The Liberator

THE LATE MASSACRE IN KANSAS.

The Kansas correspondent of the Boston Journal has recently been making a tour through that territory. Here is an extract from his last letter :—

Mr. Hairgrove, who is in our party, returning home, is a native of Georgia. He now carries in his neck and breast four bullets, which he received from Hamilton and his party of murderers; but though somewhat weak, he seems as well as any one in the company.

He is fifty-eight years old, and is an intelligent man. He can now relate, without much apparent excitement, the details of the manner in which the murderers took himself, his son, and seven of their neighbors, from their farms, and shot them down in cold blood. He has not shaved himself since that day, and his grizzly beard gives him a singular appearance. He declares that he will never cut it until every one of that murderous band is under the sod. He will first wait to see if the law proves sufficient to punish ; if not, they shall surely fall by the rifles of the survivors. Fifteen of them he recognized, and would know, were he to see them again. " Three—two of the Hamiltons and Brackett—are on their way to Arizona with Col. Titus. Mr. Hairgrove says, 'I am not too old to take a trip there, if they cannot be procured by a requisition from the Governor. They will not recognize an old man, with a long white beard, if they ever meet him there; but he will know them, and see that they do not escape punishment.'

Capt. Hamilton, the leader of the murderers, is also a Georgian, and Mr. Hairgrove once supported his father for the Legislature of that State.

Before coming West, Mr. Hairgrove resided a few years in Mississippi. He says that during four years, in which he lived in Monroe county, thirty-six murders were committed, and yet no man was ever punished, either for murder or manslaughter!

In fact,' he remarks, ' you may commit any crime under heaven, there, without fear of punishment, except one. You may assault, stab, shoot, kill, as much as you please, without much danger ; but you must not tamper with slaves. They seldom punish anybody for crimes towards a white man, but they will lynch half-a-dozen white men for stealing one nigger! They call men of the North 'nigger worshippers,' but you see they think as much of a nigger as they do of six white men !'

Moneka is a promising young town of about half a dozen houses. It has a large church, an academy, and a literary society which meets weekly, summer and winter. Several ardent advocates of woman's rights reside in the vicinity. The only two ladies in the hotel of the village are 'bloomers;' and that costume is said to be unusually popular here.

During the preparation of our evening meal, I seated myself before the kitchen fire to dry my drenched clothing. A little girl of five or six years —a pretty child, with rosy cheeks, blue eyes, and fair hair—was playing beside me, and I finally coaxed her on my knee. In a few minutes she had forgotten her bashfulness, and was prattling freely of 'Charley,' her 'kitty,' a 'ride,' and the thousand trifles of childhood. Would I take her to ride in my buggy?

Yes ; if she would go home with me

O,I can't. I can't leave my ma.

Why not?

She's alone—all alone.

Where is your father?

My pa's dead. The Missourians killed him.

What did they kill him for ?

Because he wasn't a Missourian, and they were bad men. They came to our house, and took him away, and shot him dead. Wasn't that too bad ?

I can't go home with you, because I'm afraid the Missourians will come and get my ma. You don't think they will come and kill her, do you?

And so the little one prattled on, without any adequate realization of the loss she had sustained.

I soon learned that she was a child of Mr. Colpetzer, one of the murdered men. She, her mother and brother of twelve years, are stopping with friends in Moneka, as it is deemed unsafe for them to remain at their now desolate home, a mile and a half from the Missouri line.

Mrs. Colpetzer is a native of Pennsylvania, a young woman of pleasant and modest bearing. She is still quite feeble, from the fearful shock to which her nervous system has recently been subjected. She tells her sad story very artlessly. · 'Mr. Colpetzer was sitting in the house with me,' she says, when we saw the murderers coming. I urged him to go away where they could not find him; for after the threats which Hamilton had made, I feared they would kill him. But he was very cool, and would not go. He said he had done nothing wrong, that he should sneak off and hide ; if he was to die at all, he would die like a man. * * * We were living very happily together on our ' claim.' When I felt lonely, I used to take my work out and talk with my husband in the field. Now our home is all dark to me, and I have no one to go to for company or advice.'

Like the rest of the murdered men, Mr. Colpetzer was poor. In most instances their claims were not paid for. Such steps will probably be taken by the charitable as to secure the homesteads to the bereaved families.

A. D. R.