I have been reading some of my extremely interesting collection of material from my trip. It seems that during the the 1920's the park at Westport was a golf course and Moonlight's grandson Thomas Moonlight Murphy was a member of the committee intending to purchase the land and make it a war memorial site. On the same committee was J C Nichols (I think a supermarket king). The committee took the case to Washington and despite one failed attempt due to finance contraints were ultimately successful in their aim for the park. This Thomas Moonlight Murphy would have been the same generation as my grandmother Jane Moonlight.

The Moonlight-Shelby issue is again interesting and not just because of the bus hijacking and sitting next to Shelby's ancestor on that bus. It seems that in the 1880's Shelby had written to a newspaper claiming that the objective of the Price raid in October 1864 was not to invade Kansas (?!!!). Thomas Moonlight thought this was wrong and attempted to put the record straight. In a reply to the newspaper he hoped that some day he would be able to meet Shelby and correct Shelby's perspective of the battle of Westport and issue of invading Kansas. It is strange and rather a coincidence that it was myself that met a Shelby on that bus and I was able to tell him some of the history of that battle. It makes me wonder who is the narrator of the Moonlight story in some senses very similar to the Forest Gump story with that box of chocolates and the park bench!

Graham Duncan