USA > Michigan > Calhoun County > History of Calhoun county, Michigan : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 10
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An incident is related of how a young friend disconcerted the hunt- ers. He represented himself as a slave-hunter and gained their confi- dence. Assuring them that he knew of the hiding place, he took the party, just at night, into a dense swamp, and leaving them on some slight pretext, failed to return. The party was lost in the woods all night, thereby relieving the poor slaves of considerable anxiety.
Crosswhite was compelled to leave his wife and two children at this place and push on. His experience from Indiana into Michigan, and
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his wife's experience five weeks later, might be written up to form an interesting book. Such is a rapidly traced history of the occupants of the little house above referred to. Crosswhite was known as an industrious, quiet man. Ile had paid a portion of the purchase price for his place.
Early in the winter of 1846-47, there came to Marshall a young man who represented himself as a lawyer. Ile did not make known his business, but strayed through the town as if undecided about his permanent residence here. There was at that time residing here a man named Harvey Dixon, a deputy sheriff, whom the stranger seemed to take an interest in. Evidently some work was to be done and Dixon was the chosen tool. The stranger was Francis Troutman, grandson of the former owner of Adam Crosswhite and his business in Marshall was to recover the fugitives. He had obtained a knowledge of their whereabouts through a friend to whom it chanced (to what a remote cause do we trace great events) Mrs. Crosswhite had unwittingly reveal- ed her history. Troutman was uncertain of the identity of all the chil- dren and employed Dixon to impersonate a census collector and ascertain the required facts. This Dixon did, it is alleged for the modest sum of five dollars.
In the meantime it became noised about so as to reach Crosswhite, that a systematic attempt was to be made to carry the family off. Troutman and three as dark brown rascals as one would care to meet, arranged with a liveryman to have a team ready on a given night at 12 o'clock. The liveryman left word at the stable that the horses were not to be sent until he gave orders. Orders were not given until towards morning. Crosswhite was prepared to meet his enemies. It was understood that a gun was to be the signal for the assembling of his friends. Early in the morning before it was light, Crosswhite saw the team coming towards his house. Ile fired a gun in the air and awaited outside his house for the approach of the men. There were four in the party. Mrs. Crosswhite answered the summons to open the door with a stout refusal to do so. Two men then sought to persuade Crosswhite to go with them, saying that they had come to arrest them and wanted him at the justice's office down town. They offered to carry him and his family to the office in a wagon. This subterfuge did not work. In the meantime about two hundred persons had assembled and were ridienling the slave-hunters. The four men were armed to the teeth, but were too cowardly to use forcible means to take the run- aways. Troutman said there was one child he did not want, but the rest he demanded, as they were fugitive slaves. This speech was re- ceived by laughter by the crowd. When it was understood that it was proposed to take the mother and leave the infant, the crowd may have used threats against the four men, but that is a disputed point.
Later in the morning, Charles T. Gorham, Jarvis Hurd, O. C. Com- stock, Jr., and others went to the scene of trouble. They took no part in the proceedings. but listened to the harangue of Troutman, who was offering resolutions to the effect that "as law-abiding citizens," the people would not interfere with his taking Crosswhite off. The fact of
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their presenee was enough to satisfy Troutman. He obtained their names.
Finally the crowd went down to the Marshall House. Crosswhite ap- peared on the streets and was advised to prosecute Troutman. This he did. The attacking parties were arrested and fined. Mr. Van Arman appeared in the prosecution. Later in the day George Ingersoll quietly obtained funds and sent the family to Jackson in a lumber wagon. At Jackson, the family entered the cars and were carried to Detroit, from whenee they went to Canada. Troutman and his friends went to Ken- tueky, vowing vengeance upon the men who had aided in the liberation of the slaves. The vows made by Troutman were destined to be fulfilled, although it is probable that the loud-mouthed boastings of his party while here were more for effeet than in earnest when uttered. Fate set her seal upon the acts of the marauding party and followed it with an unrelenting assiduity.
Troutman related the incidents of his defeat in Marshall to his friends at home. So indignant were they that steps were taken to convene a town meeting, the object of which was to insist upon the "observance of the laws." In due time, the town meeting was held. At it Trout- man grossly misrepresented the Marshall affair. The citizens of this place were described as armed ruffians who resisted the execution of the laws of the country by force. The out-growth of the town meet- ing, was a county meeting, the objeet of which was similar to the pri- mary assembly. Here again the story of the "northern outrage" was re- peated, with graphie embellishments. With the increased size of the meeting grew the popular indignation and the falsehoods of Troutman's friends. Troutman saw that there was no turning baek from the course he had taken and was determined to carry his point by dint of continued misrepresentations.
