Stark Mad Abolitionists

by Robert K. Sutton

  One early piece of legislation was a city charter for Lawrence. Although the town, since its creation, had functioned as if it were incorporated, it was not allowed to legally do so until 1858. The town could not collect its own taxes, although the citizens voluntarily contributed to fund the schools and provide all necessary services—but without elected officials to oversee the management of the town. So, in many ways, incorporating the town was a formality, but now the citizens could officially elect city council and school board members and the town marshal, as well as a clerk and a treasurer.179

  Stereo View of Lawrence 1859. Kansas State Historical Society.

  Almost as quickly as the new legislature convened, Charles Robinson and James Lane started jockeying for position. They clearly did not care for each other, but Robinson was much more vocal in his dislike for Lane. He described Lane at his heart as a timid man, who with his “arbitrary power” was “cruel and bloodthirsty.”180 Again, according to Robinson, Lane’s modus operandi was that—depending on the situation—he advocated bloodshed or peace if he thought one or the other would gain him political support. Lane’s detractors focused on what they saw as his faults, and there were plenty. But he had a positive side as well. Like many politicians, he loved attention, but in at least one situation, he made a major contribution to the antislavery cause, and neither sought nor received much attention for what he did. He charted and marked a trail through Kansas with “chimneys”—called the Lane Trail—to guide abolitionists sneaking slaves out of Missouri, as part of the Underground Railroad.181

  While Lane’s views were often tied to how the political winds blew, one man who did not deviate in any way from the radical abolitionist path was John Brown. Brown returned to the East after the incidents of Bleeding Kansas to raise money and support. When he came back to Kansas, his new crusade was to encourage and help Missouri slaves escape to freedom.182 On December 20–21, 1858, Brown and his followers successfully stole and led twelve Missouri slaves to freedom, and in the process, killed one slave owner. They successfully spirited their charges through Kansas on the Lane Trail and, about two and a half months later, into Canada.183

  As noted earlier in this study, John Brown had sold wool to Amos Lawrence years earlier, and Lawrence provided a letter of introduction for Brown when he went to Kansas. The relationship these two men shared was interesting. In many ways, they could not have been more different. Lawrence was wealthy; Brown, through nearly his entire life, was hard-pressed to eke out a living. Brown was a radical, fanatic abolitionist; Lawrence was opposed to slavery, and even though he poured much of his fortune into creating a free Kansas, he generally was a moderate. Yet Lawrence was fascinated with and had a great deal of admiration for Brown. The two men met while Brown was in the East in early 1857. Brown asked Lawrence for money for his Kansas causes. Lawrence declined, explaining that he had just sent a substantial sum to Kansas to establish educational programs there. But when Brown pleaded with Lawrence to help support his wife and family, should he lose his life due to his abolitionist activities, Lawrence readily agreed to help—which, later, he did.

  When Brown again visited Amos Lawrence in the spring of 1859, Brown had grown a long beard, and Lawrence observed that Brown and his companion were both ill, which he thought was “righteous visitation for their fanaticism.” Lawrence was not shocked when he later heard the news of Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry, nor was he surprised when he learned that “Old Brown of Osawatomie” would be hanged for his crime. He realized that the old man would “die as a martyr [due] to his hatred of slavery,” which would hasten the end of slavery in Virginia.184 When, years later, one of Brown’s compatriots in the Pottawatomie massacre confessed to the crime and described in some detail Brown’s involvement, Lawrence’s view was confirmed that Brown was a “monomaniac.”185

  One man who shared Brown’s abolitionist passion and partnered with the old man on several slave-stealing missions was Dr. John Doy. He successfully helped slaves escape from Missouri on the Lane Trail to Canada. Ironically, though, when he and his son were caught for supposedly helping slaves escape, they were assisting free blacks in leaving Kansas. In the winter of 1858–59, slave catchers came into Lawrence under the guise of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and successfully kidnapped several free blacks. Fearing for their safety, a number of free blacks asked the citizens of Lawrence for assistance. The townspeople asked Dr. Doy if he would take on the mission. He agreed, and on January 25, 1859, he, his son, and a colleague left with fifteen free African Americans in two wagons from Lawrence. To ensure that it would not appear that they were attempting to help fugitives escape, Doy asked each of his charges to carry the proper papers, attesting to his or her free status.

