History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri : written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns, and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri; a reliable and detailed history of Clay and Platte Counties --their pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens., Part 66

Author:
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: St. Louis : National Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 1156

USA > Missouri > Platte County > History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri : written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns, and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri; a reliable and detailed history of Clay and Platte Counties --their pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens. > Part 66
USA > Missouri > Clay County > History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri : written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns, and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri; a reliable and detailed history of Clay and Platte Counties --their pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens. > Part 66

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

During the whole time of Col. Price's occupation of New Mexico it was his rule to keep one or more detachments from each or at least from most of the companies in the country, from 20 to 75 or 100 miles from Santa Fe, in charge of the horses and other stock, in order to have the stock grazed and that they might be in proper condition for service when needed. Hence, when an expedition was to be made the members of the different companies were so scattered that they could scarcely be sent on a campaign, in complete companies, as orig- inally organized ; but detachments of several companies would be

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HISTORY OF PLATTE COUNTY.

thrown together to form one. In that way volunteers from the two Platte county companies became members of nearly every command that did active field duty, and one or more of them took part in nearly every engagement fought.

But only the engagements in which a considerable detachment or whole company from this county participated have been referred to in the foregoing pages.1

RETURN OF BOTH COMPANIES HOME.

The term for which the Second Missouri, Col. Price's regiment, (including Capts. Wood's and Morin's Platte county companies) en- listed, expired in the summer of 1847, and during the month of Sep- tember of that year the regiment returned to Fort Leavenworth and were honorably mustered out of the service. They were succeeded in New Mexico by other volunteers, from Missouri and Illinois.

CAPT. DENVER'S COMPANY.

In the spring of 1847 Gov. Edwards issued a further call for volun- teers in this State, under which a regiment was recruited. Capt. Denver, afterwards the well known Gen. Denver, for whom Denver City, Col., was named, was then a resident of Platte county, and organized a company, partly from this county, for service in that regiment. About thirty of Capt. Denver's company enlisted from Platte county.

The regiment rendezvoused at Fort Leavenworth and thence was ordered to join Gen. Scott in Old Mexico, going by way of St. Louis and New Orleans. It reached its destination just before the battle of Contreras, and in time to take part in that engagement. The next day, on the 20th of August, 1847, the success of the American armies at that place was followed by Scott's gallant victory at Cherubusco.

These were the only engagements in which Capt. Denver's men took part during the war, for the City of Mexico was occupied soon after- wards by the American troops, following which the war virtually came to a close. The treaty of peace, however, was not signed until Feb- ruary 2, 1848.

1 For the same reason no further mention has been made of Gen. Kearney's Cali- fornia expedition, and Gen. Doniphan's Chihuahua campaign after the separation of the companies from this county from the commands of those officers, in New Mexico. To have given an account of all the results of the Mexican War, with which each per- son from this county was connected, would have required more space than could be allowed in a work of this kind.

Mr. Todd and perhaps others from Platte county were with Gen. Doniphan.

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HISTORY OF PLATTE COUNTY.

All considered, Platte county furnished over 225 men for service in the Mexican War, volunteers as gallant and faithful as any who went out to do battle under their country's flag. Whenever and wherever their duty called them they went, and in every situation in which they were placed, they acquitted themselves with credit and honor to their country and the American arms.

Most of these honored veterans of the war with Mexico have passed away, but the glory of their achievements and the splendid inherit- ance won by them for posterity and the country - its vast stretch of territory from the Plains to the Pacific, and its power and worth and grandeur - remain, monuments nobler and more lasting than molded bronze or chiseled marble, to testify through all the ages to one of the most brilliant series of triumphs at arms of which the pages of his- tory give any account.

Some of the members of the company under Captain W. P. Childs and Jesse Morin, who participated in this struggle were W. P. Childs, Captain Co. F., Third Kentucky Infantry ; Jesse Morin, Captain Co. C, Price's Missouri regiment; Geo. W. Riley, Jas. H. Burch, James Wynn, Thos. A. Snoddy, Eli Gabbert, John Elliott, O. H. P. Lucas, John Ussary, Jas. W. Boyd, Patrick Kegard, John Hinton, W. W. Cox, Geo. W. Patterson, J. F. Mooton, R. L. Sullivan, W. T. Han- cock, A. Chance, H. C. Ray, Will Endicott, Davis Lanter, H. W. Wright, J. H. Nash, Will Boydston, Dabney Perkins, John Billott, Amos Isaacs, Jas. L. Webb, F. Luttey, T. M. Thompson, Robt. Bleazard, Elisha Haydon, John L. Merchant, Amton Poss, Jas. H. Griffith, W. S. Rogers, E. C. Thomas, Danl. Ketchum, Geo. Mellon, C. F. Chrisman, Fred Graham, J. M. Littlejohn.

