CHAPTER XI. EVENTS OF 1858. 107. Governors of 1858.-James W. Denver, who succeeded Frederick P. Stanton (removed for calling the special session of the Territorial Legislature), served as Acting-Governor until the resignation of Governor Walker, in May, 1858, when he became Governor, with Hugh S. Walsh as Secretary. Governor Denver resigned in September, his resignation to take effect October 10, 1858. After his departure, Secretary Walsh acted as Governor until the arrival of Governor Samuel Medary, in December. Governor Hugh S. Walsh. 108. The Marais des Cygnes Massacre. On May 19, 1858, occurred near Trading Post, in Linn county, the tragedy known in Kansas annals as the Marais des Cygnes massacre. A party of twenty-five men from across the border, headed by Captain Charles Hamilton, collected eleven Free State settlers, stood them up in a line in a ravine and fired upon them. Five fell dead and all the others save one were badly wounded; the five wounded and one unwounded man feigned death and escaped. The murdered men were William Stilwell, Patrick Ross, William Colpetzer, Michael Robinson and John F. Campbell. The wounded were William Hairgrove, Asa Hairgrove, B. L. Reed, Amos Hall and Asa Snyder; the unharmed man was Austin Hall. The place of the bloody deed is now marked by a public monument, and its memory will be forever preserved by the lines of Whittier, with their final prophecy: LE MARAÍS DU CYGNE. "A blush as of roses 66 Where rose never grew! Great drops on the bunch grass, But not of the dew! A taint in the sweet air For wild bees to shun! A stain that shall never Bleach out in the sun! Back, steed of the prairies! Gray wolf, call thy pack! Have feasted and fled; The wolves of the border Have crept from the dead. "In the homes of their rearing, Yet warm with their lives, Ye wait the dead only, Poor children and wives! Put out the red forge fire, The smith shall not come; Unyoke the brown oxen, The plowman lies dumb. "Wind slow from the Swan's O dreary death-train, Smooth down the gray hairs; That burn thro' your prayers. "From the hearths of their The fields of their corn, The Marsh of the Swan. "With a vain plea for mercy No stout knee was crooked; In the mouths of the rifles Right manly they looked. How paled the May sunshine, Green Maraís du Cygne, When the death-smoke blew over Thy lonely ravine. 109. Retribution.-William Griffith, one of the murderers, was arrested in Platte county, Mo., in 1863; was tried, and convicted of murder at Mound City, Linn county, Kan. He was executed October 30, 1863. William Hairgrove, one of the survivors of the tragedy, acted as executioner. 110. Fourth Territorial Legislature.-Governor Medary's position required him to pass in review the acts of the Fourth Territorial Legislature. That body met at Lecompton, and adjourned at once to Lawrence. It repealed the "Bogus Statutes" of 1855, which were afterwards burned in the streets; made provision for a Constitutional Convention and a State Government if the people decided for it at a preliminary election, and passed an act of amnesty for offenders in certain counties who had been fighting over political differences. Notwithstanding this peaceful measure, Captain James Governor Samuel Medary. Montgomery and his men continued the war with the Proslavery people in Linn and Bourbon counties, and Captain John Brown carried off a number of persons lawfully bound to servitude in Missouri, to freedom elsewhere. SUMMARY. 1. Political changes of 1858. 2. The Maraís des Cygnes massacre. 3. Whittier's commemorative poem, "Le Maraís du Cygne." 4. The Wyandotte Convention and Constitution provided for. CHAPTER XII. THE WYANDOTTE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 111. The Convention.-The vote on the proposition to hold a Constitutional Convention at Wyandotte was held March 28, 1859. The total vote was 6,731; 5,036 being cast "for a Constitution," and 1,425 "against a Constitution." แ The election of delegates to the Convention occurred on the 7th of June, 1859. The Convention which was to frame the Constitution under which Kansas was destined to enter the Union of the States, assembled at Wyandotte, July 5, 1859. It was composed of fifty-two delegates. In the election of these, the old appellations of “Free State" and "Pro-slavery" were abandoned, and the elected delegates were classified as thirty-five Republicans and seventeen Democrats. It was the first Constitutional Convention in Kansas which contained members of both political parties. Historians of the Convention have recorded that few of the heretofore prominent leaders of political action in the Territory were present in the Convention, and that a large proportion of the members were young men. Many of the delegates were destined to distinction in the civil and military history of Kansas in the years to follow. 112. Officers.-The Convention was organized by the choice of Samuel A. Kingman, as temporary President, and |