Many very thrilling incidents of before-the-Civil-war events are recorded
which serve to show how the Putnam county stood on the slavery question.
While there were a few nigger haters, most of our ancestors believed in the
principles set forth by our national Constitution recently tersely put by
President Roosevelt -- "Give every man a square deal.”
Putnam county
had some popular stopping places on the underground railroad for colored men
and women who were seeking to free themselves from the galling chains of
bondage. The people generally sympathized with them and if there were any
who were not active in aiding the fugitives forward they remained neutral.
On one occasion as many as sixteen negroes were seen in the village of
Granville at one time, having come in on the "night accommodation train."
They had made their way from St. Louis without money or molestation.
In 1835 two negro women who were pursued by their owners and were likely
to be captured, were hidden in the cellar of James T. Laughlin's house, and
there remained a night and a day. The weather was exceedingly stormy and
cold and the pursuers were kept in a continual dance from one place to
another on false scents and rumors, until they were nearly dead from fatigue
and exposure. The citizens, while pretending to help the confiding
slave-catchers, were deluding them all the time, and the fellows finally
gave up their job and returned home. Of course the poor fugitives were sent
in the opposite direction at fast as possible, until they were safe among
friendly Canadians.
Harry B. Leeper was a very active conductor on
this underground railway and a well-known citizen of Granville, who devoted
much of his time to the cause of freedom.
About 1835 a negro was
sold in Hennepin under the operation of the infamous black laws of the
state. He was a refugee from below, and probably reached here on one of the
many steamers plying the Illinois.
He possessed no visible means of
support and either cared not to work or could not get the opportunity, and
at the instigation of interested parties was arrested under the provisions
of the vagrant act, and advertised for sale for his keeping and costs. There
was an active abolition element at Granville and elsewhere in the county and
on the day of the sale the members were present, but finding there was no
claimant for his person nor any arranged plan to return him to slavery, they
allowed the sale to go on, and he brought, we believe, one dollar and costs.
William M. Stewart, of Florid, became the purchaser, who put him in the
harvest field and paid him regular wages. The man earned a suit of clothes
besides his freedom, and some money to take him on the road to Canada.
A slave was brought to Union Grove in 1830 by Samuel D. Laughlin, and
remained some time. He was taken to Chicago by Thomas Hartzell, and sent on
his way.
Occasionally a fugitive would find the road to freedom
through Senachwine, sent upon this out-of-the-way trail to avoid pursuit.
Once, a negro, hotly pressed by his enemies was disguised by his friends as
a woman and passed thro' Senachwine in a lumber wagon, in charge of George
Cone, who lived between this village and Henry.
On another occasion
a fellow came to the house of Asa Cunningham, near the village, and begged
his assistance. He was an escaped slave, from Missouri, and while resting by
the roadside discovered in the distance an approaching horseman, whom he at
once knew to be his master. The negro said, "I was so skeert dat I shet my
eyes, afeerd he'd see 'em, and didn't dar to draw my bref afeerd he'd smell
'um, for I'd a ben eatin' wild ingens." The master was at the hotel and the
slave dare not move, for it was in the middle of the day. Mr. Cunningham was
the village undertaker and rightly believing that no one would hunt a
runaway in a hearse, hitched up his horse and loading the darkey into a
coffin drove through Senachwine at a melancholy amble, the business gait of
the ancient nag. The master saw the cavalcade and was amused at the oddity
of the turnout while the driver headed his course for Hennepin and safely
delivered his living "corpse" into the hands of trusty friends who kept him
concealed until the pursuers left the country.
We are quoting from
Ellsworth's Record of the Olden Times a few incidents particularly pat to
this subject.
SLAVE HUNTERS FOILED.
