Fort Scott has had 5 lives:
1. It was first a fort of unique buildings around a "public square" on the "Indian Frontier". When the frontier moved west, the fort was sold.
2. Pre-Civil War, during the Bleeding Kansas time, when there was a fraught vote as to whether Kansas would be a slave state or not, there was a "free state" hotel (pro-slavery) on the south side of the public square and an anti-slavery hotel on the north. (You understand the division when you hear the Southern drawls and the campground host tells you all he knows of Vermont is that it is Yankee. ) The Governor called a peace conference there which resulted in a riot. There were raids by the other side on each hotel, and blood spilled.
Max's great-great-grandfather, David Eaton, left Vermont with his family to participate in the Kansas vote. He was a Unitarian and the New England churches were urging parishioners to re-settle in Kansas to oppose slavery. He returned to Vermont when two of his sons were injured at Gettysburg and were taken to the military hospital at Brattleboro. One daughter married and stayed in Kansas. One of the injured sons, Eugene (Max's middle name) was shot in the neck and did not return to service, instead becoming an attorney and serving in his former Colonel's law office in Rutland after the war. The other, Henry Augustus Eaton, re enlisted and served until he was killed at Poplar Church in Virginia. His name is on the monument in the cemetery on North Hollow Road in Rochester where David Eaton is buried.
3. During the Civil War, it was a mobilization point for Union troops.
4. After the Civil War, it was an educational institution for black students. George Washington Carver was a graduate.
5. Now it is a National Historic Site.
The town is also charming, with covered walkways a la Tombstone but with Victorian columns.
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