Fort Scott, Osawatomie, Mapleton, Fort Scott and Fulton were all south of Lawrence and the hot-bed of action against an aggressive anti-Free State settler movement. John Brown added a violent action force from the Free State side that started Bleeding Kansas in 1856. Two raids on Osawatomie, Two or more on Lawrence, the Pottowatomie Creek killings all were in that era of 1856-57.
My great-great grandfather was from Mapleton and was involved with it all but was not on the Pottowatomie raid. He was made postmaster by Lincoln during the war.
The oral and written records of my Chandler family forebears say that John Brown stopped over at the family farm at Fort Scott many times.
Four family members died within a year there, and three of them were relatively young, in their forties I believe. Wish I knew what happened to them.
The remaining family scattered to the four winds - some to Nebraska, some to Oregon, and several ended up back in Lake County, Illinois. My great-great grandfather joined the Union Army at sixteen there, and fought all the way through the war through the big closing battles of Franklin and Nashville.
He took a slug in the gut on the drive to Atlanta, and surprisingly, survived. But he suffered from stomach problems the rest of his life.
He and his family were among the first pioneers of Sac County, Iowa.