A photograph of George Washington Brown, who in the autumn of 1854 moved to Lawrence, Kansas Territory where he settled with a group of New England emigrants. By October of that year he had constructed a building and became editor of one of the first free-state newspapers in the territory, the Herald of Freedom, the organ of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. The newspaper angered the proslavery forces in the territory. On May 21, 1856, a proslavery posse led by the notorious Douglas County sheriff, Samuel J. Jones arrested Brown and sacked and burned Lawrence. Brown spent four months incarcerated following an indictment by a proslavery grand jury for high treason. Later his case was dismissed without trial for want of cause for prosecution. He returned to Lawrence to rebuild his business and resume the publication of the Herald of Freedom. In the capacity of editor he served until the last issue of the newspaper on December 17, 1859. Brown's interests included the founding of the city of Emporia and oil. In 1860 Brown drilled three wells in Miami County and began to extract oil. He finally decided to leave Kansas in 1865 for the more lucrative oil fields of Pennsylvania. His stay in Pennsylvania was brief, however, and by the end of the year he had journeyed to Rockford, Illinois, where he decided to take up permanent residence. Brown died there on February 5, 1915, at the age of ninety-four.