SOCIETY OF VETERANS OF THE MEXICAN WAR.

In 18- a union of Mexican War veterans was organized in this county, consisting of all the old ex-soldiers living in the county who had served in the war, from whatever State or county they may have served. The headquarters of the union is at Platte City and Judge W. P. Childs, of the probate court, is president of the association.

CHAPTER IX. THE KANSAS TROUBLES.

Slavery Under the Constitution - Anti-Slavery Agitation - Beginning of the Fight in Congress - " The Wilmot Proviso " -The California Bill - Slavery in Kansas Ter- ritory - Settling Kansas - Anti-Slavery Colonization - Anti-Slavery Emigrant Aid Societies - Excitement in Western Missouri -- Insecurity of Slave Property - Fear of Insurrection - The Platte County Self-Defensive Association - Anti-Self-Defen- sive Protest - Citizens' Meeting-Platte County Emigration - Platte City Meet- ing - First Elections - Feeling Preceding the Parkville Luminary Affair -Destruc- tion of the Office - Anti-Slavery Ministers Expelled - Outrage Upon Wm. Phillips - Anti-Slavery Rebellion - Wakarusa War - Taking of Lawrence - Rout of Brown at Ossawatomie - Robbery of Hickory Point - "Heroine of the Kansas War" - Close of the Troubles.

The Kansas troubles grew out of the attempted and finally success- ful exclusion of slavery from Kansas as a State.

SLAVERY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION.

Originally, the institution of slavery in the States where it existed was recognized by the constitution, and the authority was conferred upon Congress to pass laws providing for the return of slaves escaping into other States.1 At that time slavery existed in a majority of the States, and the right to hold and own slaves prevailed everywhere in the Union except where it was expressly prohibited.

If it be true that the Union was formed the better to protect the lives, liberties and property of those forming it, and of their posterity, then the institution of slavery was as much entitled to the protection of the law where it was not expressly prohibited as any other class of property. This was one of the conditions fairly understood and fully agreed upon when the Constitution was adopted.

ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION - BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT IN CONGRESS.

Nevertheless, a strong anti-slavery sentiment soon began to develop in the North. Its first prominent appearance in politics, however, was not until the measure for the admission of Missouri into the Union came up in Congress. Then Mr. Talmadge, a member from New York, offered an amendment to the bill providing, in substance, that

1 Third paragraph, section 2, Article IV., Constitution.

(626)

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HISTORY OF PLATTE COUNTY.

slavery should not thereafter be permitted in the proposed new State.

This proved a fire-brand both in and out of Congress. The people of the South and of Missouri regarded it as an attempt to commit a great outrage. Besides the fact that slaveholders were entitled, un- der the Constitution and the law and common fairness, to equal pro- tection with non-slaveholders in the possession and enjoyment of their property, slavery had always existed in Missouri, from the time of the first white settlements ; and in the treaty of purchase by which Louis- iana was acquired from France, it was expressly stipulated that slavery should be protected. It is therefore not surprising that the proposi- tion, now for the first time openly made in Congress, to violate the express understanding between the parties to the Constitution - an understanding without which the Union never could and never would have been formed - and repudiate the pledge solemnly made in the treaty of purchase with France, by excluding slavery from Missouri, even against the will of the people of the State, created the most intense excitement and alarm. " If they would do this," was every- where asked, " and should succeed, would they not go on step by step in the same direction, and finally attempt to strike down slavery in the States where it had always existed ?"

The discussion that followed the introduction of the Talmadge amend- ment was characterized by great bitterness, and popular feeling was wrought up to a critical point.

Finally, Missouri was admitted as a slave State, but with a pro- vision in the act of admission to the effect that thereafter slavery should be excluded from all the remainder of the territory included in the cession of France, lying north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes north latitude.

With this result, commonly called the Missouri Compromise, the people on neither side of the question were satisfied. Those who favored slavery insisted that the territories were the common property of the people of all the States, and that excepting only the territory specified in the ordinance of 1787, passed two years before the Constitution was adopted, they had the same right to hold and be protected in their slave property in any of the territories, until a State constitution should be adopted and slavery legally excluded by the people of such State, that the non-slaveholder had to be protected therein in his property. On the other hand, the anti-slavery element insisted that Congress had the right, and ought to exclude slavery from all the territories.

Thus, although the question seemed to disappear from politics, and

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HISTORY OF PLATTE COUNTY.

remain out for a time, the anti-slavery agitation was kept up with more or less continuity and energy. Newspapers were established, books published, tracts issued, sermons preached, and every means that could be employed to create popular feeling in favor of the abolition of slavery, was resorted to. The movement constantly increased in strength and importance.

" THE WILMOT PROVISO "- THE CALIFORNIA BILL.

In 1846 the anti-slavery element again brought on a conflict in Congress. Hon. David Wilmot, a member from Pennsylvania, introduced a measure providing that slavery should be prohibited in the territory to be acquired from Mexico as one of the results of the Mexican War. It doubtless required considerable courage of a peculiar sort to bring forward that measure, in face of the fact that the war was being prosecuted and successfully fought by the slave States almost alone, not only without any appreciable help from the opponents of slavery, but with their constant opposition and denun- ciations. Nevertheless, the discussion of the slavery question was again precipitated upon the country, and it created profound excite- ment. Disunion, first advocated in New England,1 now began to be threatened by the South.

Little abatement in the excitement of the times occurred until after the admission of California. At that time Mr. Clay was the genius of compromise, and succeeded, mainly by his personal influence, in getting the so-called omnibus compromise bill through the House. It then passed the Senate, but as separate measures, and thereupon received the approval of the President. The essential features of the com- promise were the admission of Califormia as a free State, and a rigor- ous fugitive slave law. Nothing was said about excluding slavery from the balance of the territory acquired from Mexico.

But the country was destined to have only a brief repose on the slavery question. Population had pushed on West, and was already

1 In 1812 Gen. Fessenden introduced into the Massachusetts Legislature the follow- ing resolution : " And, therefore, be it resolved that we recommend to his Excellency, Caleb Strong, to take the revenue of the State into his own hands, arm and equip the militia, and declare us independent of the Union." Again : William Lloyd Garrison, the father of the anti-slavery agitation, inaugurated the movement by publicly burning the Constitution. Years after that he declared in a speech, "No act of ours do we regard with more conscientious approval or higher satisfaction than when, several years ago, on the 4th of July, in the presence of a great assembly, we committed. to the flames the Constitution of the United States." So, in a speech, Wendell Phillips declared that, " The Constitution of our fathers was a mistake. Tear it to pieces and make a better one. Our aim is disunion, breaking up of the States."

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HISTORY OF PLATTE COUNTY. .

clamoring to enter Kansas and Nebraska. There, or at least in the former, another conflict was soon to occur.

SLAVERY IN KANSAS TERRITORY.

In December, 1852, Willard P. Hall, a member of Congress from Missouri, introduced a bill to organize the Territory of Platte, which had reference to what are now the States of Kansas and Ne- braska. This was followed by the introduction of other bills having in view substantially the same object, one of which was the bill of Senator Dow, of Iowa, for the organization of Nebraska.

In January, 1854, Senator Douglas reported the Dow bill to the Senate, with amendments, and recommended its passage. The bill as amended provided for the organization of two territorial governments, Kansas and Nebraska, and left the question of the exclusion of slavery an open one for the people of each territory to decide when they should come to adopt a constitution and enter the Union as a State. This proposed virtually to repeal the so-called Missouri compromise. Douglas' bill finally passed. It became a law May 30, 1854.

The excitement throughout the country during the discussion upon this bill was indescribable. The most intemperate language was used on both sides, and for a time it seemed that civil war would be inau- gurated. But fortunately the first crisis, at least, of the excitement was passed without bloodshed. The territorial governments of Kan- sas and Nebraska were organized.

It was evident from the first that there would be little or no pro- slavery immigration to Nebraska. Kansas was to be the common ground of settlement for both sides. All eyes, therefore, instinctively turned to the latter territory.

SETTLING KANSAS - ANTI-SLAVERY COLONIZATION .

