Proslavery Leader's Desk

Clarke was a notorious proslavery leader during the "Bleeding Kansas" period of history, when opposing forces sought control over the state based on the issue of slavery. Clarke had been suspected of killing a free-state man, Thomas Barber, near Lawrence in 1855 during the Wakarusa War but was never convicted. In the fall of 1856 Clarke led a party of 400 Missourians into Linn County on the eastern edge of the state, where, in the words of a fellow proslavery man, they "plundered, robbed and burned out of house and home nearly every Free-state family in Linn County, while [Clarke's] hands were steeped in innocent blood, and the light of burning buildings marked his course."

In 1856, while Clarke sat reading by the desk at his home near Lecompton, someone--presumably a free-stater--shot at him. Clarke was uninjured but the desk did not fare as well. The bullet passed through the front of the desk and left a divot in the surface of the drawer directly behind it. The hole left by the bullet can be seen in the photo at bottom right (click on photo for enlargement); the hole is the dark spot below the keyhole and near left-center.

In 1857 Clarke began work in the U. S. Land office in Fort Scott, Bourbon County. In a 1904 interview, Judge William Margrave gave the following account of George W. Clarke during this period: "[He] was practically registrar of the land office but there was a story afloat, and I guess it was true, that he had killed somebody up near Lecompton and the government wouldn't appoint him directly but appointed somebody else and Clarke performed the duties." Clarke continued his proslavery activities in Fort Scott and in nearby Missouri until he was finally driven out of the state and into southwestern Missouri in August, 1858.

Judge Margrave purchased Clarke's desk in 1858 for $14.00. Margrave was a probate judge in Bourbon County and a former free-state legislative candidate. He used the desk in his courtroom from 1858 until October, 1864, when, under threat of invasion of Fort Scott by Confederate General Sterling Price, much personal property (including the desk) was removed from the town.

At this time, Captain Charles Judson of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry came into possession of the desk and carried it with him on an expedition through Arkansas in 1864. About a year later, while the Sixth was in camp at Fort Scott, Judge Margrave recognized his desk in the captain's tent and recovered it. He continued to use the desk in his courtroom until 1902, when he presented it to the Kansas Historical Society. The desk is in the collections of the Society's Kansas Museum of History.

"[Clarke] was a border ruffian of the worst kind," recalled Margrave in 1904. "If he wasn't killed before he got away from Kansas it was a mistake on the part of the people who knew him."

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