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 They
were known as the "treason prisoners" and were kept in a prison camp for several
months. During the winter of 1857-58 he was a member and speaker of the
Kansas House of Representatives and
was re-elected. Subsequently, he was elected mayor of
Lawrence, and
also served as treasurer of the state university. At the outbreak of the
Civil War he
was made colonel of the First Kansas Volunteers
; was seriously wounded at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in August, 1861 and
never entirely recovered. He remained in the service; however, was promoted to
brigadier-general, but resigned in 1863. During Price's Raid, he rendered great
service in protecting the border. In 1864 he was commissioned Major-General of
Kansas Militia. General Deitzler was killed by being thrown from a carriage at
Tucson,
Arizona
on April 11, 1884.
 Mark
W. Delahay
(1817-1879) -
Jurist and politician, Delahay was a native of Talbot County, Maryland. Although
his father was a slaveholder, his maternal ancestors were members of the Society
of Friends, and he was averse to buying and selling slaves. He had scarcely
attained legal age when he decided to seek his fortune in the West. He first
located in
Illinois,
where he was engaged in various enterprises; wrote for different journals;
studied law, and was admitted to the bar. In 1853, he went to Mobile, Alabama,
to practice law. However, in the winter of 1854 he became interested in
Kansas and in March, 1855, moved to
Leavenworth. Although a Democrat and a supporter of the policy of "squatter sovereignty,"
his sympathies soon became enlisted with the
Free-State
cause. On July 7, 1855 he began the publication of
the Leavenworth Register. He served as one of the secretaries of the
Topeka Convention on September 19, 1855, and as a member of the Topeka
Constitutional Convention the following month. In December, while he was
attending the
Free-State
Convention at
Lawrence, his
office was destroyed by a pro-slavery mob. He was elected to Congress under the
Topeka Constitution but was never admitted to a seat. In May, 1857 he started
the Register, the first paper in Wyandotte (now Kansas City),
Kansas He was a member of the
Osawatomie Convention of May 18, 1859, which founded the Republican Party in
Kansas and was chief clerk of the
House of Representatives in 1860. He was appointed Surveyor-General of
Kansas in 1861, a position he held
until until October 7, 1863, when President Lincoln appointed him United States
District Judge of
Kansas, a position he held until
1873. He died at Kansas City, May 8, 1879.
 James
William Denver
(18??-1894) -
Secretary and governor of the Territory of
Kansas,
Denver was born at Winchester, Virginia on July 23, 1817. He was reared on a
farm, attended public schools, and about the time he was of legal age, he went
with his parents to Ohio. There, he studied engineering and in 1841 went to
Missouri to
engage in the practice of that profession. The following year he returned to
Ohio and took up the study of law, graduating at the Cincinnati Law School in
1844. In 1847 he was commissioned captain of a company in the Twelfth United
States Infantry and served under General Scott in Mexico until the close
of the war in July, 1848. He then moved to Platte City,
Missouri,
where he practiced law until 1850, before going to
California. While serving in the
California
State Senate, he got into an altercation
with a man named Edward Gilbert that escalated into a duel, in which, Gilbert
was killed. In 1853, Denver was elected Secretary of State of
California, and the next year was elected to
Congress. He served but one term, after which he was appointed commissioner of
Indian affairs and in the spring of 1857, came to
Kansas to make treaties. The
following December, he was appointed Territorial Secretary and subsequently was
appointed governor. While governor of
Kansas, he was active in securing
the erection of the Territory of Colorado, and in his honor, the Colorado
Capitol bears his name. On October 10, 1858 he resigned his position as governor
to engage in the practice of law. In August, 1861, he was commissioned
brigadier-general of volunteers by President Lincoln and served until in March,
1863, when he resigned. For a time, he practiced law in Washington, D.C., and
then moved to Wilmington, Ohio. He was defeated for Congress in that district in
1870, and in 1884 his name was mentioned as a probable candidate for the
Democratic nomination for the presidency. On September 3rd of that year he
attended the old settlers' meeting at Bismarck Grove, near
Lawrence,
Kansas, where he delivered an
address. Governor Denver died at Washington, D.C. on August 8, 1894.
