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Title: From Noah Grant to Robert M. Stewart
Description: This letter, dated November 26, 1860, is from Noah Grant of Canton, Missouri to Gov. Robert M. Stewart. Grant, captain of the Canton Guards, states that he has heard about attacks launched on western Missouri by bands of Kansas abolitionists, and he volunteers the services of his troops: “we are ever Ready to hunt our Enemies.”
Date: November 26, 1860

Title: From Charles Adair to Samuel Lyle Adair
Description: This letter was written on October 14 and 17, 1860 by Charles Adair in Hudson, Ohio, to his father Samuel Lyle Adair. Charles reports that he has started school, which he is “very well pleased with.” He says that his mother, Florella Brown Adair, has been away for the past week visiting cousins near Ashtabula, Ohio.
Date: October 14, 1860 and October 17, 1860

Title: From Frederick Starr to Dear Father
Description: On January 15, 1855, Frederick Starr writes from Weston, Missouri to his father. Starr describes attending a meeting of the Platte County, Missouri Self Defensive Association, where he spoke about how a northern man could not be expected to change his opinion of slavery just because he moved to the south. Starr also told the Association’s members that slavery in Missouri, and especially in Platte County, was not representative of the institution as a whole, because “it is here of a milder type than any where else in the nation.”
Date: January 15, 1855

Title: Slave State Population Statistics
Description: This 1852 document lists population statistics for the slave states, including the number of whites, free blacks, slaves, farms, and proportion of slaves to farms. The document shows that Missouri’s population was comprised of 592,077 whites, 2,544 free blacks, and 87,422 slaves. The document also contains statistics on the number of free and slave families in Missouri, indicating that 26,096 families owned slaves.
Object Type: Document
Date: 1852

Title: Report of Deputy U.S. Marshal William H. Tebbs
Description: This report, dated September 29, 1856, is addressed to Kansas Gov. John W. Geary and is signed by Deputy U.S. Marshal William H. Tebbs. Tebbs tells Geary that the U.S. Marshal sent him to Topeka to make several arrests. In his first attempt to make an arrest, Tebbs says, the suspect escaped and could not be found; the townspeople then told him that if he tried to arrest anyone else, he would be resisted. Tebbs also informs Geary that Col. Lane was spotted near the Nebraska state line.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: September 29, 1856

Title: Tender of Service of Martin White
Description: In this document, created October 5, 1856, a volunteer company of mounted riflemen in Lykins County, Kansas, tenders its service to the Governor of Kansas Territory. The document includes a list of the company’s officers, including Captain Martin White.
Date: October 5, 1856

Title: From John Montgomery and C.H. Withington to John W. Geary
Description: John Montgomery and C.H. Withington write a letter to Kansas Gov. John W. Geary on September 16, 1856. They inform Geary that a group of armed abolitionists belonging to Gen. Lane’s army invaded their settlement in Allen County, robbed stores, destroyed property, and declared that anyone who refused to join them “may expect to meet a bitter fate.” Montgomery and Withington claim that their community has no means of self-defense and they ask Geary for protection.
Date: September 16, 1856

Title: Sale of Slave
Description: This document declares the sale of four slaves—Ritter, Bird, Fanny, and John—to Stephen Bedford for $182.50. It was signed and dated by Marion M. Biggerstaff of Clinton County, Missouri on July 5, 1857.
Object Type: Legal Document
Date: July 5, 1857

Title: From Edward Fitch to Dear Parents
Description: In this January 20, 1856 letter to his parents in Massachusetts, Edward Fitch of Lawrence, Kansas writes that Missourians launched an attack near Leavenworth on Election Day and tried to confiscate the ballot boxes. Fitch predicts an imminent war, and laments: “How long O Lord must we suffer thus. I hope you will raise an army in the East and March through Missouri and Proclaim liberty to the slave.” Included is a copy of a September 15, 1855 broadside published by John Speer that challenges the Bogus Legislature.
Date: January 20, 1856

Title: From R.R. Boone to Dear Father
Description: R.R. Boone writes a letter from Buchanan County, Missouri to his father on September 12, 1858. Boone reacts to news of guerrilla warfare in Kansas, proclaiming "I am a great mind some times to gather my Rifle and gow & skalp some of these infernal theaving abolitionist." He criticizes both political parties and voices anger that the government has not put a stop to the violence in Kansas.
Date: September 12, 1858

