USA > Indiana > Pioneer history of Indiana : including stories, incidents, and customs of the early settlers > Part 45
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Montgomery, who was as fearless as strong, with Mc- Deeman, rushed up to the place where the trouble was and asked the man with a club what in "hades" he meant by beating the man with such a bludgeon. There were two white men and one of them became very insulting, telling Montgomery they were beating their own property and it was none of his busi- ness. One of the negroes cried out, "Oh, that is Mr. Mont- gomery! Don't you know me? I am Pete, who kept your camp at the bear's den."
Montgomery did know him. The bully had the club drawn back to hit Pete, when Montgomery leaped like a panther and hit the fellow at the butt of the ear and com- pletely knocked him out. At this the other kidnapper started to draw a large knife, when McDeeman, who was a full- fledged Irishman, raised his gun and said, "On your worth- less life, don't move your hand. If you so much as bat your eye, I will shoot it out of your head." They took the key away from them, freed the negroes, put the handcuffs on the kidnappers, gave the two negroes the clubs and marched the two men up to the wagons and on into Princeton. Montgom- ery tried to have the kidnappers put in jail until court would set. The old Justice before whom they brought the proceed- ings was thoroughly in sympathy with slavery, and he vir- tually there made the same decision that Chief Justice Tanny did thirty years afterwards. It was as follows:
"There is no evidence that the two men kidnaped the negroes except the statement made by the negroes. The evi- dence of a negro has no force in court which could affect a white man."
They were set at liberty. They were so much elated
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over being freed from the charge that they proceeded to fill up with whisky and hunted up Montgomery and raised a quarrel with him, but he gave both of them at the same time such a thrashing that they were glad to get away.
Along in the twenties a man by the name of Sawyer, from North Carolina, laid a lot of land warrants on some rich land west of Petersburg, in Pike County, Indiana. Soon af- terward he died. A year or two later the family moved to the land and brought with them a negro, who had always been in the family with them, and who cleared up a portion of the land and raised corn on it. This negro became acquainted with a negro woman who lived with the family of Judge Montgomery at his eastern Gibson County home. After a time the two colored people were married, but continued to live at the homes of the white people they were with, with the exception of a weekly visit made by the colored man to his wife.
One day this man went to a mill some distance away for the Sawyers and was never seen afterward. "He was kid- naped and sold into slavery at Natchez, Mississippi. Thomas Montgomery, a son of the Judge, went down the river to New Orleans some years after this and he was told by some negroes at Natchez that the negro lived for only about three years, but during that time he was ever lamenting the loss of his wife, who, he said, lived at Judge Montgomery's.
About 1825 Mathias Mount settled on a farm near Peters- burg, Indiana. He brought a little colored girl with him to his new home, where she remained about three years. She was sent to the house of a neighbor on an errand and was never seen by the Mount family afterward. No doubt she was kidnaped by some of the human vultures who were always on the watch for such a chance. About Petersburg and the country south of there to the Ohio river, there were many of these slave-hunting hounds in human form always watching for a "runaway nigger," as they termed them. The long-haired gentry from the South, with their whips and shackles, were yoke-fellows well mated with these Northern confederates.
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In 1822 two negro men came to what is now the city of Princeton hunting for work. They were hired by General Wm. Embree to work on a farm two or three miles west of Princeton that he owned. They were good hands and worked on the same farm for two years, living in a small log cabin on the farm and doing their own culinary work. One of the men could read and write and often borrowed books from peo- ple in Princeton to read. When the work season was over they put in most of their time before corn would be ready to gather in hunting for game, which was very abundant.
The summer's work for the second year was over and the men were gone hunting. One morning late in the summer some one found tacked on the cabin door a short note saying they had gone to the Ohio river to cut cord wood until the corn would do to gather and this was the last time they were ·ever seen on the farm.
