Liberty's Birds# 6: Carols & Oaths

 

Liberty's Birds# 6: Carols & Oaths by Becky Collis

On May 21, 1856 Missourians who were furious at the Free-State settlers refusal to leave the Kansas Territory raided the town of Lawrence. They burned the newspaper office, the hotel and Sara's newly built house on the hill.

Pro-slavery sympathizers rode into Lawrence under this flag.

Sara traveling in the East, hoping to release Charles from prison, heard about the catastrophe when she was in Chicago.

Carols & Oaths by Denneile Bohannon

It seems that Sara commissioned a photograph of the ruined town

 from which this wood etching was drawn but the daguerreotype is now missing. 

Her burnt-out house was on the crest of the ridge.

Carols & Oaths by Becky Collis

I'd imagine in the months following "The Sack of Lawrence" the purple coneflowers bloomed, ripened and invited the gold finches to snack, nature's consolation.

Pale Purple Coneflowers are a Kansas native.

Botanists have pepped up the color and the showiness.

Goldfinches love the late summer seeds.

The Block

A rose and a cardinal

now a cone flower & a gold finch

Carols & Oaths by Elsie Ridgley

The conclusion of Sara's book was quite effective in inspiring more Kansas immigrants.