Description
The Landmark, Platte City, Missouri, rebuts the Leavenworth Times' September 22, 1906, article titled ""Pair of Rusty Handcuffs Held Bones of Wrist - Gruesome Find in the Old Prison Corral in Platte City - Was Plowed Up By Farmer - Believed to Have Been on Wrists of Some Slave Buried There - Handcuffs, Rusted So Badly That Chain Has Disappeared, Now on Exhibition in Times Window." (See separate entry for the September 22, 1906, article).
The above is from the Leavenworth Times of September 22, and is a fair sample of how that paper hates Platte County and how it poses as the record beater, as a tall and artistic liar.
It was hoped by many Platte County people that when those midnight marauders, red legs and horse thieves, Anthony and Jennison, passed away to the volcanic fire department, that the Times would cease from slandering the people of this county. But it never fails to traduce the people from this side, though it makes great effort to have our people come to Leavenworth to trade. What injury such a paper has done and is doing to Leavenworth we will leave with the merchants and business men of that city to state.
In the first place there is no such a man living in Platte county as E. Kirkpatrick. E. Kirkpatrick is a well known florist of Leavenworth City. There never was a corral for negro slaves in Platte City. There never was a military prison in Platte City and no old settlers ever tell such stories as the Times state.
The only thing that ever approached a negro corral in Platte County was an old log building used by General George P. Dorris to confine bad niggers in, that he intended sending down South. These negroes cost from $1,000 to $2,000 each, and it will hardly be supposed that many of them were shot. In fact Gen. Dorris fed and clothed them well, so as to make them more presentable for the Southern markets. The plowing up of the soil is another good joke, for where the old Dorris house stood is a solid rock.
The story of the handcuffs is as follows: Mr. E. Kirkpatrick is a Leavenworth man and had had some stock running on Jesse J. Blakley’s pasture south of Platte City. On his last visit to Platte County Mr. Blakley gave Mr. Kirkpatrick a pair of old handcuffs that had been laying about his house since he moved there 15 years ago (~1891).
There were no bones connected with them, and as far as Mr. Blakley knew, there never has been. They were the property of Thomas Tipton, who was a deputy sheriff under Billy Hunt or Dr. Overbeck. Tipton lived with Richard Darnall on the property now occupied by Mr. Blakley. Mr. Darnall’s house was burned and the handcuffs went through the fire and were afterwards thrown about the premises as useless property. This is the story of the handcuffs.
We are glad to hear that “The slave question is familiar with the old settlers of Leavenworth and vicinity.” The chopping up of an old Missouri nigger this week in bis cabin in Leavenworth and an attempt to burn the cabin to conceal the crime shows a familiarity with the Missouri slave question almost equal to the time when the Leavenworth people roasted a negro to death with a slow fire and yelped and whooped while the wretch was burning, like old D. R. Anthony or Jennison on some midnight murdering expedition.
We have two pair of old rusty handcuffs hanging in the Landmark office that decorated the wrists of more than one of old John Brown's Kansas horse thieves caught in their murderous raids under auspices of that "Underground Railway.” If the Times wishes we can write it a more thrilling story connected with these handcuffs than the Times man said Mr. Kirkpatrick related to him.
(Researcher's note: Paxton's Annals reports that in August 1859, George P. Dorris, Platte City slave trader, had built a dungeon on his farm to confine slaves. See other references to George P. Dorris. Dorris owned 160 acres South of Platte City, Missouri in the Southwest ¼ of Township 53, Range 35. Those 160 acres were later owned by Richard T. Darnall and then Jesse J. Blakley.
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.)
AI Overview - - "Col. Charles R. "Doc" Jennison was a notorious anti-slavery Jayhawker in "Bleeding Kansas" and a Union cavalry commander during the Civil War. Based out of Kansas City (with headquarters at the state line), his unit - the 7th Kansas Cavalry - raided western Missouri to liberate slaves, burn secessionist property, and disrupt pro-slavery guerrilla networks.)Date(s) of Creation
9/28/1906