Uriah Cook and "Bleeding Kansas" - Part 1

Why would a settled 54-year-old miller uproot his family from their residence in eastern Missouri and move west to the most violent spot in the nation in 1854—“Bleeding Kansas”? 

Uriah Cook had already buried one wife and raised four children to adulthood.  With his second wife, however, he still had five children under fifteen, and the youngest was on the way!  They were living in St. Clair, Missouri, where Uriah was operating a mill, so why uproot everyone, including a pregnant wife, and head for northeast Kansas, where the pro- and anti-slavery forces were foreshadowing the violence of the Civil War with their unbending positions and sloganeering sure to incite hotheads to commit wrack and ruin.

18th-century Quaker woman preacher

To understand that, one has to know that Uriah Cook was the grandson of Charity Wright Cook, the famous itinerant woman preacher of the Quaker faith.  Charity, who bore eleven children between 1763 and 1786, traveled widely between pregnancies throughout the eastern and southern part of the country as well as in England and Napoleonic France in the grand tradition of Quaker women preachers.  Her husband and other family members would take care of the children while she and one or two others would strike out in all kinds of weather and on all kinds of terrain on church business.  Charity was virtually unstoppable, and I think her grandson Uriah had a bit of her determination in him as well.  When he was persuaded something was the right thing to do, he would do it, trusting in God’s providence for his family’s needs.  Thus, as soon as the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by Congress in1854, Uriah moved west.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was an effort by pro-slavery forces to abrogate the Missouri Compromise, which had prohibited slavery north of the parallel 36º 30' north (Missouri excepted).  By allowing settlers of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories to decide whether to allow slavery or not, Congress was exporting its own “fighting mad” attitude to the Missouri-Kansas border.  Things had been so hot on the floor of the House in Washington, D. C., that Americans must surely have gotten a glimpse of what was to come. 

Pro-slavery Democrat Henry A. Edmundson attacks free-
soiler Lewis D. Campbell on the floor of the House

Historian Michael Morrison of Purdue University describes it this way:  “A filibuster led by Lewis D. Campbell, an Ohio free-soiler, nearly provoked the House into a war of more than words. Campbell, joined by other antislavery northerners, exchanged insults and invectives with southerners, neither side giving quarter. Weapons were brandished on the floor of the House. Finally, bumptiousness gave way to violence. Henry A. Edmundson, a Virginia Democrat, well oiled and well armed, had to be restrained from making a violent attack on Campbell. Only after the sergeant at arms arrested him, debate was cut off, and the House adjourned did the melee subside.”[i] 

As soon as the act was passed, both pro- and anti-slavery forces began pouring into the Kansas Territory in order to take advantage of what came to be called “squatter sovereignty”—the principle established in the Kansas-Nebraska Act that the people of the area could decide the issue for themselves.  At a pro-slavery meeting in Lecompton (the capital of the Kansas Territory), Col. Ely Moore, an emigrant from New York, explained “in a few happy and pertinent remarks, the objects of the meeting, being to take proper steps in regard to the emigration of permanent law and order settlers in the Territory. . . .”  Moore reported on a letter from his brother, still residing in New York, who was “inquiring into the expediency and policy of bringing out four or five hundred men, who would become bona fide settlers, with pro-slavery tendencies, and as to the probable chance of obtaining claims for these men.”  The result of the meeting was that the citizens of Lecompton resolved, “[W]e will extend to any such [pro-slavery settler] a most cordial and heartfelt welcome, and will do all that lays in our power to assist them in selecting desirable locations, and will render them such other service as may be conducive to their welfare and comfort.”[ii]

Pro-slavery broadside
seeking Missourians to
head to the border area

But pro-slavery forces came from places much closer to Kansas as well.  Missouri, which was a slave state, was right next door, and Missourians began to flood into Kansas.  In the 1850 census, Uriah Cook and his family were in St. Clair, Missouri, which is on the eastern side of the state.  This is significant since it is known that at the time Quakers in eastern Missouri were smuggling escaped slaves into Iowa via the Underground Railroad.[iii]  The family of Uriah’s second wife, Mary Haworth (sometimes spelled Hayworth), were quite active in the Underground Railroad.  Her first cousin (once removed) was James Dillon Haworth (1785-1866).  In the 1920s, from his home in West Newton, Indiana, James was instrumental in helping runaway slaves escape.  An article entitled “Underground Railroad” published by the Indiana Historical Society tells this story of James’s involvement with Levi Coffin, the oft-dubbed “President of the Underground Railroad”:  “There was a party of 4 fugitives at James Hayworth’s house nearby, and it was arranged that the next morning Levi Coffin would take one of them into his carriage and Hayworth would take three in his and they would all proceed north together.[iv]

Joel Haworth's safe house
in Lyon County, Kansas

Like his kinsmen, the Cooks, James Haworth’s son Joel also moved to Kansas in 1854 as part of the free-state movement sparked by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act that year.  He arrived “in a prairie schooner drawn by oxen,” built a home, started a school, and established a gristmill in Lyon County, Kansas, near Emporia, a town which had been founded by abolitionist Preston Bierce Plumb.  Joel Haworth’s substantial house often served as a safe house where persons of African descent were always welcome.  Joel’s biographers recount an incident that happened in 1857:  “An attempt was made about the last of December to kidnap a Negro named Charley, who lived with Joel Haworth, about seven miles west of Emporia, on the Cottonwood.  He was surprised by a loud mouthed fellow named Freeman, who lived near the junction, and a man who pretended to be his owner, but whose name is not given.  Soon the parties with whom Charley was hunting gave the alarm, and some neighbors came to the rescue.  After considerable parlaying the Negro hunters agreed to go to Mr. Haworth's house to allow Charley to exhibit his freedom papers.  While crossing the river in a canoe, Charley became invisible. After storming around awhile in regular slave-hunting style, Freeman and his friends left, threatening all kinds of vengeance on Mr. Haworth, including the burning of his mill.”[v]

Platte County, Missouri

Much of the Missouri-Kansas conflict that began in 1854 was centered around an area on the east side of the Platte River, which separates the two states—Platte County, Missouri.  From there, pro-slavery forces moved across the river into Kansas, hoping to bolster the numbers of the pro-slavery party as both sides began to duke it out over whether Kansas would become “slave or free.”  The Kansas towns of  Leavenworth, Lecompton, and Atchison all sprang up in this time period as a result of these efforts.  In Atchison, a newspaper called The Squatter Sovereign was quickly set up to promote the pro-slavery cause. 

Though Platte County is remembered as a hotbed of pro-slavery activism, it must also be noted that abolitionists were also moving into Platte County.  The town of Weston in Platte County, writes Kathy Weiser, “had sympathizers on both sides of the conflict, but given their dependency upon slave labor, most of the population was pro-slavery along with the rest of Missouri.  The ‘genteel’ community formed a secret society and drew up a resolution, which provided for the ‘scrutinizing and reporting’ of any ‘suspicious looking persons’ who might be taking arms to Kansas or inciting abolition.  There were about 500 members of the secret society who publicly announced their opposition to any pro-abolition members of the community, any businesses who profited from trading with those ‘Bleeding-Kansans,’ and any who objected to the ‘regrettable excesses’ of the vigilantes.

"Liberty the Fair Maid of Kansas in the Hands of the Border Ruffians"

“Backing this secret society,” Weiser continues, “were the so-called Border Ruffians who were notorious pro-slavery thugs.  In 1857, the Chicago Tribune reported these ruffians as ‘a queer-looking set, slightly resembling human beings, but more closely allowed . . . to wild beasts. . . . They never shave or comb their hair, and their chief occupation is loafing around whiskey shops, squirting tobacco juice, and whittling with a dull jack-knife.’

“Fervent abolitionists lived side by side with those whose way of life was built upon the institution of slavery,” and street fighting broke out between them long before the war began.[vi]

Into this political climate strode the Quaker-bred Uriah Cook and his family.  Daughter Frances Cook was born in Platte County on 14 December 1854, just seven months after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which indicates just how quickly Cook had pulled up stakes on the eastern side of the state. The Cooks were not the only abolitionists of Quaker background in the area.  Fred G. Gaylord, president of Daughters College, in Platte County, also had Quaker heritage.[vii]

Still, there must have been some trepidation on the part of  Uriah Cook and his pregnant wife, Mary, as they headed toward the hottest spot in the country in the fall of ’54.

End of Part 1

©Eileen Cunningham, 2013
geneabloggers.com

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[i] Morrison, Michael. Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War. 1997, p. 154.

[ii] “Pro-Slavery Kansas Emigrants from New York: Public Meeting in Lecompton.”  New York Herald, 23 July 1856.  http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/kansas/New-York-Herald-7-23-1856-8.pdf

[iii] Gilmore, Donald L.  Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border. Pelican.  2005.

