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10. "Marriage of Lillian Harman and Edwin C. Walker" | Individualism: A Reader

328 views · Published 30 June 2015 · 14:25 · Indexed 1 November 2026

Channel: Libertarianism.org · 2015 · News & Politics

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The Pacific Reporter, vol. 13 (March 10-June 16, 1887)

Moses Harman (1830-1910) transformed the small town of Valley Falls, Kansas, into a flashpoint of radical individualism. As the editor for 30 years of the freethought and anarchist paper Lucifer, the Light Bearer, Harman implemented an "open word" policy that caused him to be harassed for many years by legal authorities.

Lillian Harman, the daughter of Moses, worked with him on Lucifer, during which time she met and fell in love with another freethinking anarchist, Edwin C. Walker. In September 1886, apparently as a test of the Kansas marriage statues, Lillian and Edwin joined in a common law marriage without the involvement of either church or state. After the couple had been arrested and convicted, they appealed the verdict and lost. Imprisonment followed for both Lilllian and Edwin. This document is part of the court transcript from the appeal. It includes a verbatim account of the illegal marriage, as it was originally published in Lucifer.

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