  When the party had traveled about twelve miles from Lawrence, “at the bottom of the hill,” he wrote, “came a body of some twenty, or maybe more, armed and mounted men. Eleven of them approached us with leveled rifles and ordered us to halt.” After some discussion and a great deal of bluster and posturing on both sides, Dr. Doy surrendered, recognizing that he and his party had no chance against the assailants. Their captors transported them first by land, then by ferry to Weston, Missouri, where they “were pushed and mauled, struck, and insulted with every indignity that can be conceived.” The next day at a hearing, Dr. Doy and his son Charles were bound over for trial at Platte City, Missouri, on the charge of abducting slaves. They were confined from January 28 to March 24 and not allowed to leave their cell except to testify before the grand jury. Their white companion was allowed to return to Lawrence.

  During their second day of confinement, Dr. Doy and his son learned the fate of the free African Americans they were escorting. The three men, Wilson George Hays, Charles Smith, and William Riley, were asked to pick who they wanted as masters. When they refused to do so, the Border Ruffians severely beat the three men to try to make them confess that they were slaves. They still refused, and next thing Doy heard was that they were sold at auction at Independence, Missouri, for $1,000 apiece. He observed that these poor men “though free, had but a small chance to assert their rights in a slave state.”

  As for Dr. Doy, he and Charles were moved to St. Joseph to await their trial. Doy’s wife and daughter visited while they were still in Platte City. The trial centered on the charge that Dr. Doy and his son had enticed Dick, a slave who belonged to the mayor of Weston, Missouri, to escape his bondage. Dick was a musician who had been allowed to go into Kansas with his fiddle but had failed to return. Doy would later say that he and his son were well represented by their defense team, who made a strong case that Doy had no way of knowing that Dick was an enslaved man. But he also noted that the prosecuting attorneys were very capable as well. At the end of the trial, which lasted several days, the jury could not reach a verdict, and Charles Doy was released. Dr. Doy was held over for a new trial and jailed again since he was not able to pay the $5,000 bond, having spent his assets on his defense.

  Doy’s second trial started on June 20, 1859, with the same charge that he had induced the enslaved man Dick to escape. Again, Dr. Doy believed he made a strong case that he did, indeed, know Dick in Lawrence, but had no way of knowing that he was enslaved. In this second trial, however, the judge allowed the prosecution to enter into evidence a journal and map taken from Doy that the prosecutor claimed was the route for the Underground Railroad through Kansas. The judge instructed the jury that it would be allowed to “infer guilt from the circumstances,” which meant that the members could view the map and journal as proof that Doy was trying to help Dick escape. This time, the jury convicted Dr. Doy, and the judge sentenced him to five years of hard labor in the state penitentiary.

  Dr. Doy was held in the St. Joseph jail for thirty days awaiting transport to the state penitentiary to serve his sentence. When the thirty days were nearly up, Doy recognized several men walking by the jail; one of these men “made a familiar sign known to Kansas Free-State men.” On July 23, in the late afternoon, a young man
was escorted into Doy’s cell who informed him that he had recently seen the prisoner’s wife and family. He distracted the attention of the jailer for a moment, at which time, Doy, suspecting something, “saw a small slip of paper in the hand which he held behind him, which I took.” The paper said: “be ready at midnight.”

  Dr. Doy gathered everything he could think of and went to bed with his clothes on. At midnight, there was a banging on the jailhouse door, and the jailor went to answer. Two men, holding a third, claimed that the man they had was a notorious horse thief, and they wanted him put in jail overnight. The jailor—Mr. Brown, who Doy said treated him like a gentleman—argued with the men that it was not his job to lock someone up who had not been officially charged with a crime. Eventually, the jailor relented and allowed the men to escort the “horse thief” back to the jail cells. When Jailor Brown opened Dr. Doy’s cell, the men informed him that they “had not come to put a man in prison, but to take out of it one who is unjustly confined.” Other prisoners wanted to join in the escape, but Doy’s rescuers forced them back into their cells, saying they had come for only one prisoner.