[iv] Haworth Associatio. Web.  http://www.haworthassociation.org/Reunions/2009Reunion/Agenda/Pres entations/U-Railroad/Undergroung-RR.html.

[v]Baker, Louise Rhodes, Virginia Baker Schneider, and Aletha Pearl Thomas.  Joel Haworth: Lyon County, Kansas Pioneer, Ancestors and Descendants 1699 to 1978. Web. n.d.  May 1 1978.  http://www.haworthassociation.org/Reunions/2009Reunion/Agenda/Presentations /U-Railroad/Undergroung-RR.html

[vi] “Weston: The Town that Refused to Die.” Missouri Legends.  Legends of America. Web. March 2010. 1 December 2013. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/mo-weston.html

[vii]Paxton, William McClung. Annals of Platte County: From Its Exploration Down to June 1, 1897. Available on Google Books.

Uriah Cook and Bleeding Kansas, Part 2

Pottawatomie County, Kansas

In Platte County, Missouri, no record of political activity on Uriah Cook’s part has been uncovered, to date, but as a Quaker, he would probably have been a peaceful man and would probably not have been the type to be involved with street fights.  His obituary noted that he served as a sheriff in Missouri, but which county he served remains unclear. Perhaps he found Platte County too rough a spot for his family, for by late 1855 he had re-located to Pottawatomie County, Kansas.[i]  When the first school opened in Westmoreland, Kansas, Uriah’s children were among the first to enroll.[ii]

This log cabin from Pottawatomie County, Kansas,
occupied from 1840 to 1850, is now located in Wamego, Kansas.

Site of Uriah Cook's homestead
in Pottawatomie County,
Kansas

Uriah’s log cabin became a hub of the Pottawatomie County community.  When he served as justice of the peace, “Scores of cattle thieves and other outlaws were tried in his home which also served as a trading post.”[iii]  In addition, the Reverend Abraham Millice, a Methodist circuit-rider, conducted services there when he was in the area.  William Darnell, son of another Pottawatomie County settler, explains, “This cabin was a one-room log structure about 14 by 14 feet in size, and housed Mr. Cook s family of five, besides the necessary furniture. Here the neighbors for several miles around met when there was preaching, everybody bringing something to eat and joining together in a regular old-fashioned picnic gathering. When preaching began, Rev. Millice took his place in one corner of the little cabin and the congregation crowded in to hear him. My father says the cabin was never full, as there was always room for one more! However, he says on many occasions during mild weather some of the men folks elected to remain outside near the door when they were able to get the benefit of the sermon. There was always plenty of singing at these gatherings, and father's strong tenor voice could always be heard as he did his share of singing. Going out to these services was an all-day affair as the journeys had to be made behind a yoke of oxen, and they always took their time.”[iv]

Before going into Uriah Cook’s role in the early politics of the state of Kansas, it might be helpful to lay out the political landscape of the time period.  Without question, the anti-slavery movement was primarily a Republican movement.  Democrat Senator Stephen A. Douglas was the architect of the Kansas-Nebraska Act by which he hoped that slavery could be expanded in new territories despite the Missouri Compromise.  

His future opponent for the office of presidency of the United States was Republican Abraham Lincoln, who ran on the party’s anti-slavery platform.  Telling also are the voting records of the two parties after the Civil War when various amendments were made to the Constitution:

·        100% of the Republicans in Congress voted for the 13^th Amendment, which abolished slavery.  Only 23% of the Democrats in Congress voted for it.

·        Not a single Democrat in either the House or the Senate voted for the 14^th amendment, which gave former slaves full citizenship—as well as the rights of citizenship—in the state where they resided

·        Of the 56 Democrats in Congress, not one voted for the 15^th Amendment, which granted explicit voting rights to black Americans.[v]

That said, I must hasten to add that not all Democrats were pro-slavery.  Members of the anti-slavery wing of the party were called Whigs, Independent Democrats, and/or Free Democrats.  It was apparently with this wing of the party that Uriah Cook identified, as his obituary does state that he was, in fact, a Democrat.  That he was staunchly anti-slavery will be substantiated below, but there was an incident on the Cook farm in 1862 that shows his affiliation with the Democrat party made him the target of anti-slavery rabble rousers (yes, there were troublemakers on both sides in Bleeding Kansas).  William Darnell, son of another of the early settlers of Westmoreland and a person who knew Uriah Cook personally recorded the incident this way:

“One day in July or August, 1862, word was passed down the Rock creek [sic] valley that on a certain night a vigilance committee was going to make a visit to the homes of all Democrats with the object of hanging all whom they visited. This committee had headquarters in the vicinity of Manhattan. About this time a band of horse thieves was organized for the purpose of running horses out of the country, and it was suspected that this vigilance committee was made up to a more or less degree of members of this horse-thieving clique, who found the expedient of intimidating settlers considerably of a help in procuring horses without the formality of paying cash for them. In order to make their work easier they carried an American flag with them, which they conspicuously displayed while engaged in their underhanded work.