From the county meeting, the matter was taken to the legislature of Kentucky, and there an appropriation was made to prosecute the leaders of the "mob." Troutman, who saw there was no alternative, accepted the commission of returning and teaching the cursed north- erners their duty. Messrs. Pratt & Crary were retained, in fact nearly all the lawyers and lawyers' clerks in this section of the country were retained by Troutman. He was a shrewd fellow and immediately set to work to manufacture evidence to support the stories he had cir- culated in Kentucky, and upon the strength of which, the state appro- priation was made. For several weeks Troutman remained in town. Ilis method of work was to meet some man who was easily influenced and ask him if he remembered hearing Dr. Comstock or Mr. Gorham or Mr. Hurd say so-and-so on the day of the "riot." The fellow would partially recollect sneh speeches. Later at another interview, the fellow would be positive, and finally he was ready to go upon the stand and swear to such language. The man Dixon was Troutman's right bower. When sufficient testimony had been obtained to warrant trial, suit was brought in the United States Court in Detroit. The defendants num- bering a dozen or more at first, then dwindled down to three, C. T. Gor- ham, Jarvis Hurd and O. C. Comstock. The trial began in the latter part of 1847 and lasted three weeks. The jury disagreed.
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In 1848, the second trial began. Prominent Democratie politicians went to one of the defendants, namely Charles T. Gorham, who was at that time a Democrat, and declared that although personally friendly to him, they wanted the case to go against the defendants. Lewis Cass was at that time candidate for president, and the politicians wanted, "at that particular time," as they expressed it, the south to under- stand that Detroit and Michigan sympathized with the slave-hokling element. They were willing to prostitute themselves and commit an act of gross injustice to a personal friend in order to secure the southern vote. They assured the defendants that, should the case be decided against them, the Democrats would assist in paying the bills.
The ease came for trial and was defended by Judge H. H. Emmons, J. F. Joy and Theodore Romeyn. After a hard fought struggle, the case was deeided as Cass wanted it to be, for the slave-hunters. The defendants were required to pay about $1,900 and costs. The men who were so anxious to serve Cass's interests failed to remember their prom- ises to help, but in that trying hour, when pecuniary injury was heaped upon wounded friendship, Zachariah Chandler,7+ Alanson Sheley 75 and other prominent men stepped forward and in the name of justice, con- tributed largely and unexpectedly to the defendants.
The equities of the ease were not considered by the court or jury. As illustrative of the lamentable condition of society in reference to the question of slavery, and the subservience of northern men to the will of the south, we state that one of the jurors (a Whig) afterwards said to Mr. Gorham that it was extremely unpleasant to at least a portion of the jury to bring in a verdict against the defendants, but that they had concluded that it was best to do so, on account of the popular senti- ment.
They knew that the case would be carried to the higher courts in the event of a verdict for the defendants, and if there, the result would be disastrous. It was better to end the matter in Detroit. The de- fendants saw that an appeal was worse than folly. Justice was indeed blinded to their case. There was no possibility of obtaining a verdict in their favor, for at that time defendants could not testify in their own behalf. The only method of procedure was the impeachment of complainant's witnesses, and nothing further in that line eould be done than had been accomplished in the two trials in Detroit. The barter of principle by the Democratie element was illy appreciated by the people, however. Cass was defeated and Zachary Taylor elected to the presi- deney.
The case did not stop at the end of the trial. It was written on the seroll of Fate that the seed sown in the soil of Marshall should bear abundant fruit. Henry Clay took the ease into the Senate chamber and there advocated the necessity of a more stringent fugitive slave law. The riotous ( ?) seenes enaeted near the humble eabin of Crosswhite re- ceived national consideration. The law of 1793 was too lenient. Mr.
74 See Vol. XXII, p. 381 and Vol. III, p. 139, this series,
75 See Vol. XXII, pp. 194 and 386, this series. Mr. Sheley married Ann Elizabeth Drury in 1831 and was the father of eight children.
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Clay took a personal interest in the matter for the reason that Cross- white was known to him, the farms of Clay and Giltner being near each other and the circumstances of Crosswhite's flight and subsequent trials at Detroit being known to him.
