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© University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. table oF ContentS prologue, ix 1 the people, the place, the times, 1 2 1854: “a most appropriate town site,” 18 3 winter 1854–1855: a new england crusade, 28 4 march 1855: “damned yankees” come to kansas, 39 5 spring 1855: becoming manhattan, 54 6 bleeding kansas: “tyranny is now in the ascendant,” 63 7 the wearying work of frontier life, 79 8 1856: waiting out the violence, 89 9 1857: a town built from stone, 99 10 1858: “we do not despair of a free state yet,” 112 11 1859: “a flourishing yankee settlement,” 124 12 1860–1865: drought, violence, and victories, 134 13 post–civil war: triumph of the yankees, 155 14 1870s: “a lively town, full of business,” 172 15 1880–1894: into the modern era, 184 epilogue, 199 appendix, 203 notes, 205 selected bibliography, 259 index, 263 © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. ProloGUe On a frosty afternoon in Kansas Territory on March 27, 1855, a stern Rhode Island abolitionist named Isaac Goodnow and five other New Englanders wrestled a bulky canvas tent into shape in a tallgrass prairie at the junction of the Kansas and Big Blue rivers. The prairie was colder than Goodnow had imagined it would be in late March. But he and his party were in good spirits as they moved mattresses and supplies from the wagon into their campsite: the men had finally reached their destination after a three-week trip from Boston, covering 1,500 miles, capped by a struggle to get their overburdened covered wagon through the snowstorms and icy riv- ers of Kansas Territory.
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