Father and Son Murder Witness Against Them, Hanged by Mob, Boyle, 1866

Previously:

Click here for a list of my other Pulaski/Rockcastle/Laurel County KY articles

-----------

[April 12, 1866] -

FOUL MURDER OF AN OLD LADY NEAR PERRYVILLE. -- We yesterday received the startling information that Mrs. Polly Bottoms, and old and highly respected lady, residing near Perryville, in Boyle county, was foully murdered on Tuesday night last, by a man named Bill Taylor. Our informant states that some time ago the murderer and two other men committed a robbery at the house of Mrs. Bottoms, for which two of the perpetrators, having been caught, were tried and convicted and are now undergoing sentence at the Frankfort penitentiary. Taylor, the guiltiest of the wretches, made his escape at the time of the robbery, and has been at large ever since. Recently he was recognized as one of the robbers by a little daughter of Mrs. Bottoms, whereupon he visited the house about 10 o'clock Tuesday night, and deliberately murdered the old lady. He could have had no other object in perpetrating this cold blooded deed than to silence an important witness against him. We fervently hope that speedy and terrible justice will overtake the unmitigated demon. [1]

Contemporary Reports of Brooks' Caning of Sumner, 1856

Previously:

Click here for a list of my other Pulaski/Rockcastle/Laurel County KY articles

-----------

Preston Brooks' attack on Charles Sumner was sparked by a speech Sumner gave on Kansas, which can be found here. 

---

[May 21, 1856] -

Mr. Sumner closed yesterday one of the most searching and fearless exposures yet made of the Giant Crime which, in its legitimate consequences, has filled Kansas with violence and threatens now to deluge her plains with blood. We are compelled to omit about one-fourth of it, but make room for this masterly effort to the utmost limit of our ability. We shall soon have the complete Speech ready in pamphlet form, and bespeak for it a wide circulation.

The whole menagerie was stirred up by the directness and power of this effort for Free Kansas, and Gen. Cain[?] responded with characteristic feebleness, Mr. Douglas with characteristic blackguardism, and Mr. Mason with characteristic insolence. Mr. Sumner briefly rejoined each, though it would have better befitted his character and the noble speech he had just closed to pass them by in scornful silence. When he had closed, the Senate adjourned.

The House spent the whole day on a Railroad Land bill for Wisconsin. Nothing was concluded. [1]

Brothers Brutally Kill Man With Axe Over Forty Cents, Lincoln, 1885

Previously:

Click here for a list of my other Pulaski/Rockcastle/Laurel County KY articles

-----------


[February 24, 1885] -

ANOTHER MAN KILLED. -- 'Squire James H. Eason, who came in for the County Attorney yesterday gave us the particulars of a killing that occurred on Green River Saturday about sundown, which bears considerably the odor of a willful murder. James R. Gragg and Samuel T. Gragg, brothers, were out that day with Robert Prewitt, colored, and together, they went to McKinney, all seeming on the best of terms. Returning from McKinney they stopped at Newt Smith's and got a jug of brandy, of which all partook liberally. When they arrived at Jim Gragg's house, so he and his brother states, the negro ordered them to get a supper for him and also demanded the payment of 40 cents that he claimed that Sam Gragg owed him, saying that he intended to have it or the lives of both of them. Jim Gragg ordered him out and he went but returned with an ax, with which the men claim he struck Jim. The two then overpowered him and getting the ax, Jim struck him with the back of it three times in the face and head and then turning it severed his jugular vein with the blade. Any one of the several blows would have been fatal. A coroner's inquest was held Sunday and a verdict returned in accordance with the above facts. There was no witness to the deed and the men thinking that their stories will acquit them of the killing gave themselves up and yesterday afternoon had their examining trials at the place of the tragedy. The fact that the men were on such intimate terms with the negro show that they regarded him as good as themselves and disproves their story of his violence towards them. Jim Gragg, we understand, bears the reputation of having killed another negro in Kansas, and it is rather strange that he should have to continue the business here. We have no doubt that a skillful cross questioning will so mix the men up in their stories as to disprove them altogether. [1]

Isaacs v. Willis, Lincoln, 1788 [2]

Previously:

Click here for a list of my other Pulaski/Rockcastle/Laurel County KY articles

-----------

JOHN ISAACS v. WILLIAM WILLIS, Assignee, etc.

SUPREME COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY

1 Ky. 22; 1788 Ky. LEXIS 3; 1 Hughes 22

November, 1788, Decided

DISPOSITION:  [**1]  Plaintiff's caveat dismissed with costs.

OPINION

 [*22]  The plaintiff on the 29th day of November, in the year 1786, entered the following caveat, to-wit:

"Let no grant issue to William Willis, assignee of Lewis Craig, assignee of Christopher Hudson, for 372 1/4 acres of land, surveyed by virtue of part of a military warrant, No. 248, lying and being in the county of Lincoln, because John Isaacs claims the same by virtue of an entry made on a pre-emption treasury warrant."

On the 8th day of February, 1780, the plaintiff, John Isaacs, obtained from the commissioners for the district of Kentucky, the following certificate, to-wit:

"John Isaacs, by Col. Bowman, this day claimed a settlement and pre-emption to a tract of land in the district of Kentucky, on account of settling in the country in the year 1777, and residing twelve months since, the said settlement lying on both sides of Wilson's run, adjoining the lands of Thomas Wilson below, and to include his improvement. Satisfactory proof being made to the court, they are of opinion that the said Isaacs has a right to a settlement of 400 acres of land, to include the above location, and the  [*23] pre-emption of 1,000 acres [**2] adjoining, and that a certificate issue accordingly."

