It's that time again! Election Day is Tuesday, November 8. On the local level, this has been an unusually quiet election cycle, possibly because many of our elected officials are running unopposed for re-election.
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| Democratic Get Out the Vote Rally in Waterbury, October 2, 2022 |
There are three ballot measures this year, and some potentially confusing changes to two polling locations. I've put together the information that I have, to hopefully increase voter education and voter turnout.
For the first part of this story, read Bleeding Kansas, Part One
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On March 28, 1856, William Chestnut wrote a letter to the Waterbury American
"to apprise your numerous readers of the progress of events in this
part of the world." Winter was over, and most of his neighbors had
recovered from the "chill and fever" that ran through their community.
Plowing the fields and planting the crops had begun, "and we will soon
make the wilderness blossom like the rose." ("From Our Kansas Correspondent," Waterbury American, 18 April 1856, p. 1)
Chestnut assured his readers that "the actual settlers" would never be driven out by the Border Ruffians and were willing to die rather than back out. He spoke only generally about ruffian activities: they "have already desecrated our lovely plain with their drunken, ribald orgies; our virgin soil has already been stained with the blood of American citizens for the crime of attempting to exercise their rights as freemen--the right of self-government."
Chestnut was nearing the end of his willingness to peacefully endure the harassment and violence of the Border Ruffians, saying "there is a point beyond which endurance becomes a crime--we have hitherto acted on the defensive only, but when our present arrangements are completed we may be prepared to carry the war into Africa, should it be forced on us."
He gave an
example of the sort of thing which the Free Staters had to endure,
highlighting the level of distrust and disrespect between the two
factions:
The ruffians have an organization at Lexington [Missouri], on the river, where they board every boat coming up and forcibly detain them until they examine their freight list. One of our townsmen, a few days ago, had a very fine piano come up, and as it was boxed up very strong, it at once excited the suspicions of the ruffian horde--it was "Sharp's rifles," said they, "and no mistake," though they were shown the invoice and were assured it was only a piano--but all to no purpose. They dispatched a deputation to go up to Kansas City and watch the debarkation of the object of their suspicion, and as soon as it was put ashore, they insisted on having it opened. The person having it in charge accordingly took out all the screws and undid all the fastenings, until he came to the last screw, when he invited the ruffians to finish the job and raise the lid themselves--but they shrank back and refused to touch it, swearing that it was a Yankee trick to blow them up; that it was full of torpedoes, they knew, and proposed throwing the box into the river, saying it would serve the d---d Yankees right. This was as far as it would do to carry the joke, and the lid was accordingly raised amidst a general laugh of a large crowd who had collected on the occasion.
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| Lexington Landing, Missouri, 1861 Retrieved from House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College |
Every high school U.S. history class includes at least a mention of “Bleeding Kansas,” the conflict between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces that took place during the 1850s. The legendary John Brown established his reputation for violence during the conflict and is closely associated with the bloodshed that happened there. It turns out there were a number of Waterbury people in Kansas at this time, including some who were directly involved in the conflict. Two of those Waterburians, William Chestnut and Henry Barlow, sent a series of letters to the Waterbury American newspaper, giving first-hand accounts of what was happening in Kansas. Their letters give a perspective on the conflict that is missing from the textbook accounts of what happened, and they give us a sense of how the conflict was viewed in Waterbury.
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| A symbolic image of John Brown and Bleeding Kansas "The Tragic Prelude" mural at the Kansas State House, painted by John Steuart Curry in 1942. |
