HE HELPED TO MAKE KANSAS
JOHN SPEER WAS AN INTENSE ANTI-SLAVERY PIONEER
PUBLISHED THE FIRST PAPER IN THE TERRITORY WHICH WAS AGAINST SLAVE-HOLDING
-- WAS A CHAMPION OF JAMES LANE
Obituary of John Speer (transcribed), from the Lawrence World, December 23, 1906.
John Speer, who was buried in Lawrence
last week, was one of the last survivors of the
sturdy pioneers who made the journey to Kansas in the early '50's. He gave
the best years 
of his life to the state of his adoption and left a notable impress upon the
history of Kansas. There is a tradition in the
family of John Speer that Donald Cargill was one of his ancestors. Cargill
was hung and beheaded for treason in Edinburgh in 1661 as a leader of the
last desperate struggle against the religious persecutions of King Charles
II, at Bothwell Bridge. Speer brought with him to Kansas the same determination
to fight the battle of the Free soilers that inspired Cargill in his defense
of religious principles. Speer had a training in the school of hard work and
hard knocks. When he was twelve years old, he carried mail on horseback over
a mountainous and wild region of Pennsylvania. During the several years he
was in this business, he read every newspaper that came within his reach.
He served an apprenticeship of three years in a printing office, losing but
four days, one on a visit to his father, part of a Fourth of July, an afternoon
at a circus, and a day of "general training." In 1839, he began
the publication of a newspaper at New Castle, Pennsylvania. For eleven years,
he printed and edited the Democratic Whig at Medina, Ohio. In 1852, he boldly
declared that the Whig party had outlived its usefulness. He quit the party,
and when the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was passed, he determined to go to the territory
of Kansas and to print the first newspaper in the territory in opposition
to the institution of slavery. He made a contract with a Kansas City publisher
to get out the paper, but when the publisher learned that Speer intended to
express anti-slavery views, he repudiated his contract.
ISSUED THE FIRST ANTI-SLAVERY PAPER
This was followed by a similar experience in Leavenworth. Speer returned to
Ohio,
and on October 15, 1854, the first number of the Kansas Pioneer, dated at
Lawrence, was printed on presses in Medina, Ohio. The second issue was printed
in January, 1855 at Lawrence, when the name was changed to the Kansas Tribune,
because of the establishment pro-slavery newspaper under the name of Kansas
Pioneer at Kickapoo. Historians who have written of Kansas have been unable
to agree as to whether Speer issued the first anti-slavery paper in Kansas.
But the lapse of time between the publication of the first two anti-slavery
newspapers was only a day or two and the issue is of doubtful consequence.
IN THE QUANTRELL MASSACRE
The Quantrell massacre almost spelled ruin to John Speer. Besides the material
loss, two of his sons were killed. Mr. Speer lived on the outskirts of the
town. The raiders pillaged the business-portion of the town first. This enabled
Speer to escape to a cornfield, where he remained concealed. The raiders stole
his horses, and set fire to the house, but when they moved on, Mrs.Speer and
the children were able to put out the fire and save the building. Three sons
of Mr.Speer slept downtown. In the Tribune building were John Speer Jr., 19
years old, M .M. Murdock, now owner of the Wichita, Kansas Eagle, and another
printer. The two latter hid in a drain well in the cellar of an adjoining
house and escaped. John Speer Jr. ran out of the back door and was stopped
by a raider, who demanded his money. The boy handed him his pocketbook, and
was immediately shot down. As he lay on the ground, another raider walked
up and shot him through the head. Robert Speer,18 years
old, and another printer, slept in the office
of the Republican. The building was burned and no trace of the bodies of the
two men were ever found. Billy Speer, 15 years old, slept in a store. As he
went out of the back door, he was met by one of the Quantrell men, who halted
him and asked him his name. The boy replied that his name was Smith. The raiders
looked over a list of names written on a slip of paper, and let him go. Afterwards,
it was found out that the list contained the names of the male members of
the Speer family, all marked for slaughter. After a series of adventures,
twice escaping from raiders by offering to hold their horses, young Speer
reached his home. He secured a rifle, and as the raiders were leaving, he
shot and killed the only member of Quantrell's band that was killed that day.
The building occupied by the Tribune was burned. Mr. Speer bought a new newspaper
plant and resumed publication of the Tribune. In November of that year, he
made it a daily paper.
HE DEFIED THE LEGISLATURE
Mr. Speer was a bold, fearless, independent editor in the times of the most
violent excitement in Kansas. When the Territory was invaded by pro-slavery
voters from Missouri, without regard to fear or favor, he denounced the outrage.
His dwelling was three times torn down by pro-slavery men. The first, or pro
slavery legislature passed a law that made it a penitentiary offense to deny
the legal existence of slavery in Kansas. The day of its taking effect, he
published a denunciation of the law in "circus type," taking up
the entire front page of the paper. He quoted the law, and then said: "Now
we do assert and declare, despite all the bolts and bars of an iniquitous
Kansas legislature, that 'persons have not
the right to hold slaves in this Territory.' " John Speer presided over
the first meeting held in Lawrence to resist what was known a s the 'bogus
laws.' The part that he took in the defense of Lawrence in the Wakarusa War,
and in the subsequent conflicts for freedom in Kansas was active and effective.
In 1856 he forcibly rescued Samuel N. Wood from S. J. Jones, the ' 'boarder
ruffian' sheriff who had arrested him. Speers house was surrounded by
soldiers who sought his arrest for 'treasonous resistance to the laws.' John
Speer had a more-or-less active part in politics. A man in conversation with
the writer the other day was describing some of the leading members of the
state senate following the declaration of peace in l865. He said, "Concededly,
the ablest lawyer and the smallest man, physically, was W. P. Cambell of Leavenworth.
C. V. Eskridge, afterwards lieutenant governor, was the most versatile. Colonel
William Weer was the most brutal and aggressive. And John Speer was the most
sentimental."
HELPED NOMINATE LINCOLN
Speer took part in many of the state, district, county and local conventions,
and was a delegate to the national convention
of the Union league at Baltimore, which nominated Abraham Lincoln and Andrew
Johnson for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency in 1864. He was elected state
printer under the Topeka constitution. He was a member of the first House
of Representatives of the first free-state legislature, elected in 1857. In
l864 he was elected a member of the state senate. He was United States collector
from the state of Kansas from 1862 to 1866. This position was an unfortunate
one for him. He held it before the Internal Revenue Bureau had been systematized,
and when complete settlements were not exacted from collectors. He in-trusted
the entire business of the office to his assistants and clerks. The office
and its contents were destroyed in Quantrell's raid. For political purposes,
his conduct of the office was attacked. Later these charges were withdrawn,
and a settlement upon the basis suggested by Mr. Speer made. It nearly beggared
him, however, to make the settlement. Many of the public documents of the
state bear his imprint. Under the contract system, he did much of the state
printing. The general statutes of 1868, a volume of 1240 pages, was printed
by him. E. P. Harris, who was his foreman, was at the funerals. He told the
writer of the resolution of the revising commission in commendation of his
work.
BEGAN MOVEMENT FOR KANSAS UNIVERSITY
The state university at Lawrence probably owed its beginning to the energy
and zeal of Speer. On New Year's day, 1855, Searle as surveyor and John Speer
as chainman, surveyed the first site of what is now the grounds occupied by
the buildings of the state university.The great dam at Lawrence, which supplies
water power for many industries, was a project first advocated by Speer. In
its infancy, it was known as "Speers folly." In these days, when
the practicability of navigating the Missouri river between Kansas City and
St. Louis is a subject of discussion, it might be interesting to recall that
John Speer was a passenger on the first steamboat to ascend the Kaw river,
a tributary of the Missouri, after the white settlement of Kansas began. The
boat was the Emma Harmon. It left Kansas City May 19th, 1855 for "Topeka
and way landings." There were twenty or thirty passengers and 100 tons
of freight for Lawrence. The boat reached Lawrence May 20th. The occasion
was made one of ceremony when the boat landed. Speer, as secretary of an organization
of the passengers, read resolutions upon the successful trip of the Emma Harmon.