Some years later General Embree was in the city of New Orleans and found these two men working on the levee roll- ing freight. They told him that two men whom they had seen several times in Princeton came to their cabin early in the evening and handcuffed them and by daylight the next morning they were at the Ohio river, which they crossed on a raft into Kentucky, going down to Henderson. After waiting a few days a boat came and they were carried to New Orleans where they were sold into slavery.
Mr. Embree went to a lawyer and told his story and had proceedings brought to liberate the two negroes. The inves- tigation developed that they were sold into slavery to James Lockwell by two men named Absalom Tower and Thomas Slaven and they had been for more than three years the prop- erty of Lockwell. As no complaint had been made during that time the judge refused to release them.
Dr. J. R. Adams, of Petersburg, tells this story of a bar- ber who came to Petersburg and opened a barber shop. One of the human vultures who were ever ready to kidnap the poor negroes, sent off and had a correct description of the barber made and sent back to him. He and another confed- erate at Washington, Indiana, who brought a stranger with
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him who claimed to own the barber and who said he was his negro, producing a handbill that gave a perfect description of the barber in which a reward of two hundred dollars was of- fered for his re-capture, claiming that he had run away from Tennessee some three years before.
These villains were preparing to start for the south with the poor barber when Dr. Adams brought proceedings to lib- erate him. The doctor through an attorney delayed proceed- ings until he could send a runner to Vincennes and get Rob- ert LaPlant, who swore that the negro was born in a small house in his father's yard in Vincennes, that the mother and father were in the employ of his parents at that time and con- tinued to work for his father until the barber was nearly grown. Dr. Adams swore he had known him as a free negro for ten years. On this strong evidence the young barber was liberated. But owing to the prejudice of the time all the white villains who tried to do this great wrong were allowed to go free.
In 1822 a negro named Steve Hardin, who had worked with Major Robb about his mills for some time was kidnaped by a Kentuckian named J. Teal who was visiting south of Vincennes, and carried to New Orleans and sold into slavery. Two years afterwards a man named Pea who lived west of Petersburg, Indiana, went down the river and at New Orleans met Steve Hardin, with whom he was well acquainted. Pea went with the negro to a lawyer's office and told him the ne- gro's history and that he was born in Indiana Territory after 1787. Suit was brought and the negro was given his liberty, the judge holding that those who were born in the Northwest Territory after the ordinance of 1787 were free.
In 1807 John Warrick, Sr., brought from Kentucky to . Indiana Territory a negress. When the state constitution was adopted Warrick sold this woman to a Kentucky friend, who kidnaped her near Owensville, Indiana, and took her to his Kentucky home. Parties from the section where she was kidnaped instituted proceedings in a Kentucky court for her freedom. The court held that it could not recognize the theory which held one to be a slave and free at the same time
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and further held that the negress was free by being taken in- to Indiana Territory for a residence after the ordinance of 1787.
In 1784 John Decker brought from the state of Virginia three slaves to Indiana Territory and located just south of White river a little east of where the town of Hazelton is now situated. These slaves were held by Mr. Decker as his property at that point in northern Gibson county and other places in that neighborhood until a few days before the adop- tion of the state constitution in 1816, when they were kid- naped and hurried to the Mississippi country and sold into slavery where they were found by friends who knew them and aided them in securing their emancipation. The judge before whom the proceedings for their emancipation was brought owned 100 negroes but he decided that the residence the negroes had in Indiana Territory made them free. It may be proper to note here that these southern decisions (and there were many such) were made long before there was any excitement between the southern slavery and northern anti- slavery people.
In 1813 John Judson came to Indiana Territory and brought with him two able bodied negro men. Judson made a temporary settlement near where the town of Patoka is now located. Judson's father had died two years before in middle Tennesee and as part of his last will it was stipulated that his son John who was his only heir should take the two negroes to the territory that was under the ordinance of 1787 and to leave them and to each he was to give $100.00 and a note or contract which called for $100 to be paid annually to each of the negroes so long as they lived. The money for these payments was to be sent to the land office at Vincennes every year.
