The Place:
From the Wikipedia page for Leavenworth, Kansas:
(link)
Leavenworth is the county seat and largest city of Leavenworth County, Kansas, United States and is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 35,251. It is located on the west bank of the Missouri River. The site of Fort Leavenworth, built in 1827, the city became known in American history for its role as a key supply base in the settlement of the American West. During the American Civil War, many volunteers joined the Union Army from Leavenworth. The city has been notable as the location of several prisons, particularly the United States Disciplinary Barracks and United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth.
Leavenworth, founded in 1854, was the first city incorporated in the territory of Kansas.
The city developed south of Fort Leavenworth, which was established as Cantonment Leavenworth in 1827 by Colonel Henry Leavenworth. Its location on the Missouri River attracted refugee African-American slaves in the antebellum years, who were seeking freedom from the slave state of Missouri across the river. Abolition supporters helped them find refuge. In the years before the American Civil War, Leavenworth was a hotbed of anti-slavery and pro-slavery agitation, often leading to open physical confrontations on the street and in public meetings.
On April 3, 1858, the "Leavenworth Constitution" for the state of Kansas was adopted here. Although the federal government never approved this early version of the state constitution, it was considered one of the most radical of the four constitutions drafted for the new territory because it recognized freed blacks as citizens.
Refugee African Americans continued to settle in the city during the war. By 1865 it had attracted nearly one-fifth of the 12,000 blacks in the state.[12] In 1866, the 10th Regiment of Cavalry, an all-black unit within the U.S. Army, was stood up at Fort Leavenworth.[13] Charles Henry Langston was an African-American leader from Boston who worked and lived in Leavenworth and northeast Kansas in the Reconstruction era and afterward. In Kansas, Langston worked for black suffrage and the right of African Americans to sit on juries, testify in court, and have their children educated in common schools.[14] African Americans gained suffrage in 1870 after passage of the federal 15th constitutional amendment, and the legislature voted for their right to sit on juries in 1874.
African Americans continued to migrate to the state of Kansas after the war. There were a total of 17,108 African Americans in Kansas in 1870, with 43,107 in 1880, and 52,003 by 1900. Most lived in urban areas.
My Commentary:
Leavenworth has the travel motto of "Come spend some "Time" in Leavenworth" as a riff on the prisons in the area. As mentioned, it is the oldest incorporated town in Kansas with the oldest Masonic Lodge in the State. The downtown area has been preserved with its old buildings and the area is listed on the National Register.
The Person:
From the Wikipedia page for Henry Leavenworth:
(link)
Henry Leavenworth (December 10, 1783 – July 21, 1834) was an American soldier active in the War of 1812 and early military expeditions against the Plains Indians.
He established Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, and named after him is the city of Leavenworth, Kansas, Leavenworth County, Kansas, and the Leavenworth Penitentiary.
War of 1812
Leavenworth was commissioned as a captain in the 25th U. S. Infantry in April 1812, shortly before the outbreak of the War of 1812. In August 1813 he was promoted to major of the 9th Infantry. He was wounded at the Battle of Niagara on July 25, 1814, and the following November was brevetted to the rank of colonel.
Post war
After the war, he then served in the New York State Assembly, in 1816, and then he went to Prairie du Chien as Indian agent, and on February 10, 1818, was made lieutenant-colonel of the Fifth U. S. Infantry. In 1820 he began constructing Fort St. Anthony from the Cantonment New Hope stockade.
Later career
In 1823, he led U.S. Army troops in the Arikara War, the first U.S. military expedition against a Great Plains Indian nation. While on duty in the West he built several military posts, one of which was Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, established May 8, 1827 as Cantonment Leavenworth, now one of the leading military establishments of the country. In 1825 he was made brigadier-general by brevet.
In 1834 he commanded the United States Regiment of Dragoons during its expedition from Fort Gibson, Indian Territory to the Wichita Mountains. The artist George Catlin was also in this expedition, and wrote of Leavenworth's death. They hoped to meet and open formal relations among the United States and the Comanche, Kiowa, and Wichita (tribe) peoples.
Death
General Leavenworth died in the Cross Timbers, Oklahoma, in the Indian Territory, July 21, 1834, of either sickness or an accident while buffalo-hunting;[4] while leading an expedition against the Pawnee and Comanche. His regiment erected a monument at Cross Timbers; he was first buried in Delhi, with his remains later reinterred at Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery.