James Montgomery was a well known Kansas "jayhawker." Born in Ohio in 1814, Montgomery moved to Kentucky, taught school, and became a minister in the "Campbellite" church. Then he went to Missouri where he lived with his second wife until soon after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Montgomery purchased a claim in Linn County, near Mound City, and quickly became a recognized leader of the free-state movement.
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