Letterbook of Kansan Baptist Missionary Jeremiah Taylor, Discussing the Civil War, Indigenous Kansans, and Conflicts in the Baptist Church, With Extensive Descriptions of Missionary Work Among Indigenous Communities in Kansas in the 1860s.
Kansas and New York: 1839–1879. Approximately 460 manuscript pages, mostly drafts of outgoing letters. Book measuring 12 ¼ x 7 ¾ inches; worn, with backstrip detached but present. Many items transcribed by Taylor c. 1887 and pasted down over originals, with much adhesive bleedthrough, not affecting legibility. A few leaves detached but generally minor normal wear. Taylor’s bookplate on front pastedown. Overall excellent. Item #List3401
Jeremiah Brower Taylor (1817–1893) was a Baptist minister from New York who spent much of the 1860s missioning in Kansas. Taylor attended the Hamilton Theological and Literary Institution (now Colgate University) and graduated from the University of the City of New York (NYU). He was ordained and became a Baptist minister in Stamford, Connecticut, around 1857, and ventured off to Kansas a few years later, arriving with his family in March of 1860 to homestead on 1,020 acres in Waterloo Township purchased from the US government, and working as a missionary among Indigenous communities. He remained in Kansas until about 1867, at which point financial and religious pressures sent the Taylor family back to New York City.
Offered here is a large and previously unknown letterbook containing Taylor’s correspondence and notes from 1839 to 1879, giving insight into missionary and farming work; particularly significant for the extensive descriptions of his missionary work among Indigenous communities in Kansas and the violence surrounding the Civil War, which he relates in great detail.
The earlier material covers his time at Hamilton, giving descriptions of the campus and courses, and includes an inscription by visitor Love Coon Avung in English, Burmese, and Chinese dated February 24, 1840. His letters from Kansas begin in 1861 (pp. 189–294, with some scattered later). These are generally written to various friends; his former church at Stamford (which assisted him financially) and its Sunday school students; and the American Baptist Home Mission Society, from which he repeatedly requested, and eventually received, a salary to mission.
Though he expressed Union and abolitionist views during the Civil War—and his arrival in Kansas came shortly after the Bleeding Kansas conflicts—Taylor reiterates in many letters that he came to Kansas specifically to mission to its people, with the hope that his farm could support this undertaking. This was no easy task, not the least because the family quickly grew to ten children; he writes early on:
“I have preached within 2 ½ miles of here on two Lord’s days since I wrote to you and one Lord’s day at Berlin – gone 22 or 23 miles distant & have an appointment at Burlingame for next sabbath. Today I have been called upon by a neighbor to attend the funeral of a young child tomorrow at a house 6 or 7 miles distant, the snow is about 14 inches on a level in the woods but so much drifted on the prairie that the person had to leave his horses half way & come afoot through snow 3 ft in places so that I hardly know how I shall get there, but I shall try. Before I preached in this neighborhood 2 ½ miles distant there had not been preaching for six weeks previous. [...] My doubts to which I referred are not as to duty but as to how I shall be able to make my farm pay my family expenses for the first few years.” (January 16, 1861)
In fact, we see from Taylor’s later letters that his endeavor never fully got off the ground. Besides the frequent requests for financial support from Stamford and the ABHMS, a draft of an 1866 letter sent to a number of friends back home requests a loan for $1,000. One recipient, longtime friend Charles L. Young, apparently dresses Taylor down for the request; Taylor, though affronted, requests from Young $200 instead, describing his dire financial straits.
Despite his single-minded aim to bring Baptist preaching to the Kansans, and the relative absence of political commentary in his earlier letters, the Civil War is an unavoidable threat to the Taylor family. He discusses the “young men, who have gone to war”, asking that “the Most High bless these and all the hosts which are engaged in our holy cause, to the utter confusion and annihilation of treason” (September 16, 1861), and frequently mentions parishioners’ sons lost in service to the Union Army. In early 1862 he writes:
“The Lord evidently has sent [the war] upon us: For we would have done almost anything to have avoided it. And the Lord in his own way and time will bring us out of it to his own glory with a complete collapse of American Slavery and the slave-lord’s rebellion. Terrible scenes will doubtless intervene, the cloud that hangs over us seems to gather increasing blackness; [...] I think the Lord is saying to us, ‘Let my people go![’] And when the Lord increases his controversy with us, and the first born of man and beast of all this Land shall have fallen, we may be ready to call upon the Blacks in haste and by night, ‘Rise up and go forth.’ [...] It is not improbable that Kansas may soon have a visit from Price’s army or Guerrillas with fire and sword; there is very considerable apprehension, but our trust is in the Lord our God who made the heavens and the earth. I suppose that you feel in some measure content to have the working force of the Church at home reduced for the time, if you thereby add to the spiritual as well as the physical power of the Union Army.” (August 8, 1862)
The Taylor family “trust in God, and keep our Sharp’s rifle, and his revolver, loaded and at hand” (September 1863). He mentions that “Bro. Brant was not at the Lawrence Massacre” (December 19, 1863)—an attack by Quantrill’s Raiders on the abolitionist town of Lawrence—and notes stopping by a house where “in the beginning of the war a covert Secessionist lived, who harbored men of that description, and afterwards he and his son were arrested and taken to Kansas City” (June 14, 1864).
