=The New England Emigrant Aid Company.= So it came about that even while the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was pending in Congress a Massachusetts man named Eli Thayer had thought out a plan for assisting and encouraging the people to undertake the long journey. His plan was to form a company for the purpose of inducing and organizing emigration to Kansas and reducing the expense and hardship involved. This was not to be done as charity, but was to be put on a business basis. Thayer aroused public interest in his plan by constant writing and speaking, and since the people were ready to listen to whatever promised to aid in making Kansas a free state, money enough was soon raised to organize a company, called the New England Emigrant Aid Company. It gathered and published information concerning the new country and organized emigrants into large parties in order to make the journey more pleasant, to reduce expense, and to lessen danger. Competent guides were sent with the parties. The company established schools, newspapers, mills, hotels, and other improvements that tended to lessen the hardships of the pioneers and to further the development of the new Territory. Several similar organizations were formed, but none of them was so well known nor so efficient as the New England Emigrant Aid Company. =Work of the Emigrant Aid Companies.= Hundreds of people came here under the management of these companies, but probably the greatest service the companies performed was that of giving an immense amount of publicity and advertising to Kansas. Newspapers were filled with descriptions of the loveliness, the fertility, and the future greatness of the new Territory, and people were urged to go to Kansas at once, both to secure the advantages of the country and to help in saving it from slavery. In this way interest and enthusiasm were aroused over the whole North, but for every one who came in one of the emigrant aid parties there were many who came independently, especially from the states farther west than New England――Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. =Southern Organizations.= The organizations in the North aroused much bitter feeling in the South, and a reward was offered for the capture of Eli Thayer. The South soon formed organizations too, some of them being known as Blue Lodges, Social Bands, and Sons of the South. =The Coming of the Free-state Settlers.= As has been stated, the Missourians came into Kansas immediately after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill on May 30, but the free-state people were not far behind, for on the first day of August, just two months later, the first party of emigrants sent out by the New England Emigrant Aid Company reached the Territory. Even these were not the first free-state men to arrive; a few who had come independently were already here.