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The monument mentioned by Prentis is about 10 feet
high, 6 feet square at the base, and is constructed of loose, undressed stones.
Father Padilla met his death in the fall of 1542, so that for more than three
and a half centuries this rude structure, erected by the hands of uncivilized
admirers, has stood as a silent witness to the fate of the first Christian
martyr in Kansas. the monument is located about 1.5 miles southwest of
Council Grove. Another monument to Father Padilla was erected in the city park at
Herington, Kansas, in 1904. It too, continues to stand.
Henry Clay Pate
(18??-1864) - A leader of a gang
of border ruffians during the territorial struggles, Pate was a newspaper
correspondent and was particularly bitter in his denunciations of the
Free-State
advocates. He commanded a detachment of the Territorial Militia which was
organized under Governor Shannon's call, most of this militia being composed of
citizens of southern states. Pate was more of a braggart than a warrior, and at
the
Battle of Black Jack on June 2, 1856, he surrendered without much
resistance. He was released by Colonel Edwin V. Sumner on the June 8th.
The following September he again became warlike and wrote to Governor
John
Geary that
he would organize and command the settlers of Lykins (Miami) County, "for the
protection of the polls," if the governor would give him a commission. To this
proposal Governor
Geary responded as follows: "While thanking you most kindly
for your suggestions and for your friendly offer, I have made every necessary
arrangement to protect the bona fide citizens of this territory in the exercise
of their right of suffrage." This was not to Pate's liking, it was not the "bona
fide" settlers he wanted to protect, but the voters who would come over from
Missouri to carry the election, as they had done on previous occasions. Finding
that the governor would not aid his scheme, he dropped out of
Kansas affairs.
When the
Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Confederate army and was killed
in the spring of 1864 in a fight between Sheridan's Cavalry and the Confederate
Cavalry under Stuart.
Robert Hall Pearson (1828-??) - One
of the first settlers in Palmyra Township of
Douglas County in what would later
become
Baldwin City. Pearson was born in England on April 1, 1828 before moving
with his family to
Allegheny City, Pennsylvania in 1832.
There he attended school and afterwards worked for five years in a cotton
factory. He then learned the trade of coach body-builder, which he worked at for
a time. In 1851, he followed the lure of gold to
California , but after working
as a miner for several years, returned to Pennsylvania in the spring of 1854.
However, he wasn't there long, as he was soon on a steamboat headed from
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to
St. Louis
,
Missouri . From
St. Louis , he then made his way by boat
to
St. Joseph
and then Weston,
Missouri , where he waited with others for
information on the ratification of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill
then pending in
Congress. In May, he in the company of a man named Gauis Jenkins and
other men, traveled to
Kansas to locate claims in the new
Kansas Territory.
Jenkins would later be killed by
James H. Lane over a land dispute. Pearson soon
made a claim just north of present-day
Baldwin City . Already living in the area
was a man named Kibbe, who Pearson stayed with for a couple of months. Kibbe
became an ardent
Free-State supporter and allegedly killed a pro-slavery
advocated named Davis. He was arrested but released on bail and soon disappeared
from the area. Pearson married in 1855, to Catharine Baysinger, a daughter of another early
pioneer. The couple would eventually have nine children.
Pearson also took an active part in the ranks of the
Free-State party. He was connected with Captain Shore's and Captain Dexter's
companies and took part in the battles of Franklin and Black Jack, the defense
of
Lawrence, and others. Later, Pearson's original claim was found to be within
the limits of the Shawnee
Indian Reservation so he took another claim close by
in the spring of 1860. Situated on the old
Santa Fe Trail, he purchased land that
included the Black Jack Battlefield from the Wyandotte
Indians. During the
Civil War, Pearson was connected with the Missouri State Militia under
Colonel Nugent, and took part in the pursuits of
William Quantrill and General
Price. Afterwards, he settled back down on his homestead and in the 1880s built
a home for his family that overlooked the Black Jack battlefield.
The house and surrounding land continued to be occupied by his
descendents until 2003. At that time, the old homestead was purchased by members of the Friends of the Black Jack Battlefield and the
Lawrence Preservation Alliance to keep it from being developed into a residential
area. Today, the site, called the
Black Jack Battlefield and Nature Park is managed by the
Black Jack Battlefield Trust and tells the story of the site's history. The site is located about four miles southeast of
Baldwin ,
Kansas at the intersection of E 2000th Road and N 175th Road, adjacent to the
Robert Hall Pearson Park
 William A.
Peffer
(1831-1912) -
Soldier, publisher, and United States Senator, Peffer
was born on a farm in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania on September 10, 1831 to
Dutch parents. From his tenth to fifteenth year he attended public schools seven
months each winter, and afterwards began to teach at a small district school. He
followed that profession until he caught the gold fever in 1850, and went to California, where he made considerable money before returning to Pennsylvania in
1852. There, he married Sarah Jane Barber and soon after they moved to Indiana.
He engaged in farming near Crawfordsville until he met with financial
difficulties and determined to go farther west. He soon was established on a
farm in Morgan County,
Missouri. In February, 1862, he went to Illinois to get
away from guerrilla warfare, and the following August he enlisted as a private
in the 83rd Illinois Infantry. He was promoted to second lieutenant in March,
1863. During the three years of his service he was engaged principally in the
performance of detached duty as quartermaster, adjutant and judge-advocate of a
military commission, and as depot quartermaster in the engineering department at
Nashville, Tennessee. He was mustered out on June 26, 1865. Having studied law
as opportunity afforded, he settled at Clarksville, Tennessee at the close of
the war and began to practice law. In 1870 he came to
Kansas and took up a claim
in Wilson County. Two years later he moved to Fredonia and established the
Fredonia Journal, a weekly newspaper, at the same time continuing his law
practice. He next went to Coffeyville and established the Coffeyville Journal.
In 1874 he was elected to the State Senate as a Republican and served one term.
He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1880, and that year
he moved to Topeka, where he assumed control of the Kansas Farmer, which
he purchased later. In 1890 he joined the Farmers' Alliance Movement and the
following year the People's Party elected him to the United States Senate, where
he served one term. He was, in 1898, an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Kansas
, and afterward engaged in literary pursuits. He died in Grenola, Kansas
in 1912 and was interred in Topeka Cemetery.
Continued
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LEGENDS
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