USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. II > Part 22
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
A Man for Sale.
" On Monday morning, at 10 o'clock, Sheriff Lowe will sell at or near the jail, to the highest bidder, Edwin Heathcock, now confined for being free, to pay the legal expenses for holding him on suspicion of being a slave. The solid men of Chicago are requested to be present and witness the first man sale in our county.
"This was locked up and put on the press, and while De Wolf stood behind and played the part of roller boy I printed off fifty copies of the bill. We then, at 12 o'clock Saturday night, sallied up Clark street, along the line to be traversed by the church goers on the mor- row, posted these bills on the fences around the public square, up past the long, low Presbyterian church on the right, the equally low Methodist on the left, be- tween Washington and Madison streets, and on the board fences along and beyond the houses of R. E. Heacock, Star Foote, Tuthill King, P. F. W. Peck, Robert Freeman, Joseph Meeker, etc., on both sides of Clark street, so that the sober, if not the solid, men should have full notice of the Monday morning sale as they went to and fro to church, for the people of Chi- cago at that time were famous church goers.
"Through the Sabbath day these bills received some marks of spite, such as a thrust through them, or a tobacco quid spattering their faces. But they did their work, and, at the appointed hour, a crowd of peo- ple were present to witness Lowe's slave sale. The
284
The Underground Railroad.
sheriff, after stating the obligations imposed on him by the statute (the second section of the act of January 7, 1829, referring to free negroes, etc.), proceeded in the discharge of his duty.
" The sheriff: 'I am to hire out Edwin Heathcock to the highest bidder for one month. How much is bid for Edwin Heathcock?' No bid. 'How much, gen- tlemen, for Edwin Heathcock?' Still no bid. 'How much shall I have for Edwin Heathcock for one month? He is to be hired out for one month; how much is bid? How much?' And so for some time he solicited a bid. The sale was interrupted by some one inquiring of the sheriff if the person who became the purchaser would be held responsible for his return at the expiration of the month. 'No other responsibility will be assumed than what is required by the statute. Nothing is bid. Is there no one who will hire Edwin Heathcock? If nothing is bid I shall have to return him to the county jail.' At this announcement the coldness of the audi- ence seemed to relax; and after a few more invitations to improve the opportunity to make a speculation, a voice was heard from one of the upper windows offer- ing twenty-five cents for Edwin Heathcock for one month. 'Twenty-five cents is bid. Do I hear any more than twenty-five cents-twenty-five cents-going. Gentlemen, I shall hire him out for twenty-five cents, if no more is bid. Going-going-for twenty-five cents, only twenty-five cents-going-going-going-gone, for twenty-five cents. Edwin Heathcock is hired out to Mahlon D. Ogden for twenty-five cents.'
"Mahlon D. Ogden held up the shining silver quar- ter between his thumb and finger, and tendered the sum to the sheriff. 'Now,' said Mr. Ogden to his new purchase, 'Edwin, you are my man. I have purchased you for twenty-five cents. Go where you like.' The announcement was responded to by cheers from the crowd. Sheriff Lowe acted as if he felt that he had got happily through with an unpleasant duty, and said
285
The Underground Railroad.
that he wanted his fellow-citizens to understand that he was but the agent of the law, and only doing what it commanded."
Aurora and Downer's Grove were both near stations to Chicago, the latter place under care of J. P. Blod- gett.
None of these persons connected with the under- ground railroad ever crossed Mason and Dixon's line to entice slaves from their masters. Each one had his own duties assigned to him, and enough to do to fulfill them. But there were some exceptions to this rule. Occa- sionally overzealous abolitionists would venture into the "enemy's country" to entice slaves away, in most of which cases they were caught and sent to state prison, sometimes for life. The fugitives generally came through their own innate desire for liberty. They traveled, not by public roads, but across fields, forests and swamps, lest they should be intercepted by patrol- men on the highways. The north star was their only guide. It was always safe for them to apply at slave quarters on any plantation, where they were secretly fed, but not housed.
