A Kansas Memory Podcast

Episode 1: Letters Home: Dangers of Life in Kansas Territory

The documents used in the Letters Home podcast are available on Earlier Kansas Memory podcasts used documents from Territorial Kansas Online: A Virtual Repository for Territorial Kansas History, 1854-1861.

• Letter, C. K. Holliday to My Dear Wife [Mary]
  December 6, 1855
  Cyrus K. Holliday wrote briefly from Free State Headquarters in Lawrence, Kansas Territory to his wife, Mary Holliday, in Meadville, Pennsylvania, describing the number and location of surrounding proslavery forces and of free state forces gathered in Lawrence. Cyrus had been working for peace, but was prepared to fight in a shortly expected attack.
  
• Letter, Mary Holliday to My Dear Husband [Cyrus K. Holliday]
  May 29, 1856
  Mary Holliday of Meadville, Pennsylvania assured her husband, Cyrus K. Holliday in Topeka, Kansas Territory, that although she had read in northern newspapers of the May 21st sack of Lawrence, she was willing to join him. If violence relented, she planned to leave the following week.
  
• Letter, John Brown to Dear Wife [Mary Brown] & Children every one
  September 7, 1856
  Just over a week after the Battle of Osawatomie, John Brown wrote his family from Lawrence about the death of "our dear Frederick" and the ensuing engagement, in which Brown himself was slightly wounded. Brown's small force "killed & wounded from 70 to 80 of the enemy" before escaping, and through it all "Jason fought bravely by my side."
  
• Letter, Sene Campbell to [Capt. James] Montgomery
  January 4, 1859
  Sene Campbell, writing from Fort Scott to Capt. James Montgomery, expressed her anger at Montgomery for his roll in the killing of John Little. Little was killed on December 16, 1858, at Fort Scott by a group of free state supporters led by Montgomery who had entered the town to free Benjamin Rice, a free state advocate being held prisoner. Campbell was Little's fiance.