REMINISCENCES.
BY MRS. ROSETTA B. HASTINGS.
When father went back to Illinois, after he was rafted, we visited for several weeks among the churches where he had preached. Then we returned with him to Kansas, to visit my uncle, and to stay on our claim awhile, lest some person should jump it. We left our goods at Mt. Sterling, for father had promised to preach there that winter; but he told us that he had determined to move to Kansas sooner than he had first expected. We ferried the Missouri River near Jefferson City, and crossed the Kansas River in the woods, where Kansas City, Kansas, now stands. There was little of Kansas City then, except a few warehouses where freight was landed for Independence, which was the starting point of the Santa Fe trail.
Claims were being taken so rapidly that we remained to hold ours, while father returned to Illinois to preach. Two families in one room made it rather crowded, but we had a comfortable cabin. It contained a twelve-paned window—the only one in the settlement; cabins usually had no windows, or very small ones. Mr. May's folks had oiled paper over a narrow opening, which they closed with a board shutter. I asked their little girl why they did not have a larger window, and she said the Indians might get in. But no Indians troubled us.
When father came home, April 30th, we all ran out to meet him. But mother's quick eye detected something wrong. "Why, I look all right, don't I?" he asked, smiling. When we reached the house she again questioned him, and he sat down, rolled up his sleeve, and showed us his arm, brown with tar, and fuzzy with cotton. Then he told us his story. They had not tarred his face, except a spot on his forehead, where, he said, they had stuck a bunch of cotton as large as his two fists. The road to Ocena, as our post-office was called, ran up the bluff now known to Atchison people as Sam Kingstown. On the top of that ridge he had stopped, and pulled off his coat of tar and cotton, put on his clothes and come home.
A few evenings after that, we heard that a company of South Carolinians had camped near Mr. May's house. Father said they had probably come after either himself or Caleb May. So he went up to Mr. May's, to see what to do about it. After he left, uncle nailed shakes over the window, and cleaned up his old flint-lock musket, and loaded it carefully. Aunt moulded bullets, while mother got the ax and butcher knife, and then stuffed rags in the cracks, and brought in the half-bushel to turn over the light, so that they could not see where to shoot. Then we all took turns standing out in the darkness at the corner of the house, to keep watch, and listen for the sound of guns from Mr. May's. Father came home at eleven. He said the South Carolinians had asked permission to sleep in an empty cabin. He and Mr. May had followed them, and he had crept under the cabin floor and listened, and they had seemed to be sleeping soundly. So we all went to bed, but father slept with a revolver under his head, which Mr. May had insisted on lending him. The next morning the South Carolinians went quietly on their journey. We learned afterwards that they were on their way to lay out the town of Marysville, in Marshall County, and did not know that they were in the same neighborhood with Pardee Butler and Caleb May.
Father wrote an account of the Atchison mob, and took it to Lawrence to be published in the Herald of Freedom. The Congressional Committee summoned him to give his testimony. While there, the Lawrence people gave him a pistol, and insisted that he must carry it. Father told us how the Carolinians had sworn to kill him, when they heard his testimony before the Committee; and as soon as he heard they were coming back, after the destruction of Lawrence, he knew that he was in danger. Brave as he might be, he saw no good in allowing himself to be butchered by those infuriated men, and resolved to keep out of their way. He kept his horse picketed on the grass near where he was at work, with saddle and bridle close by. One day as I was helping him drop sod corn on uncle's claim—two miles from our own—while uncle worked at his new cabin, we saw some horsemen coming over the hill.