Up to the time of the passage of the fugitive slave law, some of the runaways, feeling comparatively safe in the state of Illinois, settled down and engaged in various employments; but when this enactment became a law, the underground railroad men took immediate steps to place them beyond the Canada line for safety; in doing which a great accumulation of passengers was gathered at the depots for transportation. Sometimes whole train loads were shipped, a good general account of which is told in succeeding pages by Mr. Nathan Freer, son of L. C. P. Freer. Other accounts from persons now living will also be inserted in this article, which will shed side lights on this struggle, while they serve to corroborate statements already made.
At that time there were two celebrated steamers plying from Chicago around the lakes, the "Great West-
286
The Underground Railroad.
ern," commanded by Captain Walker, and the "Illinois," commanded by Captain Blake. Both of these captains had the reputation for generosity and courage for which sailors are noted, and all the agents of the underground railroad knew that their respective steamers were safe places in which to stow away fugitives, because these runaways, disguised as firemen, would work with all the more zeal on their free passage to Canada. These captains never knew what was going on in the coal hole, nor did they know anything of the character of the passengers. If they were rich they paid their fares ; if they had no money, they could not be thrown overboard; the worst they could do would be to put them off at the next landing ; withal, they never carried them beyond Detroit for any consideration. Here they were landed, but always on the Canada side. It is not strange that these captains were suspected of running their steamers in connection with the underground railroad. They were competitors for the white travel- ing public from the south via St. Louis and the Illinois river. In the saloons of these steamers there might be the slave masters from one of the southern states, with wives and daughters, reveling in the luxury of a northern summer trip, while one or more of their run- away slaves were firing up the boat in the hold below. The masters were happy in the plenitude of their power, but the slaves were happier in their assurance of freedom.
Pending this state of things, a suspicion was appar- ent among the southern people that these captains were guilty of carrying fugitive slaves to Canada; and to cir- cumvent them they sent a spy to Chicago. This Paul Pry had a thorny path to travel. He soon learned that four slaves were run off in Captain Walker's steamer, with the knowledge of the captain. He had also learned that Dr. Dyer had sent slaves on his boat; but any attempt on his part to obtain a legal hold upon the im- pervious doctor or other abolitionists in this business
287
The Underground Railroad.
was made too intricate, by the uncertainties of a'legal process, to be successful, and he was obliged to aban- don the mission on which he had been sent.
BLACK LAWS OF ILLINOIS.
In 1720, when little was known of the mineral re- sources of the Illinois country, an opinion prevailed that gold and other precious metals abounded in this unknown region. At the mouth of the Okau river, now the Kaskaskia, was a thriving French settlement, in which Philip Francis Renault was a leading spirit. The lead mines of Galena had already yielded profits to its pioneer workers, and if the country around was as rich in minerals as Galena was in lead, slave labor could be profitably employed to develop this new in- dustry; accordingly Renault at his own expense pur- chased and imported 500 negro slaves from St. Do- mingo. Not long after their arrival it was found that there were no mines to be worked, in consequence of which some of them were deported to work the Galena mines, and the remainder were purchased by the set- tlers to till the soil. These slaves were composed of both sexes, and some of them married after the fashion of slave marriages; but by the ordinance of 1787, slavery could not exist in the northwest territory, and they became free. When Illinois became a separate territory in 1809, a law was passed requiring persons of negro blood to procure a certificate of their freedom, without which if found ten miles from home any white person could arrest them, bring them before a justice, and cause them to be punished with thirty-nine lashes on their bare backs. There were various other penalties inflicted upon negroes, according to the whimsical advocates of slavery, who were important factors in the Illinois legislature; but they were gen- erally a dead letter on the statute book. Any attempt to execute them produced a turmoil, a notable instance of which is told by Mr. Eastman. He says: "The first time I ever had any knowledge of 'The Black
288
The Underground Railroad.
Code' was when I took my first dinner in Chicago, at the old Tremont house, in 1839. I heard at the head of the table some loud and pronounced talking, from which came the expressions that the poor fellows were badly treated, and that it was a shame for civilized people to have such a law. What was it? Why, they said, the darkies of the city had all been taken up to the court house and put under bonds for their free- dom." Continuing, Mr. Eastman says: "If the servants had escaped from their masters they had to be advertised as runaways." This black code re- mained on the statute book until John Jones, a well known colored citizen of Chicago, went to Springfield, in 1864, with a petition to which he had procured a long list of signers, asking that, since his race had been made free, all the laws that made distinction on account of color should be repealed. The petition was granted.
