MONDAY,AUG.20,2001
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 7A
Lawrence history honored at Civil War house dedication
Local residents commended for abolitionist spirit
By Matt Norton Kansan staff writer
U. S. Rep. Dennis Moore and former Kansas City, Mo., mayor Emanuel Cleaver II helped dedicate the John Speer farmstead site and the Murphy-Bromelsick house yesterday at Hobbs Park.
JAMIE ROPER/KANSAN
Rev. Emanuel Cleaver addresses a crowd of 300 during the dedication of the John Speer homestead. Speer published the first newspaper in the Kansas Territory solidly opposed to slavery.
Pfc. Sammie Lee Ford is among the last of the Buffalo Soldiers. The African-American cavalry soldiers formed after the Civil War in the late 1860's and were so named by Native Americans as a moniker of respect. Six Buffalo Soldiers attended the dedication of the John Speer farmstead site.
"This evening we're here to honor, preserve and celebrate Lawrence's history because truly, the history of Lawrence is the history of our state and the history of our nation." Moore said to the crowd gathered at the corner of 10th and Delaware streets.
Lawrence played an integral role in Civil War history. Whether Kansas would become a free or slave state held huge implications for the territories west of Kansas, territories that still had to determine whether they would become states that would allow slavery. Lawrence was often a literal and figurative battleground between the two factions on both sides of the issue.
tions of books. John Speer was an abolitionist and newspaper publisher in Lawrence during the latter part of the 1800s. Two of his sons were killed in the infamous sack of Lawrence by Quantrill's Raiders.
His response was to help rebuild the town.
The Murphy-Bromelsick house, which was relocated to the memorial site last August, was built during the reconstruction of Lawrence in the years following the Quantrill raid.
Jim McCrary, co-director of the project to save and restore the house, said the house symbolized the spirit of the working-class people who helped rebuild the city, as well as the people who live in the community now.
He said the house was in fairly bad shape when restoration began. The mortar holding the brick structure together was crumbling and had to be almost completely replaced.
Workers had to scrape through nine inches of double-layer brick walls and a 16 to 18 inch stone wall foundation to take out the old mortar and replace it.
McCrary said he hoped the house
would bring attention to a part of the city that hasn't receive the recognition it deserved.
"It has a unique story and style," he said. "All the fancy stuff gets saved, but not those things that have to do with the working class. This is part of the neighborhood, and we wanted to draw people to East Lawrence."
For others, including Cleaver, the sites also had personal significance.
"I am the great, great, great-grandson of Frank Harrison Cleaver, a slave who was owned by Henry Cleaver of Cherokee County, Texas,"Cleaver said.
"Many of you are the descendants of slave owners. But now we are brothers and sisters in a nation that has been
greatly blessed. While we did not come over on the same ship, today we are on the same boat."
Norton can be reached at 864-4810 or writer@kansan.com