From: Ernest Chiles

This story is from my Aunt, Imogene Johnson McIlvain, who published it in the Greenwood County History book:

My gg-grandparents, Zenis P. (b. Sep. 15, 1812; d. Feb. 4, 1899) and Nancy Jane Richerson (b. Jan. 9, 1814; d. Oct. 20, 1903) moved westward after their marriage (ca. 1834). Zenis was a freighter from St. Louis to Westport (now Kansas City). The Craigs were run off their land in Missouri by Quantrill and his raiders. In 1860 they moved to a log cabin by the Kaw River, just outside Lawrence, Kansas. The cabin had been owned by a Southern sympathizer. The Craigs never went back to Missouri, or received any payment for their land.

In September of 1863, Nancy Jane Craig answered a pounding on her cabin door. It was Quantrill himself, wanting to know who owned the cabin and where the man of the house was. The people had heard that Quantrill was on his way, and Mrs. Craig had put on as many petticoats and dresses as she could. She was not harmed; however, daughter Sarah and her husband lived in Lawrence, and Quantrill and his men went there, shot a lock from the doors and the locks off the trunks of clothing, taking what they wanted and ripping up everything else. Sarah was a school teacher and had some nice clothes. The raiders broke all the windows of the home and at least one leg from every chair, table, and bed in the house before they left. George Harris, Sarah's husband, had taken Sarah to her parents' by buggy, before the raiders got to their home in Lawrence.

The Craigs then moved to Johnson County, and my g-grandmother Mary Elizabeth Craig (who married George Henry Johnson) said she grew up in the shadow of the federal prison. They lived near the west side of the prison at Leavenworth. She had her own pony and rode side-saddle. She told of her father, Zenis, taking the familty to Springfield, Missouri, to see Abraham Lincoln when he campaigned there in 1861. She was seven years old. She remembered seeing him wave to the people and heard him speak from the caboose of a train.

Back to the Main Page

John A. Jackson

jajacks62@yahoo.com

=============================================================