Young Judson left the two men and before the year was out they were missing and were never heard of afterward. They were undoubtedly kidnaped and sold into slavery. The deposit was made at the land office for several years and was finally returned to Mr. Judson.
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DR. JOHN W. POSEY AND REV. ELDRIDGE HOPKINS
Along in the early part of the fifties two free negro men who lived in northern Kentucky, not far from Rockport, In- diana, had been working on the Wabash and Erie canal be- tween Washington and Terre Haute for some time and had determined to go to their homes and had got- ten as far as Washington on their way there, when they fell in with a man who seemed very friendly to them asking- them where they were going. When they told him, he told. them that he and a friend of his were going in the same di- rection nearly to the Ohio river in a wagon and that if they wanted to they could go with them and it would not cost them anything for the ride; that they would have provision with them for the trip and they could assist in preparing it but that they would not be ready to start before three or four in the afternoon.
The offer was a very favorable one to the two negroes, and they gladly accepted it and said they would be at an agreed point at the south side of Washington, where the two men with the wagon found them.
They took the Petersburg road and it was late in the' evening when they crossed the White river at the ferry. Mr. John Stucky, who crossed at the same time, knew one of the' white, men and at once suspected what he was up to, but could not draw him into a conversation and could not get a chance to talk to the colored men, as he had to hold his. horse. He heard them tell the ferryman that they would. stay all night in a wagon yard in Petersburg. After they were over, the wagon traveled pretty fast. Mr. Stucky did not keep up with it and reached Petersburg some time after it had put up at the wagon yard. Stucky hunted up Dr .. John W. Posey, who was the father of Hon. Frank B. Posey,. and told him about the white men and negroes that were stopping at the wagon yard. The doctor at once understood. the situation and sent a spy to the wagon yard to see what he could find out. The spy soon reported that he found them. eating supper and that a noted hotel-keeper was some dis- tance away engaged in conversation with one of the men.
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He talked with the negroes, who said their homes were in Kentucky and that these men were letting them ride in the wagon most of the way. They had no evidence, but the doc- tor decided to have a watch kept and have the wagon fol- lowed to see what developments might come. About two hours before day the guard who had been on watch came hur- riedly to the doctor's home and told him they were getting ready to start and had their team hitched to a three-seated express wagon and that the hotel man was with them and two other fellows whom he did not know. The doctor had three horses saddled and sent for a neighbor to ride one of them and one of his hired hands rode another and the doctor the third one. All three were armed. They sent the guard back to watch and report, but the express and men had gone. Mr. Posey and other men hurried on after them on the Winslow road, but did not overtake them, as they had passed through Winslow a little after sun-up and thirty minutes ahead of the pursuing party. They followed on after them, meeting a man about two miles south of Winslow who said he had met the express about one mile south of where they were and that they had two runaway negroes tied together. As there were only three of them and four of the kidnappers, and it was supposed that men on such a business would go well armed, they felt as if they did not have an equal chance, but they knew that justice was on their side, so they resolved to fol- low on, and when the kidnappers stopped, they would find some one legally qualified to try the case and liberate the poor negroes.
About this time they met Rev. Eldridge Hopkins who told them that he passed the express but a short mile south of where they were and the men inquired of him if he could tell them where there was a spring as they wanted to eat an early dinner and feed their horses as they were getting fa- tigued. Hopkins thought nothing of it as men with runaway negroes were a common occurrence in those days. Dr. Posey told Rev. Hopkins, with whom he was well acquainted, the situation and Hopkins, who was in favor of justice and was. good grit all the way through, offered to pilot them around.
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the men if they stopped to feed so that they would be in front of them and could go to a Justice on the road a few miles ahead and have papers prepared to stop them and release the negroes.
