FROM
THE KANSAS COLLECTION BOOKS
William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas
TERRITORIAL HISTORY,
Part 24
THE LAW AND ORDER PARTY ORGANIZED, PART 2.
It happened that a few days after, Rev. Pardee Butler, a minister
of the Christian Church (Campbellite, perhaps) who had a claim on
which he was living, some twelve miles out of the city, came into
the town of Atchison. He was an uncompromising Anti-slavery man,
and had neither the craft nor desire to hide his sentiments. He
spread them broadcast with a tongue not to be bridled, and a
spirit that brooked and received no denial. He did not seek a
controversy, but he showed no desire to avoid one if forced upon
him. Consequently he was well known before he came into Atchison
on the morning of August 16, as a Free-state man, if not an
abolitionist, who proposed to say what he had to say at all times
and in all places. It did not take long to get him into a
controversy, and to his credit, it is written, he condemned in
strong terms the outrage upon Kelley and the resolutions passed
by the meeting before mentioned. His conversation was with Robert
S. Kelley, Postmaster of Atchison, and assistant editor of the
Squatter Sovereign. On the following morning Kelley appeared at
the hotel where Butler had spent the night, accompanied by a mob
of accomplices, and demanded that he should sign the resolutions,
to do which, after the conversation of the previous day, would
have stamped him as a cowardly hypocrite, and a poltroon of the
most despicable kind. As he was neither, he declined, whereupon
he was seized by the mob under the command of Kelley, treated
with every indignity that cowardly strength against a powerless
individual could devise, - threatened, buffeted, insulted, for
two hours, and, at last, with his face painted black, placed upon
a raft and suffered to float down the Missouri River. He got
ashore some six miles below Atchison and returned to his claim.
The above shows something of the sentiment prevailing in the
Territory at the Pro-slavery centers of population along the
border. There was little chance for free-state settlers to avoid
trouble except by silence or dissimulation.
The Free-state men had also their secret organizations. The
"Kansas Legion" was a military organization, purely
defensive in its character. Its members were organized into
companies, battalions and regiments. They were officered, and
imperfectly armed with rifles and pistols sent from the East by
individuals and societies, and not as was averred, by the
Emigrant Aid Society. It was the resultant of the secret
Pro-slavery organizations of Missouri, pledged to place slavery
in Kansas at all hazards. It was organized long after they were
known to exist; to protect the Free-state settlers against the
insidious and merciless ravages of the "Blue Lodges,"
"Sons of the South," "Social Bands," and
other like organizations scattered all along the Missouri border.
One Pat. Laughlin became a member, and did considerable work in
organizing companies of the Legions at different points in the
Territory. He subsequently divulged what he knew of the
organization, and thereby became justly execrable in the eyes of
his friends whom he had betrayed. A fierce altercation occurred
between him and a member of the Legion, named Samuel Collins,
near Doniphan. Friends of both parties to the dispute were
present and nearly all armed. In the affray Laughlin shot Collins
dead on the spot, and was himself slightly wounded. This occurred
October 25.
No attempt was made by the appointed peace officers of the
Territory to bring the guilty parties participating in the
Atchison outrages, or in the murder of Collins, to justice.
Laughlin, so soon as his wound would allow, obtained a situation
in a store in Atchison and there lived unindicted, and apparently
protected and respected for his red-handed crime.
With these and like outrages all over the Territory, no appeal
was made by Free-state men to the Territorial courts for redress
or protection.
A COLLISION.