The image depicts "Jayhawkers" and
"Bushwhackers" skirmishing in the
Missouri-Kansas Border area.

“One Rock creek [sic] settler, Uriah Cook, familiarly known as ‘Old Man Cook,’ was in due season visited by this gang. One of the gang shook the flag at Mr. Cook while delivering a harangue. This aroused the ire of the old gentleman. In a burst of indignation he grabbed the flag and took it away from the individual who was shaking it, and roared at him: ‘Don't you shake that flag at me. I've lived under it a good many years longer than you have.’ He kept the flag, too.”[vi]  By the way, Uriah was apparently up to the task of holding off  hotheads of both persuasions because, according to his obituary, “During the civil war, when Missouri border ruffians [the “pro-slavery thugs” mentioned above] were preying on Kansas settlers, Mr. Cook took a large part in law enforcement. His section of the county was never raided.”[vii]

From Darnell’s description, the hoodlums may have been horse thieves more than political activists, but the threat would have been just as real.  But, despite the fact that Uriah was a Democrat in the 1850s when Kansas was seeking admission to the Union as a “free state” (i.e., a state where slavery was prohibited by law), his actions show that he was 100% opposed to slavery.  In addition to being devoted to the manumission of slaves, Uriah’s commitment to his Quaker philosophy of brotherly love is attested in another way. To be specific, those who knew him stated, “Because of his religious faith, he became a friend to the Indians and although many massacres took place in his neighborhood, his family was never molested.”[viii]

Depiction of William Penn, founder of the Quakers, beginning
a peaceful tradition between the Quakers and the Native Americans.

Uriah was almost immediately recognized in his community as a man who could be trusted.  In February, 1857, he was elected justice of the peace (some refer to his position as “judge”) for Pottawatomie County, as noted above.  In December of that year, he was appointed county election commissioner by acting governor of the Kansas Territory, Frederick P. Stanton.  He apparently performed his duties conscientiously because when it came time to establish a convention for the writing of a constitution for the Territory, Uriah Cook was elected as a delegate from Pottawatomie County.  There were actually four Kansas Constitutions drawn up, but the one attended by Uriah Cook was held at Leavenworth and is known in history as the Leavenworth Constitution.  Holding an anti-slavery convention in Leavenworth, Kansas, was a bold move in 1858 when Leavenworth was still a pro-slavery town.

According to the KHS, “The Leavenworth Constitution was the most radical of the four constitutions drafted for Kansas Territory. The Bill of Rights refers to ‘all men’ and prohibited slavery from the state. The word ‘white’ did not appear in the proposed document and therefore would not have excluded free blacks from the state.”  (The document provided protection for the rights of women as well.)[x]  The constitution was passed on April 3, 1858, and bears Uriah Cook’s name as a signatory.[xi]

By way of contrast politically, the preceding convention at Lecompton had been a pro-slavery convention, and the Lecompton Constitution, therefore, supported the institution of slavery in the Kansas Territory.  In Pottawatomie County, it received only two votes while 207 voted against it.  That was in January.  By April, J. D. Adams and Uriah Cook had been voted in as delegates to the anti-slavery convention at Leavenworth.[xii]  This goes some way toward showing the solidarity of the residents of Pottawatomie County behind the “free state” philosophy.

New York Times' publication of the
the Leavenworth Constitution
and its signatories.

Kansas voters approved the Leavenworth Constitution, so why did it fail to become the state's Constitution?  The Kansas Historical Society (KHS) explains it this way: “Freestaters were in control of the legislature and passed a radical antislavery constitution granting voting rights to African Americans. . . . Proslavery leaders controlled the Congress, where they ensured its failure at the national level.”  To show the Constitution’s character, the KHS describes one of the delegates to the convention, abolitionist John Ritchie, a friend of John Brown’s, who had been active in helping fugitive slaves make their escape to freedom.  On July 17, 1859, the Leavenworth Times went so far as to say, “The Radical of Radicals is John Ritchey [who] is an ultra Abolitionist, woman’s rights man, teetotaler, and general advocate for reform.”[xiii]  It’s likely the same could have been said of Uriah Cook.