Coming to the road at the point Hopkins intended, they found that the express had not passed, but they learned that the squire they wanted was away from home and before they could find a legal light who could give them the right to stop the kidnappers they got into Warrick county, where a writ was secured. When the express came up a constable halted them and marched them into a Justice's court. At first the kidnappers were disposed to threaten but by this time quite a number of men had gathered around in front of them. These fellows were completely nonplussed by the action of Dr. Posey. The two negroes were brought into court and told their story. Dr. Posey retold what the colored men told his man the night before while one of the while men was eating supper with them. The crowd was very much in sympathy with the two unfortunates.
The man who claimed to own them showed a hand bill giving a perfect description of the two men and offering a reward of two hundred dollars for their recapture dated at a point in Tennessee some weeks before. (This hand bill was no doubt printed at Washington the day before, while these negroes were waiting for their new found friends.) Things now began to look pretty bad for the poor negroes. Hopkins was a ready talker and he volunteered to defend them and made a telling speech in which he had the sympathy of all not interested. The old justice was against the negroes and he decided that they were nearly all slaves and those who claimed their homes in a slave state were all slaves and whereas their owner had produced a notice of them that had a perfect de- scription and dated several weeks before he would let him (the supposed owner) go with his property.
This infuriated Hopkins and he told Dr. Posey that he would see that the men did not get over the Ohio river with the negroes. While Mr. Hopking and Dr. Posey were hav- ing a consultation, Mr. Hopkins discovered that he had his
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foot on the hub of a wheel of the express the kidnappers had come in and saw that the wheels were held on with linch pins and that he could easily get one of them out, which he did and put it in his pocket. It was decided that it was best for the doctor and his two men to return home. Hopkins said that in that crowd he could find all the men he wanted to go with him on the raid, so having chosen them, they se- cured arms and were soon on the go.
Starting off in an easterly direction, they soon found a road which brought them to the Boonville road and found that the express had not passed. They took powder and made themselves as black as Nubians; no one would have rec- ognized them. Mr. Hopkins thought that the express might get some distance before the wheel would come off.
They waited for a time, but finally started up the road and saw the express, with one wheel off, about one mile south of where the old squire lived. When they got close to the express, they rushed up hurriedly and demanded to know what they had the negroes tied for. The negroes told them that they were kidnaped. The rescuing party leveled their guns at the three white men and made them hold up their hands. One of them had gone back to look for the linch pin. The negroes were untied and the white men searched for guns. They found three old pepper box revolvers of a pat- tern of that date and several knives. They also found a fine rifle in the bottom of the express. The negroes were made to tie the three men and they all sat down out of sight until the fourth man came back, when he was also tied. They then organized a stump court-martial to try the kidnappers.
The negroes first told their story as above related. The four men were told that they, one at a time, could tell their side of the case. The would-be owner produced the handbills that Dr. Posey told Mr. Hopkins were made in Washington. Mr. Hopkins, who was the leading spokesman, told them that this was the case and said that that was the worst feature in it.
The court, after hearing all the evidence, decided that all four of them should die, for such villainy was a menace to
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good order and the peace of society, but told them that any one of them who would tell the whole truth should live. At this one of the men commenced to weaken, when the leader told him to remember the oath he took when he was hired and the penalty if he violated that obligation. At this Hop- kins took the fellow who seemed ready to tell something away from the rest and where they could not hear, and told him that if he would tell the whole truth, that his life would be spared. On this assurance, he told all he knew. He said that the pretended owner lived at Washington, Indiana, and that it was intended to carry the negroes to the Mississippi country and sell them; that they had agreed to pay him and another man whom they hired at Petersburg one hundred dollars each to go with them and watch the two negroes until they were sold, and that the team belonged to the leader who pretended to own the negroes.
Mr. Hopkins took the man back to the party and put the negroes guard over them. He then reassembled the court- martial and they held another consultation, after which he told the white prisoners that they deserved to die for such villainy, but they did not want their blood on their hands and had decided not to kill them, but they intended to give them an object lesson they would remember all the rest of their lives.
