One of the questions you guys ask is, “What do you do all day?” One answer is that I take photos. A couple of years ago, I joined the Photography Club of Istanbul. The club meets twice a month, once for a photo trek and once for a meeting. They also arrange workshops and seminars and sponsor a yearly show at a gallery in Arnavutköy.

Photo Club on Istiklal Caddesi

January’s trek was in Beyoğlu, the area of Istanbul that was once home to foreign embassies. When Ankara became the capital of Turkey, the embassies moved there, leaving behind ornate consulates and a cosmopolitan ambiance. Its main thoroughfare is Istiklal Caddesi, a mile long pedestrian street lined with shops, cafes, bars, cinemas, museums, art galleries, hotels, restaurants, churches, schools, and mosques.

One thing about a photo trek is that there are lots of photographers, usually in every shot.

Photo Clubbers line up at the trolley barn.

Photo Clubbers go to church.

Photo Clubbers examine graffiti.

Photo Clubbers explore Hazzapulo Pasaj.

Photo Clubbers document urban decay.

Another thing about Photo Club is that we are very handy if your tour group needs a group photo.

A group of happy tourists in Taksim Square.

Photos from this and other treks I’ve attended are here. The Photo Club’s Flickr page is here. I also made a Google map of our trek.

Hope you are all well and happy.

xox

Al Khazneh (The Treasury) at Petra

As you know, Mike and I went to Jordan with some friends during the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Last summer, when we began to plan the trip, friends from the Middle East told us, “Oh, Jordan. There’s only Petra. Two days is enough.” Then they began to reminisce and soon had more than a week of suggestions for us. And sure enough, we did fill up the week, and there were places we didn’t get to and places in which we could have spent more time.

It’s true that Jordan is a small country, about the size of New Jersey, and you can easily drive the length of it in a day. A day, that is, if you don’t get lost, and we were continually lost, especially in Amman. Fortunately, the Jordanian people are kind and friendly and very willing to give directions. If someone didn’t speak English, he would find someone who did. Unfortunately, directions often consisted of cryptic things like, “Street. Street. Up. Down. Street.”

One day, after trying to go south to Madaba to visit the Church of the Mosaics, we thought we had followed the directions, but when the sun came out, we discovered that we were headed north towards Syria. We turned around, asked directions again, followed them, but soon discovered we were headed east toward Iraq. Finally, we hired a taxi to lead us to the highway we needed. This was such a successful technique that we used it again and again. Below are some more of the highlights. The full set of photos, including those from the Church of the Mosaics, is here.

The Dead Sea - We did float in Dead Sea water, but at the Mövenpick Spa not at the seashore. The salt content of the sea is 30%; at the spa it was only 24%, and we bobbed around like corks.

The Oval Forum is one of the main sights in the Roman city of Jerash. We also liked the theater with its amazing acoustics and the hippodrome in which there were reenactments by costumed gladiators, legionnairs, and charioteers.

Qasr Amra, an 8th century bathhouse and hunting lodge, is famous for the frescoes that cover the interior walls.

The view of the Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee from Umm Qais. This is near the place where Jesus performed the Miracle of the Swine.

Wadi Rum is famous for its fantastic rock formations, petroglyphs, and T.E. Lawrence. A desert safari in Wadi Rum includes lots of stops at tea tents.

Ajlun Castle, built to deter the Crusaders, is only one of the many castles we visited.

I hope you are off to a happy and healthy New Year!

xox

Here is the last family history installment for the year. We are traveling to Jordan between Christmas and New Year, but as always, we’ll be thinking about you. I hope to talk to all of you before we go. Have a Happy Holiday!

“What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later part of the Southwest Territory. Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, and the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war. Tennessee furnished more soldiers for the Confederate Army than any other state, and more soldiers for the Union Army than any other Southern state.” – Wikipedia

 My maternal grandmother’s grandparents lived in Wildersville, Tennessee during the American Civil War, a war altered their lives and fortunes and shaped my grandmother’s destiny. These are her grandparents and their circumstances in 1860, the year before the war began.

Hiram Britt, 1803 – 1871

Hiram Britt was a successful farmer and businessman. In 1860, he was the father of eight children and grandfather of at least ten. His real estate was valued at $3500 and his personal estate, which included 15 slaves, at $13000. He was a trustee and founding member of the Parkers Cross Roads Male and Female Academy.

Martha Adams Britt, 1832 – 1881

In 1860, Martha Adams Britt, Hiram’s second wife, was a 28 year old mother and step-mother living in Pleasant Exchange. Her mother, Sarah, lived nearby on land that was valued at $1000, the same as her personal estate, meaning that Sarah owned no slaves. Martha and Hiram’s son, Milton, my great-grandfather, was 1 year old.

Richard Olive, 1850 – 1941

In 1860, Richard Olive was 10 years old. His mother had died 5 years before, and his father, Howell, had remarried. His father’s real estate was valued at $1800 and his personal estate, which included 4 slaves, at $6500.