And on the 21st day of February, in the year 1780, entered his settlement with the surveyor, in the following words, to-wit:

"John Isaacs enters 400 acres, by virtue of a certificate, etc., on both sides of Wilson's run, adjoining the lands of Thomas Wilson, below, to include his cabin and improvement." And also entered his pre-emption warrant on the 21st day of December, in the year 1781, with the surveyor, in the following words, to-wit:

"John Isaacs enters 1,000 acres of land upon a pre-emption warrant, No. 1619, adjoining and around his settlement, lying on Wilson's run." And on the 27th day of June, in the year 1786, made the following amendment to his pre-emption entry, to-wit:

"John Isaacs offers the following explanation to his pre-emption entry of 1,000 acres, made the 22d day of December, 1781, and to stand in the following manner: Whereas it is impracticable for the pre-emption to lay off round the said Isaacs' settlement, on account of prior claims, therefore he extends the body of the land east, so as to join the 400 acre pre-emption Stephen Fisher sold Barbee on the north, and passing the north-east corner of the [**3]  said pre-emption, continuing the course east 30 poles, to a white oak, walnut and sugar tree, a corner to William Gaines' land, and with a line of his land north 195 poles, or to another of said Gaines' corners, at a walnut, cherry and Spanish oak, thence to extend west, to join the original part of his entry."

William Willis, the defendant, on the 24th day of April, in the year 1780, made the two following entries of 400 acres each, with the county surveyor, to-wit:

"William Willis, assignee of Lewis Craig, who was assignee of Christopher Hudson, enters 400 acres in Kentucky, by virtue of a warrant for military services performed by said Hudson in the last war, including a spring on the south side of Dick's river, that falls into a sink hole, after running a small distance, about one mile from George Teator's claim, to run up and down the spring branch for quantity." "Also, 400 acres on the south side of Dick's river, including a spring that runs from under a large rock, about 1 1/2 miles from said Teator's, near a south course, to run down the said spring branch for quantity."

And on the 26th day of June, in the year 1786, the said William Willis made the following amendment to [**4]  the second of the said two entries, to-wit:

 [*24]  "William Willis, assignee of Lewis Craig, assignee of Christopher Hudson, withdraws his second entry of 400 acres, made on part of a military warrant, No. 248, the 24th day of April, 1780, including a spring that runs from under a large rock, about one and a half miles from said Teator's, near a south course, etc., and enters the aforesaid 400 acres, being part of the military warrant, No. 248, and assigned as above, to begin at the north-east corner of Stephen Fisher's pre-emption of 1,000 acres, it being his pre-emption that adjoins the settlement whereon the said Fisher now lives, at a Spanish oak, sugar tree, and elm, thence with Fisher's pre-emption line, west 178 poles, thence north, 315 poles; thence east, so far that running south 220 poles, thence west and south 95 poles, will strike the beginning and include 400 acres of land."

The annexed plat, No. 8, was returned in this cause, of which the following is an explanation:

[SEE PLAT No. 8 IN ORIGINAL]

A, John Isaacs' improvement. B C D E, John Isaacs' settlement of 400 acres, as surveyed. D F G H I K L M C, part of John Isaacs' pre-emption of 1000 acres as surveyed. [**5]  The black lines represent John Isaacs' settlement and pre-emption, laid down according to the interlocutory judgment. 1 2 3 4 5, part of Stephen  [*25]  Fisher's pre-emption. 3 4 5 6 7 8, William Willis' survey of 372 1/2 acres.

The court at the last June term, pronounced the following interlocutory judgment, to-wit:

The plaintiff ought to have surveyed his settlement in a square form, so as to adjoin Wilson's land below, and also so as to be divided into two equal parts, by a line to be run parallel to Wilson's run, and half way between the said run and the plaintiff's cabin; and his pre-emption according to his original location ought to have been surveyed around his settlement on the north, east and south sides, the lines at equal distance from those sides of the settlement. But at this term it appearing by the surveyor's report, that the plaintiff's pre-emption as directed to be laid down did not interfere with the defendant's survey, the court dismissed the plaintiff's caveat with costs, etc.

East v. Canady et al., Wayne, 1873

Previously:

Click here for a list of my other Pulaski/Rockcastle/Laurel County KY articles

-----------

 William East v. Eliz. Canady, etc.

COURT OF APPEALS OF KENTUCKY

6 Ky. Op. 314; 1873 Ky. LEXIS 127

January 14, 1873, Decided

PRIOR HISTORY:   [*1]  APPEAL FROM WAYNE CIRCUIT COURT. 

DISPOSITION: Petition dismissed. 

COUNSEL: Van Winkle, for appellant.

James, for appellees. 

JUDGES: Judge Lindsay. 

OPINION BY: Lindsay 

OPINION

Opinion by Judge Lindsay:

Martin Silvees was a competent witness in favor of the widow and children of John Silvees, deceased. He had no interest with them in their defense, but was rather interested in compelling them to pay his debt, and as the proceeding against him was upon a return of nulla bona he was liable for costs, whether it resulted in the discovery and subjection of any of his estate to the payment of his debt or not.

His statements are not altogether consistent, but as he is neither impeached nor directly contradicted, his evidence could hardly have been properly disregarded.

Even if it be true that he voluntarily and without consideration remitted to appellees two hundred dollars of the purchase price originally agreed to be paid for the land, we do not well see how appellant can complain on that account.

By the sale of what he claimed to be Martin Stevens' equity of redemption in a tract of land, he, by his own bid, satisfied his execution in full. This was done on the 3d day of January, 1865.

The deed to these [*2]  appellees was made fifteen days afterwards, when appellant had no apparent claim against Martin Silvees. Having elected to take Martin Silvees' title to this land, in satisfaction of his debt, these appellees had the legal right to make any arrangement with the latter they could to perfect this title, and it can scarcely be inferred that by releasing a portion of the purchase money, as matters then stood, the parties intended to practice fraud on appellant. His petition as to appellees was properly dismissed.