During this exciting prelude to the civil war, one fugitive case came up that involved international law. A slave named Anderson made his escape from St. Louis to Illinois, was protected at Alton, whence he was sent to Canada on the underground railroad. Before arriv- ing at Alton he was pursued by his master, but in the chase the master was killed by the runaway. The inter- vention of the United States government was invoked by the governor of Missouri, to return this fugitive by virtue of the extradition treaty between England and America. After a careful consideration of the case the British refused to return him, on the ground that said killing was justifiable homicide, slavery not being recognized in Canada as a legal institution, on which issue the case hinged.
L. C. Paine Freer, abolitionist and underground railroad operator, was descended from liberty loving . ancestry, both on the paternal and maternal side. His father was of French Huguenot extraction, and born at New Paltz, N. Y., in the well known colony of French Huguenots. His mother was of the New England fam-
289
The Underground Railroad.
ily of Paines, distinguished in the early history of our republic. He arrived in Chicago in 1836, fully in sym- pathy with anti-slavery sentiments, and rapidly acquired influence with the abolitionists of Chicago and the northwest. During the period of the greatest activity of the underground railroad he was very prominent in the work; and his home was open not only to colored speakers, but also to the humble fugitive from slavery. He encountered personal danger on more than one occasion, as he was forced to oppose armed court offi-
V
LC. Paine Freer
cials and slave owners, the former with legal warrants. There was a standing reward in one slave state for his head. On one occasion he and a party on horseback chased some slave catchers nearly across the state of Illinois, but unsuccessfully. On another occasion a party of slave catchers were in town for the purpose of returning to her master a light colored woman who had resided in Chicago a number of years. Mr. Freer and three others (undoubtedly Dr. C. V. Dyer and Cal- vin De Wolf were of the party) disguised themselves so
290
The Underground Railroad.
that they looked very dangerous; and repairing to the hotel where the slave catchers were, bustled right up to where the latter were talking, and pulling out sav- age looking knives, took seats alongside, and while they used their weapons freely on the chairs, they exclaimed to each other that such was the way they used slave catchers. It soon became too hot for the latter, and they adjourned to a passageway up stairs. Mr. Freer's party followed them, and they took to their rooms. The pursuers, now seating themselves in chairs outside the room doors, continued the persecu- tion. Before midnight the slave catchers had left the city without the woman.
One of Mr. Freer's last acts in the cause of free- dom was to call a meeting at his office soon after the civil war had begun, at which meeting funds were raised to send a train load of fugitive slaves from Chi- cago to Canada. The party left from the Michigan Southern depot one pleasant Sunday afternoon. Many of them having resided in Illinois since their escape from slavery, now forced to leave their associations here, the sight was painful in the extreme. Mr. Freer's wife, Esther Marvie Freer, was always in full sympathy with his acts in the "great cause," and assisted him to the extent of her opportunities. Mr. Freer died in Chicago April 14, 1892 .*
SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. BY GEORGE SCHNEIDER.
The exact history of slavery in this country has not been written, and the man for whom this work is reserved may not be born yet.
At the beginning of the history of this republic, slavery had a legal existence in nearly every state and section, and the importation of slaves belonged to the legitimate commercial enterprises.
Judge Northrup, of Syracuse, N. Y., who wrote the history of slavery in New York state, deserves great
*The foregoing sketch of Mr. Freer was furnished by his son, Mr. Nathan Freer.
291
The Underground Railroad.
credit and praise for his work. This is only the begin- ning of exact history writing. The next thing in order should be the history of the slave trade carried on by such seaport towns as Bristol, R. I.
