Medium: Text
Date: January 30, 1859
This letter, written by Mary Brown from Lawrence, Kansas Territory, was addressed to her brother, William, who was studying at Phillip Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. Mary and William were…
Medium: Text
Date: June 21, 1857
This letter, written from Lawrence, Kansas Territory, is a tender, heartfelt piece of correspondence, speaking of the joys and triumphs of living in a new land. Brown enjoyed his time…
Medium: Text
Date: February 28, 1861
Written less than a month after Kansas became a state, Miller comments on the developing political situation as a carry over from the territorial period, reflecting, for example, on the…
Medium: Text
Date: June 12, 1858
Issued by John W. Whitfield, land office register and former proslavery territorial delegate to Congress, on June 12, 1858, this one-page notice informed Sol Miller of a counter claim made…
Medium: Text
Date: Spring 1857
Born at Lafayette, Indiana, on January 22, 1831, and raised in Ohio, Sol Miller “indentured” in the Germantown Gazette office in Germantown, Ohio, and in 1854 purchased half interest in…
Medium: Text
Date: September 1, 1860 - December 1, 1860
This quarterly statement was written by Robert Simerwell, a missionary colporteur with the American Baptist Publication Society. It contains the dollar amounts for the number of books on hand, his…
Medium: Text
Date: October 1, 1860 - November 1, 1860
This report to the American Baptist Publication Society was written by Robert Simerwell, a missionary colporteur in Kansas Territory. It includes information about the number of families he visited, the…
Medium: Text
Date: May 1860
Robert Simerwell, a missionary colporteur for the American Baptist Publication Society, sent this report to the national headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although he had been suffering with an illness, Simerwell…
Medium: Text
Date: March 1, 1860 - April 1, 1860
Robert Simerwell, a missionary colporteur for the American Baptist Publication Society, made this report to the headquarters in Philadelphia. It includes a tally of the number of miles he traveled,…
Medium: Text
Date: c. December 15, 1858
This document listed the names of those men who are becoming Charter members of the International Order of Odd Fellows’ chapter in White Cloud, Kansas Territory. It also records which…
Medium: Text
Date: July 28, 1858
Writing on International Order of Oddfellows letterhead, George W. Brown of Lawrence informed his correspondent, apparently of White Cloud, Doniphan County, that he had enclosed an application for a subordinate…
Medium: Text
Date: November 14, 1860
This piece of correspondence was written by a man named Ford, from Missouri City, Arapaho Co., (later part of Colorado Territory). Ford had apparently left Burlington, Kansas Territory for “gold…
Medium: Text
Date: November 6, 1860
S.T. Learnard, a farmer and occasional state legislator from Bakersfield, Vermont, wrote his “Kansas” son frequently and complained that replies from Kansas were far too scarce. In this letter, S.T.…
Medium: Text
Date: September 28, 1858
John B. Chapman wrote from Mandovi, Kansas Territory, to Oscar Learnard regarding the location of “prospective Rail Roads” and his efforts toward “making Burlington a point” on the road to…
Medium: Text
Date: January 14, 1858
Writing from Bakersfield, Vermont, to his son Oscar Learnard, S. T. Learnard claimed he was still planning to travel to Kansas Territory, and he asked about his son’s affairs in…
Medium: Text
Date: September 9, 1856
From Lawrence, Kansas Territory, Oscar Learnard wrote briefly to some Vermont friends of his recent “military” experience as “Lieutenant Colonel of the 4th regiment (cavalry) of Kansas Volunteers.” At the…
Medium: Text
Date: August 10, 1856
Oscar Learnard wrote from Lawrence of his continued commitment to the “Sacked City,” insisting that he would not be “bullied or frightened” by those committing outrages in Kansas Territory. He…
Medium: Text
Date: July 23, 1856
Oscar Learnard wrote his father, S.T. Learnard, that he was disappointed in the attitude of people in Vermont and throughout the North who continued to support the Pierce administration. If…
Medium: Text
Date: June 6, 1856
From an embattled Lawrence, Learnard again wrote of near daily “occurrences of exciting interest,” including skirmishes between the two “antagonistic parties” and actions of federal troops to “quell disturbances.” The…
Medium: Text
Date: May 23, 1856
Written just two days after the sack of Lawrence, this letter contained Learnard’s observations of and reflections on “the fearful disaster to which this unfortunate town has been subjected.” The…
Medium: Text
Date: May 10, 1856
The Eldridge House (or hotel) was built in Lawrence, Kansas Territory by the New England Emigrant Aid Society. It was an unofficial headquarters for the free state movement and, as…
Medium: Text
Date: April 6, 1856
In this, his first extant letter from Kansas Territory, Oscar Learnard wrote his parents and sister in Vermont that Lawrence was now his “distant and strangely romantic retreat.” This letter…
Medium: Text
Date: November 29, 1860
This sermon by Rev. Peter McVicar’s sermons is entitled “First Thanksgiving Sermon.” It was delivered in Topeka on November 29, 1860, just weeks after he assumed the pastorate of the…
Medium: Text
Date: November 7, 1860
Peter McVicar, a native of Eastport, Maine, and a graduate of Andover Theological Seminary, moved to Kansas Territory in 1860 to become pastor of Topeka’s Congregational Church. This letter from…
Medium: Text
Date: December 14, 1859
Charles Chadwick wrote from Quindaro, Kansas Territory, to Hiram Hill in Massachusetts. Chadwick reported that the Republicans (anti-slavery supporters) had been successful in recent elections. However, the economy was worse…