"They are South Carolinians," said father, and saddling his horse, he rode in the opposite direction. In the afternoon he came back, saying that they had followed him all day, and he had circled here and there over the hills, and he had happened to meet two of them, one at a time, and recognized them as some of the men who had mobbed him; and they knew him too, but they had not dared to attack him single-handed. He thought they were trying to get together, to attack him the next time they saw him.-He wanted uncle to change coats and hats with him, so that, if they saw him in the distance, they would not know him. He wore a black coat and hat, and uncle wore a white palmleaf hat, and had with him, in case of rain, an old-fashioned, light gray overcoat. These father put on, and throwing a white cloth over his horse, rode away, telling us that he would not be at home that night, and that we need not look for him until we saw him. Day after day those men followed him, like hounds after a wolf. Through the day he rode here and there, spending the night with first one neighbor, then another. One day, when uncle was working at his cabin, some South Carolinians rode up, and not seeing father, they searched the woods and ravine near by, and rode away. Father spent one night with Mr. Duncan, and had just gone out of sight in the morning, when the South. Carolinians rode up.
"Does Pardee Butler ride a bay horse?" they asked.
"No, sir," replied Mr. Duncan.
"We saw a man ride into the woods just now," said they, "that looked like Pardee Butler, but he was riding a bay horse."
"Pardee Butler never rides a bay horse." And so they went the other way. Father rode a spirited young "copper-bottom" horse, named Copper, that looked either bay or gray at a distance, as the light happened to shine.
One day, father went to the post-office after his mail, and two young neighbors riding up, and seeing his horse hitched there, thought to have some fun. With loud shouts they galloped up, and hearing them, he stepped to the door, sprang on his horse, and dashed off over the hill, with them after him. But when they reached the top of the hill they found that he was standing on the ground behind his horse, with his pistol levelled at them across his saddle. They were glad to make themselves known, and own up to the joke.
Father slipped home a few minutes almost every day, to let us know that he was yet alive, and to see if we were safe. Every night we fastened up the house, expecting that before morning the Ruffians would try to burst in to search for father. Those were days of terrible anxiety for mother, for she thought every time father rode away that it was probably their last parting. Yet she was brave and quiet, and said little.
But father grew tired of being dogged, and told us that he was going to Lawrence. He was gone some time and we did not know where he was.
My little four year old brother George heard much talk of Border Ruffians, and he went around flourishing a long thorn for a dagger, and boasting in childish accent: "Bad Border 'uffians s'an't get my pa. I hit 'em in 'e eye wid my dagger." One day I was helping uncle drop corn, when George came running to us, much excited. "I foun' a Border 'uffian! I foun' a Border 'uffian! I hit 'em in 'e eye! I hit 'em in 'e eye!" We ran to see what he had found, and he ran ahead, picking up pebbles as he ran, "to fro at 'e bad Border 'uffian." What do you think he had found? A mud turtle! And that was his idea of a Border Ruffian. But he had a chance to see one. One day, while father was away, two men rode up to the house, whom we knew to be Border Ruffians by their red shirts and the revolvers in their belts. Mother told George and me to hide behind the door, while she talked to them. They asked for a drink of water, but while they waited for it, one of them rode almost into the door, and looked around the room—we had only one room—evidently looking for father. George became impatient, and kept whispering "Let me out, let me see a Border 'uffian. I will see a Border 'uffian." And he pulled loose from me and peeped around the edge of the door.
When father came home he brought some type, and some half-printed papers, blackened with powder, that he had picked up in the sand on the river bank at Lawrence, where the Border Ruffians had thrown the Herald of Freedom press and papers into the river. On the printed side of the papers was the article he had written about his last mob.,
Years afterwards I asked father what he was doing when he was gone from home in May and June, 1856. He replied: "I was organizing the Republican party in northern Kansas. I first went to Lawrence, and there the leaders insisted that I ought to visit various points in the northern part of the State, and organize the new party, and I did so."
Soon after father's return, in June, some of the neighbors announced a meeting for him at Bro. Elliott's, four miles from our house, of which he speaks in Chapter XVII. To that meeting the people came armed, for the report of the appointment had reached Atchison. They left their guns in their wagons, or set them in convenient corners, while they listened to the preaching; for they were determined to defend father in case of attack.
Mr. John Quiett, who is yet one of our neighbors, was one of three men who stood guard at the fence, watching for approaching enemies, while father preached. But no attack was made.
Uncle Milo had taken us to the meeting; and mother asked father to go home with us, and he replied, "Yes, I am going home once more."
