While festivities continued in Lawrence throughout the weekend in commemoration of the 151st anniversary of Quantrill’s Raid, about 15 miles west of town folks with the Lecompton Historical Society hosted their own events as a reminder of Lecompton’s connection to the Lawrence massacre and the strife leading up to the Civil War.

Lecompton Historical Society President Paul Bahnmaier, along with three members of the Lecompton Re-enactors, presented “Bleeding Kansas,” a simulation of an 1850s-era town hall meeting, to a small group on the top floor of the Territorial Capitol Museum Sunday afternoon.

Bahnmaier, dressed in period attire, played the role of former Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, a Virginia-born pro-slavery advocate whom re-enactor Tim Rues, in character as U.S. Sen. James Lane, called “the mouth of the South.”

“I would brand them with a red-hot iron upon their foreheads, ‘Villain! Villain! Villain!'” Rues bellowed, in reference to the Missouri Border Ruffians who frequently led attacks on Kansas communities in the 1850s.

Audience members were asked to participate in the action, with Free State Party members on one side of the aisle and southern sympathizers on the other.

Sarah Ward, 14, opted to sit in the Free State section. She and her mother, curator of the Territorial Capitol Museum, expressed their disapproval when John Henry Stringfellow, played by Kevin Griffin, accused the supposed “utopian” abolitionists of committing violent crimes against pro-slavery supporters.

Stringfellow was an Atchison resident who served as Speaker of the House in the 1855 Kansas territorial legislature. At one point in the debate, Griffin pulled out a box of what he called “hardware” that his character said had been shipped from Connecticut to Lecompton. Inside the container: shotguns.

“Do these look like the tools of peaceful settlers?” said Griffin, to which Rues yelled out “Hogwash!” and “southern” audience members booed. “You brought these here to murder those who do not believe in your radical principles!”

Ward, a Lecompton native, first visited the Territorial Capital Museum as a kindergartener. Now, entering her freshman year at Perry-Lecompton High School, she said she’s seen the “Bleeding Kansas” play too many times to count.

“Every time we watch it, it’s something different,” her mother Lynn said.