Allcorn v. Tuggle, Wayne, 1861

Previously:

Click here for a list of my other Pulaski/Rockcastle/Laurel County KY articles

-----------

Allcorn vs. Tuggle.

COURT OF APPEALS OF KENTUCKY

60 Ky. 537; 1861 Ky. LEXIS 38; 3 Met. 537

January 14, 1861, Decided

PRIOR HISTORY:  [**1]  APPEAL FROM WAYNE CIRCUIT COURT. 

DISPOSITION: Judgment affirmed.

COUNSEL: S. WILLIAMS, for appellant, cited Civil Code, secs. 190, 198. 

JUDGES: CHIEF JUSTICE STITES. 

OPINION BY: STITES 

OPINION

 [*537]  CHIEF JUSTICE STITES DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT:

This was a proceeding against appellant, as bail in a civil action. Upon a submission of the law and facts to the circuit judge he was held liable, and from that judgment has appealed.

Two grounds are relied on for reversal:

1. That a return of "not found" against the principal in the bond was not made within twenty days after judgment; and

2. That the proof shows that the sheriff had falsely returned his principal not found.

The law does not require the return of "not found" to be made within twenty days after judgment against the principal. The period prescribed by the Civil Code, (section 198,) which governs this case, relates not to the return of the officer, but to the placing of the execution in the hands of the sheriff. This is evident from the language of the section. The object was to impose diligence upon the plaintiff in the execution by requiring him, within twenty days from the judgment, to place the execution in the sheriff's hands;  [**2]  but not to shorten the return day, which is always fixed by the rules of the court whence the execution emanates.

In regard to the second point--waiving the question whether it is permissible at all for the bail to question the officer's  [*538]  return in the mode here attempted--we do not hesitate to say that the proof wholly failed to show any falsity in the return. The bail had it in his power to have surrendered his principal to the officer, and it was his duty to have done so.

No error is perceived in the record, and the judgment is therefore affirmed.

Profile and Interview of Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1949

The following is an article printed in the Kansas City Star, Kansas City, MO. April 10, 1949. Pages 4D and 7D. Retrieved from Genealogybank.com.

------

[April 19, 1949] - 

The Famous Author of the "Laura and Mary" Children's
Books, Mrs. Laura Wilder of Mansfield, Mo., is Shown
In Her Farm Home in Front of a Scroll Given Her By Seattle
School Children. A Similar Scroll, Presented By
California Readers, Is on the Bookcase.

A MISSOURI WOMAN'S BOOKS ARE FAVORED BY CHILDREN

World Acclaim Has Come to Laura Ingalls Wilder of Mansfield, Mo., Whose Writings Cover Pioneer Life in the Middle West.

BY CHESTER A. BRADLEY. (A Member of The Star's Staff.)

MANSFIELD, MO., April 9. -- Stories of Middle Western American pioneer life which were written here on a school tablet with a pencil are being read around the world and by millions of Americans. Their author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 82, is known and loved by countless school children. Their parents also like her "Laura and Mary" stories.

By all standards Mrs. Wilder is a famous American author. Nevertheless, she is unaffected and as unassuming as in her earlier days here when she helped "pull a crosscut saw" on Ozark timber.

This month the city of Detroit is paying high tribute to Mrs. Wilder. It is naming one of its new branch libraries for her. Other such libraries there bear some of the most famous names in American history. 

Mrs. Wilder is the author of eight books that tell a story of everyday life in early Western America, extending from Wisconsin to the Dakotas and including ventures into the Indian territory of Kansas. Seven of the volumes are "Laura and Mary" stories, these characters being representative of Mrs. Wilder and a sister named Mary. The other book in the series is the story of a year in the boyhood life of her husband, Almanzo Wilder, who is 92 and a native of New York. 

Most of the Materials for the 50-Year-Old Wilder Home
Came From Their Farm ... The Large, Old-Fashioned
Chimney Opens into a Large Living Room Fireplace,
Reminiscent of the Pioneer Period of Which Mrs. Wilder
Has Written So Often.

Live In Distinctive Home.

This Ozark town of a little more than1,000 population is 250 miles southwest of Kansas City. The Wilders live a half mile east of it. Their unpretentious, 2-story, white frame house sits on a hill overlooking U.S. highway No. 60. It has a vine-covered stone chimney, tall and wide. Inside the home it is connected with a large fireplace in the living room--a room at once distinctive to a visitor because of its beamed ceiling and liberal use of woodwork, all white oak cut on the farm and shaped into lumber by the Wilders years ago. Except for the siding, most all materials used in building the home came right off the farm.

The living room also has several wall cases and shelves for the many books of the family library and there are framed scrolls and other pieces of art, written or painted in tribute to Mrs.Wilder's stories.

Mr. and Mrs. Wilder have lived in this home on the land they call Rocky Ridge farm since they moved here in a covered wagon from De Smet, S.D. in 1894. A drought lasting nearly three years had ruined most everything and everybody in the Dakotas, so the Wilders set out for the Ozarks, then known as "the land of the big red apple," seeking a new start in life.

They lived here in town for awhile, then acquired forty acres nearby, including a tree lien on the place. That proviso of the deal required that they carry out the terms of the former owner--to plant apple trees. The Wilders did, some ten acres at first, and their orchards were tended well enough that production reached proportions of carload shipments to Memphis, Tenn. and other markets. Mrs. Wilder recalls that spraying was virtually unknown and unneeded in those days.

By the hardest work in their earlier years here--Mrs. Wilder remembering well having helped to pull a saw on timber--they expanded their farm to more than 200 acres, had many chickens and dairy cattle and kept farm work going until recent years.