In the first settlement of Kansas the friends of the pro-slavery cause had a decided advantage. The Territory bordered on a slave State, and emigrants could go from Missouri and settle there in much less time and with far less expense than could those from the Eastern and Northern States. The practical value of this was fully demon- strated by the rapidity with which Eastern Kansas was settled from this State during the first two years after the Territory was opened for settlement.

By those who have no love for Missouri, and whose mental vision has been warped by prejudice, the charge has been made and repeated again and again that the principal part of the early emigration from

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· HISTORY OF PLATTE COUNTY.

this State went there, not in good faith as settlers to remain and build up the country, but solely for the purpose of taking part in the Ter- ritorial elections and to make Kansas a slave State. That some went there for that purpose, after a gigantic system of importing free State voters into the Territory had been inaugurated in the North and East, is not to be denied ; but that the great mass of Missourians who went there went in good faith and with the full intention of making their permanent homes in Kansas is unquestionable.

For a time they largely outnumbered the emigrants from the East and North. This could hardly have been otherwise, considering the relative distance of the country from the original homes of the two classes of emigrants. Nor is it at all strange that many Missourians settled in Kansas during the first year the country was opened for settlement. The first year after the Platte Purchase was opened there was hardly a quarter section of land in the county on which there was not at least one head of a family, and on many there were two or more. These, or at least a large majority of them, were from the adjoining county of Clay. Certainly, it has never been claimed that they came over here simply to vote and then return.

Any one who knows anything about the history of the settlement of new counties which have long been on the very border of civiliza- tion can easily understand why the eastern border counties of Kansas were so quickly settled by Missourians. Open Oklahoma to-morrow and its northern border would be far more rapidly settled by Kansans than Eastern Kansas was by Missourians. It is easy to make whole- sale charges, and it is said that they may be repeated until people who do not take the time to consider them come to think and admit that they are true.

But in proof of the assertion that they did go there simply to vote and influence the elections, the fact is cited that most of them finally returned. In answer to this it is only necessary to say that fewer Missourians returned after it became evident that Kansas was to be a free State, than free soil emigrants would have returned if it had become reasonably certain that the Territory was to become slave. The Missourians went there and settled in the hope that the country would continue to be pro-slavery soil. Many afterwards left when the effort was made to make it free soil by force and civil war. Others and most of them left when it was seen that that effort would be successful. If Kansas had become a slave State, nine out of every ten who went would have gone soon afterwards.

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HISTORY OF PLATTE COUNTY.

ANTI-SLAVERY EMIGRANT AID SOCIETIES - EXCITEMENT IN WESTERN MISSOURI.

The opponents of slavery anticipated the passage of the Douglas bill. As early as the 26th of April, 1854, more than a month be- fore the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the Legislature of Massa- chusetts passed an act incorporating the Massachusetts Emigrants' Aid Society with an authorized capital of $5,000,000, and composed of some of the wealthiest men of New England. Other aid societies were organized in that State and elsewhere in the East and North and several were incorporated by the Legislatures of their respective States.

The promoters of these enterprises made no secret of their inten- tions. The policy of colonization was openly avowed and their movements toward carrying it out were daily reported in the news- papers. By the middle of the summer emigants sent out by them had begun to arrive in Kansas by whole companies. Chas. H. Brans- comb brought out a company from Massachusetts in July, and two weeks later S. C. Pomeroy arrived with another company. Still others followed in rapid succession, and thus the work of anti-slavery colon- ization went bravely on.

They came in companies and alone as individuals, by land in wag- ons, on horseback and afoot and by river. For a long time boats were literally loaded down with them, each boat rivalling in appear- ance the fabled residence of Mother Goose with her numerous family of children. Mr. Evans, of Weston, a man of high standing and undoubted veracity, who was running on the river between St. Louis and St. Joseph during the early part of the Kansas troubles, is au- thority for the statements that many of them evidently came expressly to vote, for they came up on the boat with which he was con- nected just before the election and after he had passed on up to St. Joseph and was on the way down the same persons returned with him, the election having been held in the meantime. But not to go fur- ther into details, there is an accumulation of testimony that a large percentage of the so-called emigrants to Kansas, in sympathy with the anti-slavery movement, came to the Territory with the leading pre- dominant idea of making it a free State.