The boat made the trip to Topeka, and subsequently many trips were made by
this------steamboat----------------------down the Kaw river. There is a ------------that
during high water, one steamboat made the journey up the Kaw river as far
as junction City. HE CHAMPIONED "JIM" LANE John Speer is best known
for his championship of the picturesque Kansas statesman General James H.
Lane. During the life of Lane, and until his own death, Spear was ready to
------ up his faith in the life and character of Lane. In l896, Speer accomplished
a remarkable task. Standing at the printers case, he put into type the story
of his pioneer friend and political partner, and he did it without any copy
before him. Working entirely from memory, the veteran compositor set the type
for a 400-page history of Lane. The proof-reading for this book was done by
E. P. Harris, who was foreman of the Tribune when Speer founded it. In the
estimation of Speer, Harris was superior to Noah Webster, and to prove this,
Speer said in 1896 that Harris had made several corrections in Webster's dictionary,
in the state printer's office. Speer always stood by Lane. In the secret Union
league conference in Baltimore the day previous to the second nomination of
Abraham Lincoln for President, it was Speer, Lane and Stoddart who stood like
rocks against the enemies of Lincoln in that caucus, and never yielded an
inch until the raging storm of opposition was dissipated and Lincoln was nominated.
It was Speer who heard the dying words of Lane, after the latter had put the
bullet into his head that ended his remarkable career.
Spear completed his history of Lane, and in a canvass, sold 3,000 of the 6,000
copies sold. Then he moved to Wichita, where he lived until his departure
for Denver a few years ago. He was brought back to the family burying lot
in Lawrence, and his body was buried almost where the shadow of the tall monument
on Lane's grave fell across the gash in the ground cut to receive the body
of John Speer, pioneer of the John Brown school of pioneers. The members of
the immediate family present at the funeral were Mr. and Mrs. B. H. DuBois
and Hardin Speer of Denver, and Mrs. William Speer of Wichita, Kansas. Mrs.
DuBois was the first white child born in Lawrence.
John M. Steel
(This obituary, probably from the Lawrence World, December 23, 1906, was transcribed from a photo-copy of microfilm by Mark Kaplan, January, 1999) Kansas Collection/Spencer Library/University of Kansas. RH MF 155 v.1.2 pg 3
FAMOUS OLD ABOLITIONIST ENDS LONG STRENUOUS LIFE
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After a life long battle, waged for the principles in which he believed, and for which he never hesitated to wield the pen and sword, Gen. John Speer, the leader of the Kansas Abolitionists and editor of the Lawrence Tribune for 16 years, died in Denver yesterday morning. Gen. Speer had been living recently at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Bradford Dubois, 1386 Corona Street. He would have been 89 years old Dec. 27 and death was due to old age. The body will be sent to Lawrence, Kan., this afternoon at 1:30 and the funeral will be held there under the direction of the I.O.O.F. As an Abolitionist John Speer was the peer of Gen. James Lane and John Brown. He was one of the participants in the series of bloody skirmishes just preceding the civil war which gave to his territory the title "Bleeding Kansas." He was born in Pennsylvania in 1817, became a printer in Ohio and in 1854, then removed to Lawrence, Kan., starting the Kansas Pioneer. He immediately became interested in the question of the admission of Kansas to the Union and did his best to prevent the pro-slavery party from gaining the ascendancy in the territory. He became such a leader among the Abolitionists that even John Brown of Osawattomie was overshadowed by him. During the Quantrill raid Speer's house and newspaper plant was burned, two of his sons were murdered and Speer himself escaped death by a chance. Gen. Speer held office frequently after the war, as United States collector of Internal Revenue and as a member of the state legislature. The two children that survive are Mrs. Dubois and Hardin Speer, both living in Denver. —from The Denver Republican, December 16th, 1906
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