Slavery and the importation of slaves had a national existence, and the institution declined for the reason that it did not continue to be profitable from a commer- cial standpoint. But the slaves did not all come from Africa and were not all black, but a very lucrative trade was carried on from Europe. Wars and religious per-
.....
secutions had driven thousands of poor homeless people to the seaports of northern Europe, and ship owners from America found them there and placed them under contract for their passage money to America, to remain for a certain number of years in servitude. They were carried to American ports, and in Maryland, Charleston and New Orleans they were sold in the open slave mar- ket, and in many cases were mixed with the negro slaves. The children of these unholy unions were, un- der the laws, considered as slaves, and brought the highest price under the hammer as servants of a higher class. Cases of this kind of slaves occupied the courts
292
The Underground Railroad.
of Baltimore and New Orleans up to the 50's. In the north, one state after another abolished slavery, and a limitation was placed to its extension by the Missouri compromise. The thinking men of the southern states perceived that in order to save the institution, and with it the political, social and industrial status of the south- ern states, it became an absolute necessity to give it a. national character again. The times were favorable to this great aim of the southern statesmen. Both the great political parties of the country had become sub- missive to the dictates of the south, and even the com- mercial, financial and, to some extent, the religious organizations of the north appeared to be anxious and willing to satisfy the demands of the imperious slave holders. In the state of Connecticut a mob destroyed a school kept by a white teacher for the instruction of colored children, and at Alton, Ill., the printing estab- lishment of a paper, which had not sanctioned the slave laws and slavery, was destroyed by a mob, and its pro- prietor killed. The parole in the north was, "Peace with the south at any price," and the writer of this heard in the legislature of the state of Illinois an after- ward senator of the United States and a great Union general, defend human slavery.
A man known as an abolitionist was considered as not belonging to good society, and was uniformly treated with contempt. Even the great Lincoln appeared at that time to be sensitive when, in public debate, the word "abolitionist " was thrown at him. This was the state of society in the Union, when, at the dictates of the south, congress passed the fugitive slave law, with all its horrors, and made, through it, the north the hunting ground of fugitive slaves.
For the first time there was an awakening of pub- lic conscience in the north, and a fierce agitation com- menced.
At this time Europe had been shaken by the up- rising of the masses against the oppression, and a great
293
The Underground Railroad.
struggle began, more especially in Germany, for the unification of the thirty-six states of Germany to an empire under a national legislature. This revolution- ary movement was defeated, and the flower of the youth of Germany had to emigrate and seek new homes in this country. They were almost all masters of the pen, and naturally took charge of the papers printed in the German language, and with hardly any exception opposed slavery and all its enactments. A new ele- ment had appeared in the political parties of the north and even in some parts of the south, like St. Louis, Baltimore, Louisville, Wheeling, W. Va., etc., with which the leaders of the south had not reckoned. The old abolitionists became emboldened, and the fugitive slave law was openly opposed.
This was the time when the so called underground railway was organized. The great route commenced at the Ohio river, with Cincinnati as one of the prin- cipal starting points, and with stations through Indiana and northern Illinois, Chicago became naturally the great station where the fugitives found a resting place and received their outfits for their transit to Canada. The writer has no list of the honored names of these agents. But among the men who were the most active and self-sacrificing at Chicago, I would name Dr. Dyer, L. C. P. Freer, Zebina Eastman, Calvin De Wolf, Philo Carpenter, Allan Pinkerton, the founder of the de- tective firm now carried on by his sons, Mr. Kennedy, the city marshal as the chief of police at that time, Mr. Isbell, a colored barber, William H. Brown, a fearless opponent of the introduction of slavery in the state of Illinois, Dr. Aaron Gibbs and Mr. George Schneider, then editor of the Illinois Staats Zeitung, the German daily paper. There were, of course, many others whose names have escaped the writer's memory.
There were stations in the principal cities of Michigan to the borders of Canada. The organization was kept up to the time of the outbreak of the civil
294
The Underground Railroad.
war, and will always form a very interesting chapter in the history of the country.
The fugitive slaves found good homes in Canada. To the credit of the Canadian people, it may be said there never had been any lynching, and the descend- ants of these fugitive slaves received, as it seems to be, a good common school education. We find many of them at the present time working as waiters, barbers and porters in northern summer resorts, and they all appear to be well behaved and ready with the pen.
I would say, for comparison, that the colored people emerging from slavery have reached as good a point of civilization, and even better than the serfs in Russia, who have been liberated by Emperor Alexander II.