Hopkins took the leader and the two negroes out in the woods some distance west of the road. cut two good-sized hickory gads and told the negroes to give him twenty-five hard lashes each, which they did with a will; then he untied the fellow, who was evidently well whipped, and told him to go in a northwest direction and not to stop or look back. Then he took the other man from Washington and the two negroes to the east side of the road, cut two gads and gave him fifty lashes, untied him and told him to go to the north- east and not to stop or look back under penalty of being shot. The two men who had been hired they gave ten lashes each and then turned them loose toward Evansville. Mr. Hopkins and his party held a final conference and then had the negroes put the wheel on, having given them the linch pin.
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They decided to turn the team over to the two negroes, with the pepper box revolvers and the rifle to defend themselves, deciding that they had undergone enough torture to have all the spoils. By this time it was an hour after dark. The two darkies drove away and these rude, but just judges went to their homes.
Some ten days after the events above recorded, Mr. Hop- kins went to Petersburg and visited Dr. Posey. They sent a man to Washington to find out what he could about the two villains who attempted the kidnapping. He learned that they had got back the day after they were so soundly thrashed and reported they had fallen in with a band of horsethieves, who had beaten them fearfully and taken their team and everything else they had.
Some time after this Mr. Hopkins was working for the company that built the first steam mill in Oakland City, get- ting out rock for the foundation. In tamping a charge of powder it went off prematurely and came very near putting his eyes out. He remained for three weeks at my father's home perfectly blind, but otherwise in the best of health. During that time he related this story to my father, giving all the details except the names of any but Dr. Posey. My father and Dr. Posey were friends and he asked the doctor about it. The doctor said that it was the best planned expe- dition of the kind that he had ever heard of, and to the Rev. Eldridge Hopkins three-fourths of the credit was due for its successful ending.
A SLAVE HUNT TO WATCH THE KIRKS MILL BRIDGE.
Some time late in the summer of 1852 a man rode hur- riedly into Princeton, Indiana, covered with dust and his horse in such a lather of sweat it showed evidence of hard riding. Tied to the back of his saddle were a large whip and several cords and hanging to the horn were several pairs of handcuffs and a brace of heavy revolvers belted around his waist outside his dusty coat. Altogether he was a fierce- looking fellow.
Dismounting, he tied his horse to the court-yard rack,
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and hurrying to the south door of the old court-house, put on the bulletin board a notice of three runaway negroes, offering a reward of five hundred dollars for their capture. After doing this he inquired for the best tavern and had his horse taken to the livery stable. He made inquiry if there was anyone who would be willing to help him catch the run- aways. Some time after he got to the tavern two gentlemen who were always boasting of the many times they had en- gaged in such work, called on him, offering their services to help him catch the runaways. The slaveowner inquired about their experience in such business and they informed him that they had been in many such hunts. He told them they would do and if he got the negroes he would divide the reward, which was offered between five men; that all he wanted was their help in catching the rascals. He asked them who the other three men would be. There were several names mentioned to him of those who would be good help in such an undertaking. They mutually agreed on the three men, when he enjoined them to secrecy. Only those going on the raid should know anything about what they intended to do. After this was arranged, it was agreed the first two men should come back to the tavern not later than four o'clock to let him know if the three men selected could be de- pended on to go. By that time he could secure some needed rest and they would mature a plan of action for the coming night.
The slaveowner said that he felt certain the runaways would pass somewhere near Princeton during the early part of the night and aim to cross the Patoka river and get as far on toward White river as they could before daylight. He thought it best to guard one or two bridges over the Patoka and should they fail in capturing them he would organize a posse and picket White river at every point where it was thought likely they could cross. Pulling a small map from his pocket and looking over it for a short time, he pointed out a route which he thought they would be most likely to fol- low. He pointed to Wheeling (Kirksville) as the place he thought they would try to cross the Patoka river, and said
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