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William Hutchinson

Constitutional Delegate. Born: January 24, 1823, Orange County, Vermont. Married: Helen M. Fish, March 3, 1847. Died: May 18, 1904, Washington D.C.

William HutchinsonBorn in Randolph, Orange County, Vermont, on January 24, 1823, and raised on a farm, William Hutchinson received a common school education, plus, and taught several terms in the rural schools. He married Helen M. Fish (born, ca. 1828), also of Randolph, on March 3, 1847, and couple established a farm near Braintree, Orange County, Vermont. Three years prior to their spring 1855 move to Kansas Territory, Hutchinson became editor and publisher of the Green Mountain Herald, Randolph, Vermont. William and Helen Hutchinson actively supported the free-state movement; he wrote letters on the situation in Kansas for the Vermont Watchman, the Boston Journal, and the New York Times, among other newspapers, and of course served as a Lawrence delegate to the Wyandotte Convention in 1859. He actively engaged in many territorial Kansas events, martial and political, and joined James H. Lane's Frontier Guard in the nation's capital in 1861. Hutchinson maintained his residence in Lawrence but continued working in Washington, D.C.; he was in the employ of the Interior Department at the time of his death in Washington on May 18, 1904. 41
Hutchinson boldly and consistently supported "Negro suffrage" during the convention debates, moving "to strike out the word 'white'" from the suffrage clause because the right to vote should be extended "to every class of men." But he was also implicated in some convention "skullduggery" toward the end of July, when Elijah Hubbard claimed Hutchinson had "offered me a good lot [in Lawrence] if I would vote for Lawrence" as temporary capital of the state. 42

Entry: Hutchinson, William

Author: Kansas Historical Society

Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.

Date Created: June 2011

Date Modified: November 2012

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