vote of the territory's residents. Quindaro was one of several competing small ports on the Missouri River. Planners seeking to establish a Free-State port noted the site's advantages: Abelard Guthrie, credited as the founder who purchased land for the settlement, named it after his wife Nancy "Quindaro" Brown Guthrie. She was a member of the Wyandot tribe and had persuaded them to sell land to her husband. Quindaro means "bundle of sticks" or "strength through numbers", in the Wyandot language. Construction started in January 1857, and the town soon contained numerous stone houses and starts of several businesses. Its sawmill was the largest in Kansas. The lower townsite near the river was the commercial core, and most residences were higher on the bluff, at the upper townsite. In the first year, there were 100 buildings completed, many of stone and brick, "including hotels, Dry Goods, Hardware and Grocery stores, a Church [two churches] and School house". Tribal natives living there were not dispossessed and became a part of Quindaro. John Morgan Walden was one of many young men attracted to Quindaro, where he founded a Free-Soil paper called Quindaro Chindowan. The name Chindowan was a Wyandot word for "leader". Walden also was a missionary to freedmen and later became a bishop in the Methodist Church. Underground Railroad After the Kansas–Nebraska Act was passed in 1854, a western branch of the Underground Railroad was developed in Kansas. Quindaro was linked to this and the Lane Trail. It provided a new route of escape for slaves from Missouri. It was most important in the years before Kansas was established as a free state in 1861. Quindaro became a legendary port for fugitive slaves and, later, blacks arriving as contraband (escapees) during the American Civil War. Clarina Nichols was a writer for the Quindaro Chindowan, a friend of Susan B. Anthony, and fellow crusader for the rights of women and children. She was an important Conductor and "Station Master" of the Underground Railroad in Quindaro. She left a letter about a time when a freedom seeker named Caroline was brought to her house. Fourteen slave hunters, including her slave master, were camped on the edge of town and looking for her. Caroline was hidden in an empty and elaborately disguised cistern overnight, and then sent on the road north as soon as it was safe. Decline Having reached a peak population of 600,