Samuel Dexter LeCompte

Samuel Dexter Lecompte (December 13, 1814 – April 24, 1888) was an American jurist best known for his extreme pro-slavery views, his involvement in the events of Bleeding Kansas, and for being the founder and namesake of Lecompton, the erstwhile capital of the Kansas Territory.

Biography Early life Lecompte was born in Dorchester County, Maryland on December 13, 1814. He attended Kenyon College and subsequently graduated from Jefferson College (now Washington & Jefferson College) in 1834. Afterward, he was admitted to the bar in the state of Maryland, practicing law in Westminster before being elected to the Maryland General Assembly in 1840. He practiced law in Dorchester County until 1854, when he moved to Baltimore, opening his law practice there at 10 Court House Lane.

Kansas

Upon the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act on May 30, 1854, President Franklin Pierce appointed Lecompte to the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the newly organized Kansas Territory.

Upon the bloodless resolution of the Wakarusa War in December 1855 between pro- and anti-slavery settlers, Congress appointed three representatives to the newly created "Committee to Investigate the Troubles in Kansas". They were: John Sherman of Ohio, William Alanson Howard of Michigan, and Mordecai Oliver of Missouri. They held their first hearing in Lecompton on April 21, 1856, and held more hearings in Lawrence and Leavenworth, with each hearing lasting ten hours. and thus was destroyed by the Lecompte mob under the direction of Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, who was shot in Lawrence by persons unknown the previous month and thus held a personal vendetta against the town. In this article, published in the Kansas Chief, Lecompte denies any wrongdoing or partisanship during the Kansas crisis, and especially denies the claim that he ordered the destruction of the Free State Hotel, since Sheriff Jones was widely quoted to have shouted during the raid that his actions were by the order of Lecompte's court. Geary wrote to Pierce:

Lecompte was active in the slave trade in Maryland, buying and selling chattel on behalf of his clients. He is recorded to have owned two slave women when he moved to Kansas.

Personal life and death He was married on April 28, 1841, to Camilla Anderson. They had five children.

Lecompte spent his later years defending his actions during his tenure in the Kansas Supreme Court, writing letters to newspapers, including a lengthy defense of his actions relating to the sack of Lawrence, and filing a libel lawsuit against Daniel Read Anthony, one of his critics. Lecompte refused to supply the Kansas Historical Society with an image of himself, fearing that it would be used in a negative context.

Lecompte died on April 24, 1888, in the home of his son, J. T. Lecompte, at 1224 Campbell street, Kansas City, Missouri.