Mother told him she would be glad to have him go with us, but she was afraid to have him stay all night.
"I am going to stay at home for one night, for I have some letters to write," was his reply.
Mother was very uneasy on the road home, for she said the Border Ruffians would be watching for us in the woods. But we reached home without molestation. Father sat up until after midnight, writing letters, and then went to bed and slept safely. The next day one of our neighbors told us that just at dark that evening she saw a band of men ride into the woods between her house and ours, but she was afraid to come over and tell us. Other neighbors saw them go out on Monday morning, and ride toward town. A few days afterwards, a neighbor, who stood "on both sides of the fence" in regard to politics, went to Atchison, and he told us that nine South Carolinians hid in our woods to take father that night, but they had seen his light burning so late that they were afraid, and went back and told that he had forty armed men, who stood guard all night, and they could not take him.
But father was not by any means the only one whom the Border Ruffians molested. They were continually riding around the country, frightening the people, and "pressing" horses—which was another name for stealing them. And the Free State man who made himself prominent was liable to be shot any time they could catch him. The Free State men kept their horses hidden in the brush, and often hid there themselves. Every time any of the neighbors saw several horsemen riding over the prairie, they thought it was the Border Ruffians.
One day Caleb May saw quite a company of men riding toward his place. He and his son and hired man stationed themselves under the bank, where both the house and the ford would be within range of their guns. Mrs. May was to talk to the horsemen as they rode past the house, and, if they were Border Ruffians, she was to shut the door, as a signal to the husband to be ready for attack. When they rode up, however, they proved to be Mr. Speck, and about twenty other neighbors from the lower neighborhood, who had brought their horses up to Mr. May's to guard them from the Ruffians, who stood in great fear of Caleb May.
When the Ruffians returned to Missouri, after one of their raids, some of them told in De Kalb, where Mr. May lived before coming to Kansas, that they had killed him. One of his old neighbors, named Jones, rode into De Kalb one day, and was accosted by on e of the returned Border Ruffians with "We've got Caleb May this time; got his head on a ten-foot pole."
"Anybody killed?" queried Mr. Jones.
"Oh, no."
"Anybody hurt?"
"No."
"Then it's a lie!" responded Mr. Jones. "I know Caleb May well enough to know that when you get him somebody 's going to get hurt."
Mr. May had for years been a temperance man, in the midst of a drinking population of the frontiers of Arkansas and Missouri, and made the first temperance speech ever made in De Kalb. His oldest son, when fifteen, had never tasted whisky. One day, when Mr. May had gone on a journey, the boy was in town, and loafers, seeing him pass a saloon, shouted, "Cale May's gone; let's have some fun with his boy." So they dragged him into the saloon, and poured whisky down his throat, and sent him home drunk to his mother. When Mr. May returned home they told him what had happened.
At that time there was a local option temperance law in Missouri, under which a majority of the people in a township, by signing a petition to the court, could have the saloons abolished as public nuisances. De Kalb was full of saloons, and there was one on almost every road corner in the county.
Years afterwards I heard Mr. May tell the incident, and his eyes flashed, as he said with his slow, strong emphasis, "When I came home and heard what had happened, you bet I WAS wrathy! I just jumped on my horse, and I rode that township up and down, and I never stopped until I had signers enough to my petition, and I cleaned every saloon out of that township."
Doubtless many a man signed that petition because he dared not refuse; for, although usually kind and quiet, few dared to face his anger.