 Annie
Le Porte Diggs (1848-1916) - Journalist and supporter of Populism and
Women's Suffrage, Diggs was born in 1848
in Canada to an American mother and a French father. When she was just two years
old, family moved to New Jersey, where she attended school. She moved to
Lawrence, Kansas in 1873 and married Alvin S. Diggs shortly thereafter. She soon
began to attend the local Unitarian Church and developed a strong sense of moral
responsibility that prompted her to work for temperance and women's suffrage. In
1882, she and her husband began to publish a newspaper called the Kansas
Liberal, and beginning in 1890, she was the Associate Editor of the
Alliance Advocate. Seeking to wipe out injustice, Diggs also allied herself
with the Farmer's Alliance, aiding in the creation of the People's (Populist)
Party, touring the nation with the party in 1892. She later served on the
Populist National Committee, and supported the fusion of the Populist and
Democratic parties in the 1898 election.
Throughout this time she continued to work actively for women's voting rights
and was the
president of the Kansas Women's Free Silver League
and of the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association.
In 1898, she was appointed the State Librarian of Kansas, and was elected
president of Kansas Press Women in 1905. In 1906, Diggs moved to New York
City where she worked on two publications: The Story of Jerry Simpson
published in 1908 and Bedrock, published in 1912. She relocated to
Detroit, Michigan in 1912 and died there on September 7, 1916.
Israel B. Donalson
(1797-1895) -
The first United States Marshal of
Kansas
Territory, Donalson was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky on January 12, 1797.
His parents moved to Ohio soon after his birth, but at the age of 16, he
returned to Kentucky, and in 1835 was elected to the legislature as a Democrat.
In 1839 he moved to Pike County,
Illinois,
where he was elected probate judge and took part in the "Mormon War." He raised
a company in 1847 for service in the war with Mexico, was made a major of his
regiment, and was voted a sword by the legislature of
Illinois for
his services. Upon the discovery of gold in
California, he went there and remained for two years. In 1854
he was appointed United States Marshal for
Kansas
by President Frankllin Pierce and served through the administrations of the
first four territorial governors, when he resigned and moved to Canton,
Missouri. He
was a strong pro-slavery man and at the beginning of the
Civil War he
moved to Hays County,
Texas. He
died at San Marcos,
Texas
on October 27, 1895.
John Dunbar
(1804-1857) -
Clergyman, missionary to the Pawnee Indians, and first treasurer of Brown
County,
Kansas,
Dunbar was born at Palmer, Massachusetts on March 3, 1804. In 1832 he graduated
from Williams College and later, he graduated from the Auburn Theological
Seminary. While a student at the latter institution, he received an appointment
as missionary to the western Indians; was ordained at Ithaca, New York on May 1,
1834, and on the 5th left there for the the west, with plans of crossing the
rocky Mountains to minister to the Nez Perce. However, upon arriving at St.
Louis,
Missouri on
May 23rd, he learned that the party of traders with whom he was to travel had
already left and this changed his entire plan. At St. Louis, he was informed
that the Pawnee tribe needed missionaries and he decided to go there. As soon as
possible he reported at the mission and agency at Bellevue, Nebraska nine miles
above the mouth of the Platte River, on the west bank of the Missouri River, and
began his work as missionary. In September, 1836 he returned to Massachusetts,
and while there superintended the printing of a 74-page book in the Pawnee
language. On January 12, 1837 he married Esther Smith, and the following spring
returned to Bellevue. Later he went to Holt County,
Missouri, but
preferring a residence in a free state, and confident that
Kansas
was to be admitted as such, he moved to Brown County,
Kansas
in 1856, taking up residence on the Wolf River about two miles west of Robinson.
On March 16, 1857 he was appointed treasurer to the Board of County
Commissioners, being the first man ever to hold that office in the County.
Neither Mr. Dunbar nor his wife lived long after they moved to
Kansas. She died on November 4, 1856 and his death occurred on November 3,
1857.
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Compiled and edited by
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of Kansas, updated February, 2010.
Index
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About the Article: The majority of this historic text was published
in Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History,
Volume I; edited by Frank W. Blackmar, A.M. Ph. D.; Standard
Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912. However, the text that appears on these
pages is not verbatim, as additions, updates, and editing have occurred.
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LEGENDS
OF KANSAS
