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Remembering the Marais des Cygnes Massacre
May 19, 2008, is the 150th Anniversary of the Marais des Cygnes Massacre that was one of the most violent incidents in the era of Kansas history known as "Bleeding Kansas" that extended from 1854 to the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. This is the second in a series of articles that will focus on some of the 19th century memories and the first markers and monument that were created to remember the massacre and it's victims.
On May 19, 1858, Charles Hamilton and a small band of pro-slavers returned to
Kansas and stopped at the small village of Trading Post, in Linn County, on their way to West Point, Mo. Hamilton and his family were from Georgia, owned slaves and had been forced off their land in Linn County and driven to Missouri by abolitionists and free-staters who were led by free stater James Montgomery. Hamilton and his men returned to Kansas seeking revenge against the men who forced him off his land and revenge he did exact. Eleven abolitionists and free staters were captured in their fields or taken from their homes and marched into a ravine approximately 4 miles northeast of Trading Post and shot. Five of the prisoners were killed, five were seriously wounded and one was unharmed.
The reaction to the massacre was public, personal and private. Beyond the newspaper accounts one of the first published descriptions of the massacre and its aftermath was in a book titled "Kansas in 1858" by W.B. Tomlinson. On pages 73- 76 there is the following description of the victims of the massacre whose remains were brought to one of the houses in Trading Post:
"The names of the killed were: William Stilwell of Sugar Mound, recently from the state of Indiana. He was a young man, not over 28 and had a young and beautiful wife and 2 small children. When he left home the morning of the massacre, his wife, with a presentiment of evil on her mind, urged him to take the Territorial road to Kansas City via of Osawattomie (sic). He assured her that there was no danger in taking the most direct road -- that he was known as (a) peace(ful) man and would not be molested. He was killed with a double-barreled shot-gun, loaded with pistol balls, the charge entering his left breast. He was a "Free-Mason" and it was said that a Free Mason, Dr. Hamilton, of Fort Scott, shot him. He was highly esteemed by all that knew him.
Patrick Ross was an Irishman, who had been driven from his claim on the Little Osage, by the same band of ruffians.
Mr. Colpetzer was a farmer from Pennsylvania. He was a quiet, peaceable man -- a fair type of that class of sturdy settlers who, snugly nestled among the green hills and valleys of the land of Penn, have by generations of thrift and industry, made her character for sobriety and good will proverbial to the world. He left a wife and family.
Michael Robinson was a farmer from Iowa. He was a good citizen and universally respected.
John F. Campbell, the storekeeper, was from Pennsylvania. He was of a remarkably social disposition and had endeared himself to all who knew him. He was quite young and had never been married.
The wounded were Wm. Hairgorve, Asa Hairgrove, Charles Reed, Amos Hall and Charles Snyder.
Wm. Hairgrove and Asa Hairgrove are brothers, originally from Georgia, who came to Kansas to live in a Free State. This is the head and front of their offending. The Rev. Charles Reed is a Baptist clergyman from Wisconsin, who moved into the neighborhood of the Post the week previous to the tragedy. He denounced the course of the border-ruffians in public and hence the hatred of Hamilton. Amos Hall was a settler, a neighbor of Hamilton's. He had never borne arms. Charles Snyder, the blacksmith, was shot in the leg and back. He carried several buck-shot in his leg all summer.
The dead had been brought to the village (of Trading Post) before our arrival andplaced in one of the houses. Some of the seriously wounded were there also; among them "Preacher Reed", as he was familiarly termed, who had crawled off into the woods after he was shot and was not found until the morning following, when he was discovered by his faithful wife, who had searched for him all night and who had him conveyed to the town, where his wounds, which were dangerous, could be dressed and attended to.
I went into the house of death. It was not a morbid curiosity that impelled me to the spot, but an irrepressible desire to satisfy myself if the accounts I had heard of the manner of their deaths were correct in every particular as stated. When I first heard the awful narration it seemed to me impossible that twelve men, taken indiscriminately from the farm, the building and the roadside, should have acted in a manner so truly heroic. I thought there must have been some instinctive tremor- some shrinking of the body from the foe- from death; -- and of this I wished to satisfy myself.
I entered the silent room. On a rude bier lay the Kansas Martyrs- Colpetzer- Campbell-and Stillwell! The last kind offices were being performed for the dead previous to their interment and their mangled corpses were clearly exposed to view...
