Transcribed from volume II of Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912. 3 v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W. Blackmar.

Laughlin, Patrick, who was prominent in Kansas politics for a short time in 1855, came from Scott county, Ky., where he had kept a small store on the Frankfort and Georgetown turnpike. After getting in debt and borrowing all the money he could, he came to Kansas about the time he was twenty-three years of age. Holloway says he was a "chubby Irishman of some ability." He was first pro-slavery and then free-state; was a delegate to the Big Springs convention from Doniphan county; later published in the Squatter Sovereign an exposition of the free-state society called the Danites (q. v.), which led to a quarrel between him and Samuel Collins, in which Collins was killed and Laughlin was severely wounded. He was taken to Atchison by his friends, and a few nights later an effort was made by some free-state partisans to gain access to his room, but were prevented from doing so by a guard which had been stationed. When he had recovered sufficiently to be removed, he disappeared from the arena, and no more mention of him can be found in Kansas history.

Page 112 from volume II of Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912. 3 v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W. Blackmar. Transcribed July 2002 by Carolyn Ward.