"We worked hard, but it was interesting and didn't hurt us any," Mrs. Wilder says.

She Raised Chickens.

Their farm was made one of the most successful hereabouts. Mrs. Wilder raised the chickens and her husband handled the cows. Once they had a contest, she says, as to whether cows or chickens brought the biggest returns.

"We had to work against each other trying to prove our point," she adds with a brightening of the eyes, adding quickly that the contest "ended in a draw."

The Wilders take pride in their long years of work and in the success they made on their Ozark farmland. Mrs. Wilder is much less willing to talk of her success as a writer or of any claim to fame. She disdains having any display made over her writing, although it has attained a place that brings fan mail from Japan, Sweden, and other countries as well as points all around America.

Her first writings were for newspapers and magazines, usually on poultry, or farming and rural subjects. It was not until 1932 that her first book was published and this event was more or less unexpected as far as she was concerned.

"Pa" Ingalls, her father, was a pioneer hunter, trapper and Indian fighter. He guarded property of the Chicago-Northwestern railroad in the days it was being built, had many adventures in the Middle West and became one of the founders of De Smet, S.D. 

Time after time she had heard him tell of his experiences and her own part in the family activities are worth reading, as proven by book sales today.

"These were family stories and I believed they should be preserved," Mrs. Wilder said, "so I wrote some of them down and sent them to my daughter Rose, so she could keep them. I also suggested she might want to use some of them in her writings." 

Rose Wilder Lane, her daughter, who lives in Danbury, Conn., already was nationally known as a reporter and author.

“Rose wrote back, some time later,” Mrs. Wilder continued, “that an editor had said the stories could be published if I would put some meat on the bones; so after that I started doing just that.”

“I wrote between washing dishes and getting dinner, or just any time I could,” she added. “But sometimes I got stumped on a phrase or a chapter. Maybe the way to do it would not come to me until after I had gone to bed and then I would think of something in the middle of th enight.”

Thus the many duties of an active farm wife took on new chores, but highly worthwhile ones.

She used an ordinary pencil and school tablet. Her manuscripts were sent to New York for typing, and all business connected with the work of publication was and is handled by her agent. He is George T. Bye, former Kansas Citian, who handles the writing of Mrs. Franklin D. (Eleanor) Roosevelt, and other celebrities.

Favorite Among Children.

Harper & Brothers of New York published the first book by Mrs. Wilder and all the others in the series. Chicago school children in 1947 selected Mrs. Wilder as their favorite author. She was honored in a special radio broadcast there. A plaque in the home here contains signatures of many Chicago children who took part in the events. Similar plaques have come from the Association of Children’s Librarians of Northern California; also one from Seattle, representing children and librarians of the Pacific Northwest.

Her books are very popular with Kansas City Public Library patrons. “Pa’s Fiddle,” well known in the books now is in the state museum at Pierre, S.D., but is played every year in a special annual concert there.

Mrs. Wilder was born at Pepin, Wis., on February 7, 1867, and a portrait of her father is drawn in "Little House in the Big Woods." Other titles in the series, all true stories, she says, are "Little House on the Prairie" (the family in the Indian Territory of Kansas); "Farmer Boy (Mr. Wilder's boyhood), "On the Banks of Plum Creek" (Early Minnesota); "By the Shores of Silver Lake" (Dakota territory); "The Long Winter" (one even worse than the recent one in Missouri); "Little Town on the Prairie" (in Dakota), and "These Happy Golden Years" (Laura, who was a school teacher at sixteen, meets Almanzo. Sleigh rides and buggy rides figure in the romance. Following marriage in South Dakota in 1885 they go to make their home in a little house on the claim they acquired.)

With fame and extra cash from book royalties in recent years, most persons would say the golden years are certainly continuing, but writing success has its drawbacks these days, Mrs. Wilder finds.

Hit By Income Tax.

She doesn't talk in figures of the money she has received for her books, but she says:

The more I wrote the bigger my income tax got, so I stopped. Why should I go on at my age? Why, we don't need it here anyway."

The latter statement was in regard to her complete satisfaction with the simple, comfortable life in the home she has known for more than half a century. The Wilders sold their farm with the provision they could occupy the home until “I just finished planting the potatoes,” said Mr. Wilder as he entered the home to greet visitors. Despite “not being strong” and his 92 years he is most alert to the current scene. Both the Wilders, however, complain of not being able to get help, "either inside or outside the house."

Detroit is planning appropriate ceremonies for the dedication of the library named for Mrs. Wilder. Officials there are eager for Mrs. Wilder to take part, but she says "definitely" she will not. It would be too much of a trip for Mr. Wilder, she adds; also, while she feels well, and certainly looks it, she says, "I'm too nervous" for anything like that. 

Her last public appearance as an author was in Detroit six years ago when she took part in book week events there.

Ralph A. Ulveling, library director of Detroit, said recently that "we believe her books will live and will be read with interest a hundred years from now just as they are today. If our prediction is correct we will naturally take particular pride in having been the institution that led the way in bringing her permanent recognition among the American men and women of letters."

Others honored similarly by Detroit libraries include such famous Americans as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas A. Edison, Ulveling noted. Seldom has the city so honored any living person.

"In choosing the name of Mrs. Wilder," Ulveling said, "we did so because we felt that she was a Midwestern writer who in her series of books has presented an invaluable social history of this great central portion of the country. While some historians, and they have an important place present the great sweep of history, bringing out the political and the military influences, Mrs. Wilder has directed attention to the commonplace things, the way of life of people. Thus she has preserved a portion of our history which is the part that is most likely to be lost in the course of time. She has done this beautifully, ably and understandingly, and like so few writers she has done it in a way which is interesting both to children and to adults.

