Description
Platte County Forgiveness - Kansas City Star - - “I suppose Colonel D. R. Anthony is still living in Leavenworth?” asked a New York man of the Kansan. The Kansas man replied that the redoubtable colonel was still in the flesh, and added:
“He is about the last of the famous men of his town and state. One of his confreres died not long ago. He was, locally, quite as much of a character as the colonel, and when he died, I realized more than ever that the chasm between sections was filled up and planted over with forget-me nots.
The man I mean was Colonel J. L. Abernathy. He was one of the original Free Soilers and he had about as much to do in worrying the slaveholders in Platte County, Missouri, just across the river from Leavenworth, as anybody in Kansas.
“It was all right for a Kansas man in those days to steal a Platte County horse or nigger if he got a chance, just as a Platte County man thought it was in accordance with the scripture to riddle a Kansas man or tar and feather him.
On one occasion in those terrible times Colonel Abernathy fell into the hands of a crowd from Platte County. They held a court-martial and found him guilty - of what I don’t know - and it wasn’t necessary in those days to file any specifications.
The sentence in Colonel Abernathy's case was that he should be fastened on a raft and set adrift on the tide of the Big Muddy. To this was added a resolution as to how the colonel should be dressed for his voyage.
“It was decided that he should put on a hickory shirt, a kind of material that the frontiersmen wore at that time. They thought it would hurt the colonel’s pride to make him wear such a garment. Then they compelled him to put on a plug hat; just why I don’t know, unless they had an idea that the combination would be another thorn in Abernathy’s pride. I don’t remember the rest of the wardrobe, if there was any, but thus attired Colonel Abernathy was fastened to the raft, and the raft was shoved out into midstream, and the Platte County gang had a dance on the bank of the Missouri as the craft, with its solitary passenger, buffeted the swift waters.
“Somewhere down the stream the raft struck a snag, and the colonel made for shore, and got there. Colonel Abernathy found his way back to Leavenworth and in his own way he got even with some of the Platte County men, helping to get a nigger or a horse across the river from time to time.
As the years went by the past was forgotten. Colonel Abernathy became one of the substantial men of Kansas and commercial transactions between Platte County and Leavenworth were resumed.
Colonel Abernathy took premiums at the Platte County fair on his stock, and residents of Platte County bought goods of Colonel Abernathy.
When Colonel Abernathy died some of the old Platte people went to his funeral, and one of them told me that, when it came time to put up a monument to the colonel, Platte County would like to furnish some of the material and have a hand in saying what should be inscribed on the base. Then I knew that the war was over. That is the brand of forgiveness we have in stock out there.”
(Researcher's note: AI Overview - "Daniel Read (D.R.) Anthony was a prominent 19th-century abolitionist, publisher, women's suffragist, and the brother of Susan B. Anthony. Relocating to Leavenworth, Kansas in 1857, he founded a newspaper dynasty, served as the city's mayor and postmaster, and fought fiercely to ensure Kansas entered the Union as a free state." Anthony may have been involved in the Underground Railroad.
"James Logan Abernathy was a prominent Leavenworth, Kansas abolitionist and Union Army officer who founded the Abernathy Furniture Company. A staunch Free-Stater who voted for Abraham Lincoln, he served as a Captain in the 8th Kansas Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. Abernathy moved to Leavenworth from Ohio in 1856. During the era of "Bleeding Kansas," he firmly opposed pro-slavery factions and is believed to have recruited the Second Kansas Infantry.")Date(s) of Creation
8/27/1903
