Dunavant is an unincorporated community in Jefferson County, Kansas, United States. [1]
Dunavant is an unincorporated community in Jefferson County, Kansas, United States. [1]
A post office was opened in Dunavant in 1888, and remained in operation until it was discontinued in 1932. [2]
In 1910, Dunavant's population was 85 people. [3] In 1912, Dunavant had a money order Post Office and a telegraph office, and was on a branch of the Missouri Pacific Railroad. [4]
The Battle of Hickory Point proceeded on September 13 and 14, 1856. On September 13, 1856, James H. Lane, leader of Free-State men in Kansas, besieged a group of Border Ruffians in the log buildings near Dunavant at Hickory Point (also known as Stony Point), a proslavery settlement on the Ft. Leavenworth-Ft. Riley military road. [5] Prior, this group of proslavery men led by Capt. H. A. Lowe had attacked Valley Falls, then called Grasshopper Falls. Among this band of the Border Ruffians were around 40 South Carolinians.
With a small force of jayhawkers Lane attacked but was repulsed. Then Lane sent to Lawrence for artillery to drive the Border Ruffians out. Reinforcements led by Col. James A. Harvey arrived the next day, on September 14, 1856, and the skirmish ended with 4 Proslavery men wounded, 1 killed, and 5 Free-State men injured. Around 100 Free-Staters were detained by U.S. troops afterwards since the skirmish occurred after declaration issued by Territorial Governor John W. Geary directing to cease all hostilities in the Kansas Territory. Jayhawkers claimed self-defense and were let go. [6]
A Kansas Historical Marker for the Battle of Hickory Point stands a half mile away, on today's U.S. Route 59. [7] [8]
Also nearby, just 1/4 mi. from the Battle of Hickory Point marker, is the farm on which painter John Steuart Curry was born. The farmhouse has been moved to Oskaloosa and there are plans to turn it into a museum. [10]
Later in life, John Steuart Curry would become known for his painting of abolitionist John Brown at the Kansas State Capitol, and also for his painting Law vs. Mob Rule at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, in which a judge in black robes protects a man from a lynch mob. [11]
Dunavant is located at 39°18′07″N95°19′58″W / 39.30194°N 95.33278°W . Its elevation is 1,155 ft (352 m). [1]
David Rice Atchison was a mid-19th century Democratic United States Senator from Missouri. He served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate for six years. Atchison served as a major general in the Missouri State Militia in 1838 during Missouri's Mormon War and as a Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War under Major General Sterling Price in the Missouri Home Guard. Some of Atchison's associates claimed that for 24 hours—Sunday, March 4, 1849, through noon on Monday—he may have been Acting President of the United States. This belief, however, is dismissed by nearly all scholars.
Osawatomie is a city in Miami County, Kansas, United States, 61 miles (98 km) southwest of Kansas City. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 4,255. It derives its name as a portmanteau of two nearby streams, the Marais des Cygnes River and Pottawatomie Creek.
John White Geary was an American lawyer, politician, Freemason, and a Union general in the American Civil War. He was the final alcalde and first mayor of San Francisco, a governor of the Kansas Territory, and the 16th governor of Pennsylvania.
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas.
William Clarke Quantrill was a Confederate guerrilla leader and mass murderer during the American Civil War.
Border ruffians was a term used to refer to proslavery raiders who crossed into the Kansas Territory from Missouri during the mid-19th century to help ensure the territory entered the United States as a slave state. Their activities formed a major part of a series of violent civil confrontations known as "Bleeding Kansas", which peaked from 1854 to 1858. Crimes committed by border ruffians included electoral fraud, intimidation, assault, property damage and murder; many border ruffians took pride in their reputation as criminals. After the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, many border ruffians fought on the side of the Confederate States of America as irregular bushwhackers.
Jayhawker and red leg are terms that came to prominence in Kansas Territory during the Bleeding Kansas period of the 1850s; they were adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause during the American Civil War. These gangs were guerrillas who often clashed with pro-slavery groups from Missouri, known at the time in Kansas Territory as "Border Ruffians" or "Bushwhackers". After the Civil War, the word "Jayhawker" became synonymous with the people of Kansas, or anybody born in Kansas. Today a modified version of the term, Jayhawk, is used as a nickname for a native-born Kansan.
American Regionalism is an American realist modern art movement that included paintings, murals, lithographs, and illustrations depicting realistic scenes of rural and small-town America primarily in the Midwest. It arose in the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression, and ended in the 1940s due to the end of World War II and a lack of development within the movement. It reached its height of popularity from 1930 to 1935, as it was widely appreciated for its reassuring images of the American heartland during the Great Depression. Despite major stylistic differences between specific artists, Regionalist art in general was in a relatively conservative and traditionalist style that appealed to popular American sensibilities, while strictly opposing the perceived domination of French art.
