Description
An Ex-Slave As a Bootlegger - John Burns Was Once Sold for $1,650 - He Used To Go and Hear Jim Lane Make Speeches - Says He is Not Guilty of Selling Liquor - 66 Years Old. - - (excerpt from longer article) - - Hale and hearty, 66 years of age, weighing over 300 pounds and wearing a regular "Kuhnel" beard, John Burns, an old ex-slave of Silver Lake was brought to the county jail Saturday night charged with selling liquor. (text omitted)
Born in Platte County, Missouri, a slave of George Stiger in 1844, the boy at 10 was taken to Leavenworth and traded to R. C. Foster, now an attorney at Denison, Texas, for a 160-acre farm.
Then he was sold to D. D. Burns for $600. Burns, whose name John bears, bought him, says John, for speculation. That it was a good speculation is evidenced by the next sale. In 1859, Burns went to New Orleans with this slave and there sold him to a Frenchman, Price Lander, for $1,650, a top price in the slave market.
“I helped carry the first boat load of shingles that covered a planter’s home at Leavenworth,” said the ex slave. “I remember when I used to go and listen to the speeches of old Jim Lane.
‘'But after I was freed at New Orleans, I came back to Kansas again and settled in Johnson County at Lenexie (Lenexa). There my mother joined me but she died, and I moved to Silver Lake.
(Researcher's note: George Stigers is listed as an enslaver on the 1847 & 1849 Platte County Tax Lists and on the 1850 Slave Schedule. He owned Stiger's Island on the Missouri River between Kansas and Missouri.
R. C. Foster, Jr., came to Leavenworth County, Kansas, with his parents from Platte County, Missouri. Foster was hired to be General Attorney for the M. K. & T. Railroad and relocated to the railroad's headquarters in Denison, Texas.
Daniel Dearborn Burns/Burnes of Platte County married Virginia Winn on May 14, 1851. He died in Platte County on April 13, 1867.)Date(s) of Creation
3/22/1910