Title: An Act to Organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas
Description: This is a copy of “An Act to Organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas,” otherwise known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The act, proposed by Senator Stephen Douglas, allowed Kansas to determine through popular sovereignty whether or not to legalize slavery. Despite much dissent in the House and Senate, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed and was signed into law by President Franklin Pierce on May 30, 1854.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: May 30, 1854

Title: From William Murphy to John W. Geary
Description: This letter, dated September 23, 1856, is from William Murphy, mayor of Leavenworth, Kansas, to Gov. John W. Geary. Murphy responds to Geary’s recent inquiry about a group of citizens who claim they were forced to leave Leavenworth. He confirms that Capt. Emory told “all persons who were not in favour of the laws, and unwilling to fight in defence of the City, that they had better leave.” He assures Geary that these people may safely return to Leavenworth “if they will act as law abiding citizens.”
Date: September 23, 1856

Title: Instructions to Gen. P.F. Smith
Description: This document comprises a series of instructions given by the Secretary of War to Gen. P.F. Smith, Commander of the Department of the West, between February 15, 1856 and September 5, 1856. Smith is instructed to “make every exertion in your power with the force under your orders to preserve the peace and prevent bloodshed.” The Secretary of War empowers Smith to act if armed resistance is made by citizens of any political persuasion. Smith is instructed not to interfere with the activities of the Kansas Militia.
Date: February 15, 1856-September 5, 1856

Title: Charles Robinson, First Kansas Governor
Description: Portrait of Charles Robinson, early leader of the New England Emigrant Aid Society and the first Governor of the State of Kansas.
Object Type: Image
Date: 1861

Title: David Rice Atchison
Description: Photograph of a David Rice Atchison painting by George Caleb Bingham, located in Atchison's home in Clinton County, MO.
Object Type: Image
Date: n.d.

Title: From Florella Brown Adair to Samuel Lyle Adair and Emma Adair
Description: On September 14 and 15, 1860, Florella Brown Adair writes from Grafton Station, Ohio, to her husband Samuel Lyle Adair and daughter Emma Adair. Florella describes the contents of a barrel of clothing and other items she is sending to them. She says that her health has improved, and that her relatives and friends are “trying to make me look more like civilized folk than we did in Kansas.” Florella adds that she recently spent hours in conversation with a friend “about Kansas matters.”
Date: September 14, 1860-September 15, 1860

Title: Sarah and Julia Fitch
Description: This black and white photograph shows Sarah Wilmarth Fitch Stevens along with her daughter Julia Sumner Fitch. They both lived in Lawrence, Kansas and were survivors of Quantrill’s Raid. Edward Fitch, husband to Sarah and father to Julia, was shot and killed in the 1863 attack. Their house was burned down and the rest of the family escaped.
Object Type: Image

Title: Notice! to Citizens of Weston
Description: This broadside calls on “The Citizens of Weston and vicinity” to meet at the Weston, Missouri courthouse on September 1, 1854 at 7:00pm, “to adopt such measures as they may deem most proper and expedient, and best calculated to counteract the effect produced by SOME of the doings of SOME of the men connected with the ‘PLATTE COUNTY SELF DEFENSIVE ASSOCIATION.’” The broadside is signed “Many Citizens,” and is dated August 31, 1854.
Object Type: Broadside
Date: August 31, 1854

Title: Kansas Territorial Records
Description: These documents include letters and affidavits documenting election fraud that occurred in Leavenworth, Johnson, Coffey, and Linn Counties in Kansas Territory. Kansas citizens voted on January 4, 1858 to determine the fate of the Lecompton Constitution and to elect state officials. These documents refer to incidents of “enormous fraud” including men voting repeatedly under false names, falsifying poll books, and destroying ballot boxes “by violence and force.”
Object Type: Government Document
Date: January 5, 1858-March 15, 1858

Title: Charles Otis Fitch
Description: This black and white photograph, taken circa 1890, depicts Charles Otis Fitch, son of Edward and Sarah Fitch. He was born in Lawrence, Kansas in 1860. At the age of three, he survived Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence, but his family’s house was burned down and his father was killed in the attack.
Object Type: Image

Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865

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