The Challenge of Reporting on Bleeding Kansas, 1856

I like these articles about the conflict in the Kansas Territory from the Tuesday, Sept 16, 1856, issue of the New York Tribune for several reasons, hardly the least of which is that they are highly entertaining to read. That is, if you enjoy reading antiquated insults aimed at politicians.  Another reason I like them is because they illustrate that people at the time were often confused about what was happening in Kansas, something I believe has persisted in historical treatments of the topic.  Although the author complains about the border-ruffian bias of the news reports coming out of Kansas, I think the free-state bias expressed in this article is relatively moderate and fair given its chronological proximity to the events at hand.

From the New-York Daily Tribune on Tuesday, September 16, 1856:

It would be absurd to look to the drunkard Atchison, to the drunkard Shannon, or to the drunken rabble of Missouri, or even to the miserable President Pierce, who, perhaps, can scarcely be held more accountable than they—it would be absurd to look to any of these as the really responsible parties for the atrocious crimes against both public and private rights, the rights of citizens as well as the ordinary rights of humanity, of which Kansas is now the scene.  Neither the ruffians of Missouri, nor President Pierce, heartless and soulless demagogue and doughface as he is, would have dared to venture, would have ever thought even of venturing upon such unheard-of atrocities, had they not been instigated to it, and encouraged and supported in it, by persons of vastly more social and political consequence and influence than themselves.  That which has been done is now doing in Kansas, is briefly this: A Missouri mob takes violent possession of the polls, elects a pretended Legislature, and through the medium of that pretended Legislature enacts a bloody and atrocious code; and that same mob are now in Kansas with arms and torches in their hands, murdering the Free-State men, burning down their towns and houses, and driving them, stripped of all their property, from the Territory, under pretense of enforcing order, sustaining the authority of the United States, and putting in execution the laws of the Territory! 

Now, admitting that the first violation of the rights of the people of Kansas, by driving them from the polls and returning as elected a body of the bogus legislators, was solely the idea and act of the Border Ruffians themselves, without any encouragement or instigation from Washington or elsewhere—which is more, we fear, than the truth of the facts will warrant—yet other persons, by upholding and sustaining as a legal body the bogus Legislature thus infamously imposed upon Kansas, and their infamous laws as a binding code, have made themselves the responsible parties for all the subsequent outrages.  And who are the parties who have thus taken upon themselves this terrible responsibility—a responsibility to which the people of these United States will most strictly hold them?  These responsible parties, these indorsers of the Missouri invaders and their bogus Legislature, are the Cabinet of President Pierce, the Border-Ruffian majority in the Senate of the United States, and, to a still greater degree than either of these, the Cincinnati Convention and the politicians who support the nominee and the platform of that Convention.  It is only the confidence of being sustained by, and the hope of giving pleasure and satisfaction to, these influential parties, that have emboldened the Border Ruffians of Missouri to enter upon the ferocious, bloody work in which they are now engaged.  They are but re-acting the part of the servants of Henry II., who, in the hope of pleasing their King and master, waylaid and murdered Thomas a Becket; and the politicians, to please and gratify whom murders and other outrages are now being perpetrated in Kansas, may rest assured that before they ever again can be recognized as Christians or political leaders, the same humble, barefooted penance which the proud and powerful Henry II. was obliged to pay at the shrine and grave of St. Thomas a Becket to purge his conscience of that murder, the people of the United States will force them to pay at the graves of the martyrs of Kansas. 

The Cabinet at Washington, the Senate of the United States, the Cincinnati Convention, and the politicians that support the Platform and the candidate of that Convention, will each and all, and every individual of them, be held responsible for the horrible deeds lately done and now being done in Kansas; but there are four individuals, all northern men and all doughfaces, upon whom the force of the public indignation may be expected to fall with a weight peculiarly crushing.  These four persons are, Marcy and Cushing of the Cabinet, Douglas of the Senate, and Buchanan, the nominee of the Cincinnati Convention—no longer (as he himself declares) the man James Buchanan, but a walking, writing, speaking automaton, to which the Cincinnati Platform serves as intellect and conscience, and which has neither wish, hope, intention, or sentiment beyond those embodied in that document. 

Pierce may be let off on the score of imbecility, natural or superinduced; but these four able men cannot set up the excuse of folly.  They have gone into this Kansas business with their eyes open; and, let them be assured, they will be held to a responsibility at which bolder men than they might well tremble. 

--------- 

Our readers have already been reminded that Missouri and the Border Ruffians lie directly between us and Kansas, so that the first tidings of all conflicts or outrages in that devoted Territory emanate from Pro-Slavery sources, and reach us through Pro-Slavery channels.  Even The Missouri Democrat forms no exception to this remark, since, though its correspondents mean to be fair and its editors just, yet their telegraphic news is mainly made up of the stories set afloat by the Ruffians in Kansas or hovering on her border.  Under such circumstances, we have no alternative but to publish the accounts as they reach us, fully believing that our dispatches and Missouri bulletins which are calculated to discredit the Free-State men, will in due time be corrected by more authentic advises, including the letters of our own correspondents.  It is hard to be obliged to give the falsehoods of the Ruffians ten or twelve days’ start of the truth, but we see no practicable alternative. 

The journals and politicians in vogue with the Ruffians pursue a different course.  They print the first Pro-Slavery bulletins, and carefully suppress those of the Free-State men; and when the former are proved false in any respect, they use this circumstance to discredit the true advices from Kansas and induce a belief that there is little or no trouble there—thus making the falsehoods or mistakes of their Missouri confederates do double duty.  Thus The New-London Star says: 

“Old Brown and young Brown, who were so badly ‘killed’ in Kansas lately, per telegraph, by the ‘Pro Slavery’ party have both turned up ‘alive.’ They were not in the ‘battle’ at all.  The people are beginning to appreciate these Kansas lies, and, as Dr. Olds said the Ohio Republican editor told him, he wouldn’t give a d---n a yard for them.” 