It was as stated! All had received the fire in the front. Not a scar disfigured the back of one of the untimely dead, but Oh, where once beat the gallant hearts, thick, thick as the drops of a summer shower had dashed the leaden hail of death.
On the cold, pallid lips of the martyred Stillwell there rested a faint smile, as though of wife and Heaven were his last thoughts on earth. Over the fair, young face of Campbell and on the seamed features of Colpetzer slept a holy repose and scarred and mangled as were their lifeless forms, it seemed as though their spirits in the closing of life had been lifted above feelings of corporal pain, so beautifully tranquil were the faces of the DEAD."
The victims of the massacre were buried on the north side of "Timbered Mound" not far from the village of Trading Post, except for Wm. Stillwell who was buried in the cemetery at Mound City, Kansas.
After the massacre, Hamilton and his men returned to Missouri. Eventually Hamilton and his family returned to their home in Georgia and eventually he was commissioned as a Confederate officer in the Civil War. Only one of the perpetrators of the Marais des Cygnes Massacre was ever captured, tried and executed for his participation in the massacre. That perpetrator was William Griffith, who was identified by William Hairgrove in Parkville, Mo. in the fall of 1863, captured by Union soldiers and returned to Mound City were he was tried and executed by hanging on Oct.30, 1863. At 1:07 p.m. on that day when Sheriff Wheaton gave the signal, William Hairgrove cut with a hatchet and severed the hanging rope that tightened around and broke William Griffith's neck, strangling him to death!
During the Civil War, approximately one year after the execution of William Griffith and sometime between Oct. 25 and 30, 1864, the first markers to the memory of the victims of the Marais des Cygnes Massacre were installed in the ravine were the massacre occurred. These markers were two large field stone monuments that were installed by members of the 3rd Iowa Volunteer Cavalry Regiment that had participated in the Battle of Mine Creek on Oct. 25, 1864. It is not yet known how the soldiers from the 3rd Iowa learned of and located the site of the massacre. However, one or more of the soldiers may have read or known that one of the victims, Michael Robinson, was a farmer from Iowa and this prompted them to erect the two stone monuments that were located at both ends of the dead or firing line where all of the victims were shot.
The monuments erected by the soldiers of 3rd Iowa Cavalry Regiment were not formal monuments. It would be another 25 years before the only formal monument to the victims of the Maris des Cygnes Massacre was dedicated and that occurred on May 19, 1889 in the Trading Post Cemetery. This dedication was the crowning completion of a fund raising drive for a formal monument that was started in May 1878 by a group of citizens from Linn County that was organized as the Marais des Cygnes Memorial Association. The association was organized and chaired by Col. J. D. Snoddy from Mound City who had been an officer in the Kansas Militia during the Civil War. It printed donation certificates (see adjoining photograph) that were given to anyone who contributed any amount of money for the monument.
On Oct.20 and Nov. 3, 1888, the following news items were published in the Pleasanton Observer concerning the disinterment of the massacre victims on Timbered Mound , their reburial in the Trading Post Cemetery and the arrival of a new monument that was to be dedicated to them.
Pleasanton Observer, Oct. 20, 1888, p.2, c. 3:
"TRADING POST ITEMS
The main topic of interest this week was the removal, on last Wednesday, of the remains of four of the victims of the Marais des Cygnes Massacre from the spot where they had rested for more than 30 years and their re-interment in the Trading Post Cemetery, where a suitable monument is soon to be erected to their memory. The bodies had been all enclosed in one box and though so long a time had passed they were in part preserved; most of the bones, portions of the clothing, etc., being still there. Relics in the shape of buttons, s stone pipe, box of (percussion) caps, partially preserved and the bullets and buckshot with which each were killed were found. The remains of each was put in a separate box and all again put in one grave and carefully filled in. The work was done quietly and in about half a day. Few, outside parties engaged, were aware of it, even a great many of the town people being ignorant of it until it was completed
HISTORICAL: On the 19th of May 1858, the sun dawned peacefully on the little village of Trading Post, all unconscious of the terrible tragedy that was to be enacted before he sank to rest behind the western horizon. Although the times were turbulent, the citizens, who were peaceful and law abiding, were following their daily occupations, not suspecting any danger, when suddenly Charles A. Hamilton at the head of thirty border ruffians, pounced down upon them and capturing all his band could find, marched them, eleven in all, into a ravine on the farm now owned by E. S. Hadsall, a few miles northeast of Trading Post and about half a mile from the state line and deliberately and in cold blood shot them down. Of the eleven, five were killed, five wounded and one A. W. Hall escaped unhurt. The names of the killed were John F. Campbell, Michael Robertson, William Colpetzer, Patrick Ross and William Stillwell. The wounded were Amos Hall, William Hairgrove, Asa Hairgrove, B.L. Reed and Charles Snider. With the exception of William Stillwell, who was taken to Mound City for burial, the dead were buried in one grave on the side of Timber Mound about a mile north of Trading Post, in a spot that looks across [to] the scene of the massacre. There they have peacefully reposed until last Wednesday, October 10, as stated before."
