The things I’ve learned about several branches of my family tree from both the Kansas and Missouri sides of the border have caused me to study the period of bleeding Kansas a bit over the last few years.
But I’m grateful for this project, as it will, I have no doubt, cause me to dig a lot deeper.
I was born in Nebraska, but my father’s side of the family were from Iowa, where I’ve spent a large proportion of my life.
In my studies of the conflict in Kansas I learned that Iowa was the primary entry point for anti-slavery immigrants.
Of particular interest to me has been Sidney, Iowa, which was a primary jumping off point into Kansas. Later in the decade John Brown traveled through there repeatedly.
I have a number of forebears buried in the cemetery at Sidney, including Jesse Hiatt, a War of 1812 veteran, and Sarah Estes, the daughter of Joel Estes, the discoverer and first settler of Estes Park, Colorado.
The Estes family were from the Missouri side of the line, having come there from Kentucky at the time of the Louisiana Purchase, and before that having come out of Tidewater Virginia with Daniel Boone before and during the Revolution.
They were a slaveholding family. Apparently Joel Estes either freed or sold the last of their slaves in Missouri just before the Emancipation Proclamation. Depends on whose story you believe.
My Chandler forebears were the Abolitionist family that ended up in Fort Scott.
Anyhow, the above is why I take a great deal of personal interest in this particular period of history.
God bless you and this project.
Thank you very much. That is nice of you to say. I look forward to learning from your special insights and inside knowledge, so to speak.
In my own experience of family research is that decisions to free the slaves were a direct correlation of the straight line distance from the advancing Union Army.
Stories from the little ladies usually go like this: Great grandmother decided to return to the plantation, but freed all of the slaves before she started the journey. The slaves begged her to take them with her, but she explained that the situation made that impossible. TRANSLATION: The Union Army had arrived, freed the slaves and great grandmother loaded up a wagon and got out of town as fast as she could go.