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This secretary was used in the home of Augustus Wattles at Moneka, Linn County, Kansas Territory. Family tradition holds that abolitionist John Brown wrote his "Parallels" defense at this secretary while visiting Wattles in January, 1859. The tradition further relates that the Wattles children watched Brown as he wrote, peering through cracks in the floor above. To hide his own location and to protect Wattles from retaliation, Brown indicated the "Parallels" were written at Trading Post instead of at Moneka. In this document Brown compares the authorities' hunt for him (for liberating Missouri slaves) to the lack of a search for the perpetrators of the Marais des Cygnes Massacre.
Date: 1859
Item Number: 209867
Call Number: 1992.34.1
KSHS Identifier: 1992.34.1
Collections - Museum
Date - 1854-1860 - 1859
Government and Politics - Reform and Protest - Antislavery - Abolition
Home and Family - Residences - Furniture
Military - Wars - Bleeding Kansas
Objects and Artifacts - Furnishings - Furniture - Secretary
People - Notable People - Brown, John, 1800-1859
Places - Cities and towns - Mansfield (formerly Moneka)
Places - Cities and towns - Moneka
Places - Counties - Linn
Thematic Time Period - Bleeding Kansas, 1854 - 1861
Type of Material - Objects and Artifacts
http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/209867