Now “Old Brown” and one or more of his sons were engaged in the defense of Osawattamie against a ten-fold force of Border Ruffians, who routed the Free-State men, killed several, wounded more, and sacked and burnt the town.  The victors reported that they had killed “Old Brown” and one of his sons; but it seems that they were mistaken—at least with regard to the former.  He probably lost his hat in fleeing across he Osage, which gave the Ruffians the impression that he had been shot and had sunk, leaving his hat floating on the stream.  His son, the last reports say, was killed, but the father appears to have been unaware of the fact when he wrote to his wife from Lawrence on the 2d inst.  No Free-State dispatch or letter has reported his death; yet The Star would fain improve this Border Ruffian mistake to the discredit even of the fact that there was a conflict at Osawattamie at all! 

--So The Albany Argus seizes on the fact that lawyer Phillips of Leavenworth, recently murdered in his own house for the crime of being a Free-State man, was in one dispatch termed a correspondent of The Tribune—a very natural mistake, since hundreds in Kansas and Western Missouri know that one of our Kansas correspondents is named Phillips, is a warm Free-State man, and has, in this discharge of his duties, spent considerable time in Leavenworth—to discredit all accounts of outrage and murder in Kansas—as if it made any difference, as to this, whether the Mr. Phillips killed by the Ruffians at Leavenworth were or were not our correspondent.  We exposed the error of the telegraphic dispatch on this point simultaneously with its appearance in the journals of the Atlantic States. 

--So Mr. Ely Moore (Indian Agent) took advantage of the fact that another Eli Moore had been reported guilty of an outrageous assault on a Free-State man in Kansas (see Investigating Committee's Report, page 963,) to deny most pompously that he had committed any such outrage, to assert that The Tribune had no correspondent stationed at Lecompton (where no known correspondent of this paper could live a week), and to assert that the Kansas correspondence of this and other Eastern papers was manufactured in their own offices! Comment would seem superfluous. 

--The Buchaneers are sweeping the votes of Missouri and all the South on the strength of what they are doing and confidently expected to do to make Kansas a Slave State.  We concede them the vote of every State south of Chesapeake Bay, knowing why they get them.  Now if they can make the North believe that there is no such region as Kansas, no effort to subjugate it to Slavery, and no violence, outrage or murder committed on its Free-State settlers, they may secure votes enough from the Free States to elect their men.  Let us see how they do it. 

--------- 

The Charleston Standard has a letter from Atchison, Kansas, which shows the purpose with which the invaders of that Territory from Carolina, Georgia and Missouri have entered upon the last foray against the Free-State settlers.  We quote: 

“We are ordered to march to-morrow, and I think will be stationed on the Nebraska line.  Reports have reached us to-day of a fight in that direction, in which fifty Abolitionists were killed and the rest driven back.  This is almost too good to be true.  

“Gov. Shannon has resigned (his successor not having arrived yet), and Hon. Woodson is now Governor pro tem.  By reliable information we hear that he has said hat, as soon as a sufficient force can be collected to warrant the move, he, as Governor, will issue a proclamation declaring the Territory in a state of insurrection, and take the field.  The United States troops are stationed at Lecompton to protect the Government property, but will not interfere in the fight.  Col.  Titus has not been killed, but was badly wounded, and a prisoner.  His ransom was obtained by the restoration of a piece of cannon, taken by the Palmetta Rifles at Lawrence.  Reinforcements are daily arriving, and I do not think 'twould be advisable for us to take the field with less than two thousand men.  We are very badly supplied with cannon, having only a few six-pounders, and the enemy have a greater number and larger pieces.  Our only chance will be to take their's from them.  

"We are regularly in for it now, and in a few days will actually be engaged in a civil war--which will, I presume, result in a dissolution of the Union." 

The writer clearly shows that the invaders of Kansas anticipate the dissolution of the Union as the result of the civil war which they delight to find themselves "regularly in for," and that Woodson, the acting Governor of the Territory, is an accomplice with the in the conspiracy.  In other words, the power of the Federal Government in Kansas is used with a view to destroy the Union.  That, however, is but a small part of the crimes of which the Pierce Administration and the "Democratic" party are guilty.

John Brown's Son Reminisces About Antebellum Kansas, 1903

From the Wichita Daily Eagle of Wichita, Kansas on September 20, 1903.

----

FIGHT FOUGHT OVER. 

John Brown's Son Talks of Border Warfare. 

BATTLE OF BLACK JACK 

How Little Band Routed Missouri Raiders. 

The famous old Kansas border fighters who fought under the man whose body lies a mouldering in the grave, but whose soul goes marching on, greated one another in Portland yesterday after many years, says the Portland Oregonian. One was Solomon Brown, one of the twenty children of the celebrated abolitionist; the other was August Bondi, a wiry little old man, with the dark eyes and expressive face of the people of his native city, Venice.  Mr. Bondi,  a prominent citizen of Salina, Kan., is a veteran of the civil war, visiting Portland from the late San Francisco Grand Army encampment.  He was first sergeant, Company K, Fifth Kansas, and is now 70 years old.  An adventurous old man, inspired by the character of Kossuth and his compatriots under whom he fought for Hungarian liberty, he had come to Kansas in early days and at once thrown his aid to the cause of the Free State party. 

Solomon Brown is a gigantic chip of[f] the old block in appearance.  His resemblance to John Brown's portrait is striking.  A man of low voice and unassuming manners, he impresses one as of the genuine old fighting stock to which he belongs.  He is said to have been a man of enormous physical strength in his prime, though now he is crippled in the right leg from being thrown from a horse some years ago. 

