Industrial Luminary

City: Parkville

County: Platte

State: Missouri

George S. Park established the Industrial Luminary in Parkville, Missouri, in 1853 as a Free Soil newspaper and was joined in the editorship of the paper by William J. Patterson. On April 14, 1855 the pro-slavery Platte County Self-Defense Association attacked the office of the Industrial Luminary and threw the press and type into the Missouri River. The action was apparently in response to the newspaper’s criticism of Missouri residents interfering in Kansas Territory elections, as well as by rumors that Park and Patterson were supported by eastern abolitionists. Park was absent in Kansas at the time of the raid, but Patterson was seized by the mob and reportedly saved by his wife’s intervention. The Self-Defense Association published resolutions that included denunciations of the paper and of Free Soil supporters generally, as well as a threat to throw Park and Patterson into the Missouri River if they were still in Parkville three weeks after the raid, or to hang them if they attempted to settle in Kansas. The newspaper ceased publication and both men left Parkville, although Park re-settled in the town after the Civil War. He sued the leaders of the mob for damages and ultimately recouped $2,500.

Roy V. Magers, “The Raid on the Parkville Industrial Luminary,” The Missouri Historical Review 30 (October 1935), 39-46; History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri (St. Louis: National Historical, 1885), 171-73; New-York Daily Tribune, 26 April 1855, 5:2-3; Jefferson Examiner (Jefferson City, MO), 14 June 1855, 2:3.