In 1837 Alexander Ross
living near Hennepin, while on his way to Galena, when a few miles beyond
Princeton encountered a couple of slave hunters returning with two young and
attractive mulatto girls who had escaped from slavery. The sight of the
weeping girls aroused all his manly sympathies at once. Ross was a democrat,
but not of the pro-slavery class, and he formed a resolution to rescue and
save the victims if possible. So he proclaimed himself a bitter
anti-abolitionist, and denounced the slave stealers, as he called them in
fearful terms. The men were glad to meet some one so much after their own
heart, and asked his opinion as to how they could best get away with their
chattels and escape the fury of the abolitionists. He promptly told them of
a friend of his at Princeton who was "all right" and offered to pilot them
to his house. His proffered services being promptly accepted, they arrived
and were duly quartered for the night, when Ross volunteered to sit up and
guard the slaves from any attempt at rescue. As soon as all was quiet the
cunning conspirator and the lady of the house aroused the girls and took
them in a cutter to James W. Willis, at Florid, where they safely arrived.
Ross returned to Princeton by daylight the next morning. The men awoke,
inquired after their property and lo! the birds had flown. Ross was found at
his post, sleeping the sleep of the just, where he appeared to have been all
night, and as he explained, from the fatigue of watching, had fallen asleep
in spite of himself. He was really asleep and was with some difficulty
aroused and it took some time to make him aware of what had happened his
head being unusually thick on this occasion. When he realized what had
occurred he seemed very much chagrined, and blamed himself for his inability
to keep awake.
He promptly volunteered to help the fellows find
their property, and led them many a wild-goose chase about the town and
country, but all to no purpose, and finally left them and returned to the
land office. In the meantime Mr. Willis and other friends of the cause
started the girls on their way to a safer retreat.
MAGNOLIA
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD STATION.
The managers of the underground
railroad line for this section of country were the Lewis brothers, William
and Jehu, the former, however, the chief and ever-active superintendent.
There were two branches of the road to the South, which united at William
Lewis' house, one from Parker Morse's in Woodford and the other from
Nathaniel Smith's at the southwest corner of Marshall county. From William
Lewis' house the escaping negroes were usually taken to Chester Duryee's, at
Lowell in La Salle county, but occasionally some were sent to Union Grove, a
few miles north of Clear Creek, where there lived several sympathizers in
the cause of slavery. The Lewises, though Virginians by birth, were thorough
abolitionists, and earnest active workers in the cause of freedom.
Once, an old gray-headed negro came along who wore a pair of spectacles, one
glass of which was gone and the other badly cracked. He was wrinkled and had
but little hair upon his cranium. He could give little account of himself
save that he had "runned away from marser, on de Knaw way in ole Virginy"
and that he had "heered that de norf star would lead him to a lan' of
liberty; and he had follered it ebber since he left Knaw way." He had picked
out the brightest star he could find in the northwest, probably Sirius, and
thus he traveled mostly by night, heading his course toward that far off
luminary. Mr. Lewis gave him better advice and started him on a shorter
route.
Once there came an intelligent black woman, whose back and
shoulders yet showed the marks of a recent terrible flagellation at the
hands of her master. It was her fourth attempt to escape, and this time she
was successful. She reached Canada in safety and wrote a touching letter of
thanks to her friends.
Another slave came to Mr. Lewis' who was so
near white as to escape suspicion. He was a blacksmith and worked some time
at his trade and got liberal wages. His master in Kentucky was his own
half-brother. He at length left here and went to Chicago, when his master
wrote him a touching letter promising all things that the young man could
desire if he would return to the family. The relationship was acknowledged
and the family joined in imploring their own "dear Edward" to come home, but
he had tasted liberty and breathed the air of freedom and equality. While
not doubting the sincerity of his relatives yet he dreaded the possible
consequences which the laws then entailed upon a runaway slave and refused
to return. This letter was sent to Mr. Lewis whose family still have it in
their possession.
Among the fugitives at different times were
several young girls nearly white. They did not escape because of any harsh
treatment or indignity but simply to avoid the consequences that slavery was
sure to bring upon them sooner or later by being sold to go south, or become
the victims of brutal men restrained by no law, moral or Divine, in their
treatment of the unfortunate females who added youth, beauty and
gracefulness to the other charms of their sex.