Trading Post is an unincorporated community in Linn County, Kansas, United States.
The Battle of Osawatomie was an armed engagement that occurred on August 30, 1856, when 250–400 pro-slavery Border ruffians, led by John W. Reid, attacked the town of Osawatomie, Kansas, which had been settled largely by anti-slavery Free-Staters. Reid was intent on destroying the Free-State settlement and then moving on to Topeka and Lawrence to do more of the same. Abolitionist John Brown first learned of the raiders when they shot his son Frederick. With just 40 or so men, Brown tried to defend the town against the pro-slavery partisans, but ultimately was forced to withdraw; five Free-Staters were killed in the battle, and the town of Osawatomie was subsequently looted and burned by Reid's men. The battle was one of a series of violent clashes between abolitionists and pro-slavery partisans in Kansas and Missouri during the Bleeding Kansas era.
Charles Rainsford Jennison also known as "Doc" Jennison was a member of the anti-slavery faction during Bleeding Kansas, a famous Jayhawker, and a member of the Kansas State Senate in the 1870s. He later served as a Union colonel and as a leader of Jayhawker militias during the American Civil War.
Lecompton Constitution Hall, also known as Constitution Hall, is a building in Lecompton, Kansas, that played an important role in the long-running Bleeding Kansas crisis over slavery in Kansas. It is operated by the Kansas Historical Society as Constitution Hall State Historic Site.
Newman is an unincorporated community in southern Jefferson County, United States.
Samuel Dexter Lecompte was an American jurist best known for his extreme pro-slavery views, his involvement in the events of Bleeding Kansas, and for being the founder and namesake of Lecompton, the erstwhile capital of the Kansas Territory.
The Marais des Cygnes Massacre Site, also known as Marais des Cygnes Massacre Memorial Park, is a state historic site near Trading Post, Kansas that commemorates the 1858 massacre of the same name. On May 19, 1858, during a period of political instability and sporadic violence known as Bleeding Kansas, a group of pro-slavery border ruffians captured 11 abolitionist free-staters. The prisoners were forced to a nearby ravine, where 10 of them were shot, resulting in five fatalities. The abolitionist John Brown later built a fort near the site. The first commemoration at the site was two stone markers erected by men of the 3rd Iowa Cavalry Regiment in 1864, although these monuments had been destroyed by souvenir hunters by 1895. In 1941, the land where the massacre occurred, as well as an 1870s-era house constructed by a friend of Brown, were transferred to the state of Kansas. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974. The Kansas Historical Society administers the site, which is interpreted by signage and a hand-cranked audio recording.
August Bondi was an Austrian-American Jew involved in the Border War and later the American Civil War. In Kansas, he was a part of the Pottawatomie Rifles and fought alongside abolitionists John Brown and James Lane.
Lawrence Berry Washington was an American lawyer, military officer, author, Forty-niner, border ruffian, and a member of the Washington family. Washington was born on his family's Cedar Lawn plantation near Charles Town, Virginia and was the eldest of 13 children. He practiced law, then served as a second lieutenant in the Virginia Volunteers during the Mexican–American War. During his service in the war, Washington reportedly wore the sword of his great-granduncle George Washington.
Medina is an unincorporated community in Jefferson County, Kansas, United States.
Tragic Prelude is a mural painted by Kansan John Steuart Curry for the Kansas State Capitol building in Topeka, Kansas. It is located on the east side of the second floor rotunda. On the north wall it depicts abolitionist Kansan John Brown with a Bible in one hand, on which the Greek letters alpha and omega of Revelation 1:8 can be seen. In his other hand he holds a rifle, referred to as the "Beecher's Bibles". He is in front of Union and Confederate soldiers, living and dead, with a tornado and a prairie fire approaching. Emigrants with covered wagons travel from east to west.
Indianola, also known as Indianola townsite, was a settlement in Shawnee County, Kansas north of Topeka. It was established in 1854 along the government and stage road between Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth, and received more visitors than the nearby town of Topeka. At the time, the area was part of the Kansas Territory. Samuel J. Reader settled in the area in 1855 and established a farm at the age of 19. He stayed in the area and kept a diary about local events, including Bleeding Kansas, Civil War events, and area skirmishes.
Municipalities and communities of Jefferson County, Kansas, United States | ||
|---|---|---|
| Cities |  | |
| Unincorporated communities | ||
| Townships | ||
| Footnotes | †This community is designated a Census-Designated Place (CDP) by the United States Census Bureau. | |
39°18′07″N95°19′58″W / 39.30194°N 95.33278°W