New England was the focus of anti-slavery thought and action, to which the rest of the North undoubtedly looked for leadership. It was, therefore, in New England that active steps for throwing free-State settlers into Kansas first originated. This was effected through an association known as the New-England Emigrant Aid Company,[5] which was the parent or forerunner of many similar ones subsequently organized throughout the free States. The New-England Company acted with much method. It formed little colonies which were put under competent leaders, were furnished with farming-tools, and even took out saw-mills for the making of new settlements. Some colonists took their families along with them, but most of the first comers were single men whom the desire to see Kansas a free State, rather than a thoughtless spirit of adventure, took from the orderly communities of the Far East. To this work they confidently went forth accompanied by the prayers and good wishes of their friends and neighbors, though as little used to the rude encounter with border men and border life as the two kinds of civilization each presented in itself were removed one from the other. [Illustration: LAWRENCE, KANSAS.] These emigrants made a lodgement in the Kansas Valley, where they founded Lawrence[6] (August, 1854), Topeka, Manhattan, and Wabaunsee. Later settlements were begun along the Osage waters, of which Osawatomie was the chief, and most famous in the annals of Kansas. The directing head of this free-State movement on the spot was Charles Robinson, than whom no more fitting representative of the spirit of his mission, or one possessed of the ability to make head against the multiplied difficulties of time and place, could well have been chosen. FOOTNOTES [1] GOVERNORS OF KANSAS. In four years Kansas had five governors; viz., Reeder, Shannon, Geary, Walker, and Denver. Reeder refused to enforce the bogus Territorial laws, and was removed. Shannon tried to put down the free-State movement, but resigned in despair. Geary fell into line with it, had his life threatened, and fled the Territory in disguise. Walker proved too honest to sustain fraudulent voting, and left the Territory when he found himself deserted by those who sent him there. Denver found the controversy practically settled in favor of a free State. Kansas was therefore not inaptly called the "graveyard" of governors. [2] LEAVENWORTH is finely enclosed by a high ridge on the west which forms a natural amphitheatre. Its site is hardly surpassed by that of any city of the Missouri Valley. Its vicinity to the fort soon made it the first commercial city of Kansas, as it was the most populous. Kansas missed the golden opportunity for having a great city within her own borders.