The state of affairs above described could not long exist without
an open rupture between the antagonistic elements thus daily
brought in conflict, involving more widespread and serious
troubles than the innumerable personal and local difficulties
which were everywhere rife, similar in character to those above
mentioned. It came at last out of a personal quarrel between
Charles W. Dow and Franklin M. Coleman, which resulted in the
shooting and death of Dow by Coleman. They had taken adjoining
claims some ten miles south of Lawrence, at a place known as
Hickory Point. Dow as a Free-state man, Coleman, a Pro-slavery
Missourian. Much bad blood had been stirred up in the
neighborhood among the settlers in establishing their boundaries,
and other squatter rights to their several claims, the parties to
the various disputes generally taking sides in accordance with
their political affiliations. The particulars of the dispute
which led to the death of Dow hold no important relation to the
history which follows. On the 21st of November, the disputes were
ended so far as Dow was concerned by his being shot dead in the
road by Coleman, while walking away from Coleman's house. The
murder was cold-blooded and deliberate, whatever might have been
the previous provocation. It occurred at 1 o'clock P. M. The body
was suffered to remain until after sunset, uncared for by Coleman
or any of his friends, many of whom knew of the murder. It was
removed by Jacob Branson, a
friend of Dow, with whom he was living at the time his death
occurred. Coleman fled during the night to Westport, Mo., and
subsequently surrendered himself to Governor Shannon for trial.
On the Monday following the funeral of Dow; nearly a hundred
indignant Free-state settlers held a meeting at the place of the
murder. Among those who participated in the proceedings were S.
F. Tappan and S. M. Wood, of Lawrence, and J. B. Abbott, of
Wakarusa. Resolutions of condolence with the friends of the
deceased were adopted, and a committee appointed to ferret out
the murderer and his accomplices (it being generally believed
that the murder had been preconcerted) and bring them to justice.
Violent speeches were indulged in, and a proposition made by some
to burn Coleman's house, which was voted down by the meeting. It
was burned, nevertheless, during the following night, as was the
house of Buckley, his intimate friend. It is quite certain that
Coleman would have met the death penalty could he have been found
while the excitement was at its height. Jacob Branson and
others breathed dire threats against him and his accomplices. The
blood of the Free-state men was fairly up, and gave just cause
for apprehension on the part of some of Coleman's friends, who,
perhaps, had their fears unnaturally excited from their own
knowledge that they were not entirely guiltless, and were under
the suspicion and surveillance of the vigilance committee
appointed. Among those who had most cause for fear was one
Harrison Buckley, an intimate friend of Coleman, who had, on the
morning of the murder, threatened Dow's life to the extreme of
aiming his loaded gun at him. He had fled with Coleman, but
returned. His conscience told him that his life was not safe,
with Dow dead and his friend Branson free to avenge his death. He
accordingly swore out a warrant for a Justice of the Peace named
Cameron, for the arrest of Branson, on the
grounds that he believed his life in danger at his hands, he
having made threats against him.*
----
* Phillips, in his "Conquest of Kansas," p. 155, gives
the positive impression that Cameron was commissioned a Justice
of the Peace by Sheriff Jones, in order to get a man in the
county who would grant the warrant required. If true, it but adds
to the infamy of Jones and Cameron; if false, it does not detract
from the interest of the story.)
----
SHERIFF JONES.
The Sheriff of Douglas County, appointed by the Territorial
Legislature, was Samuel J. Jones, Postmaster of Westport, Mo. He
had no interest in Kansas beyond that of other border ruffians
who were attempting to force slavery into the Territory. He was a
Democratic office holder of Missouri and a resident of that
State. The reader will remember how he had already identified
himself with Kansas affairs by leading the raid of Missourians on
the ballot-box at the Bloomington precinct in the Second
District, at the election of March 30. He was perhaps as well
known and universally despised by the settlers of Douglas County
as any man in the country. Had he been selected by the
Legislature for the office to which he was appointed with special
reference to his obnoxiousness to the inhabitants, and with the
intent to humiliate and exasperate them to the utmost, a better
selection could not have been made. It is passing strange that
the historians of the times, in enumerating the numerous outrages
perpetrated upon the Free-state inhabitants, have given so little
prominence to the crowning insult of appointing Jones as Sheriff
of Douglas County.