Uriah Cook's Headstone
Old Westmoreland Cemetery

Uriah Cook still had one last public duty to perform.  On July 1, 1861, he was appointed treasurer of Pottawatomie County.[xiv]  William Darnell pointed out, “[T]he office of county treasurer was in his cabin for the first two years, and there the early settlers met to pay their taxes and transact the other business with the treasurer”[xv]—just as legal matters and church services had been conducted there before.

Uriah Cook passed away in Westmoreland, Kansas, on February 9, 1864, and was buried in what, at the time, was called the Cook Cemetery (today it is known as Old Westmoreland Cemetery).  I am proud to know my ancestor (third great-grandfather) was not just a man who could consistently live what he professed, but also that what he lived and professed served God, the brotherhood of man, and the cause of freedom.  May we all be inspired by his life.

©Eileen Cunningham, 2013                                                                                geneabloggers.com

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[i] Hill, W. F. “Early History [of Westmoreland, Kansas].” The Westmoreland Recorder.  Railroad Edition.  2 Nov. 1899. Web.  n.d.  2 December 2013. http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/pottawat/rr_ed.html

[ii] Darnell, William.  “Reminiscences of William Darnell.”  Ed. George A. Root.  The Kansas Collection.  Web. http://www.kancoll.org/articles/darnell3.htm

[iii] Uriah Cook Obituary.  Westmoreland Recorder. 1864. Findagrave Memorial #44029709.  Findagrave.com. Web. 7 November 2009.  2 December 2013. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=44029709

[iv] “Reminiscences of William Darnell—Part Three.”  Ed. George A. Root.  Kansas State Historical Society.  Kansas Collections.  Web.  n.d. 2 December 2013. http://www.kancoll.org/articles/darnell3.htm

[v] “Did You Know?” Frederick Douglas Republicans.  Web.  2013.  2 December 2013. http://frederickdouglassrepublican.com/did-you-know/

[vi] “Reminiscences of William Darnell—Part Three.”

[vii] Uriah Cook Obituary.  Westmoreland Recorder. 1864. Findagrave Memorial #44029709.  Findagrave.com. Web. 7 November 2009.  2 December 2013. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=44029709

[viii] Findagrave.com.

[ix] Findagrave.com.

[x] “Leavenworth Constitution.”  Kansas Historical Society.  Web.  2007-2013. 2 December 2013. http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/207410

[xi] Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History. Ed. Frank Wilson Blackmar. Chicago: Standard. 1912.  Web. 29 July 2008.  2 December 2013. https://archive.org/details/kansascyclopedia02blac

[xii] Cutler, William G. “Territorial History—Part 52” and “Pottawatomie County—Part 2  History of the State of Kansas. Chicago: Andreas, 1833.  Web. April 1999.  2 December 2012.  http://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/

[xiii] “Four Different Constitutions.” Online Exhibit. Kansas Historical Society. Web. 2013. 3 December 2013. http://www.kshs.org/p/online-exhibits-willing-to-die-for-freedom-constitutions/15396

[xiv] Cutler.

[xv] Darnell, William.  “Reminiscences of William Darnell.”  Ed. George A. Root.  The Kansas Collection.  Web. http://www.kancoll.org/articles/darnell3.htm

Images

Map showing Pottawatomie County, Kansas.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottawatomie_County,_Kansas

Pottawatomie County log cabin.  http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMCNGQ_Historic_Log_Cabin_Wamego_KS

Uriah Cook’s homestead.  Memorial #44029709.  Created by Judy.  Findagrave.com. Web. 7 Nov 2009.  5 Dec 2013. 

Border skirmish.  Legends of America.  Web.  http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ks-forts2.html

William Penn and Native Americans.  “European Colonization of the Americas.”  Wikipedia.  Web.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_colonization_of_the_Americas

New York Times page.  Historical Newspapers Collection.  Ancestry.com. http://search.ancestry.com/oldsearch/rectype/periodicals/news/

Uriah Cook’s headstone.  Memorial #44029709.  Created by Judy.  Findagrave.com. Web. 7 Nov 2009.  5 Dec 2013.