The result of Clay's efforts was the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the most damnable law that ever received the sanction of the American Congress, and which lies a bar-sinister athwart the escutcheon of Fillmore 76 and Taney.77 The law was the straw which broke the camel's back. The people of the north would no longer endure the arrogant demands of the south. The history of the succeeding years was written in blood. The wave of destruction which grew from the ripple caused in Marshall swept over the country. The names of the few noble men who fought the earlier battles for freedom, and the million brave souls who faced death for the sake of principle are mem- tioned with reverence whenever the theme is broached. The martyrs, Lincoln and John Brown, head a glorious list of fallen heroes, and the stain of slavery has been obliterated from the Nation's tablet by the crimson hand of war.
Of the three men who defended their rights before a biased tribunal, Charles T. Gorham, 18 O. C. Comstock 79 and Jarvis Hurd all sleep the long sleep that knows no waking.80
The Crosswhite Case
William W. Hobart :
A little over sixty years ago, Marshall, Michigan, was and had been for years an important station on the "under-ground railroad," that mysterious abolition organization by whose aid, many thousands of negro slaves achieved liberty "before the war." For those times, the Abolitionists were comparatively strong in and about both Battle Creek and Marshall. I recall to mind that such a man as Erastus Hussey 81 and Jabez Fitch 82 were open and avowed Abolitionists, Fitch being the Liberty Party's candidate for governor, in several state campaigns.
For several years, some of these fleeing slaves would drop off at Mar- shall, and finding employment and not being disturbed, would acquire holdings on the outskirts of the town until they formed quite a settle-
76 Millard Fillmore became president of the United States on the death of Presi- dent Taylor, July 10, 1850. One of the first achievements of his administration was the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, thereby losing the support of a large portion of his northern followers.
77 Roger Brooke Taney succeeded John Marshall as chief justice of the United States in March, 1836. Iu his decisions he upheld and supported the Fugitive Slave Law.
78 Gorham, see sketch, Vol. XXXI, p. 27, this series.
79 Comstock, see sketch, Vol. XXVI, p. 365, this series.
so Marshall Statesman, 1893, numbers 18, 19; see also Marshall Statesman, Janu- ary, 1847, and December 15, 1905; Evart's History of Calhoun County, 1877, p. 23; Life of Zachariah Chandler, p. 75.
81 See sketch, Vol. XIV, p. 79, this series.
S2 Deacon Jabez S. Fitch built the Presbyterian church at Marshall. See sketch, Vol. II, p. 239, this series.
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ment, which was known to the unregenerate as "Nigger Town." To this negro settlement, about 1845, I think, there came Adam Crosswhite and his family, consisting of his wife and three or four children. Several of the children attended the district school. I know that the oldest son attended the same school that I did. I was a lusty lad of thirteen years and he was two or three years older. I remember that I struck quite an intimacy with young Crosswhite, who confided to me under a pledge of secrecy that he and his family were fugitives from slavery in Ken- tucky, and having reached Marshall on the "Underground" on their way to Canada and certain freedom, had stopped off for a few days at the negro settlement, where finding some old Kentucky friends, and being offered employment, they concluded to locate. The denizens of the set- tlement appeared always to be apprehensive as to their safety, as young Crosswhite told me several times that suspicious looking white men had been loitering about "Nigger Town," but as they disappeared and nothing came of their spying, confidence was measurably restored.
One of the characters that infested Marshall in those days was an old darkey, that from his vocation, we boys called "Old Anction Bell." As I remember, he was about six feet tall and lame and rode an old under-sized Indian pony. When mounted he eut a most ridiculous fig- ure, with his height increased by the tallest stove-pipe hat that he could get hold of, and his feet just clearing the ground. Ilis business was to ride through the streets of the town and announce auction sales or "wondoos" as he called them. Mounted on his faithful steed, he rode ringing a dinner bell, at the same time yelling at the top of his voice, "Auction Bell! Auction Bell! Auction Bell!" until reaching a con- venient corner, he would stop and announce to the atmosphere or to any one who might be listening, that at such and such place, Mr. Blank would offer for sale to the highest bidder, the following-and here would follow a description of the articles to be sold, clothed all in the rich imagery of the Ethopian imagination.