Among the lowest classes of Western Missouri, he was rated as an
oracle of political wisdom, and a model of physical prowess and
invincible courage. He was a most subservient tool of the
Democratic party, which to him, was the champion and protector of
slavery, and the source of his own income. He had been one of the
foremost men in Missouri to intermeddle with Kansas affairs, and
was the accepted bondsman of some of the worst men indicted for
crime in the Territory. He was a courageous bully, and braved
dangers for his reprehensible principles, from which many fled
who now pronounce him a coward.
To this man, with hands red with the blood of the murdered Dow,
Coleman fled. Jones took him into his custody and under his
protection, and, after taking him to Shawnee Mission to consult
with Gov. Shannon, started with his prisoner and friend for
Lecompton, where he was to be examined for his confessed crime
before a friendly court. On the way he was met by friends who
warned him of danger, and he retreated to Shawnee, returning
shortly after to Lecompton by a way to avoid the men who were
said to be hunting for Coleman. He had his prisoner safely
ensconced at Lecompton at the time of the Hickory Point
indignation meeting of Monday, and was in the vicinity at that
time ready to assist by all legal manes in shielding the
murderers and annoying the free-state men, who, ignoring his
authority, were bent on justice through more direct and efficient
measures.
THE ARREST AND RESCUE OF JACOB BRANSON.
Armed with the warrant issued by Squire Cameron, and
accompanied by Buckley and some twelve or fifteen other
Pro-slavery men, Jones proceeded to Branson's
house, and, late in the evening of November 26, there arrested
him.
The friends of Branson were informed of the writ in the hands of
Jones for his arrest before it had been served. They had
well-grounded fears that Branson, once in the
hands of his sworn enemies, whose lives he had threatened, and
who had already murdered his friend, would never get away alive.
They lost not time in giving the alarm, and planning his rescue.
Maj. J. B. Abbott was a brave, cool and determined friend of Branson,
and took the lead in planning and directing the rescuing party.
He was seconded by Col. Samuel N. Wood, who remained in the
vicinity to see the fight out, as he was a fighting man. Miner B.
Hupp rode through the darkness to the houses of the Free-state
men and rallied them to the rescue. The place of the meeting was
Maj. Abbott's house, and the time "as quick as the men could
get there." The men came in hot and angry haste. At 11 P.
M., a dozen men were at Abbott's house. He was away "over to
Estabrook's to see if he could see or hear anything of the party
gone to arrest Branson," as it was about
time for them to pass along the road on their return with their
prisoner. Mrs. Abbott did duty as a cheerful hostess should. She
took charge of the boys' guns, and otherwise showed the
cooperation of a brave and determined wife of a brave and
determined man. Abbott came in soon after with no tidings. While
they were discussing the chances of their taking the prisoner to
Lecompton by some other route, or hanging him summarily without
the benefit of even a mock trial, Kennedy, one of the party, who
had been out on the watch, came in with the announcement that
"they were coming up the road toward Blanton's Bridge,"
Below is given Maj. J. R. Kennedy's account of the rescue from a
letter read at the Old Settlers' meeting held at Bismarck Grove,
near Lawrence, September 15 and 16, 1879, in commemoration of the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the State.
Mrs. Abbott handed the boys their guns, and they did go out with
a rush; Abbott going first, followed by Philip Hupp; then came
Capt. Hutchinson, Paul Jones and others. We turned to the left
around the corner of the house into the road, a few rods in front
of the horsemen. Phil. Hupp was the first man to cross the road.
He said afterward he was watching the man with the gray horse,
Sheriff Jones, and he did watch him sure enough. Next to Hupp was
Paul Jones, and both armed with squirrel rifles. Next came Capt.
Hutchinson, armed with two large stones; next were Holloway and
myself, I thinking Capt., H. a good man to stay with, as he had
been three years in the Mexican war. The rest of the boys ranged
along the side of the road near the house. This was about the
order we occupied when the party approached close to those in the
road and very close to those by the side of the road. Mr. Hupp
being in front, and seeing the boys scattered along from where he
was to the house, called out, "What the h--l are you doing
there? Here is the place for you?" They then all crowded up
rapidly in front of the other party, when one of them said,
"What's up?" Maj. Abbott replied, "That is what we
want to know," which remark was followed by a shot from our
side. The Major had a self-cocking revolver, and he had, in the
excitement, pulled it a little to hard, causing it to go off.