When Lawrence was besieged, in May, a company of Free State men was raised around here, and they sent John Quiett to Lawrence to offer their services for the defense of the town, but were refused by Mr. Pomeroy. Soon after the return of the South Carolinians from Lawrence they found Mr. Quiett in the Atchison postoffice. They at once seized him as a Free State leader, and began to debate whether to shoot or hang him. But one of the Pro-slavery merchants of Atchison interfered, and begged them to let him go. He got out, mounted his horse, and started for home, twelve miles away. But the Carolinians, like Pharaoh of old, repented that they had let him go, and soon started in pursuit. It was a hot race, for as Mr. Quiett reached the top of each hill he could see his pursuers coming behind him. But he reached home; and when they came to the creek near his home, they were afraid to pass through the woods—probably fearing an ambush—and returned to town. But parties were sent out to take him when he was unprepared; and, finding that he was hunted, he was afraid to stay at home nights. I have heard Mrs. Quiett say, that one day, when her husband had been away several days, he came home for a little while, and she gave him something to eat. After eating he lay down to sleep on a lounge that stood along the front side of the bed. She was rocking her baby in the middle of the cabin, when the Border Ruffians rode up to the house, and one of them, riding so close that his horse's head was inside of the door, leaned forward and looked around the cabin. The door was at the foot of the bed, and it so happened that the lounge on which Mr. Quiett lay was so close to the bed, and so low, that the edge of the bed just hid his body. The Ruffian said not a word, but looked until he seemed satisfied that there was no one in the room but Mrs. Quiett, and then they both rode away. She said that she could not speak, but felt as though she was frozen to her chair, for she was sure that, if they had seen Mr. Quiett, they would have shot him before her eyes. Not until they were out of sight did she speak or stir.
Mr. Quiett and Mr. Ross went with father to Topeka, when the Free State Legislature and Convention met, July 4, 1856, of which father speaks in chapter XVI. Mr. Quiett says that the Free State men went there determined to defend the Legislature. There were several large companies of well-armed men stationed near, awaiting orders from the Convention; and one company armed with Sharp's rifles lay behind a board fence by the side of the road. Several speakers made excited speeches, urging the members of the Convention to be men, and defend their lawful rights, even at the risk of their lives. The Free State men were wrought up to the verge of desperation. The vote was about to be taken, whether or not to resist the troops. There was much suppressed excitement; and, had the vote been taken then, it would undoubtedly have been in favor of resistance. Father, in the meanwhile, was on a committee, in a back room. Mr. Quiett began calling for Pardee Butler. Others took up the call, and, hearing it in the committee room, he came out. They demanded a speech on the question in debate. He begged them to bear their wrongs patiently, and to allow no provocation to cause them to resist the United States authorities. He besought them to be loyal to their country, and never fire on the old stars and stripes. Mr. Quiett said it was a powerful speech, timely and eloquent. When he sat down the tide had turned. The vote was taken, and it was decided not to resist the troops. Mr. Quiett says that without a doubt that speech not only saved them from a bloody battle that day, but that it saved the Territory from a long, fierce war.
After they disbanded, the members of the Convention went out and sat down on the prairie grass to eat their dinner, which each took from his pocket, or his wagon. Mr. Quiett and Mr. Ross took theirs from the wagon, in which they had ridden to Topeka; but father had gone on horseback, as he usually did, and took his dinner from the capacious pocket of his preacher's saddle-bags. Mr. Quiett said that in getting out his dinner, father took a pistol out of his saddlebags. This created much merriment for them, as they thought it would have been of little use to him in case of attack. They told him that if that was where he carried it, the South Carolinians would shoot him some day before he could unbuckle his saddle-bags.
But father disliked very much to carry arms, and I think he never did in his life, except for about two months during that dreadful summer.
About two weeks afterwards we started to Illinois, in the buggy. We crossed the River at Iowa Point. About nine miles northeast of Savannah, in Gentry county, Missouri, father was taken very sick, and we were obliged to stop at the nearest house. The man at whose house we happened to stop was a Mr. Brown, from Maine; and he and his family were very kind to us. There, for four weeks, father lay sick of a fever. One day, while mother was in father's room, Mrs. Brown questioned me about living in Kansas, and whether the Border Ruffians ever troubled us. So I told her how father had been treated. Father called me into the bed-room, and said that I ought not to have told that, under the circumstances; that it would be a dreadful thing for us to be attacked, with him flat on his back, and we among strangers. I replied that I thought it would do no harm, because Mr. Brown's folks were from the North, and our friends. But he said it might bring trouble on Mr. Brown if his neighbors should learn that he had harbored Pardee Butler. When Mr. Brown came in at noon, his wife told him the news. He went right in, and told father that Butler was such a common name, that he had no idea that he had the honor of sheltering Pardee Butler. "Now," said he, "you need not be uneasy while you are here. Yonder hang four good Sharp's rifles, and I and my boys know how to use them; and nobody shall touch you unless they walk over our dead bodies."