Early one morning in the fall of 1846, if my memory serves me right, shortly after I had risen, I heard the old darkey's bell and he yelling in evident fear and excitement, "Auction Bell ! Auction Bell !! Auction Bell !!! " We were about sitting down to breakfast. My father said "What in the world can be the matter with old Auction Bell? It's too early for one of his 'wondoos.'" So we went out to ascertain. As he came opposite to us the old Auction Bell reined his pony and poured forth the wildest and weirdest story that it has ever been my fortune to listen to. I am only sorry that my memory does not serve to render it in his own vernacular. The upshot of it all was that "The slave-catch- ers from Kentucky had made a descent upon the negro settlement, and backed by deputy United States Marshal Harvey Dixon, had drawn pistols, knocked down negroes, shot at others, wounding some, kicked in doors and had seized the whole Crosswhite family and were prepar- ing to take them back to slavery." The old fellow fairly frothed at the mouth during the recital of his lurid tale.
At the breakfast table, I asked my father if he was going out to the negro settlement to see the excitement. He replied "No," that he was the justice of the peace, and as such, a committing magistrate, and if
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Auction Bell's story was half true, warrants would be applied for, and that he should go directly to his office and directed me to go to school and avoid all scenes of excitement.
But what healthy, fearless and adventurous fourteen-year-old boy could resist such a "call of the wild." As soon as I could slip away unobserved, I made a bee-line for the negro settlement, and there found excitement enough and to spare. Aside from the "Hoi Polloi" there were many of Marshall's most substantial citizens, among them, O. C. Comstock, Charles T. Gorham, I think George Ingersoll and Lansing Kingsbury and others whose names have escaped me. The slave-hunters still had the Crosswhite family in duress, but were surrounded by an angry and excited crowd, which was not chary in expressing its opinion or its threats. The central and most important figure was Frank Trout- man, a young Kentucky lawyer, who was the agent and the nephew of the owner of the Crosswhites, and possibly a relation of the fugitives, as their name was certainly no misnomer. Troutman was a tall, hand- some Kentuckian of twenty-five or thirty years. With him were three or four fellows of the type made familiar to us later, by Mrs. Stowe, in her description of Legree and the slave-catchers who chased Eliza across the Ohio; low-browed, truculent looking hombres. Amidst all the excitement, Troutman never lost his head. When any of the better class of citizens came to expostulate with him, telling him that in view of the excitement and the passion aroused, it would be suicidal for him to attempt to remove the fugitives, he would take their names and ask them if they threatened him with violence if he attempted to remove his property. This of course they disclaimed, but called his attention to the threat and demonstrations of irresponsible parties over whom they claimed to have no control. By the time the county officers arrived with warrants issued for exhibiting weapons in a rude and threaten- ing manner, assault and battery, breaking into houses and various other offenses, Troutman had his notebook pretty well filled with the names of substantial citizens, and what they had said to him under excitement, and this book was a very important factor in securing a verdict for the plaintiff in the case of Giltner vs. Gorham et. al., in the United States District Court for the state of Michigan. When the slave-catch- ers were arrested and removed, the Crosswhites were left practically unguarded and free, and the Abolitionists lost no time in getting them on the "under-ground railroad" and running them into Canada.
Whenever I could, I attended my father's court when he was examin- ing Troutman and his men for violations of Michigan law, when at- tempting to get the Crosswhites. They were held for trial before the higher court, notwithstanding that in those days, my father was a sound Jacksonian Democrat though in 1860 he voted for Abraham Lincoln. In 1865 in reading the debates of the last Congressional Record on the last fugitive slave law, passed in 1849 or 50, I was intensely amused to find my democratic father, denounced by a fire-eating southern con- gressman as a Michigan Abolitionist, Justice of the Peace, for holding Troutman and his cohorts for trial under the Michigan law. The Cross- white case was simply one of the feverish indications of that inevitable conflict between the north and the south which culminated in the elec-
T
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tion of Lincoln, the great civil war, the expenditure of oceans of blood and millions of treasure and the freeing of the slaves.
W. W. HOBART.
San Francisco, March 19th, 1908.
Francis Trontman and his associates, with their own ears, heard the sentiment of freedom, fearlessly expressed, they had been arraigned before a court of justice in scathing terms, they had been convicted and punished for their misdemeanor, and they had returned home threaten- ing vengeance to fire the southern heart. The people of Kentneky had also taken an objeet lesson in public opinion, and discovered a menace to the institution of slavery and considered means to preserve it.
