Misplaced Pages

John Allen Wakefield and his family was one of the first settlers to come to the newly created Kansas Territory. Free soilers, they arrived in western Douglas County, Kansas, in July 1854, one month after the territory was opened to settlement. They built a large log house to serve primarily as their living quarters. It had six rooms and was 6 miles (9.7 km) west of the free-state stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas. For protection the family built loop holes for guns into the sides of the house.

Wakefield became the justice of the Squatters' Court, when it was organized August 26, 1854. Because of his position, he was thereafter known as Judge Wakefield. He tried cases involving both northern and southern settlers and until spring 1856 both groups got along without much trouble. That spring southern partisans in the area began a picket of men assigned to watch the house. In August 1856 much trouble erupted between the free-state men and the southern men in eastern Kansas. Free-state men at times garrisoned Judge Wakefield's house. At 2 A.M. on August 16 southern partisans, including Henry T. Titus, attacked the fortress home, but they were unable to take it. Later that day free-state men attacked and destroy the fortress home of Titus, called Fort Titus.

The southern partisans sought retaliation for their string of defeats in August, when not only Fort Titus, but New Georgia's fort, Franklin's Fort and Fort Saunders were all taken by free-state partisans. On the night of September 1, 1856, the southerners burned six houses and one other building, including Judge Wakefield's house. The family lost all their possessions.

Later another house and some farm buildings were constructed at the site. Judge Wakefield lived there until his death in June 1873.

References

1. W. H. T. Wakefield, "Early History of Kanwaka Township," unpublished address delivered in western Douglas County, July 4, 1876, pp. 1, 9 (from the Manuscript Div. of the Kansas Historical Society, Topeka, Kans.).
2. John Lawrie, letter to Arthur Lawrie, April 16, 1857, in "Letters on the War in Kansas in 1856," Kansas Historical Quarterly, November 1941, Vol. 10, No. 4, p. 376, online in the Kansas Collection website, at http://www.kancoll.org/khq/1941/41_4_gibbens.htm
3. John H. Gihon, M.D., Geary and Kansas (Philadelphia: Charles C. Rhodes, 1857), chapter XVI, on line at http://www.kancoll.org/books/gihon/g_chap16.htm .
4. "John A. Wakefield," Lawrence Daily Journal-World, June 19, 1928, p. 4.

• Forts in Kansas
• Buildings and structures in Douglas County, Kansas
• 1854 establishments in Kansas Territory
• Bleeding Kansas