|
500-501) Thus, slave trading accounted for one-half of the price for the
unauthorized purchase of the lands of the Harmonial Vegetarian Society.
This was a cruel irony because, according to the handwritten account of
May Dewey Phillips, the members of the Harmonial Vegetarian Society “were all
easterners or northerners, all red-hot abolitionists, and after the civil war
broke out it was too hot for them. Things were divided up as best could be.
As Daddy was the only one who could run the mill (it was a big flour mill, 3
stories high) it was turned over to him, and they had living quarters in the
same building, so they need not go outside to get from the home to the mill.
Daddy’s life was in jeopardy every day and night; likely to be shot down at
sight ... As the war dragged on it was too dangerous to stay there longer,
so at the first opportunity the Deweys packed what little they had and came
to Kansas, escorted to safety by U.S. troops that were coming north.”
Exactly when Sarah Jane Tenney and Henry Enoch Dewey arrived in Kansas is not
known. Certainly it was during the Civil War. Historical accounts record
that Benton County, Arkansas saw its first Civil War battle at Pea Ridge on
7 March 1862. Census records confirm that Henry Enoch Dewey and his family
removed to Kansas between 1862 and 1865, as evidenced by the birthplaces of
the children: Nelle Dewey was born in Arkansas (on 24 April 1862), and May
Dewey was born in Kansas (on 3 April 1865). In the land records of Linn
County, Kansas, the first recorded deed to Henry E. Dewey, for two acres in
Moneka (near the northwest corner of section 6, Township 22 South, Range 24
East), was dated 16 May 1866 (Book E, Pages 213-214).
Historical accounts in the Rogers, Arkansas Daily News (c. 29 June 1976)
state that the Harmonial Vegetarian Society, with diminished membership,
continued in operation “for about four years when armies occupied the
buildings during the Civil War.” The communal experiment “disappeared
during the last year of the Civil War after the residence and other buildings
had been destroyed by fire. It is understood that the destruction was the
work of the ‘bushwhackers’ who infested Northwest Arkansas.”
When the Deweys settled in Moneka, Kansas it was “a newly abandoned town.
Moneka had been a half-way stopping place for the stage coach that traveled
from Ft. Scott to Ft. Leavenworth, travelers stopping there overnight or just
for dinner. They also changed horses there. When the railroad was built,
from K.C. to someplace south, there was nothing to support a town out on the
prairie, and all business moved to Mound City where there was good waterpower
on Little Sugar Creek, and enterprising easterners built a big flour mill,
etc. The Bacon Tin shop moved to Mound City, as did all other business.”
After their arrival in Kansas, Sarah Jane Tenney joined the Moneka Women’s
Rights Association and “fought for the emancipation of women under the
leadership of Susan B. Anthony.” (Glendale News-Press, Glendale, California,
21 April 1942, p. 6-A) Susan B. Anthony was well known in Kansas. Her
brother, Daniel Read Anthony, an outspoken abolitionist, was a newspaper
publisher in Leavenworth. He first came to Kansas in 1854, to fight against
the extension of slavery into Kansas Territory.
Among the early settlers at Moneka was Augustus Wattles, who came to Kansas
in 1855 from Ohio, where he had been active in the underground railroad. He
first came to Linn County in 1857, and he first appears in the land records
in 1859 (Book A, Page 418). In 1858 he took in John Brown and some of his
6
| |