|
 George W. Deitzler
(1826-1884) -
Free-State
advocate, soldier, and politician, Deitzler was born at Pine Grove, Pennsylvania
on November 30, 1826.
He received a public school education and moved to Kansas , where he became one
of the prominent figures of the
Free-State party. He was a delegate to the
Topeka Convention and in May, 1856, was one of the seven men who were arrested
at
Lawrence
and taken to Lecompton under guard of Federal troops. 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.
| Compiled and edited by
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of Kansas, updated February, 2010. |
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.
|
Index
|
LEGENDS
OF KANSAS
Please report
broken links, missing pictures, or other problems online by clicking
HERE
or send us an
email.
Thanks!