WHITE SLAVES.
Mr. Morse held the opinion that eight-tenths of all the escaping slaves
had white blood in their veins. Among the many who passed through was a
pretty young girl with pure blue eyes, thin, evenly-formed features, a
straight nose and auburn hair falling in ringlets down her back. It was not
kinky or wavy, but in natural curls.
On another occasion two sisters
stopped there who seemed the perfection of grace and loveliness. Their lips
were neither too thick nor yet too thin; their skin was fair and their
cheeks bloomed with nature's roses; their hair in long ringlets of a light
brown color, their feet small and without the African heel, the nose Grecian
without flaring nostrils, and the eyes a bright tender blue. On one side
their parents had been white for generations; on the other a grandmother was
partly colored. Themselves and parents belonged to an aristocratic family,
but reverses and imprudent speculations had ruined the estate and they were
about to be sold, and so wisely sought their freedom.
Afterward came
a little girl, so purely caucasian in form and features, that no one could
believe she was aught else. Mrs. Morse was strongly tempted to keep her and
finish her education that her mistress had begun and adopt her into her
family; but fearing to create an attachment that might be broken by the
Southern master, she let the child go on her way with a devout prayer for
her happiness.
Another incident occurred a year later at Florid, in
which a slave-catcher was baffled. A couple of slaves, a woman and her
daughter traveling by underground railway had reached Wm. M. Stewart's and
were stopping for the night. While there, a sharp fellow appeared who
claimed to own the fugitives, and demanded them. He, too, remained over
night, when, to gain time, Mr. Stewart had him arrested on a charge of
attempted kidnapping. The slave-hunter familiar with our odious laws,
managed his own case and cleared himself, but the woman in the meantime had
been hidden in Geo. McCoy's smokehouse and couldn't be found. They got away
safely. Ten years afterward, Mr. McCoy, while passing through Indiana in the
timber, passing a neat comfortable cabin, was astonished by hearing his name
spoken by a good-looking black woman, who proved to be one of the two above
mentioned. She had since married and was in happy circumstances, and her
mother also lived near by and was satisfactorily provided for.
AARON
PAYNE.
Aaron Payne was a good Christian, but reared in the South he
firmly believed in the divinity of slavery, and bitterly opposed the
advocates of freedom. During the anti-slavery excitement an enthusiastic
meeting was once held at the log school house on Clear creek, north of
Magnolia and addresses and sermons on the subject were delivered by such
workers as Benj. Lundy, Owen Lovejoy and Richard Codding. Aaron Payne
attended one of these gatherings and created a fearful explosion by getting
up and denouncing the meeting and its object as an affront to the Almighty,
who had created the negro and condemned the race to be the slaves of the
white man, and the institution being of Divine origin, countenanced and
approved by the Creator; in both the old and the new testaments, could not
be assailed by human hands without sacrilege and sin. The old pro-slavery
preacher was not allowed to finish his remarks, being hustled out of the
presence of the offended congregation. Nothing but his personal popularity
and known goodness of heart, saved him from being roughly handled. He
departed highly indignant and often afterward related the incident as a
grievous and unpardonable offense to himself, as well as an assault upon
free speech.
William E. Curtis, the great newspaper correspondent,
wrote up an excellent incident familiar to our people in early days under
the caption --
NIGGER JIM.
Down at Ottawa the other day the
old residents were telling about the famous episode of "Nigger Jim" which
occurred at that place in 1859, soon after the Dred Scot decision by the
United States Supreme Court. A colored man named Jim who had run away from a
plantation in Missouri, got as far as Ottawa which was a station on the
underground railway and before he could be passed on was arrested and held
for trial under the fugitive slave law. His owner came on from Missouri,
employed able counsel and the case was tried before Judge Caton. The night
before the trial a company of citizens gathered as usual at Thompson's drug
store which was a popular rendezvous and discussed the subject with great
interest and suppressed excitement. Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Stout, the two
leading physicians of Ottawa, with James Stout, an attorney, and John
Hossack who were among those present, formed a plan which they immediately
began to carry out. The next morning the seats along the only aisle in the
courtroom, which led from the main entrance to the bar, were occupied by
selected abolitionists, and other friends of human freedom were detailed to
mingle with the crowd ready to act upon a signal.