Then the question was asked him again by the other side,
"What's up?" Thinking of what Mr. Hupp had said in the
house ("that they might hang Branson at
once before returning"), I remarked to Maj. Abbott:
"Ask them if Branson is there." He did so, and the
answer was, "Yes, I am here, a prisoner." Three or four
of our men spoke at once, Maj. Abbott, Col. Wood and others whom
I do not remember, saying, "Come out of that," or
"Come over to your friends," or perhaps both were said.
Branson replied,"They say they will shoot
me, too." Branson then said, "I will
come, if they do shoot, " starting his mule. The man who was
leading it let the halter strap slip through his hands very
quietly. The rest of the Pro-slavery party raised their shot-guns
and cocked them. Our little crowd raised their guns, and were
ready in as good time as the others. Sam. Wood and two or three
others helped Branson. Wood asked Branson,
"Is this your mule?" "No." was the reply;
whereupon Wood kicked the mule and said, "Go back to your
masters, d---n you." In the meantime, Branson had
disappeared and was seen no more by these brave shot-gun men.
About this time, some one of them said, "Why, Sam. Wood, you
are very brave tonight; you must want to fight." Col. Wood
replied that he was "always ready for a fight." Just at
this moment, Sheriff Jones interposed, saying, "There is no
use to shed blood in this affair, but it will be settled soon in
a way that will not be pleasant to Abolitionists," and
started to ride through those standing in the road. He did not
then know old Philip Hupp, but soon made his acquaintance, and I
do not think he will be stopped by death any quicker than Philip
Hupp stopped him that night. Just as soon as he started, old
Philip set the trigger and cocked his old squirrel rifle quicker
than he or any other person ever did it before, and said to
Sheriff Jones, "Halt, or I will blow your d---d brains out
in a moment." He stopped and stayed right there, saying
quietly to Mr. Hupp, "Don't shot." There was then a
general talk among all hands, and we were told about "The
Kansas militia, 3,000 strong, that in three days time would wipe
the d---d Abolition town of Lawrence out and corral all the
Abolitionist and make pets of them" However, Col. Sam. Wood
and others out-talked them so bad they were glad to get away on
any terms.
Miner Hupp, who wanted to square accounts with his two men, was
prevented by his father form doing so. It was not his fault, as
he had a "bead" on them several times, but his father
was watching him all the time after he got Sheriff Jones in
shape. * * * * * *
According to my recollection, the names of the men who took part
in the rescue were Maj. J. B. Abbott, Capt. Philip Hutchinson,
Paul Jones, Philip Hupp, Miner B. Hupp, Collins Holloway, Edmund
Curless, Lafayette Curless, Isaac Shappet, Jones Smith, William
Hughes, Elmore Allen, Col. S. M. Wood, ---- Smith* and the
writer, J. R. Kennedy.
----------------
* Samuel C. Smith, of Lawrence. Other authorities name, in
addition to those given by Mr. Kennedy as members of the party,
T. Nichols, Rev. Julius Eliot, William Ears and A. Rowley.
----------------
The numerical strength of the parties of this bloodless encounter
was about equal - some fifteen on each side.
Sheriff Jones and his party, after a long parley, rode off in the
bright moonlight toward Franklin, breathing threats of quick and
terrible retribution on the "Abolitionists" of
Lawrence.
The rescuing party, with Branson, held a
jubilant consultation, as to future proceedings, at Abbott's
house, and decided to enter Lawrence with their rescue prisoner
in the true military style of conquering heroes. Abbott had a
drum, a sword, and perhaps, some other military paraphernalia.
None of the party but himself could beat a drum as it should be
beaten on such an occasion, so he gave the sword, the insignia of
authority to Col. Wood, and assigned to himself, with becoming
modesty, and more humble and laborious duty of beating the drum,
as the noisy herald of their victory. Thus officered and
accoutered, the exultant party set out for Lawrence, and early on
the summer morning aroused the sleepy and harmless denizens of
the abolition city by their shouts and din as they marched up the
main street.
