From Kansas City Mr. Branscomb proceeded alone up the Kansas River to Fort Riley, while Dr. Robinson went up the Missouri to Fort Leavenworth. The Doctor found surveyors laying off a town near Fort Leavenworth, despite the fact that the Government at Washington had not yet opened the country for purchase. He immediately returned to Kansas City, where he received a letter from Boston informing him that the first party of emigrants was on the eve of starting for Kansas, and instructing him to join them at St. Louis. Upon meeting them at St. Louis, a letter was handed him asking for his immediate presence in Boston. He wrote to Mr. Branscomb to join the party at Kansas City and lead them to a settlement, while he himself hurried to Boston.
| The first party of emigrants. |
Mr. Branscomb and a Colonel Blood, of Wisconsin, who had also been sent out by Mr. Lawrence, met the emigrants at Kansas City, and, after a good deal of deliberation, led them to the spot on the Kansas River, above the confluence of the Wakarusa with the Kansas, on which the town of Lawrence was afterward built.
| The "Platte County self-defensive association." |
A few days before this first party of emigrants had arrived from the East, a meeting of residents of Platte County in Missouri took place at Weston, and, under the lead of B. F. Stringfellow, an organization was formed, which called itself the "Platte County Self-defensive Association," with the declared purpose of aiding in the removal of all persons from the soil of Kansas who might go there through the aid or protection or guidance of emigrant aid societies in the North. Other such associations were formed in other localities of western Missouri, and before the autumn of 1854 had hardly opened, from five to ten thousand persons, mostly desperate and reckless characters, were organized in the border counties of western Missouri, and ready to invade Kansas for the purpose of protecting the settlers in the Territory from Missouri and the South generally in the exclusive possession of the Territory.
| The founding of Lawrence. |
In September, the little party of about thirty men, who had pitched their tents upon the site of the present city of Lawrence, were joined by Dr. Robinson and S. C. Pomeroy, with the second party from the East, numbering some two hundred men. Upon the arrival of these the work of laying out and building the town was begun, and the place was named, in honor of the strong financial supporter of the Emigrant Aid enterprise, Lawrence.