CHARLES VOLNEY DYER, M. D.
Dr. Dyer was born in Clarendon, Vt., June 12, 1808. His father was Daniel Dyer, a lineal descend- ant of William Dyre, first secretary of Rhode Island, and Mary, his wife, the Quaker martyr. Dr. Dyer's mother was Susan, daughter of Gideon Olin, and sister of Judge Abraham Olin. Of Mary Dyre, or Dyer, Governor Winthrop, in his journal, dated 1638, says : " A fair woman of a very proud spirit"; and she herself said in Boston at her trial : "My life is not accepted nor availeth me in comparison of the lives and liberty of the truth." Although once reprieved from death on condition that she would not return to Massa- chusetts, she did go back to succor her oppressed co- religionists, the Quakers, and suffered death for so doing. The blood of the martyrs is said to be the seed of the church ; in this case it proved the germ of relig- ious liberty, for within a year after her death Charles II caused the abolition of the death penalty for Quakers.
All honor and praise to the women and men
Who spoke for the dumb and the down trodden then ;
I need not to name them ; already for each I see history preparing a statue and niche.
Thus sang Lowell in praise of the early sufferers in the anti-slavery cause. Is it not true that they per-
295
The Underground Railroad.
petuated the traits of their ancestors, and are the words not as applicable to Mary Dyer as to the people of our age ?
Dr. Dyer came to Chicago in August, 1835, from Newark, N. Y., where he had been practicing medicine since his graduation at Middlebury College in 1830. He at once identified himself with the public active life of the place, for he was a candidate for state representa- tive the following year; he was ineligible, however, because he had not lived a year in the state. In
......
BENEDIC -CHI.
Chai: W. Dyer
1836 he was elected clerk, but resigned at once. In 1838 he was commissioned surgeon at Fort Dearborn, where his oldest child was born. He married, in 1837, Louisa Gifford, sister of James Talcott Gifford, the founder of Elgin, Ill. Both Dr. and Mrs. Dyer were identified with the anti-slavery cause, and the earliest recollections of their children are of visits from Owen Lovejoy and other prominent abolitionists. A tract which was widely circulated in those days consisted of
296
The Underground Railroad.
Whittier's poem, " The Yankee Girl," and an address to the women of America, written by Mrs. Dyer. After the death of the martyr Lovejoy, it was felt that there ought to be a mouthpiece for anti-slavery sentiments in Washington, and Dr. Dyer was chairman of the com- mittee to establish the National Era, with Gamaliel Baily as editor and Whittier and Phelps (?) as assist- ants.
Dr. Dyer was a warm friend of President Lincoln, and was appointed by him the first judge from the United States in the mixed court for the suppression of the slave trade, an international tribunal holding its sessions in Sierra Leone.
He was a man of fine literary taste and a wonder- ful memory, and those who were privileged to meet him abroad will remember him as the rarest of cicerones. Every possible association, literary or historical, with the spot he was visiting, seemed to be at his command, and he illuminated all with his ready wit. One evening spent with Charlotte Cushman in Rome stands out in the memory of the writer, when the doctor and his hostess told stories and sang songs to each other for two hours. He characterized the inclination of the tower of Pisa as "a mechanic's lean." She told of her visit to the White House, when she went over to America to act for the sanitary commission fund (pay- ing all her expenses and giving the entire proceeds to the fund-this she did not tell, but we knew it), and of how she seated herself where she, the finished actress, might see with amusement the awkward gait of the ungainly "rail splitter. " "The tall form appeared in the door, hands outstretched and eyes beaming a wel- come, and utterly unconscious of anything except the grateful welcome he was bearing, he traversed the length of the rooms with the most regal and majestic tread that I have ever seen." Dr. Dyer was in Rome when the sad news of Lincoln's assassination came, and was chosen to deliver the address to the American
297
The Underground Railroad.
colony there on the occasion of their memorial meet- ing. He was also invited to speak at a banquet held in Florence in the same year on the 600th anniversary of Dante's birth, which the doctor did through an inter- preter, and when he mentioned Abraham Lincoln and himself choked with emotion, every one present rose to his feet and bowed his head in silence. *
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.