throughout New England. In 1853, he was hired by a stone contractor, William Pierce, from Augusta, Maine to supervise stone-cutters in the construction of an insane asylum in Augusta. Tabor met Pierce's daughter, Augusta, and fell in love with her, but was unable to support a wife yet. Kansas abolitionist and legislator Among the events leading up to the Civil War (1861-1865), there was a fight over what states and new territories would support slavery or not. At the same time, the California Gold Rush resulted in a lot of people moving west and the railroads helped get them there. The Kansas–Nebraska Act, which created the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, passed quickly by House of Representatives and the Senate and was swiftly enacted by President Franklin Pierce. The act repealed the Missouri Compromise which aggravated the dissension between pro-slavery and anti-slavery Americans. Tabor and Augusta made a plan to ready themselves for marriage. Tabor would travel ahead to westward, get established, save some money, and return to Maine to marry Augusta. Together they would return to Kansas where they would fight for the abolition of slavery. In 1855, Tabor departed with his brother John for the Kansas Territory with the New England Emigrant Aid Company to populate that territory with anti-slavery settlers. He worked at Fort Riley as a stonemason to earn enough money to get married. He joined with other abolitionists, including John Brown, the abolitionist who later led the raid on Harper's Ferry, to defend the town of Lawrence against pro-slavery men, which resulted in the Sacking of Lawrence. A member of the Free Soil Party, Tabor was elected to the Topeka Legislature, but that body was soon dispersed by President Pierce at the point of a bayonet. Marriage to Augusta Pierce Tabor Tabor married Augusta Pierce, the daughter of Lucy and William Pierce, on January 31, 1857. After their marriage at her family's home in Maine, the couple farmed for two years along Deep Creek in Zeandale, Kansas (known today as Tabor Valley). They had a son named Nathaniel Maxcy, who was also known as Maxey. Pike's Peak Gold Rush In 1859, the Tabors moved west during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush with other "Fifty-Niners" to Denver (in Kansas Territory at the time). Tabor, his wife, and son were tranported by an oxen-driven covered wagon. After the six-week journey, they arrived in Colorado in April 1859. They