Rev. Ephraim Nute, minister of the Lawrence Unitarian Church, wrote from Lawrence, Kansas Territory to Edward Everett Hale, a member of the New England Emigrant Aid Company's Executive Committee. Nute described efforts to establish a high school in Lawrence as well as a university in Kansas Territory. He also advised Hale to pay close attention to the activities of Francis Serenbetz, a German Congregational minister who was the leader of a group of German immigrants who settled in Humboldt, Kansas Territory. In Nute's opinion, Serenbetz was an "unmitigated humbug and nuisance" who came to Kansas for self-interested reasons. Nute urged Hale to stop sending settlers to Kansas who lacked financial resources or a willingness to work to support themselves. The land to be utilized for the purposes described above had originally been set aside for the settlement of Native Americans.