70

MORMONS ESCAPING TO KANSAS.

1857.]

costly dress of our working people, declared that a mob in the United States, is a mob in broadcloth; but this was a mob in shirtsleeves. A few wore coats, carelessly thrown open, revealing leath. ern belts, where glittered the silver mounting of bowie knife, or the polished steel of revolver.

From the windows the jurors begged more time, which was reluctantly granted. With two or three repetitions of this scene, the trial lasted till midnight. Then they reported to the assembly, that after rigid investigation, they had only elicited a few facts throwing suspicion upon Woods and Knighten, but nothing that would convict them of murder or other crime in any court of jus tice. To which the crowd responded by calling for 'the man with the rope.' Their champion strong at hanging, but weak at speech. making, appeared in the window, was cheered, and confirmed the statement of his associates. Then the mayor, in a temperate address, urged that the law should take its course; and the quieted mob at last dispersed. The prisoners were committed for trial; and after the usual mode of Kansas justice, bribed their keeper and escaped from jail before the expiration of two weeks.

While I was in Leavenworth, one hundred recanting Mormons arrived from Utah,. and sought homes in Kansas. These families, bringing all their earthly possessions by ox-teams, had been sixty days on the long road from Salt Lake. They represented the tyranny of the Mormon church as unendurable, and the practical workings of polygamy as repulsive and disgusting. Violent threats were made to prevent their escape; and they believed that only their numbers saved them from violence at the hands of the remaining Saints.

acre.

In July one hundred thousand acres of public lands were sold at Osawkee, Jefferson county. Theoretically to the highest bidder; actually each quarter-section to its occupant at its appraised value: from one dollar and fifty cents, to four dollars and fifty cents per The 'settler,' who lived fifty or a hundred miles away, had built a cabin or driven a stake upon his claim, and could therefore swear that he was a bona fide resident! The constructive squatters respected each others' rights and protected their own. The first man who ventured to bid against one of them was instantly shot down; so there was no further competition.

[1857.

THE LAND SALE AT OSAWKEE.

71

Many sold their newly-acquired lands to speculators at double the cost within an hour after bidding them off. But hundreds borrowed money at five per cent. a month, and invested it here. I knew a Tennesseean who loaned funds at this rate to forty-five young men, taking the Government title to each tract in his own name, but giving a bond to deed it back to the actual purchaser upon the payment of principal and interest. Two years later, he told me that he still held every one, as not a single note had been paid.

Money abounded and times were flush. One evening I borrowed one hundred and fifty dollars from a total stranger, to aid in purchasing a quarter-section; for I had not escaped the universal mania. When I offered a mortgage as security, he replied:

'It would be some trouble to have the papers drawn, and cost us five or ten dollars. Just send me the money by express within two or three weeks.'

David's covetousness for the wife of Uriah, was no stronger than the lust of the frontier Yankee for territory. Town shares and quarter-sections passed as currently as bank-notes or gold dollars. It was history repeating itself; for according to Parton, in the early days of Tennessee, people in trading used to say: 'I will give you a three-twenty,' or 'I will take a six-forty.' Six hundred and forty acres near the present city of Nashville, once sold for three axes and two cow-bells. 'The circulating medium of Europe is gold, of Africa, men, of Asia, women, and of America, land.'

Two thousand people attended the sales at Osawkee. In this interior town of a dozen houses, a huge hotel had been erected; every building was crowded, and hundreds of strangers lived in tents, or slept on the grass in the open air. Streets were filled with blinding dust, and heated like furnaces by the July sun; gambling and drinking booths stood upon every corner: reeking odors poisoned the air, and a new Coleridge might have sung of this mushroom Cologne:

'In Colin, a town of monks and bones,

And pavements fanged with murderous stones,
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches,

I counted five and seventy stenches.'

72

BORDER RUFFIAN COURTS OF JUSTICE.

[1857.

The public temper was very inflammable and kindled like gunpowder from the faintest spark. The Pro-slavery party claimed to be distinctively 'Law-and-order men,' but their courts of justice were the most dangerous places in the whole Territory. Scores of murders had been committed, but no one had ever been punished for any crime against a Free State citizen.

At Tecumseh, Boynton, an inoffensive Free Soiler, surrounded by Pro-slavery neighbors who were trying to drive him from his claim, brought suit against one Adams, who had thrice attempted to shoot him. The United States cominissioner merely held both

parties to five-hundred-dollar bonds to keep the peace. During the investigation Newsom, Territorial prosecuting attorney elected by the bogus legislature, denounced Boynton as a d-d liar.

1857.]

A QUASI DECLARATION OF WAR.

73

After the court adjourned, Boynton asked an explanation, when the official repeated the epithet, and struck him upon the head with a bowie knife, cutting a gash three inches long. This fired even the man of peace, and he responded with his clinched fist, which sent Newsom reeling through an open door into an adjoining office. The bystanders, including Adams, upon whose bond to keep the peace the ink had not yet dried, drew their revolvers; but Boyn. ton flying the court-room, escaped their bullets and found refuge in Lawrence.

The previous spring's immigration, almost exclusively from the North, had given the Free Soilers large numerical ascendency. Now they began to stand boldly upon their rights and defy Missouri. Their July Territorial convention passed a quiet, but significant resolution:

Whereas, preparations are being made in Missouri to control the coming Kansas elections;-

Resolved, That this convention appoints and authorizes General James H Lane, to organize the people in the several districts, to protect the ballot-boxes.

After this quasi declaration of war there were no further invasions.

Osawkee was a Pro-slavery town. One day during the land sales, Governor Walker, Secretary Stanton of Tennessee, and other 'National Democrats,' made political speeches. When they had finished, the Free Soilers present called out one of their own number, Charles Foster of Osawatomie. In a fiery address he urged that under the rule of the same National Democracy which was now willing to bring Kansas into the Union even as a free State, their property had been destroyed, their homes invaded, and their soil drenched with innocent blood.

Some of his hearers hissed! others shouted: 'Knock him down!' 'Out with him!'

Instantly twenty cocked revolvers were displayed by his friends around the stand, and he was permitted to go on.

Frequently while riding in the vicinity of Osawkee, I encountered the original owners of the soil, jogging along on horseback, sometimes sober and reticent, but often whisky-inspired and uproarious. The squaws usually rode in couples, with papooses

74

TREASON TO BE PUT DOWN.

[1857, strapped on their backs, and older children astride before and be. hind them. Nearly all the Kansas Indians lived in log-cabins, and made some pretenses to civilization; so they were less migra tory than their race in general. But sometimes they sought fresh fields and pastures new, or were joined by immigrants and visitors from Texas and the Cherokee nation. These bedouins of the prai rie invariably car

INDIANS TRAVELING.

between the poles, and seemed to enjoy journeying by this rudi. mental 'one hoss shay.'

My stay in Osawkee, was cut short by a fresh excitement. The Lawrence people, without authority from the bogus laws, had formed a municipal organization, electing a mayor, alderman, and other city officers. It was a movement common in new countries, and chiefly designed to impose and collect taxes for removing offal, grading streets, and protecting the public health. But Governor Walker, great in his new-fledged dignity, thought it part of a universal plan for organizing the nascent State, and putting the Topeka government in force. He held it treason and grim-visaged war. In a flaming proclamation he declared:

'A rebellion so iniquitous, and necessarily involving such awful consequences, has never before disgraced any age or country!'

He marched three hundred Federal soldiers from Fort Leavenworth upon Lawrence; and it was even thought that the little city would be a second time destroyed for the crime of Free State sentiments.