Troutman returned to Marshall in May, following, not to capture slaves, but to look up evidence, retain counsel and to proseente Mar- shall men for resening the fugitives. He exploited the action of the legis- lature of Kentucky on the affair, and asserted that his state was his backer, and had appropriated money to prosecute the men involved, to the extreme extent of the law, and to make an example of them to deter other abolition mobs. Pratt & Crary of Marshall were employed as local attorneys, and on the first day of June, 1847, a suit was com- menced in the circuit court of the United States for the District of Michigan, in an action of trespass against Charles T. Gorham, Oliver C. Comstock, Jr., Asa B. Cook, Jarvis Hurd, John M. Easterly, George Ingersoll, Herman Camp, Randal Hobart, Platner Moss, William Parker, Charles Berger and John Smith for rescuing Adam Crosswhite and his wife and four children, claiming large damages. The first eight defendants named were among the leading business men of Mar- shall, and the last four were prominent colored citizens. The declara- tion filed contained seven counties, and was very lengthy. Separate suits in actions of debt were also commenced at the same time in said conrt by Franeis Giltner against Oliver C. Comstock, Jr., Asa B. Cook, Jarvis Hurd, John M. Easterly, Charles T. Gorham, George Ingersoll and Randal Hobart to recover the five hundred dollars penalty under the provision of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, then in force for "knowingly and wilfully, etc.,-obstrneting and hindering-claimant 's agent-in seizing and arresting-said fugitives from labor" and "for rescuing such fugitives." While these penal snits were never tried, and were afterwards discontinued, at that time they intensified the feeling of the community. Anti-slavery men began to consider ways and means to limit and cripple the institution. There always had been a strong anti-slavery sentiment in Michigan, and an overwhelming majority of all parties approved the Wilmot Proviso."" On the 13th of February,
$3 During the preliminary negotiations of peace with Mexico in 1846, David Wil- mot, a jurist praetising law in 1834 and member of Congress from 1845 to 1851, offered an amendment to the bill to purchase lands from Mexico, "That as an ex- press and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the republic of Mexico by the United States, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory." It was adopted by the House but failed of final action. It was the basis of the organization known as the Free-Soil party, in 1848 and of the Republican party in 1856. Harper's Cyclopedia of United States Ilistory, Vol. X, p. 394.
Vol. 1-5
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1847, the Democratic legislature endorsed and adopted this resolution : "Resolved, That in the acquisition of any new territory, whether by pur- chase, conquest or otherwise, we deem it the duty of the general gov- ernment to extend over the same the ordinance of seventeen hundred and eighty-seven, with all its rights, privileges and conditions and im- munities." 8+ It will be remembered that the ordinance of 1787 here referred to provided "that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." The language of the Wilmot Proviso was copied from this ordinance. On the 13th of January, 1849, the legislature again "resolved that we are in favor of the fundamental principles of the Ordinance of 1787,"-and "we believe that Congress has the power, and that it is their duty to prohibit by legislative enactment the introduction and existence of slaves within any of the territories of the United States, now or hereafter to be acquired." 85 These resolutions indicate the sentiment of the masses at that time. Lewis Cass had always indorsed this old Jeffersonian doc- trine until 1847. He was then seeking the nomination of the Democratic Party for president, and wanted the support of the south. On the 30th of December, 1847, he wrote his celebrated Nicholson letters, and de- clared that "a great change had been going on in the public mind upon the subject (Wilmot's proviso), in my own mind as well as others, and that doubts are resolving themselves into convictions that the principle it involves should be kept out of National legislation and left to the people of the confederacy in their respective local governments." This shameful repudiation of the policy of restricting slavery in the terri- tories secured the nomination of Lewis Cass for president May 22nd, 1848, but it drove thousands of Wilmot Proviso Democrats from the party, and caused his defeat at the election. It forced anti-slavery men to unite on some practical method of restraining the slave power, and added new force to the anti-slavery cause. On the 28th of June, 1848, the case of Giltner vs. Gorham et al. came on for trial at Detroit be- fore Hon. John MeLean, 86 a Justice of the United States Supreme Court sitting as Circuit Judge, and a jury was sworn. Abner Pratt and John Norvell appeared for the slave-owner, and Hovey K. Clarke, Theodore Romeyn, Halmer H. Emmons and James F. Joy appeared for the citi- zens. The names of the attorneys indicate that the case was closely con- tested, and that it was a battle of giants. But the trial was something more than a legal battle: it was also a political battle waged in the court room. If the slave-holder could not recover for his slaves in De- troit, the home of the Democratic candidate, how could that candidate expect to receive the vote of the slave-holders in the south. Never before or since in this State, has such a powerful, persistent and subtile political influence been exerted on court, counsel, parties, witnesses and jury, as was exerted on this trial. The courtroom and the commu-
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