Sacking of Lawrence

Wednesday, May 21, 1856

Ruins of Free State Hotel after the Sacking of Lawrence. Courtesy of the Internet Archive.

A posse of 800 proslavery settlers under the leadership of Douglas County's own sheriff, Samuel J. Jones, sack the town of Lawrence, Kansas. The Free-State Hotel and two newspaper print shops are destroyed, and one of the attackers is killed by falling masonry.