Jane Williams Olive, c. 1852 – 1905

Although there is no record of  Jane Williams in 1860, she was most likely living in Tennessee by then, because her younger sister was born there in 1860.

Civil War 1861 – 1865

When Tennessee voted to secede from the Union in 1861, the vote in Henderson County was pro-Union, but anti-Union sentiment was very strong. The county was split and provided forces to both sides. Many Britts, although owning slaves, are found in rosters for the Union but not the Confederacy. Adamses are also found in Union rosters, but Martha Adams’s uncle Patrick Boyd Adams recruited for the Confederacy elsewhere in the state. Olives cannot be found on either side.

At the end of 1862, the Battle of Parker’s Cross Roads was fought on and around farms belonging to, among others, Hiram Britt and his oldest son, Caldwell Britt. Caldwell’s son, William Rayburn, wrote an account of the battle in which he remembers holding lanterns for the surgeon who was operating on the wounded men lying in the hall of their home.

(The Confederate leader in this battle, General Nathan Bedford Forrest, helped organize the first Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866 and would go on to become Grand Wizard of the Empire in 1867.)

Hiram’s brother, John B. Britt, a merchant from Huntingdon in neighboring Carroll County, and three of his sons joined the Seventh Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, a Union force. This unit was captured by Confederate forces in 1864 and marched to Alabama. John and his son, James, died in Mobile before they reached Andersonville Prison.

Meanwhile, Howell Olive seems to have not been involved in the war. In 1865, when land owners were assessed a Federal Land Tax, Hiram Britt held 506 acres; Sarah Adams, 200 acres; and Howell Olive, 181 ½ acres. That year, Howell Olive sold this land for $2000 in gold which he then used to buy 1144 acres from another farmer. Some bandits, having heard about the gold but not about the land deal, broke into his home, demanded the gold, shot things up, threatened to kill his baby daughter, and tortured Howell who finally convinced them that he no longer had the gold.

1870
In 1870, Hiram and Martha Britt, along with their children – Milton, Dora, Docia, and Adina – were living on their farm near Lexington, TN. Martha’s mother, Sarah Adams, was living with them. Hiram’s real estate was assessed at $2000 and his personal estate at $1000. Hiram would be dead within a year and his last child, Ida, would be born soon after his death.

Richard Olive, age 20, was working on the family farm along with his brothers Thomas and Miles. Howell Olive’s land was now worth $4100 and his personal estate $1175. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, Howell gave tracts of the land to his sons. Richard received 500 acres.

Jane Williams, about age 17, appeared for the first time in the census records. She and her family were living in a house neighboring the Olive family. A black man named Adam Pritchard was the head of the household which included Peggy Williams, a mulatto, and her six children who are also listed as mulatto. Adam Pritchard, Jane, and her sister Ann were all farm workers. They owned nothing of value.

1880
In 1880, Richard Olive was living in the same household with Jane Williams and their three children, Susey, Mary, and James. They were not married, because interracial marriage was against Tennessee law. Both Richard and Jane were illiterate. Peggy Williams lived next door. Eventually, Richard and Jane migrated to Illinois where they were able to marry. In the 1900 Illinois census, the whole family was listed as white.

Following Hiram’s death in 1871, Martha Adams Britt and her children moved to Carroll County where her son, Milton, would marry Josephine Barnhill. After Josephine died in 1891, Milton moved north to Morgan County, Illinois where his friend Richard Olive had a farm. Milton Britt and Richard’s daughter, Susan Ann Olive, were married on March 17, 1896, and Marie Suzanne Britt–our Grandma Ree–was born January 7, 1897.

For more reading:

• Henderson County, Tennessee: Lost Tranquility, 1861 – 1865
• History of Henderson County, Chapter 6: The Civil War
• The Seventh Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry West Tennessee Unionists In Andersonville Prison

Gencer Emiroğlu, our guide

Last Sunday, we joined another FARIT (Friends of the American Research Institute in Turkey) day trip, this one to the Belgrade Forest north of Istanbul to see more parts of the waterworks that supplied Constantinople with fresh water for centuries. In addition to the history of the forest, our guide, Gencer Emiroğlu, was also knowledgeable about the forest ecosystem, particularly mushrooms. He explained that our goal was to hike to three dams, or bent, then to an abandoned village and church, finding as many mushrooms as possible along the way, and finally lunch in the afternoon at a forest restaurant. We began, as all good hikes must, with breakfast and tea. Our first stop was at the Tarihi Bilice Börekçisi in Bahçeköy where we had our choice of pastry with meat and dried currants or pastry with cheese and hot tea. Bahçeköy is also home to Istanbul University’s School of Forestry.

Plate from Miss Pardoe's The Beauties of the Bosphorus

Nearby, we got a good look at the Bahçeköy Aqueduct which carried water from the reservoirs in the Belgrade Forest to a distribution center, or taksim, in Constantinople. From here, the water was distributed to fountains in Galata and Beyoğlu. Today, Taksim Square is a busy distribution point for transportation in Istanbul.