  Ten radical Kansas abolitionists made up the Dr. Doy’s rescue party. Their rescue became legendary in the annals of Kansas history and gave them the distinction as the “Immortal Ten.” They spirited Doy out of town to the Missouri River and to a small boat waiting to take him across to Kansas. When the boat reached the far bank, the doctor was placed in a covered wagon under a pile of hay and driven to safety. A day and a half later, Dr. Doy was escorted into Lawrence, where “the noble ten were cheered and welcomed, as [they] brought to a successful issue the boldest attempt at rescue ever planned and carried into effect, and as having effaced the stain of at least one of the insults offered to Kansas offered by her more powerful neighbor.”186

  Dr. John Doy’s adventure makes a wonderful story. But it also brought to light the plight of free African Americans in Kansas. At the beginning of his narrative, Doy explained that he was happy to guide the free blacks away from Lawrence because he had witnessed, firsthand, the dangers they faced. He described the plight of Charles Fisher, a free black barber, who was kidnapped but escaped. Rev. Ephraim Nute, minister of the Lawrence Unitarian Church, filled the rest of the saga of Charles (Charley) Fisher. Two men broke into his barber shop in Leavenworth, kidnapped and handcuffed him, and spirited him to an island in the Missouri River. While his captors were asleep, Fisher escaped and went back to Leavenworth, where he had a friend file off the handcuffs.187 Rev. Nute wrote that Fisher “came to our house [in Lawrence] in a coach from Leavenworth disguised in female attire. We kept him 2 days…. [We] moved [him] on from house to house.” He concluded by writing that Fisher would “be started in the small hours tomorrow morning for Canada.” The tragedy was that Fisher was a free man, who should have been allowed to go about his business undisturbed, but for his own safety, he wanted to get as far away from Kansas as possible.188 Doy also described another free African American, William Riley, who was also kidnapped and able to escape from the room in which he was held, several miles outside of Lawrence.189

  John Doy Rescuers. Kansas State Historical Society.

  Free African American Kansans’ lives and safety were precarious no matter where they lived. Under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, they were theoretically protected as free people, but they were in constant fear that a slave owner could claim him or her as property, and a federal magistrate could find for the owner and send him or her into bondage on meager evidence. If there was a haven for free African Americans, or for that matter escaped slaves, that place was Lawrence, which was a major station on the Underground Railroad. The people of Lawrence “hated human slavery and believed in every man’s right to freedom.”190 But people like the Reverend Cordley were conflicted. On the one hand, they believed—and believed strongly—that human bondage was wrong; on the other hand, they knew that helping enslaved people escape was against the laws of their country. They knew also that if they were caught aiding fugitives, they faced stiff fines and prison sentences.

  Rev. Cordley expressed the thought processes of many when given the opportunity to become a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad. As a student at Andover Theological Seminary, Cordley was incensed when he learned of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, calling it the “outrage of outrages” and the “sum of all villainies.” He promised himself that if he ever had the opportunity, he would do whatever he could to shelter or assist any fugitive slave. Yet once he was in Kansas, he found “it [was] easy to be brave a thousand miles away,” but when confronted with the chance to put motion to his thoughts, knowing full well the potential consequences of breaking the law, he realized “there was only one thing to do.” So when one of his congregants, Mr. Monteith, asked if he would help shelter Lizzie, a young fugitive woman who had run away from her master and was trying to escape to Canada, he and his wife accepted without hesitation. The Cordleys kept Lizzie as if she were part of the family for months.191

  Because of the secret nature of the Underground Railroad, a great deal about the operation has been lost over the years. Most who did record their experience, like Rev. Cordley, did so much later. Some who wrote about the railroad at the time often did so in code. So in January 1858, when Samuel Tappan wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson hoping to raise money to support the cause, he wrote “that a certain Rail Road has been in full blast. Several persons have taken full advantage of it to visit their friends. Only one or two accidents have happened.” It’s not difficult to decode the message. The “Rail Road” was the Underground Railroad. Persons visiting friends refers to escaping slaves staying at various stations. And the “accidents” occurred when slaves were captured.

  One of the “conductors” on the railroad was Robert Miller, the father of Josiah Miller, one of the early residents of Lawrence. Josiah had asked his parents to leave South Carolina and come to Lawrence, which they did in 1858. We do not know a great deal about Miller’s role in the operation, except that the smokehouse on the Miller farmstead was one of the major “stations” in Lawrence. Miller family descendants report that their ancestors’ role in the Underground Railroad is an important part of their family lore.192

  Other Underground Railroad “conductors” did little to hide their activities. Such was the case with John E. Stewart, whose nickname was the “Fighting Preacher” since he had been a Methodist minister. In a letter to Thaddeus Hyatt, a wealthy benefactor in New York, he reported that he “brought away from [Missouri] fourteen [slaves], including one unbroken family, of which I feel rather proud.” Stewart’s strategy was to visit plantations disguised as a peddler. When he had the chance, he pretended to sell the enslaved people small trinkets. Instead, he told them of the opportunity to escape to Canada with his assistance. Before long, the planters in Missouri raised $1,000 for Stewart’s capture.

  Because so little was written or survived about the Underground Railroad in Lawrence, it is difficult to put a number on the escapees. John Stewart was reported to have personally assisted at least sixty-eight to freedom. Another active “conductor” reported that he personally knew of at least three hundred slaves who escaped through Lawrence. So at least five hundred, probably more, maybe even as high as one thousand former slaves found their way to freedom through Lawrence.193

  In many ways, John Stewart, Robert Miller, John Doy, Rev. Cordley, and others had the easy part. They risked arrest, possible fines, and maybe even jail terms for aiding slaves in their escape, but the chances slaves took to escape, and the punishments if they were caught, were much harsher. But the benefits if they did indeed make it to freedom made the potential dangers worth the risks. Lizzie, the young slave woman for whom Rev. Cordley provided refuge, escaped to Lawrence. Cordley did not offer any circumstances of her escape, but he noted that her owner knew she was in Lawrence and sent US Marshals to find her and return her to captivity. The Lawrence Underground Railroad network was able to move her around from safe hou
se to safe house and eventually to a permanent home in Canada.194

  Rev. Ephraim Nute, minister of the Unitarian Church in Lawrence, reported the story of a fugitive slave who was captured and placed in the jail in Platte City, Missouri, until he could be recovered by his owner. “He broke jail by burning out the bars from the window; he walked 10 miles to the Missouri river & crossed on the floating cakes of ice,” Rev. Nute reported. Then he got “on to an island or sand-bar in the middle of the river where he spent two days & nights hid in the young cottonwoods; thence again over the running ice to the Kansas side…. [He] walked the 35 or 40 miles to this place [Lawrence].” The day after he arrived in Lawrence, the Underground Railroad moved him “30 miles to another depot,” then on to Canada.195

  For the residents of Lawrence and Kansas, whether they were involved in the Underground Railroad or any other business, a high priority was to gain admission to the Union. And for that, the new legislature needed to take the lead to write and submit a new constitution. Neither the Topeka Constitution of 1855 nor the Lecompton Constitution, just voted down, was suitable for resurrection. The Kansas Territorial Legislature called for the election of delegates to a new constitutional convention on March 9, 1858, to be held at Minneola, Kansas. The delegates assembled on March 23, organized, and elected James Lane as president and Samuel F. Tappan as clerk. A day later, the convention voted to adjourn to meet at Leavenworth on March 25. After appointing the committees, Lane resigned as president and Martin F. Conway took his place. Lane did not give a reason for stepping down, but Charles Robinson, who was his bitter enemy, speculated that Lane wanted assurances from the delegates that he would become the first US senator from Kansas. He did not get what he wanted and bowed out.196