In company with Mr. Bondi, an Oregonian reporter they visited Solomon Brown yesterday at his residence, 353 Grant street, and listened to the story of his famous battle of Black Jack in the old Kansas border days. 

"The battle of Black Jack was the first battle of the war between the north and the south," said Solomon Brown. 

"Yes," said August Bondi, "and its result forecasted the result of the war.  That was on the second day of June, 1856.  Lord! how hungry we were!" 

"That was 47 years ago," said Solomon Brown. "You tell the young man the story, Bondi, if he wants it." 

Out came the reporter's pencil, and August Bondi began: 

"There has been fighting in Kansas, you know, for many months, but when Wilson Shannon was appointed governor of that state by Franklin Pierce the day was looking dark for the freesoilers.  The border ruffian invasion was on, legalized by Shannon, who armed the pro-slavery forces with guns from the United States arsenal at Liberty, Clay county, Missouri." 

"Old Jim Lane afterward burned the town," said Solomon Brown. 

"The Kansans," continued the other, "were all new settlers and poor; their seed grain, their horses and cattle were their only dependence for the future, and these were taken from them by force or destroyed, while many men, the support of those struggling families, were murdered in cold blood.  But old John Brown went marching on.  With eleven of us for a nucleus, he prepared to gather a force to repel the border ruffians. 

"The little company made up of John Brown, Jr., captain; four of his sons--Owen, Solomon, Fred and Oliveu; Charles Kaiser, Theodore Wiener, August Bondi, George Townsley, Ben Cochrane, and Henry Thompson, brother-in-law of John Brown, Sr." 

"We were guided by a settler, Howard Carpenter, to a secure hiding place in the virgin forest of eastern Kansas, on Tauy Creek, near the Douglas county line.  There was a reward out for each of our heads, but nobody was trying to earn it." 

"Why?" asked the reporter. 

The Tragedy of the American Buffalo

Very large pile of American buffalo skulls, photo taken 1870.  Source: Wikipedia.

The word "pile" seems a hopelessly inadequate description for this image.

The American Buffalo almost went extinct in the nineteenth century due to people over-hunting them for food, clothing, and sport.  Only a few small herds managed to escape the extermination, creating a severe genetic bottleneck.  Worse, scientists have recently discovered that the genetic makeup of the majority of these herds are contaminated with cattle DNA.  (Unlike the progeny of donkeys and horses, the offspring of cattle and buffalo are generally fertile.)

The following is from the second chapter of The Overland Stage to California by Frank A. Root, published in 1901.   This chapter is actually about the Prairie ("the Great American Desert", as he refers to it), but talks in great detail about buffalo, which I have excerpted and arranged here.  Root was in Kansas Territory in the 1850s and '60s and drove overland stagecoaches during that time, and his book recounts many of his firsthand experiences.  You can view the book on google books for free if you wish to read this chapter, or the book, in its entirety.

CHAPTER II.

THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT, HOME OF THE BUFFALO. 

The first buffaloes I ever saw were in the streets of Atchison.  It was in the early '60s, during the war; but after that I saw them on several occasions.  These were domesticated and yoked together, having been driven in by a ranchman from the Republican valley, hauling produce to the Atchison market.  They attracted considerable attention from the business men.  They seemed to travel all right, were extremely gentle, and, under the yoke, appeared to work quite as nicely as the patient ox.  Nothing particularly strange was thought about the matter at the time, when there were immense herds of buffalo roaming wild on the plains of western Kansas; but I never, after that year, saw any of the shaggy animals yoked and doing the work of oxen. 

The number of buffalo in the great West less than half a century ago was roughly estimated at from ten to twenty millions. Careful authorities put the number at fifteen millions.  They once existed in New York, a number of buffaloes having been killed in the western part of that state, near where the bustling commercial city of Buffalo is built, which will perpetuate the name of the now practically extinct American animal.  In western Pennsylvania, near the salt-licks, a number of buffaloes were found; and according to an early explorer, a few head were found in ... large numbers in Virginia.  According to early writers, they were found in the Carolinas and along the northeast coast of Georgia, the only record known of their existence on the Atlantic seaboard.  East of the Mississippi, they ranged south as far as northern Alabama and were found in places throughout Mississippi and Louisiana.  Large numbers abounded in Texas.  They were also found in the northern provinces of Mexico, New Mexico, a portion of Utah, and also in Idaho, Washington, and in the arctic circle as far north as Great Slave Lake.  ...   

A HERD OF BUFFALO ON THE PLAINS IN WESTERN KANSAS
Pg 26 of The Overland Stage to California by Frank A. Root (pub 1901)

History informs us they were found by Coronado on his march northward from Mexico as early as 1585, between the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains; later they were found by Lewis and Clarke, Zebulon M. Pike, and Long, in the early part of the present century; still later by Fremont and others, who made tours of exploration through the great West.  Often they were seen by tourists and hunters in immense herds, numbering hundreds of thousands. ... 

... Daniel Boone, the famous Kentucky hunter, once found a herd of buffaloes in his state which numbered 1000 head.  That was then believed to be a big herd but it was not then known that there were herds numbering millions of buffalo grazing on the plains embraced in the region known as the "Great American Desert," lying between the Missouri and the Rockies. 

The pioneers of Kansas, particularly a number who settled on the frontier--along the upper valley of the Smoky Hill, Republican, Solomon and Saline rivers--practically owed their lives to the existence of the buffalo.  For years in the '60s a goodly portion of the meat consumed by those early settlers was cut from the carcass of the noble, shaggy animal which so long existed as monarch of the plains.  Thousands of people who at an early day went overland to Utah, Oregon and California drew their supply of meat from the buffalo.  Where this life-preserver was found, it was known that, by following their paths, nearby water would be found.  The principal article of fuel found on the frontier for cooking the meat of the buffalo was the dried excrement of the animal, known in early Kansas and Nebraska parlance as "buffalo-chips."  The buffalo was one of the noblest of all animals.  It seemed indispensable.  It furnished man with an abundance of the most wholesome meat; the hide was made into shoes and garments worn during the day, and it made a comfortable bed and supplied warm covering in or out of doors at night. 

