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Ferrins in the Civil War

Quantrell's Raid on Lawrence, Kansas:
An Eyewitness Account by Edward Payson Farren

Joseph Dunham Farren 4 (Jacob Farren 3, Zebulon Farren 2, Jonathan Farren 1), born 28 April 1810, East Haven, Conn., and baptized June 1810 in the East Haven Congregational Church. He married 3 August 1841 Susan B. Hersey, who was born 20 April 1810, daughter of Noah and Susanna (Blanchard) Hersey. She died 3 July 1876, Neodeska, Kan. Her son Edward Payson Farren brought her body back from Kansas and had her buried in New Haven. Joseph Dunham Farren died in 1877. The gravestone in Evergreen Cemetery, New Haven, reads:
JOSEPH D. FARREN
1810 - 1877
SUSAN B. HERSEY
1810 - 1876
Joseph Dunham Farren lived in New Haven and kept a private school there. He was a very strict disciplinarian.

21 Nov. 1845, Wyllys Hemingway, administrator of estate of Jacob Farren, deeds to Joseph D. Ferrin of New Haven, land and dwelling, East Haven, Conn. Records 10 Oct. 1845, Bela Farnham, Town Clerk.

In 1860 or 1861, he and his family left for Lawrence, Kansas, to help make Kansas a "Free State". He lived there about fifteen years and then returned east. They were in the famous "Quantrell's Raid" and one of the sons, Edward Payson Farren, has written the following account of it. Joseph Dunham Farren was a representative from Kansas and in Washington for several years.

New Haven, July 26, 1913.

To J. K. Rankin and Gentlemen and Ladies of Lawrence Massacre Memorial Committee.

Dear Sirs and Mesdames:
Your invitation to be present at the Commemoration Exercises of Quantrell's Raid received, and while there is nothing I can think of that I should enjoy more, my plans are so arranged that it will be impossible for me to attend.

I will send you an account of my experiences that day which, altho a very small boy, were so impressed on my mind that it seems as tho I could see every detail of that awful day before me now, and while some of the details may be wrong, the main facts are correct.

Our family at the time of the Raid, were living in the Finley House which was on the east side of Massachusetts St., directly back of the old city hall (some called it Durifee House) kept by Mr. Stone, a short distance from the river bank.

That morning between four and five o'clock my brother and I were awakened by a great shouting and shooting. We sat up in bed and looked out of the window which was at the foot and saw a great crowd of men on horse back all around the hotel and our house. We threw ourselves back onto the pillows just as a bullet came thru the window and struck the wall right over our heads. It would have hit us if we had sat up a moment longer. Just then our mother came to the foot of the stairs and called "Come children; hurry and come down. The Rebels have come." We were not long in getting down stairs I can tell you. After we got down there father made my sister, brother and myself get under the bed on the floor saying that we would not be as likely to be shot there. Mother would not, saying if she was going to be shot she would be shot on the bed.

Mother the first thing that morning had gone all round the house and pulled down all the curtains and for some reason or other the Rebels seemed to be afraid of a house that was shut up, for they rode round and round the house ordering us to come out and daring us to come out, and all the time shooting (the day after we counted between fifty and a hundred bullet holes in the house).

For two or three weeks before the Raid they had been recruiting a Company of Sharp Shooters in Lawrence and they were camped in No. Lawrence by the old Baldwin Mill (since Darling's, I think) and by that time they began to get in their work so that the Rebels had to leave our house. Soon after that father looked out and saw that they were taking their prisoners to the City Hotel. It seems that formerly Quantrell had taught school in Lawrence and boarded with the Stone's and while there had had typhoid fever and they had taken care of him and been very good to him so that morning he had said that they should be safe and all in their house and they took all the prisoners there, father hiding in some very tall weeds back of the house.

There we found a great company of half dressed people, Quantrell and a lot of the Raiders were there and they said to the people of the house, "If you can't stop those fellows shooting over the River they will kill everybody," so some of the women went upstairs and waved sheets out of the north windows for them to stop, while we stayed around there, the people talking of who had been killed, the Rebels coming up with prisoners every little while till finally we thought they had left there. I was with my mother and a great many others in the dining room when Lydia Stone, the daughter of the proprietor ran dodging thru the went upstairs. In a minute or so two of the Rebels were at the door saying, "Where is she?" and when they could not find her they said, "Every d---- one of you come out here." They had taken her diamond ring early that morning and she had gone to Quantrell and he had made them give it back. They told her they would get even with her so they had come back for it. After they had got us out they lined us all up on the veranda, men, women, and children, and commenced at one end and said to the man, "Where are you from?" He said, "Ohio." They said, "What part of Ohio?" He said, "The southern part." They shot him. To the next man, "Where are you from?" "The same place, but for God's sake, don't shoot." They shot him. The next man was one armed Brown, the peddler that all the old settlers knew. He held up the stump of his arm to show that he was a cripple. They shot him. They shot the next man, whose blood spurted all over the lady next to mother and me. Just then Mr. Stone came out of the house and walked up close to the men and said, "Look here; I have been guaranteed protection and safety for myself and all in my house and I want this stopped." They shot him. He turned around, went back into the house and died in a little time.

Then we all made a break, jumped off the veranda and ran down the hill to the Ferry which was at the foot of New Hampshire Street and what a run that was, expecting to be shot every minute, we children running on and then back to mother saying, "Oh mother, mother do run faster, they will kill you," she saying, "Go on, children, save yourselves; don't mind me." The Ferry saw us coming and came across to where there was a great crowd of us. We had just started when father and the men who had been in the weeds came running down the hill. We thought they were going to be left behind and how we children did scream, but the Ferry put back and got them and we all went over to No. Lawrence and into the bushes and stayed until the afternoon and then went back to Lawrence to find how things were. We found a man dead on our door step, six lay dead across the street, and so all over town, - all our friends and neighbors.

It seems as if I could write for a week of the scenes and instances which I saw and knew of that awful morning, making it the worst of my whole life, but I feel that I have written enough so will stop, hoping that this account will be of interest to some, I remain,
Yours truly,
(Signed)
Edw. P. Farren,
34 Whalley Ave.,
New Haven, Conn.

Source: Captain Jonathan Farren of Amesbury, Massachusetts, and Some of His Descendants , Frank Myer Ferrin and Mary A. Brennan, The Murray Printing Company, Cambridge, MA, 1941, pages 105 - 107.

Biography and Genealogy

Edward Payson Farren 5 was a great, great grandson of Captain Jonathan Farren of Amesbury, MA, and Newton, NH (Joseph Dunham Farren 4, Jacob Farren 3, Zebulon Farren 2, Jonathan Farren 1).

He was born in 1852, New Haven, CT, to Joseph Dunham Farren and Susan B. (Hersey) Farren. His siblings were:

Edward Payson Farren married Mary E. Osborn. He died at New Haven, CT, in 1915 at the home of his daughter, Mrs. John William MacDonald. Both he and his wife are buried in Evergreen Cemetery, New Haven.

He was a graduate of Lawrence College (later the University of Kansas), and spent two years at Yale. He carried on his father's school in New Haven for several years. In his later years he was a letter carrier. He had been ill several years before his death.

Children of Edward and Mary (Osborn) Farren:

Source: Captain Jonathan Farren of Amesbury, Massachusetts, and Some of His Descendants, pages 165 and 166.

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