Reminiscences of Gov. R.J. Walker; with the true story of the rescue of Kansas from slavery

Dedication

To Mrs. SARA T. D. ROBINSON,

Oakridge, Lawrence, Kansas —

l^TT^^"^^^' — Permit me to dedicate these humble pages, relating to the pioneer history of your great and prosperous State, to your kindly care. You were identified with all the early settlers who came from the free North and located in and around Lawrence, to whom your hospitality was always cordially extended.

Preface

'HE SUBSTANCE of these pages was written in iSSr, and was published in the Rockford, III., Gazette where it had a large reading. Many prominent actors in the Kansas strife during its pioneer daj's, were readers of the paper, while two copies were subscribed for, and are now on file in the Kansas Historical Society. To date, now over twenty years, not a single statement herein made, has been called in question so far as the author has information, yet numerous indorsements have been received from those who had personal knowledge of the subjects treated. Some of these letters will be quoted as notes, else in our closing pages, while their originals in due time will be filed for preservation with the Kansas Historical Society. Many other letters from less prominent persons, indorsing this narrative, are also on file.

At the suggestion of some of the actors, a few points have been elaborated, and new ones in the way of notes have been added, which will make the work more valuable to a new generation and to youthful readers.

The information herein contained could not be given the public, with propriety, at the time of its occurrence. For the want of this information, many pages of what was designed for truthful history, have been distorted, while actors in the exciting incidents, have been misrepresented and frequently maligned. Even recent writers have taken their cue from early press correspondents, ignorant of the truth, or the motive of the actors, and continue to falsify and mislead their readers, giving credit for results to those whose belligerent policy retarded, and sometimes threatened to defeat the grand result of making Kansas a free State.

Having been a personal actor throughout that exciting period

O BEMINISCENCES

in history, the editor and publisher of the Herald of Freedom, the first and leading free state paper in the territory from the beginning to the end of the contest, with intimate relations with all its men of prominence, and as our Kansas success was the real incentive of the South to Secession, ultimating in the extinction of American Slavery, and by reflex action in the principal kingdoms of the world, so while others have placed themselves on record, it seems just that I, too, shall be heard in explanation of many events wherein myself, and those acting with me have been misunderstood and bitterly censured.

I greatly regret I was unable to give a wider circulation to the truth, before so many of the real heroes in the strife had passed away.

"Hear all sides before deciding," is the substance of a Latin proverb with an English rendering. Mine is the "other side" not heretofore so fully told. So much as is contained in this little volume may induce the re-writing of some pages of tangled Kansas history to make them better agree with truth. The whole is submitted in all kindness to the honest and thoughtful consideration of a new generation, in whose hands is the correction of the false in history. THE AUTHOR.

907 Kilburn Avenue,

Rockford, 111.

OHA-FTER I.