11 N I V E R S I T Y D A L I Y K A N S A N
Wednesday,August 19.1992
11E
Lawrence's early days were marked by slavery conflict
By John Brothers Special to the Kansan
On Aug. 21, 1863, a band of Southern guerrillas led by the notorious border
into Lawrence. A four-hour frenzy of killing and destruction left the town in flames and most of the men dead or wounded.
The raid was the culmination of years of conflict between Kansans and Missourians. It centered around slavery in the territories.
Lawrence was founded to provide an anti-slavery presence in the state. And violence dogged the city throughout its early days.
When the first murder in the newly formed Kansas Territory occurred just east of town on Nov. 29, 1854, Lawrence had officially existed for five weeks. The killing was the result of a conflict between four drunken pro-slavery Missourians and a group of Kansas Free Staters.
And so began a series of violent conflicts between the states that foreshadowed the Civil War and earned Kansas the epithet Bloody Kansas.
The threat of violence was so pervasive that the settlers sent East for rifles and a cannon as early as spring 1855.
But the most violent guerrilla attack was Quantrill's raid.
By the time the Civil War began, Lawrence had already been the victim of one attack, which left the Free State Hotel burned. Guerrilla raids across the border by abolitionist Kansas Jayhawkers and pro-slavery Missouri Border Ruffians were commonplace.
Quantrill was the most notorious of the Missouri Border Ruffans. He had lived in Lawrence before the war and had a reputation as a kidnapper, horse thief and cattle rustler. A warrant for his arrest was issued in Lawrence, and Quantrill was forced to flee to Missouri.
In Missouri he assumed command of a guerrilla band that initially functioned as a behind-the-lines resistance group harring Union authorities. But Quantrill soon began raiding the towns and villages of Kansas.
Quantrill decided to raid Lawrence in August 1854. He had placed spies in the city during the summer to locate military targets.
Draft enrollment lists, state tax records and Douglas County records all were kept in town, and the destruction of these would have had a crippling effect on state administration and the war effort.
However, the biggest military prize was Gen. James Henry Lane, the leader of a group of border raiders that had made frequent and devastating attacks in Missouri. Lawrence was the operating headquarters of Lane's Javahawkers.
Though Quantrill did succeed in destroying the government records, historians believe, Quantrill chose to raid Lawrence out of revenge.
Quantrill hated Kansas, and he harbored a special hatred for Lawrence because he believed he had been treated badly here. Quantrill had talked about destroying the city since the beginning of the war.
The raiders approached Lawrence from the southeast, having stopped at several farms along the way to burn homes and kill the men. They arrived in town at dawn on Aug. 21 and claimed their first Lawrence victim as they headed into town.
Having decided to attack Lawrence, Quantrill's band of 448 rode out of Missouri and crossed the state line south of Gardner.
S. S. Snyder, a Union leutenant, was milking his cows when the bushwhackers arrived and gunned him down.
Quantrill's flea market does not date back to raid, but still adds to Lawrence's history
See Quantrill on page 12.
By John Brothers Special to the Kansan
Although Quantrill's Flea Market does not date back to the infamous raid on Lawrence, it only misses by a week.
According to the Douglas County Historical Society, the three-story stone structure at 811 New Hampshire St. was built the week after William Quantrill's Aug. 21, 1863. raid
Records show that part of the building, roughly the south third, was built by the Barteldees Seed Company to replace a building that was destroyed on the road and again on the building the day after the raid, and it was finished a week later.
The building has been expanded twice since the original construction — once in about 1885 and again in the 1890s.
Barteldes used the building as a warehouse from 1863 to 1960, when the company relocated to Denver. Frank's Furniture occupied the building from 1961 to 1971.
The stone used for the additions match the original construction so well that only a close examination of building's three-part construction.
The ground floor of the building is now occupied by Quantrill's Flea Market and Antiques, a permanent flea market housing 23 dealers of antique and collectible items in 40 sales booths.
If Quanttrill's had not moved in, the building would have been demolished, said Susan Laier, assistant to the manager and proprietor of Susan's Collectiques in the flea market.
The opening of Quantrill's Flea Market in 1971 was timely for the building's survival.
Inside, 12-by-12-inch wooden support pillars holding up equally massive floor beams and the 3-foot-thick stone exterior walls all are relics of construction of an earlier time.
Though the old building does have a unique atmosphere, it does have its drawbacks.
Liaier said the building was dusty because of its previous use as a grain storage warehouse.
"When they move around upstairs, it sits down here like rain," she said. "You just can't get all the grain out. There no way."
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