Monday, July 13, 2009
A historic landmark in east Lawrence is now open to the public from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays through September 21.
The Murphy-Bromelsick House, located at the corner of 10th and Delaware Streets in Hobbs Memorial Park, was built in the 1860s after the infamous raid by William Quantrill. John Speer, one of the little-known founders of Lawrence, constructed the house between 1866 and 1869.
Photo Gallery
Murphy-Bromelsick House
Hidden landmark preserves early Lawrence history.
Mark Kaplan, Lawrence preservation activist, said John Speer was the first newspaper publisher in Kansas in the 1860s and a radical abolitionist. He said Speer was one of the first advocates for having a university built in Lawrence. However, Kaplan said Speer’s influence in Lawrence and Kansas history has gone almost totally unnoticed.
“Speer was way, way ahead of his time,” Kaplan said. “He’s like a giant in Kansas history, but nobody knows about him.”
John Speer’s great-great-grandson, Marty Speer, shows the Murphy-Bromelsick house to anyone interested in the history of Lawrence and the historic events in Kansas that led to the Civil War. Inside the old brick house, Marty Speer has a collection of black and white photos of his great-great-grandfather and other Lawrence founders as well as maps, documents and other pieces of Lawrence history.
“I’m here to carry on John Speer’s legacy,” Marty Speer said. “There is an extreme amount of history here that is untapped.”
What he most proudly displays is the giant re-creation of an original document he keeps at home, called “Speer’s Defy.” The document is a one-page list of sentences and phrases printed by John Speer to strengthen Lawrence residents’ resolve to keep Kansas a free state during the border wars with Missouri. Marty Speer said he had had the document since the 60s, but had no idea where it originated or what its historical value was. Now, with the Murphy-Bromelsick house as a focal point, Marty Speer wants to do what he can to educate anyone interested in Lawrence history about the influence John Speer had on the city and the history behind the house.
Jonathan Earle, associate professor of history, said the Murphy-Bromelsick house was a pristine and unusual example of “vernacular architecture.” He said it was the type of place where middle-class Americans actually lived and worked a century and a half ago. Most structures that have been preserved until now were owned by rich people who could afford to build grand houses and pass them down to their children, Earle said.
Earle said John Speer wanted Lawrence to be home to a university, and not some other facility such as the jail in Leavenworth, or the state capital in Topeka.
“Like many anti-slavery partisans in Lawrence, he saw the future of the territory and the town as one with educational opportunities,” Earle said. “It was not an obvious choice.”
Kaplan said John Speer helped A.D. Searle survey the land where the University now stands. He said John Speer was obsessed with rebuilding the town after two of his sons were killed in Quantrill’s raid. The University became part of his vision of a rebuilt Lawrence.
“He was pretty much a founding father of Lawrence,” Marty Speer said.
Touring the Murphy-Bromelsick house is free and open to the public.
— — Edited by Steph Schneider
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