In March 1828, Hamilton Schooley was born in New York.1 By 1855, he was living in Mound City, in Linn County, Kansas, with his wife, Polly Ann, and their son, Willie.

In a letter written to his parents and sister in New York on March 13, 1859, Schooley stated “the troubles are ended” in Kansas and “governor and the legislature have done away with all past offenses and released all prisoners.”2 The trouble Schooley referred to was the “Bleeding Kansas Era”. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 opened the territory of Kansas to settlement and to a popular vote on allowing slavery in the territory. Many Missouri residents believed they could influence the territorial elections in Kansas by crossing the border and casting pro-slavery votes. Hatred grew along the Missouri/Kansas border as Free-Staters arrived from the Northeast to battle the Missourians. Both sides crossed the border, often committing depredations on the civilian population in the bloody struggle over the entry of Kansas into the Union. Kansas ultimately became a free state, and the Bleeding Kansas Era laid the foundation for an even more brutal and vicious guerrilla war in the 1860s.

Schooley commented that Capt. John Brown, a controversial abolitionist, was once again in Osawatomie, Kansas, helping a group of slaves escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad.3 Brown was an active participant in the Bleeding Kansas years and advocated violence in securing Kansas’s entry into the Union as a free state. He was hung in December of 1859 for treason after conducting a raid at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in an effort to free more slaves.4

Schooley also mentioned in his letter the large influx of settlers and prospectors venturing west toward Pike’s Peak in search of gold. Schooley speculated that many would be disappointed although he contemplated about trying his luck further west but stated, “I am not prepared to go yet…”5 Although Schooley believed the violence was coming to an end in Kansas, it would be five more years of destruction and insecurity before peace would return to the Sunflower State. Schooley remained in Mound City until his passing in 1901, and is buried next to his wife, Polly Ann, in the Woodland Cemetery.6

Contributed by the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield

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1. 1900 United States Federal Census; Census Place: Mound City, Linn, Kansas; Roll: T623_487; Page: 18A; Enumeration District: 113.
2. Letter from Hamilton Schooley to his parents and sister, March 13, 1859, Moneka, KS, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield.
3. Letter from Hamilton Schooley to his parents and sister, March 13, 1859, Moneka, KS, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield.
4. Henry David Thoreau, A Plea for Captain John Brown (Forgotten Books, republished in 2008), vii.
5. Letter from Hamilton Schooley to his parents and sister, March 13, 1859, Moneka, KS, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield.
6. Hamilton Schooley, Woodland Cemetery, Mound City, Linn County, Kansas, Find A Grave.com, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Schooley&GSfn=Hamilton&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSst=18&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=41137098&df=all&