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Lawrence, Kansas was founded by The New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1854.

The New England Emigrant Aid Company was an antislavery organization established in Boston by Eli Thayer. The New England Emigrant Aid Company transported settlers from New England to the new Kansas Territory. Their goal was for anti-slavery settlers to populate the Kansas Territory and influence the Territory’s politics. The New England Emigrant Aid Company intended for Kansas to enter the Union as a free state.

Kansas became a state in 1861, a free state.

The town New England Emigrant Aid Conpany settled is named after Massachusetts native and Harvard graduate, Amos Lawrence. An abolitionist, Amos Lawrence financed the founding of the University of Kansas.