In Ottawa, he describes the fortifications of the Ottawa Hotel against Confederate attack: timber lining “so as to be bullet proof” that is “pierced in military style for defense”, with “a good supply of muskets and revolvers in the house”; though “as we have the Kansas-Missouri line better guarded than ever before, nothing of this kind is now seriously expected” (June 14, 1864). However, in November of 1864, Taylor describes Kansas’ response to Price’s raid:
“The past month has been one of unusual interest and excitement, from the movements of the rebel general Price, the proclamation of Military Law, and a general call to the Military of the State, a few frontier counties excepted. And never was a call more heartily or promptly responded to. Immediately on the receipt of the Call, all were ordered out, and no excuses taken except in extreme cases. I met a subordinate going from house [to house] on the prairie at ten P.M. to warn all liable to Military Duty to meet at the rendevous [sic] at 10 A.M. the next day. On the afternoon of that day I saw a mounted squad hunting up delinquents, intending to take any by force if necessary. One German farmer returning from the Mill, they hurried, and went home with him, to make sure of him. Another one, they compelled at last, at a half hour’s notice to go, leaving his fences down, after his request to the Blacksmith who was a discharged soldier to look after them for him [...] Preachers under 45 were not excused, and in some counties all citizens under 60 black and white went. In three or four days after the Call was known in the different parts of the state, the Men of Kansas numbering over 20.000 were on the border at Kansas City and Paoli [sic, Paola]. On my way to Burlington to preach, I passed through Ottawa, a place of 20 or more houses, I found the stores closed, and but two men in the place [...] Two teams driven by women were at the Mill for flour. So it was all over Kansas. Some whose age and infirmities excused them, were detailed to keep the women in firewood. [...] Some of the frontier counties were not called out, that they might be at hand to meet Indians and give the alarm. We have now no further apprehensions from them.” (November 11, 1864)
Inserted in the letterbook is a partial letter Taylor’s wife, Laura Sherman Taylor (1823–1907), also concerning the raid:
“I was sitting with my family at the breakfast table when a neighbour’s son William Phillips come galloping to the house at full speed, saying in haste, ‘Price’s army is on the border give me the guns’ (which my husband had promised them in case of need). The German man who lived with us went up to his bedroom put on his uniform & was off on horse back for the border. My husband was off on one of his missionary tours thirty miles away so I was alone with my nine children. [...] A coloured refugee, a light molatta who lived with us, come running in the room crying ‘Oh Mrs. Taylor they’ll murder me like a dog because I’m a slave.’ I said ‘Well, Lucy, I’ll hide you over the bedroom.’ ‘But they’ll burn the house, you know.’ ‘Well, Lucy,’ said I, ‘we will trust in the Lord. I think he will take care of us.’ The children watched with the spyglass through the day to see if they saw the army coming over the hills. About 5 O’clock Spencer my oldest boy ventured on horse back down to Mr. Phillips’s & brought back word that Price’s army was driven back he fled, & his chief man Marmaduke was taken prisoner.” (November 11, 1864)
This would be their closest call, though shortly after the war, a conflict that was originally about religion would turn into a political one. At the Baptist State Convention held in the soldiers’ barracks in Paola, Taylor narrates:
“there was a report by the moderator on The State of the Country, very properly eulogizing our former greatly beloved President Lincoln in which he was termed our ‘Christian President;’ I moved an amendment to strike out the word ‘Christian,’ and I said, that while from what I had heard, I hoped President Lincoln was a Christian, I did not feel that under the circumstances as to the place of his death, it was called for, or became a religious body so to characterize him. [...] Mr. Kalloch spoke a second time in reply to me and quoted Wyat Smith’s unwise remark, that he would rather see or meet a Christian in a Theatre, than a Copperhead in a prayer-meeting, and then pointing towards me added ‘or a cynical, snarling, snivelling professor.’ The soldiers thought from it that I was a copperhead [i.e., a Peace Democrat]; and when I rose to speak on another subject one of them, a young man caught me by the collar and endeavoured to force me to my seat. Bro. Dean the chairman of the committee, who sat next to me interfered, and I said what I had to say. As soon as the meeting adjourned I heard the voices of the soldiers behind, and I turned and saw them standing on the timber used for seats threatening me, I stood up on my seat, a beam, facing them with Bro. Dean between us, and I said kindly, ‘Boys, you misunderstand me, I voted for Lincoln;’ but they would hear nothing, and one said, ‘Don’t you come to these Barracks again,’ another pushed me from the seat on which I was standing. And when I left with a friend these few soldiers endeavoured to follow, and to friends who assured them that I was a radical republican, one of them replied, pointing to Kalloch, [‘]that man thinks him a Copperhead.’ But I did not know all the danger through God [who] preserved me until the next morning when Bro. Dean told me that the man that caught me by the collar felt in his pocket for his knife, saying ‘Wait boys, till I get my knife open.’ Bro. Dean called at my lodgings and advised me not to return to the Barracks, and I did not.” (June 16, 1865)