As soon as father was able to travel we finished our journey in safety. We visited our old friends in Illinois, and father preached on Sundays. While we were at Mt. Sterling, he lectured on temperance one night, and the bad fellows made a little disturbance. The previous afternoon I had visited a little girl in the village, and we had found and thrown away a nest full of rotten eggs. The next time I saw her she said that her big brother was mad at us, for he was saving those eggs, and he and some other big boys had intended to throw them at Pardee Butler while he was making that temperance speech; but when they went to the barn, their eggs were gone. The truth was, that her big brother was one of many boys who were fast being made drunkards by the village saloons.
Mother went to Ohio on a visit, and father went to Iowa to attend to some business. On his return he met one of the State Republican Committee, who insisted on making arrangements for him to stay in Illinois until the presidential election, and speak for Fremont.
It was raw November weather when we started back to Kansas, with a one-horse wagon, drawn by Copper, and a heavily loaded mule team, driven by a boy named Henry Whitaker, who is now one of the merchants of Atchison. Mother was sick, and we had to stop a week. Then the mud became so deep that father had to buy a yoke of oxen and hitch on behind the mules. Then it froze up, rough and hard, and we stopped for a blacksmith to make shoes for the oxen, and were directed to stay with a widow who had an empty house. She had built a new house of hewed logs, with a window in it, and we were allowed to stay in the old cabin. She could not keep from talking about that window.
"I've lived all my days without ary winder, an' got along mighty well," said she. "For my part, I don't like winders; they make a house look so glarin', like. We uns never had ary one where I had my raisin'. But the childern is gettin' a heap o' stuck up notions these days, an' they jes' set up that we had to have a winder in our new house."
The weather was very cold the rest of the way, and father suffered severely from a felon on his hand. When we reached St. Joseph the Missouri River was frozen, and our teams were the first to cross on the ice. Father took the teams to the top of the icy banks, and hitched them to the ends of the wagon-tongues by means of long chains. We traveled all day over unsettled prairie, hoping to reach Mr. Wymer's house, on Independence Creek. We reached the place at nine o'clock, but no house; it had been burned. It was very dark, and bitter cold, but we traveled on. At eleven o'clock we found Mr. Snyder's cabin, where Lancaster is now built. A little later and we should have seen no light. A party of belated surveyors had found the house before the family went to bed; and they were just lying down when we drove up. In those days no one thought of refusing a traveler lodging. The cabin was about fourteen feet square. The family had crowded into one bed, part of the surveyors occupied the other, and the rest were on the floor. We had not eaten a bite since morning. The cooking stove was in a little, cold, floorless shed, and there mother baked some corn griddle-cakes for our supper. The surveyors gave their bed to mother and me, and the men all crowded down on the floor—nineteen in one room. The next morning we drove on to our own house before getting breakfast, glad to find it had not been burned.
On Sunday, May 10, 1857, a meeting was held at our house, at which it was agreed that a Sunday-school should be organized the next Sunday, in Mr. Cobb's grove, near Pardee. There we met nearly every Sunday that summer, and father usually preached.
Much of his time that summer was spent in improving forty acres of his farm, on which he raised some sod corn and vegetables, Our corn for bread was ground in Mr. Wigglesworth's treadmill, turned by-oxen. We had no fruit for many years, but a few wild sorts, and the vegetables were a welcome variation in our diet of meat and molasses.
August, 29, 1857, the Pardee church was organized, at the house of Bro. A. Elliott, with twenty-seven members. In October a frame school-house was finished at Pardee, which was thereafter used for church purposes. During father's absence the meetings were led by our elders, Dr. Moore, Bro. Elliott, and Bro. Brockman. We often rode to meeting in the ox-wagon, as did some of our neighbors.