Description
"The Kansas Narrative of John Doy of Lawrence, Kansas - A Plain, Unvarnished Tale" - - (Researcher's note: Due to the numerous references to Platte County, only selected excerpts have been indexed.)
Chapter XVII An Attempt to Break Jail – A Hard Case, p. 103 - - One morning our tender told me, with a peculiar look out of the corner of his eye, that poor Mr. Wright had been found murdered in his buggy by the side of the road.
I asked for particulars, and he said that a year ago Mr. Wright had taken a man from a good home and sold him South, and the story was that the day before he had bought that man’s brother, whose name was Green, and was taking him in his buggy to the jail, previous to sending him off also.
That, feeling something hurt his foot, he had given Green his coat to carry on his lap, while he pulled off his boot and stocking to see what it was. On handling the coat Green found a pistol in the pocket, and, watching his opportunity, shot Wright through the head.
Such was the story. The next day the papers had a flaming account of the dreadful murder committed upon that well-known and highly-respected citizen, Mr. Wright, but said not a word of his occupation or profession, so that readers at a distance could form no idea of the cause which led to it. One thousand dollars reward were offered for the capture of the slave he had bought, and whom he was known to have taken with him in his buggy.
After about a week, the wretched wanderer was found in the woods, where he had lost his way. He had got but thirty miles from the place of the murder when taken. He was brought to the jail chained, lying in the bottom of a wagon concealed under a coverlid, lest the people should see and lynch him, and his captors thus lose the reward.
I had many talks with him, and he always insisted that he did not kill Wright, but that a white man came to the side of the buggy, called Mr. Wright a mean scamp, and shot him, and he added, “He will never buy and sell any more colored folks.”
When I left St. Joseph, this man was still chained in prison awaiting his execution.
About 3 days after Wright’s death, Milton H. Wash and Wm. M. Carter advertised in the papers that they were prepared to buy likely young negroes, and thus the good will of the lamented deceased’s extensive business passed into other hands without purchase.
(Researcher's note: In January 1859 abolitionist John Doy agreed to take a group of 13 African American Kansans north to Iowa on one leg of the Underground Railroad. Dr. Doy and his group were then captured 12 miles north of Lawrence by a group of Missouri slave hunters which included Weston Mayor Benjamin Wood. Doy and his 21 year old son, Charles, were transported back to Weston, Missouri and placed in jail. He was later transferred to the Platte City jail and then to the St. Joseph, Missouri, jail. Along the way they were displayed in the streets and hounded, beaten and nearly hanged. He was charged with a federal offense of "slave stealing” and awaited a sentence of hard labor or death. In jail after a second trial that found him guilty, ten men went from Lawrence to St. Joseph in July 1859 and broke Doy out of jail. He returned to Kansas and later wrote a 137-page narrative describing in detail his experiences in Platte County, Missouri.)Date(s) of Creation
1/1/1860
