Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/569

 The Sharps Rijle Episode in Kansas History 559 at Lexington. Several weeks later the brave Hoyt was treacherously murdered near Fort Saunders by his inveterate enemies, but the rifles continued to make history. The Boston gentlemen were naturally anxious to secure possession of this property, but felt a little awkward and embarrassed. " If we were not officers of the Emigrant Aid Company we could get them by suit," wrote Lawrence, " but whether we can do so by proxy remains to be seen." In 1857 Governor Geary signed an order for these arms, but it was only after a lengthy suit, brought in 1858-1859, in the name of the law firm of Knox and Kellogg, St. Louis, that the company's agents finally recovered them.^ Probably owing to the recent foray of John Brown into Missouri, the company seemed loath to forward these rifles to Kansas, finally doing so on the solicitation of Martin F. Conway, who had taken Pomeroy's post as the general Kansas agent. Only one paragraph of his letter, March 10, 1859, in reference to this matter need here be inserted : I am not absolutely sure that we shall have no further use for arms lit Kansas, though the probability is in that direction. This skin hunt- ing business may engender a strife with Missouri. We cannot tell what [a] day or an hour may bring forth in this matter. But even supposing Kansas out of the question, the arms had better be here than in Boston, or even in St Louis, for if they are needed against the Slave Power, I take it that the first point of need will be South and South- west of us.^ I shall therefore, dispatch an order for them. I do not see how they would be in greater danger here than in St Louis. ^ Thus these rifles were finally brought to Kansas. John Brown's raid into southwest Missouri had invited retaliatory raids into Kansas. Hence after several urgent requests these particular rifles were transferred in i860 to James Montgomery and employed by him in the Fort Scott troubles.' Eli Thayer probably gave more money for arming Kansas settlers than any other person : according to his own testimony he con- tributed $4,500 " for the purchase of rifles and cannon ".'' Only a portion of his expenditures have been traced; the Cabot account shows a donation by Thayer of five hundred dollars. In 1855 he sent two cases of Millbury rifles to Kansas, containing forty guns, and valued at one thousand dollars.'' At a public meeting, February 9, 1856, in the city hall of Worcester, Thayer assisted in raising " See Cabot Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society. 2 Probably referring to the secret efforts of the Emigrant Aid Company to inaugurate antislavery colonization in Te.xas. 3 Cabot Collection. 5 Eli Thayer, The New England Emigrant Aid Company (Worcester, 1887), p. 46. 6 Letter of T. W. Higginson, Cabot Collection.
 * See Montgomery letters, Cabot Collection.