Abigail Prentice Barber graduated from Wheaton Seminary in
Massachusetts in July of 1857, and married the Reverend Grosvenor C.
Morse in Massachusetts in September. The newlyweds reached Emporia on
October 19, only a few months after the town was founded.
Reverend Morse, a recent graduate of Dartmouth College and Andover
Seminary, immediately held religious services, and in 1858 formally
organized the Congregational Church in Emporia. He also helped raise
money for the first school, which opened in October of 1858 with Mary
Jane Watson as the first teacher. He campaigned hard for the
establishment of the Kansas State Normal School, now Emporia State
University, and journeyed to Illinois in December of 1864 where he
hired Lyman B. Kellogg as its first president. He spoke at some of the
earliest teachers institutes in Manhattan and elsewhere, and served a
term as Lyon County Superintendent of Schools. He was accidentally
killed while digging a well on their claim southeast of Emporia in
1870.
Abigail, left with three children under the age of 10, went to work to
support her family. She taught in the Emporia Public Schools and, for
six years, was principal of the high school. She also taught history,
literature, and rhetoric at the Normal School and served as preceptress
(dean of women), where she gave guidance and counsel to many students.
Abigail Morse Hall at ESU was dedicated in her honor as a women's
residence hall in 1923. She died December 6, 1925, one day short of her
92nd birthday. Each year on her birthday for many years after her death
women students attended memorial services at the Congregational Church.
Her widowed sister, Mary Carpenter, was remembered by William Allen
White as the helpful librarian at the Emporia Public Library (located
upstairs over a store in the 1880s) who first exposed him to Emerson
and other American writers. Mary later married John C. Rankin, a farmer
and legislator from Quenemo; she died in 1917.
Abigail Morse had been a frequent speaker at community and church
gatherings and was often asked on Kansas Day to give her account of
Quantrill's guerilla raid on Lawrence in August of 1863, while she was
there visiting her sister, Mary. Most blacks fled the Missouri
bushwackers, knowing they faced certain death from these defenders of
slavery and the Confederacy, but some white males, not expecting a
massacre, remained. Only women and children were spared. Following is
Abigail Morse’s account, which was published in the Emporia
Gazette two days after her death, on December 8, 1925:
My sister, Mary E. Barber, a graduate of Mount
Holyoke Seminary, came from Massachusetts to spend a summer with us.
She taught the next year in the Baldwin public schools, and the year
following that in the Lawrence high school. She was married at our home
by Mr. Morse, October 10, 1862, to Judge Louis Carpenter, a young
lawyer of Lawrence. The next summer -- August, 1863 -- I went to visit
her in her new home, just finished, a 2-story brick at 943 New
Hampshire street. We spent a pleasant two weeks together.
At noon on the 20th of August, Mr. Carpenter came home and said,
incidentally, "There is a story on the street that Quantrill is coming
to Lawrence to destroy it, as he has so long threatened to do. But," he
added, "we have had so many reports of that kind no one believes them."
Then he said, "It would be impossible for him to get here with his band
without our being reliably notified."
Afterward it was found that messages had been sent, but failed to reach
the city. One, in excitement, was sent to Kansas City instead of
Lawrence. Another messenger, a boy, when he learned the destination of
Quantrill's band, mounted his fastest horse and started for Lawrence.
The horse fell, leaving the boy crippled and helpless. No news reached
to the city of the terrible doom impending.
We were aroused at about 5 o'clock Friday morning, Aug. 21st. The
clattering of the hoofs of 400 horses, the shouting and yelling of the
riders, the shooting of revolvers, all united, made the most hideous
noise we ever had heard. We rushed to the windows and had a full view
of this terrible invasion.
