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.

Lawrence, Amos Adams, for whom the city of Lawrence, Kan., was named, was born in Boston, Mass., July 31, 1814. He was the son of Amos and Sarah (Richards) Lawrence, and a grandson of Samuel and Susanna (Parker) Lawrence and of Giles and Sarah (Adams) Richards. His preparation for college was made under the instruction of Rev. Jonathan F. Stearns. He was graduated at Harvard—A. B., 1835, A. M., 1838—and entered the mercantile business. He interested himself in the manufacture of cotton, which had been the business of his father, and was president and director of several banks and industrial corporations in Massachusetts. He became associated with Eli Thayer and others in the colonization of Kansas and was treasurer of the Emigrant Aid company. He was twice nominated for governor of Massachusetts by the Whigs and Unionists. At the outbreak of the Civil war he assisted in recruiting the Second Massachusetts volunteer cavalry regiment. He built Lawrence Hall for the Episcopal theological seminary in Cambridge, at a cost of $75,000. He was treasurer of Harvard College 1857-63, and an overseer 1879-85. In 1846 he gave $10,000 for the establishment of a literary institution in Appleton, Wis., called the Lawrence Institute (now Lawrence University) of Wisconsin. He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. He gave nearly $12,000 toward founding a free-state college in Kansas, which sum, after a series of changes, went to the University of Kansas. Mr. Lawrence married Sarah Elizabeth Appleton in 1842. He died at Nahant, Mass., Aug. 22, 1886.

Page 116 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.