The evidence
against the prisoner was positive and no one questioned it. There was not a
man in town but believed that Jim was a runaway slave and the law as
interpreted by Chief Justice Taney of the United States Supreme Court was
equally correct and indisputable. Judge Caton, in summing up, stated the law
and the facts, although he took the liberty to deplore them. He declared in
emphatic language that he was not in sympathy with the proceedings, but
under his oath he had no alternative but to uphold and vindicate what he
believed to be a wicked law. Therefore, he was compelled to find in favor of
the plaintiff and order the sheriff to deliver the fugitive to his owner and
master.
The court was then dismissed. The prisoner, with his master
on one side and the sheriff on the other, started down the aisle. When they
were about half way to the door James Stout climbed upon a chair and
shouted, "Make way for liberty."
That was the signal. The men who had
been placed on the seats along the aisle quietly stepped in between Nigger
Jim and his custodians and held the latter back while others hustled the
prisoner out of the door and into a carriage that Major James Campbell had
in waiting. Nigger Jim has not been seen in Ottawa since. Of course his
master was furious and Judge Caton boiled with indignation outwardly at the
manner in which the law and justice had been trampled upon. James Stout,
John Hossack and Dr. Stout were indicted, tried, found guilty and fined one
thousand dollars each. James Stout pleaded his own cause and, when asked
whether he desired any witness to be summoned, demanded that a subpoena be
issued for God Almighty. The convicted men refused to pay their fines. The
money was raised by public subscription, but they declined to accept it and
served their time in jail.
These were exciting days and when the
call came for men to go forth to preserve the union Putnam county offered
her full quota. The war record of the county is alone sufficient to fill a
volume, but the matter is touched upon briefly under another head. Many
colored people came into the county and at one time there were various
settlements of negroes among our inhabitants, but they found it less and
less agreeable till now there are but two or three families in the county
and they reside at Hennepin. There have been several very interesting
characters among these sons of Ham. None more interesting than Americus
Reddick, who by some valiant deed preserved the life of some white girl, who
was so impressed with the heroism of her savior that she felt the only way
in which she could ever pay him for his heroic deed was by giving herself to
him. "Unto them have been born a number of half-breeds, among them a pair of
twin boys who are now in school at Hennepin and they are an intelligent
pair. So in the process of evolution the colored man under favorable
conditions is gaining what the white man
unrighteously took from him, his
intellect and his manhood.
It may not be out of place in this
connection to preserve a present-day poem that has created no small stir in
civic affairs, written apropos of Millet's great painting which represents a
slave disfigured in facial expression and physical appearance by years and
generations of servitude, leaning upon his hoe, a figure representing
forcibly the wreck of a human being, which the author, Edwin Markham, has
named for Millet's great conception.
THE MAN WITH THE HOE.
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes at the
ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden
of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that
grieves not and never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down his lower jaw
Whose was the hand that slanted
back his brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within his brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have domain over sea and
land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the
passion of Eternity?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And pillared the blue firmament with light?
Down all the stretch of Hell
to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this --
More
tongued with censure of the world's blind greed --
More filled signs and
portents for the soul --
More fraught with menace to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of
labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the
long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of
the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's
tragedy is in that aching stoop.
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Judges of the World,
A protest that is also
prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the
handiwork you gave to God,
This monstrous thing, distorted and
soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Give back
the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Touch it again with immortality;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords and rulers
in all lands,
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer
his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the
world?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings --
With those who
shaped him to the thing he is --
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God
After the silence of the centuries?
Extracted 17 Feb 2017 by Norma Hass from Past and Present of Marshall and Putnam Counties Illinois, authored by John Spencer Burt and W. E. Hawthorne, published in 1907, pages 83-88.
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