It was in 2018 that I found a scrap of evidence in the archives of The Burr Oak Herald that Thomas Lovewell claimed to have been “a follower of old John Brown” in 1850’s Kansas. After joining the Mankato branch of the G.A.R. in 1893, Lovewell may have enthralled members of his post with tales of thrilling times in territorial Kansas. Beyond being a follower of John Brown, however, anything he said in the post apparently stayed in the post.
Fortunately some old settlers in Marshall County remembered Thomas well enough to share a few facts in newsprint. Pioneer G. H. Hollenberg singled out “Tom Lovel” as the first settler to bring down a buffalo along the Black Vermillion in 1857, and W. F. Boyarin offered a story in which the same man walked into a political lion’s den and quite possibly saved the lives of dozens of settlers in the southern part of the county. According to Boyarin, this “Tom Lovel” accomplished the deed by telling an outrageous lie that may have accidentally turned out to be true.
Marshall County was geographically torn in two over the question of slavery in Territorial Kansas. Frank Marshall, pro-slavery candidate for governor, held court at Marysville in the northwest, in the midst of colonists from South Carolina and itinerant “Boarder Ruffians” from Missouri. Sprinkled along the Black Vermillion Valley to the south were members of an abolitionist colony who rallied behind Albert Gallatin Barrett, a Quaker who would open the region’s first sawmill in 1857.
Besides the legendary John Brown, the antislavery movement in Kansas had at least one other dangerous zealot on their side, James H. Lane, a lawyer, politician and veteran of the Mexican-American War. At the start of the War Lane would command the Redlegs or Jayhawkers Brigade, but as early as 1857 he was believed to be head of a secret society of assassins called the Danites operating in Kansas Territory. (Lane is also one of the villains of Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales.) In short, Jim Lane was the era’s boogeyman.
In the May 18, 1878 edition of The News published at Marysville, W. F. Boyarin offered a few “Sketches of Early Scenes and Incidents” from the colorful history of Marshall County.
A party of 60 or 80 border ruffians, it was understood and believed on the Vermillion, had assembled at Marysville with the purpose of exterminating the whole free state party.
Greatly in the minority, and half of them sick with malarial chills, Vermillion could offer but little resistance to these marauders, and consequently great consternation prevailed among them. The genius of strategy was therefore invoked.
Tom Lovel was sent by Barrett, in great haste, and under pretense of profound sympathy with the ruffians, to Marysville with the intelligence that Jim Lane, with a large force of free state men from Chicago was then enroute for that place, determined on the destruction of the last man, then and there found.
The ruse succeeded. The border desperadoes fled in hot haste, nobody was hurt. Remarkable, though, to tell, Jim Lane actually was, at that very time, in Brown County, on his way west with his Chicago forces.
According to Robert Collins's Jim Lane: Scoundrel, Statesman, Kansan, Lane had given a barn burner of a speech in Chicago in the summer of 1856, collecting thousands of dollars in donations along with rifles, pistols, and ammunition. It was an early stop on his tour across the North “to spread terror among the Border Ruffians.”
"Lane let it be known that he had an army coming to relieve the Free State movement."
In that light Thomas Lovewell’s message to Frank Marshall in Marysville may not have been so much a lie, as an exaggeration. Lane’s army really was on its way, though it was an army of voters. By the end of his speaking tour Lane had lost his voice but had raised $200,000 to support emigration to Kansas. He also pointed out the best routes for bypassing Missouri and slipping into the new territory via Nebraska City.
In the coming Territorial Election Marshall would lose the contest for Kansas Governor by a whisper and the Lecompton pro-slavery Constitution would be rejected by voters. A year later both Frank Marshall and Thomas Lovewell quit Kansas for the prospect of striking it rich at Pikes Peak.
By the way, that G.A.R. Post at Mankato which Thomas Lovewell joined in 1893 was the Jim Lane Post.
I can see Woody Harrelson as Lane.