The building of the Pacific railroad was made possible at so early a day simply because the buffalo existed.  From the mighty herds the vast army of railroad builders drew their daily supply of fresh meat, and thousands of the animals were annually slaughtered for food while pushing to completion, in the '60s, the great transcontinental line.  For a few years in the '70s the railways did an enormous business carrying East train loads of hides and buffalo bones, these for a number of years being the principal articles of commerce gathered from the plains.  For years the great West resembled a charnel-house. Losing their crops, the pioneer settlers gathered up the bleached bones that covered the land, and they were shipped to the carbon works in the East, for the sale of which enough was realized to enable them to pull through another season. ... 

... The last herd of buffalo I ever saw in the wild, native state was in the fall of 1870.  It was along the Kansas Pacific railroad, near the head waters of the Smoky Hill river.  The railroad had just been built, and the animals seemed terribly frightened at the cars.  In their mad race westward along the railroad, they actually kept up with the passenger-train, which was moving along from fifteen to eighteen miles an hour.  The race became exciting, and all the passengers--many of whom had never before seen a buffalo--held their breath in suspense.  It was noticed that the animals never changed their course, but kept steadily coming nearer the train, apparently determined to cross the track at the curve a short distance beyond.  Not caring for a collision which might possibly derail the train, the engineer gave up the race and whistled "down brakes," stopping within a few rods of the animals to let them cross.  A parting salute was given by some of the passengers, who emptied the chambers of their six-shooters among the beasts, but which they did not appear to mind any more than a blast from a toy pop-gun.  While these animals used to cover the prairies and plains of western Kansas and Nebraska in countless millions, hardly one of them is now left to remind us of the once noble and powerful herds originally known in the great West as "crooked-back oxen." 

The best meat we used to get on the frontier in the early days was buffalo.  The markets at Atchison, Leavenworth, Topeka and a number of other Kansas towns, as early as 1857 and for some years following, were often supplied with buffalo meat, brought in from central Kansas.  No beef, it was said, could excel, even if it could equal, that of the buffalo; especially the hump upon the shoulders, which was invariably spoken of as a choice morsel."  Rich, juicy buffalo steaks and superb roasts were as common in the '60s on the plains as were other fresh meats in the best of well-regulated city markets. ... 

... What a shame, what an outrage on civilization! that the buffalo ... was so ruthlessly slaughtered.  Millions of the shaggy beasts were indiscriminately shot down by the white man in the '60s and '70s apparently just for the "fun of the thing." 

I remember well in the early '60s, while residing at Atchison, when long ox trains, loaded exclusively with buffalo hides, frequently were brought in from the plains by freighters.  The wagons were unloaded on the levee and the skins shipped on board steamboats down the Missouri river for St. Louis and Cincinnati.  Later, I saw hundreds of wagon-loads of these skins on the plains, in 1863-'65, when riding on the overland stage along the Platte and Little Blue rivers.  Several years afterward such trains were frequent sights at various towns on the Missouri.  Most of the wagon trains bearing the cargoes of untanned robes from the "Great American Desert" were from the Platte valley; some bound for Omaha, some for Nebraska City, some for St. Joseph, and most of the balance for Atchison and Leavenworth.  Hundreds of wagon-loads of the skins from the plains went into Kansas City from the "Old Santa Fe Trail." ... 

... According to a writer in Harper's Magazine a few years ago, Fort Benton--a military post about 2500 miles up the Missouri from St. Louis--in 1876 along sent 80,000 buffalo hides to market.  Toward the close of their career on the plains the animals had divided into two great herds--the southern and northern.  The great southern herd, however, was the first to go, being practically extinct at the close of 1872.  A few straggling herds only, after that date, were to be found.  The early '80s was about the last seen of the wild buffalo of the plains, which a quarter of a century or more before was so numerous between the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains.  The greatest slaughter of the beasts was in 1872-'74, when, it was estimated, the number slain ran up into the millions. 

Hundreds of the best shots from all over this country and Europe, in the early '70s, were on hand to take a farewell hung before the shaggy bison became extinct.  Scores of noted Nimrods came from England, Scotland, Russia, and Germany--in fact, from almost every part of Europe.  The Grand Duke Alexis, youngest son of Emperor Alexander, of Russia, with quite a numerous retinue, came with a party from St. Petersburg, and went on a tour through "Buffalo Land" in the winter of 1871-'72. ...  

... During the immense overland traffic in the early '60s, portions of the plains were fairly white with bones of the buffalo.  The animals had first been killed by the Indians for their food and robes, and later, millions of the shaggy beasts had been indiscriminately slaughtered by the white man just for sport, their carcasses left a prey for the wolves, and their bones to bleach by the wayside.  In the '50s and '60's their bones were scattered promiscuously in center localities for hundreds of miles in central and western Kansas, and between Fort Kearney and Julesburg along the Platte, as far back from the river as the eye could reach.  

No one seeing the apparently endless mass of bones even dreamed that any use would ever be made of them; but after the completion of the Union Pacific railway and its branches across the "Great American Desert," and, later, the building of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe line into the Southwest, an immense new industry was early inaugurated in Kansas.  Kansas was the natural home of the buffalo, and, during the '70s, hundreds of merchants in the western part of the state had a regular trade established and did a lively business buying and shipping buffalo bones to Eastern markets.