the second party westward. Dr. Robinson and

* One of these parties, in which was Dr. Charles Robinson, camped on the present site of the university. Dr. Robinson remembered the place and later directed the pioneers of the Emigrant Aid Association to this spot. Andreas: History of Kansas, p. 312.