Taylor’s relations with the Indigenous people then in Kansas were somewhat less strained, though characterized by his commitment to their cultural assimilation into Christianity. He particularly enjoys relating tales of his encounters with them to the Stamford Sunday school students, writing in 1862:
“One cold morning last winter three of them tied their ponies to our south fence and came in to warm themselves, they were one squaw and two fierce looking men, and one of the men as he grew warm by the large wood stove, loosened his blankets showing that he had no other covering from his waist upward. The men were large and bare-headed, the squaw was comfortably dressed. They insisted on my copying a writing which they had which said ‘Good Indian, please to give good indian hog, flour, anything you can spare.’ We gave them food, and when they got ready to go, the lazy fellows sent the squaw around for their ponies to take them from the side to the front fence.” (September 16, 1862)
By this time, a number of the Indigenous tribes originally residing in Kansas—such as the Kaw, Osage, and Pawnee—had been forcibly relocated to Indian Territory, and a number of tribes originating elsewhere—such as the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, and Sac and Fox—were relocated into reservations in the state. Among other effects, the reservation system created lasting poverty. Taylor continues, describing taking his children to see “an encampment of about one thousand Indians, five miles south of us, on their way to a Buffalo hunt”:
“They were Sacs and Kickapoos. That hunting ground is a hundred miles further west, where in their season thousands of Buffalo range. As we drew near to the encampment we saw a large number of ponies and some horses; almost every Indian has a pony. They had tents pitched outside of a strip of woods in some of them all their saddles were packed others were filled with men women and children who were sitting on the ground or standing. The women and children they intended to leave in a place supposed to be secure, on this side of the hunting ground. We were greeted by several well dressed and highly ornamented Squaws who came to our wagon to see what we had. Before several tents there were spears stuck into the ground with their points upward, they depend mainly upon their rifles. Some of the braves or young warriors also came to us and took note of a large umbrella which I did not know but they would fancy too well. The tops of their heads were shaved, except a short helmet shaped crest of hair, from the crown of their head to the forehead, their faces were painted and they were prepared for war: As they are sometimes attacked by hostile tribes while hunting. To those that came to our wagon, I said, pointing to our children, ‘Papoose want to see Indian![‘]; to which they generally nodded approval. Young boys among them used no covering from the waist up, but a blanket. We saw one young papoose swung hammock fashion, and in one tent quite a company of young indians, young men, playing cards while seated on the grass. There seemed to be general order and quiet in the camp!”
Another effort to control Indigenous Kansans came through forced assimilation in schools, often administered by Christian missionary groups. On the Sac and Fox reservation—where Taylor is shown the house of Moses Keokuk, son of the Sauk leader, who would himself become a Baptist minister—he preaches at their Mission School:
“The congregation were from 30 to 40, half of which number are Indian orphan children who have been taught to read and write. [...] There are 25 orphan children in this Mission School, which is sustained in part by the annuities due the children, and partly by Christian benevolence. This school was commenced by Mr. [Henry Woodson] Martin, the present Indian Agent, under great opposition from the Tribe, as they had carefully remembered and followed Black Hawk’s advice, never to adopt any of the customs of the whites. In our worship the children united in singing, ‘Happy Day,’ and, ‘I think when I read that sweet story of old.’ [...] The children were neatly dressed, and seemed much attached to their teachers. God has thus made the loss of their parents a blessing to them: What a beautiful illustration of that verse, Ps. 27:10”. (June 1865)
The Mission School was built in 1863 and demolished in 1885; at this time it had about fifteen to twenty students. Prior to this, the Sacs and Foxes had reportedly kept missionaries and mission schools at bay for more than three decades.[1] In contrast to his remarks on “Black Hawk’s advice,” Taylor writes that the people:
“now tell their children, at school, that they must learn what the white man teaches and adopt his customs, as the white man is now going to rule, and the Great Spirit has something else for the Indian to do. He is taking them away so fast, for some other purpose.” (June 1865)
In Ottawa, he attends a Baptist service given in English and Ojibwe: “As the tribe may be called a Baptist tribe, so this is intended to be a Baptist town and region” (June 15, 1864). Writing to the Stamford Sunday school children, he relates:
“had you been with me, on the afternoon of Lord’s day at the worship of the Ottawa Tribe you would have seen, instead [of] wild, painted and feathered Indians, with but little clothing upon them; the little girls and boys and older Indians dressed as you are with bonnets and ribbons and silks. You would have heard the sweet voices of the females in their Indian song of Praise to God; and seen them mark attention to their Indian preachers. The Gospel of Christ has wrought this wonderful outward change, and a far greater one, in their hearts.” (June 14, 1864)
Taylor was acquainted with the minister of the Ottawa Indian Baptist Church, Ojibwe member and fellow Hamilton alumn John Tecumseh Jones (1800–1873). Taylor attends Jones’ ordination as an evangelist in 1864, and in 1865 Jones shows Taylor “the ruins of his former dwelling which was burnt to the ground in Border ruffian times,” while Jones relates the dramatic tale:
“he said the house was surrounded at midnight by a large part[y] of four hundred men who were in the vicinity, who demanded that he should come out. [...] The Ruffians set fire to the house, and Bro. Jones took a heavily loaded shot-gun, and opened the front door; the light of the flames revealed him to the Ruffians with his gun raised to his shoulder, and they cried out, ‘Dont shoot,’ and fell back to the sides; when he with his gun walked out, partially screened by smoke, but was fired at three or four times without being hit; and thus escaped through a cornfield none daring to follow him closely. He had given to his wife seven hundred dollars before leaving. The Ruffians called for the women to come out and they should not be hurt. They went, but Mrs. Jones dropped her money and the ruffians divided it. They took one man out of the house and beat him and left him for dead, but he recovered. Bro. Jones says he lost in his property and money more than $20.000 [...]” (June 16, 1865)
Also on the Sac and Fox reservation, Taylor describes his observations of various tribes’ customs:
“The Sac and Fox Indians have no negroes about them. [...] But the Creek Indians sometimes intermarry with the Negroes; as I saw in the evening when Mr. Martin took me five miles to fill an appointment I had made in the afternoon to preach to a Baptist Church of 20 or more Refugee Creek Indians and Negroes. There may have been 30 of them in all, and some of the colored brethren had indian wives. They had a colored brother as preacher among them, who interpreted to them sentence[s] as I preached. They sang in the Creek language [...] It reminded me of the pleasing fact that God understands all languages [...].
“The Indians are very superstitious. A child died at this school two months since, and some of [the] squaws that visited the child said they knew that there would be a death there, for that, they had seen the Fireman there; that the Fireman would poison anyone. That it assumed different forms, sometimes that of a butterfly, therefore the children are taught to chase and kill butterflies [...]
“Mr. Martin told me that widows have been known to mourn five years. They black their faces and take no part in the dances. This mourning is truncated by some one presenting the widow with a gift, usually a pony. When one of their tribe dies, one of their number addresses the dead body relative to the estimation of the tribe have had of him [...] When any one of their number becomes fatally diseased, he kills himself rather than suffer pain. Two cases were mentioned to me by the Agent; one that of a man subject to epileptic fits, who as he saw the intervals lessening, after he came out of one [of] the fits shot himself. Also Sawpaw-kawkah [likely sic, Shaw-kaw-paw-kof], the greatest orator of the Indian Tribes west, by whose influence alone Mr. Martin established his school, when he saw that consumption was fastened on him, made his will, disinheriting his son who was worthless and adopting a nephew, and then killed himself.” (June 1865)
Taylor resigned from his position with the ABHMS in October of 1866 due to conflicts over his belief in the Doctrine of Grace. Unable to stay afloat financially, the Taylors returned to New York. Later letters and notes concern the affairs of his now-grown children; the 1870 capture of Rome, which seemed to fascinate him; and the publication of his article on his view of atonement titled “Design, Sufficiency, Efficiency” in The Watchtower (1879). Scattered throughout the volume are four of Taylor’s quite competent illustrations of Kansas life: the Hopewell Baptist Church in Anderson County, his loyal “Gospel Pony”, the “Baptism of Sister Johnson, Dragoon Creek,” and a smaller drawing of an unnamed meeting house.
Overall the letterbook is dense with firsthand descriptions of frontier life, church conflict, the Civil War, and relations with Indigenous Americans. Of particular interest to scholars of Kansan life in the 1860s. We find no similar examples of primary source descriptions of Kansan missionary life in auction records. Provenance: Purchased by us at Swann Galleries, Printed & Manuscript Americana November 20, 2025, lot 175, purchased on eBay by the consignor, 2024.
Offered in partnership with Boston Rare Maps.
[1] Charles R. Green, Early Days in Kansas. In Keokuks Time on the Kansas Reservation (Olathe, Kansas: 1913).
Price: $25,000.00
Status: On Hold