The murder, the indignation meeting, the arrest of Branson
and his rescue, had all occurred miles from Lawrence,
and, excepting Wood and Smith, no persons living within miles of
the town had taken any part in the affair. Wood was known to be a
man who fought on his own hook, and assumed the personal
responsibility of his own acts.
The party reached the residence of Charles Robinson about
daybreak, and stopped for a few moments to consult with him. He
told them that it was a matter of their own, and that they should
not expect him or the citizens of Lawrence to have anything to do
with it. From there they marched down into the village, and were
not long in gathering an excited crowd of eager listeners, to
whom they narrated the events of the night and the parting
threats against Lawrence which Jones had made when he left,
bereft of his prisoner.
A meeting of citizens was called, for the consideration of the
situation, at which Col. S. M. Wood presided. He told the story
of the rescue, the threats which Jones had made, and enlisted the
fully sympathy of his audience. He was followed by old Jacob Branson,
the rescued prisoner, who, in broken and ungrammatical phrase,
and with tears coursing down his wrinkled and bronzed face, told
the story of his friend's taking off, his own arrest and rescue,
alluding to his anxious wife, now alone in his cabin, not knowing
whether he was dead or alive. He offered to leave the town if the
citizens desired, rather than compromise and bring upon them the
vengeance of Jones and his army for his and his neighbors
misfortunes and quarrels, in which they had taken no part, and
for which they were in no way responsible. Nobody in that
assembly suggested that Branson should go. The
meeting organized for defense, by, on the motion of G. P. Lowery,
Esq., appointing a committee of safety, consisting of ten of the
leading citizens. The committee reported, as the sense of the
meeting, the following:
We, the citizens of Kansas Territory, find ourselves in a
condition of confusion and defencelessness (sic) so great, that
open outrage and mid-day murders are becoming the rule, and quiet
and security the exception. And, whereas, the law, the only
authoritative engine to correct and regulate the excesses and
wrongs of society, has never yet been extended to our Territory -
thus leaving us with no fixed or definite rules of action, or
source of redress - we are reduced to the necessity of organizing
ourselves together on the basis of first principles, and
providing for the common defense and general security. And here
we pledge ourselves to the resistance of lawlessness and outrage
at all times, when required by the officers who may from time to
time be chosen to superintend the movements of the organization.
The report was adopted, and the meeting adjourned to await
further developments. Thus far, Lawrence had not been identified
with the affair. At the meeting above reported, a resolution
approving the rescue of Branson was rejected.
On the loss of his prisoner, whom he had suffered to walk away
from him without firing a gun. Sheriff Jones went to Franklin.
There he wrote and dispatched by special messenger a letter to
Col. Boone, of Westport, Mo., calling for help. The contents of
the letter are not known. As his messenger drove off with it, he
himself divulged its character in the following emphatic remarks:
"That man is taking my dispatch to Missouri and by ------ I
will have revenge before I see Missouri!" Some of his
Pro-slavery friends protested, in Jones' presence, against the
irregularity of calling on Missouri instead of the Governor of
the Territory, whereupon he wrote and sent by another messenger
the following message to Gov. Shannon:
DOUGLAS COUNTY, K. T., November 27, 1855.
SIR - Last night I, with a posse of ten men, arrested one Jacob
Branson, by virtue of a peace warrant, regularly issued,
who, on our return, was rescued by a party of forty armed men,
who rushed upon us suddenly from behind a house by the roadside,
all armed to the teeth with Sharpe's rifles.
You may consider an open rebellion as having already commenced;
and I call upon you for THREE THOUSAND men to carry out the laws.
Mr. Hargus (the bearer of this letter) will give you more
particularly the circumstances.
Most respectfully,
SAMUEL J. JONES, Sheriff of Douglas County.
To His Excellency, WILSON SHANNON,
Governor of Kansas Territory.