Pleasanton Observer, Nov. 3, 1888, p. 3, col. 5.:
TRADING POST ITEMS
The monument to the memory of the victims of the Marais des Cygnes Massacre, which we spoke of in the issue of tow weeks ago, has arrived. The last load being brought over from the railroad last Friday. At the present writing the monument is erected and completed. The directors of the Association met Tuesday evening and took it off the contractors hands. It consists of a granite shaft on a base of solid masonry. It is inscribed as been heretofore. It will probably be unveiled and dedicated on the next anniversary of the massacre (May 19, 1889). At last, after the lapse of 30 years, these men who suffered and died that the soil of Kansas might be free, that here air might never vibrate to the crack of the whip of the slave driver, are to be properly honored. It is true that their memories have lived and ever will live in the hearts of the people of Kansas, but it is said that "Republics" are ungrateful" and the best of people will become careless.
This monument will be a constant reminder to coming generations that their liberties were bought with a price, even the blood and lives of men whose only crime was that they believed "that all men were created free and equal, "without regard to race or color and for believing in the humanity of a race whom the old Roman today speaks of as a "prolific animal".
This monument was dedicated on May 19, 1889 and may be seen today in the Trading Post Cemetery.
However, the two field stone monuments erected by soldiers from the 3rd Iowa Volunteer Cavalry Regiment in the Marais des Cygnes Massacre ravine did not last until the 20th Century and do not exist today. Locally known and well respected Linn County Historian W. A. Mitchell described what happened to these monuments in part of his column that was published in the June 14, 1895 edition of the La Cygne Journal newspaper as follows:
"Two stones set in the ground during the (Civil) War by an Iowa regiment to mark the scene of the massacre have been reduced by relic hunters from a height of four feet to mere projections above the ground and a hawthorn tree which has grown on the (dead) line to six inches in diameter is literally covered on (its) trunk and branches with the carved initials of visitors. There is a well worn path to the spot and at times parties numbering as many as fifty visit the place and hear the story from Mr. Hadsall, who is very courteous to visitors."
This was not unusual because the taking souvenirs from a historic site, archeological ruin or battlefield flourished and was common practice especially during the late Victorian era and last half of the 19th century.
Maps of the Massacre Site.
There are two historic maps of the site of the Marais des Cygnes Massacre. The first was prepared by Kansas Historian William E. Connelley and published in his 10 volume "History of Kansas" in 1910. The second map was prepared by Major L.R. Roberts, Topographical Engineer, U. S. Army and published on Page 209 in W. A. Mitchell's, History of Linn County in 1928. Both maps include the infamous "Dead Line", Red Hawthorne or Haw Tree and the approximate location of the Civil War monuments erected by the 3rd Iowa Vol. Cavalry.
1911 Visitors
One of the earliest 20th Century photographs of the "Massacre Ravine contains three visitors, the "Red Haw Tree" and a stone base of one of the 3rd Iowa's monuments.
Gone but not Forgotten
Even though the stone monuments erected during the Civil War had disappeared before 1900, the citizens of Linn County did not forget the Marais des Cygnes Massacre, it's site and it's place in American History. Sometime, shortly after World War I, members of the Veteran's of Foreign Wars Post in Pleasanton, Kansas and some citizens of Linn County decided that the site of the Marais des Cygnes Massacre should become a park. The next article in this series will be devoted to their efforts to create a park that successfully ended on June 30, 1941, when the State of Kansas accepted the land and established the Marasi des Cygnes Massacre Historical State Park.
The author would like to thank Alice Widner of Trading Post, Ola Mae Ernest and the Linn County Historical Society for providing research assistance in the development of this series of articles.