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Kansas University Weekly.
MISGELLANEOUS.
MAJOR ABBOT'S ADDRESS.
An Interesting Talk on Early Kansas History by a Participant.
At the meeting of the Historical Seminary last Friday at the University, Major J. B. Abbott, of De Soto, gave an interesting account of some events in the territorial history of Kansas, in which he was directly concerned. The Major first gave an account of the Missouri invasion of the territory at the time of the elections. It became apparent that the free-state men would have to defend themselves, and several military companies were organized. The Wakarusa company was without arms and in July of 1855, Major Abbott, an officer in the company and a personal friend of Mr. Sharpe, the rifle inventor, was sent east to procure rifles. Enough money was subscribed to buy 117 Sharpe's rifles. In New York Major Abbott visited Horace Greeley and at his suggestion a meeting was called at the Astor house. Frederick Law Olmstead was appointed agent to collect money and enough was raised to buy a brass mountain howitzer. The arms were purchased and shipped to St. Louis, where Major Abbott attended to their reshipping in person. He disguised himself as much as possible and in traveling registered only the first part of his name, "J. Burnett." Two men took passage with him on the boat from St. Louis, whose evident purpose was to discover his identity and intercept the arms. Sitting with them at a game of euchre one day, one of them spoke up quickly, saying "Abbott, it is your deal." The major looked up and said "No you are mistaken, it is my deal." He escaped detection and the arms, consigned to Harlow and Hutchison in Lawrence, reached their destination in safety.
During the second half of the hour Major Abbott gave a detailed account of the Branson rescue. Dow was killed by Coleman on the 21st of November, 1855. As no attempt was made to bring the murderer to justice the members of the Wakarusa company, to which Dow
belonged, held an investigation at the place of the murder two days after the event occurred. When a part of the company returned to Abbott's house about a half mile south of Blanton's bridge across the Wakarusa, they learned that Sheriff Jones had passed there with a posse, on his way to arrest Branson, under the pretense that he had threatened to kill Coleman but really because he was the most important witness against him. Major Abbott, S. N. Wood and a small party started for Mr. Branson's. Major Abbott was a lieutenant of the company and the only officer present. Mr. Wood went with him because he was acquainted with Mrs. Branson. Arrived at Brason's, they found that he had been taken. An attempt to follow the posse failed as they could not detect the tracks and the party returned to Abbott's house. Barely had they reached there when the posse came that way. Major Abbott formed his company behind the house and surprised the posse as they came up. Branson was taken from them and after a parley of fifteen or twenty minutes Jones and his men left. At the time of the rescue Abbott had about ten men. During the parley others came in and the number was increased to about twenty-six. An erroneous impression has obtained that Col. S. N. Wood was in command of the rescuing party. Mr. Wood left immediately for Ohio and on his way he gave the papers in St. Louis an account of the rescue, in which he assumed to be the leader. His associates thought at the time that his object was to turn the attention from those that remained in the territory, but he afterwards repeated the statement that he was elected captain. In this he was mistaken as there was no election of the kind. Col. Wood was also in error in saying that guns were aimed and cocked on both sides. No one of the posse raised a gun. If any one had done so, he would have been shot. The Branson rescue led directly to the Wakarusa war and the retreat of the Missourians and thus most successfully was passed the first great crisis in