To have accomplished their object by fair means would have been bad enough for Missouri, and the honest pro-slavery people who had gone to Kansas to live. But to bring it about by these methods was

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HISTORY OF PLATTE COUNTY.

hardly to be contemplated with equanimity and patience. Already this State was contiguous to free state territory on the east and north, and now to establish a free State in the West would make Missouri a slave peninsula jutting out into an ocean of free soil, thus rendering her situation one of extreme peril to her slave property. Her citizens, therefore, especially those of them on the border of Kansas, took an intense interest in the settlement of the territory.

INSECURITY OF SLAVE PROPERTY - FEAR OF INSURRECTION.

But the worst evil to Missourians connected with this anti-slavery migration to Kansas, and one which they felt they could not with safety to themselves submit to, was that whilst the emigrants were on their way through the State they improved every opportunity to poison the minds of slaves against their masters and make the negroes restless and dissatisfied with their condition. In not a few instances they succeeded in persuading negroes off from their homes into Kansas and elsewhere. Mr. Jesse Miller, of Platte county, lost one in this way, and some ten or a dozen were carried off from this county the following summer and winter after the organization of the terri- tory.

It soon became so that no one on the border in Missouri felt any security for his slave property, and a servile insurrection was seriously feared. Nor does this appear to have been entirely without reason, when the threats of the anti-slavery leaders are considered. Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio, said in a famous speech : "I look forward to a day when I shall see a servile insurrection in the South. When the black men, supplied with bayonets, shall wage a war of extermination against the whites - when the master shall see his dwelling in flames, and his hearth polluted ; and although I may not mock at their calamity and laugh when their fear cometh, yet I shall hail it as the dawn of a political millenium." So other leaders of the anti-slavery movement, nearly every one of them who were recognized leaders in fact, held similar language. Tracts and all manner of lit- erature of the most incendiary character were scattered broadcast over the country, and many so-called ministers of the gospel vied with the politicians and the propagandists in the advocacy of murder, arson and all the crimes known to the catalogue. Even Mr. Beecher said that, " Sharp's rifles were better than Bibles," and that " it was a crime to shoot at a slaveholder and not hit him."

The people of Platte county were nearly unanimously slaveholders or the relatives and friends of slaveholders and pro-slavery in senti-

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HISTORY OF PLATTE COUNTY.

ment. To expect that they would have borne all this with composure, and without becoming thoroughly exasperated and inflamed with pas- sion, is perhaps to expect more of them than in the circumstances would have been human. Public feeling throughout the county was stirred to its profoundest depths and a look of indignation and des- perate determination was seen on every countenance. Never in the history of the county were the people so wrought up with passion. All classes were offended, the high and the low, the rich and the. poor, church members and non-church members - all seemed determined to stand by each other in every emergency.

THE PLATTE COUNTY SELF-DEFENSIVE ASSOCIATION.

Consultations were held by a number of the leading citizens of the county, and it was agreed to call a public meeting to consider the sit- uation and the duties of the hour. Accordingly, a call was drawn up and published, appointing a meeting to be held at Weston on the 29th of July, 1854. Subscribed to the call appeared the names of the following, among other prominent citizens : David R. Atchison, Wm. B. Almond, Benj. F. Stringfellow, Jas. N. Burnes, Jesse Morin, Dr. Bayless, Jno. Vineyard, Vard. Cockerill, James Adkins, Peter T. Abell, G. Galloway, W. J. Miller, Jno. M. Wallace, Jarrett M. Todd, W. H. Spratt, Daniel Cary and John H. Stringfellow.

On the day appointed one of the largest gatherings of the rep- resentative men of the county ever witnessed within its borders ap- peared in Weston, and at the hour named the meeting was called to order and an organization effected. Judge G. Galloway was called to the chair and Hon. Benj. F. Stringfellow was appointed secretary.

Judge Galloway, in taking the chair, explained the objects of the meeting. He said that they had met to counsel together and adopt such measures as might be thought necessary and proper for the pro- tection of the lives and property of the citizens of the county against the Abolitionists, who had already begun to entice negroes from their homes and incite them to violence and insurrection ; that the emigrant aid societies of the North were sending out large forces of so-called emigrants for the purpose of colonizing Kansas and making it a free State, in defiance of the will of the settlers of the territory.

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Author: Publication date: 1885 Publisher: St. Louis : National Historical Co. Number of Pages: 1156

Author:
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: St. Louis : National Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 1156