They saw us and shot at us, as they rushed past our house. They went on
to the center of the town, and there they stopped in front of the
Eldridge house. They seemed to expect some show of defense. For years,
Lawrence never had been so unprotected. The few soldiers there were
colored troops, and they fled for their lives. Our first spoken words
were, "Quantrill is here!" We stayed in the house, planning what we
could do. Those in the other part of town had a chance to get away, but
here every avenue was guarded, and all those who tried to escape were
shot down ruthlessly. We watched the Eldridge house burn, and saw fires
all over the town. Diagonally across the street, a fine home was
burning, and in the next house to ours, a man had been murdered, but
his home was saved.
Quantrill's band was composed of two kinds of men. His gang was angry,
determined to kill every free state man and to wipe Lawrence from the
map. Others were farmers whom Quantrill had compelled to join his
forces. They were easily convinced they had not found the "right man."
They were fed and treated hospitably, and went away satisfied. There
was no anger in their hearts. Mr. Carpenter, it was said, by his
pleasant manner and tact, had saved his life and the destruction of his
home.
At about 9 o'clock, we watched the gathering of the clan for its
departure, and we began to breathe free again, and to hope we were
safe. The men were loaded with loot, and seemed anxious to leave. Just
then, there came a terrible pounding at our front door, and Mrs.
Carpenter opened the door. Mr. Carpenter, coming down the stairs
answered the question, "Where are you from?" He said, "New York," and
the man replied, "You New York fellows are the ones we are after." He
pushed Mrs. Carpenter aside and rushed up the stairs after Mr.
Carpenter, shooting, and swearing at the top of his voice.
They entered different rooms, giving Mr. Carpenter a chance to come
down and go to the cellar. There was no protection in the cellar, as
the house was new and there were no partitions. Another man had come to
help, and each one stationed at a window controlled every part of the
cellar. Still they kept on shooting. Mr. Carpenter, bleeding and full
of their bullets, left the cellar by the outside steps, and fell in the
backyard. Mrs. Carpenter fell over him, covering him, her arms about
his head. The two assassins appeared and raising her arms, gave the
fatal shot, then left to join the departing forces. Mrs. Carpenter
said, "They have fired the house," so I put out the fire.
It was one of the most terrible tragedies in all the dreadful work of
that day -- that dreadful day. I climbed a high fence that I never
could have climbed except under great excitement, calling at the top of
my voice for help, but there was no response until the band had all
left. Left what? One hundred fifty men killed, 150 buildings burned,
and a million and a half of property destroyed. Left -- no pen can
tell!
When I should have finished my visit Mr. Morse was to come for me some
Friday and preach for Doctor Cordley the following Sunday. He came that
dreadful Friday, about three hours after Quantrill had left. On his
way, he heard of Mr. Carpenter's death. A rude box was made by our
friends, and Mr. Carpenter's body was laid in the yard.
Friday night came, the most terrible night I ever spent. Fires were
burning all over the town. The smoke was suffocating, and the barking
and howling of dogs helped to make the night frightful. There was no
sleep that night. In "Pioneer Days" Doctor Cordley wrote, "So we laid
our dead away and turned our attention to the living."
The Sunday following we held a service in the old stone Congregational
church. There was a large congregation, mostly women and children. Some
of the men were in shirt-sleeves, not having saved even a coat, women
in sunbonnets, some with hoods or shawls or handkerchiefs over their
heads. Many of the women were newly-made widows, there with their
fatherless children. There was a brief devotional service, but no
sermon. I do not recall [what was said] except the scripture lesson
read by Mr. Morse. It was the 79th Psalm. Everyone was startled when he
read it. It seemed to have been written for the occasion. Mr. Morse
seemed as much inspired in choosing it as the author in writing it.
"Oh God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance. The dead bodies
of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the
heaven; the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. Their
blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem, and there was
none to bury them."
The congregation went away in silence.
This was originally published as the first in a series of
columns titled "Wave the Old Gold," written by Dr. Sam Dicks, Emporia
State University Historian, concerning the history of that institution
and the people who helped the university get to where it is today. The
name of the column was taken from the title of a song that served as an
alma mater in the early years of the institution. Used here by
permission of Dr. Dicks.
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