Connecticut-Kansas Connection

[Drew Hause]

October 1869 Lawrence, Kansas, Republican Daily Journal

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The "Free Staters" had a connection to Connecticut

The Beecher Bible and Rifle Church was established in Wabaunsee in June 1857 by the "Connecticut-Kansas Colony" which arrived with Sharps rifles and 25 Bibles provided by the congregation of Henry Ward Beecher; Plymouth (Congregational) Church in Brooklyn, New York.

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[Drew Hause]

On January 29, 1861, Kansas joined the Union as a free state. The church was completed in 1862. The next year (August 21, 1863) Quantrill sacked Lawrence.

An illustration in Harper's Weekly Sept. 5, 1863

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http://www.civilwarhistory.com/quantrill/quantrill.htm http://www.kancoll.org/books/cordley_massacre/quantrel.raid.html

"The Tragic Prelude" of "Bleeding Kansas", by John Steuart Curry in the Capital Building, Topeka http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/johnbrown/brownhome.html


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No state contributed a greater percentage of able bodied men to the Union cause; almost 1/2

Lincoln Co. courthouse

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[Drew Hause]

Interesting that both small town Kansas and KC gun shows seemed to have more vintage Parkers than "The Yankee Sidelock" Smiths. New England Puritan roots must have run deep.

William Allen White, “The Sage of Emporia”'
Kansans are marked by Puritanism. The first Kansans were crusaders, intellectual and social pioneers, conventers of various sorts...Slavery being abolished your Kansans had to begin abolishing something else. Abolitionism was more than a conviction; it was a temperamental habit.
Abolition, Prohibition, Populism, and Bull Moose, the Blue Sky law...these things come popping out in Kansas like bats out of hell. Sooner or later other states take up these things, and then Kansas goes on breeding other troubles.
http://www2.ku.edu/~jschool/school/waw/writings/waw/newspaper/editorials/editorals.html

“What’s The Matter With Kansas?” 1896
http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/whatsthematter.html

[George M. Purtill]

Thanks Drew
You probably know better but Beecher seems to be a an old Connecticut name.
Mark Twain's neighbor?

[Drew Hause]

Henry Ward Beecher grew up in Litchfield, Conn and was the son of Lyman Beecher, a Presbyterian Calvinist pastor and well known evangelist. His sister was Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. He graduated from Amherst College.

[George M. Purtill]

Harriet was Twain's neighbor in Hartford. Nook Farm?