The three dams we saw were relatively new, built in the 17- and 1800s. Today, they are classified and protected as historic monuments, and as such, no longer in use. Even if they were in use, they would not be able to meet Istanbul’s thirst for more than one day.

Topuzlu Dam in the Belgrade Forest

I wonder how many dam pictures you want. I’ll put them into a Flickr set, and if you are interested, you can click through to see them all.

Tülin examines the mushrooms.

While hiking from dam to dam, we saw plenty of mushrooms, maybe 20 different species including mushrooms that live on dead oak, mushrooms that live on dead chestnut, mushroom that live on dead beech trees, mushrooms that live in moss, and mushrooms that live in dung. We met a two villagers who were hunting mushrooms and they showed us what they had found. More photos here.

Ruins of St. George's Church in Belgrade Village

On our way to the ruins of Belgrade Village, we stopped by a massive stump and here Gencer told us some of the history of the forest, stories about the janissaries and about other people who lived and vacationed here. Among them was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of the British ambassador to Turkey. Lady Montagu was a letter writer who corresponded with many notables of her day including Alexander Pope. Here is an excerpt we read from a letter describing the Belgrade Forest.

TO MR POPE.

Belgrade Village, June 17. O. S.

The heats of Constantinople have driven me to this place, which perfectly answers the description of the Elysian fields. I am in the middle of a wood, consisting chiefly of fruit-trees, watered by a vast number of fountains, famous for the excellency of their water, and divided into many shady walks, upon short grass, that seems to me artificial, but, I am assured, is the pure work of nature—within view of the Black sea, from whence we perpetually enjoy the refreshment of cool breezes, that make us insensible of the heat of the summer. The village is only inhabited by the richest amongst the Christians, who meet every night at a fountain, forty paces from my house, to sing and dance. The beauty and dress of the women exactly resemble the ideas of the ancient nymphs, as they are given us by the representations of the poets and painters.

(more here if you are interested)

For more information on the Belgrade Forest, waterworks, and mushrooms, see these sources.

• Water supply systems, reservoirs, charity and free fountains, Turkish baths
• Within this document, there is a history of the Belgrade Forest and its many uses.
• Miss Pardoe’s 1839 book, The Beauties of the Bosphorus, has nice descriptions and beautiful illustrations of old Contantinople.
• Gencer’s photographs of mushrooms with identification.

Forest denizen on her cell phone

Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving wherever you are. Mike and I will be thinking about all of you, and I imagine we will call many of you.

xox

Cabanas at the Black Sea

Last weekend, Mike and I went on a trip with FARIT (Friends of the American Research Institute in Turkey) to see the remains of the Long Walls of Thrace, or the Anastasian Wall. This 5th century fortification stretched from the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea and was intended to protect Constantinople from invaders from the west. Very little of the wall remains and what does remain is greatly reduced in height, hidden in blackberry brambles, and overgrown with vegetation. We climbed various hills in search of the wall, but mainly we got a terrific view of the Black Sea and some lovely beaches.

Büyükgerme - The Big Stretch

After lunch, our goal was Büyükgerme, or the Big Stretch, a portion of the 5th century aqueduct that delivered water to Constantinople. On the way, we passed by several charcoal-making operations. Charcoal has a special place in our family history. My great grandfather, Ellsworth B.A. Zwoyer, held early patents for charcoal briquettes and the machinery to produce them. In fact, a Google patent search using keywords ‘Zwoyer’ and ‘fuel’ turns up dozens of patents for various parts of the process. As we drove through the smoky woods, we became curious about the beautiful conical mounds we saw and asked to stop at one of operations where men were building a charcoal mound.

Building a charcoal mound

The wood to build the mound is stacked on the circumference of the building area. Larger pieces of wood are stacked inside against a shaft that will become the flue. The wood is fitted together with great precision in order to make as tight a structure as possible. Smaller pieces make up the outside of the mound. You can see in this picture that they have a long way to go. The stick coming out the top of the mound marks the flue.

Our explainer

This man explained to us that, in addition to the flue, there are 2 vents built into the mound to help control air flow. Once the fire is lit, it will take 15 days to make the charcoal.

Isn't it beautiful?

After the mound is built, it is covered with a layer of hay and then a layer of ash. Coals are dropped into the flue, and the whole pile begins to smolder.

A new charcoal mound

Finished stacks of charcoal lie behind stacks of fresh wood.

After thanking the colliers, we boarded the bus and continued on, but very shortly, our bus became mired in mud. While our trip organizer arranged for a rescue from the colliers, the rest of us traipsed with our guide through more mud, climbed up and down more hills, forded a small stream, and eventually arrived at the aqueduct.

So even though we didn’t get to see much of the Anastasian Wall, the trip turned out to be terrific. There are a few more photos, including the mired bus, here.

Hope you are all happy and well!

xox

We are in our last week of summer vacation. It took a long time, but our main projects – the new roof and the repairs to the water-damaged dining room – are finished. Mike made two new bookcases for the dining room, so we always have good literary company for dinner.

No water damage here!

Since the work was finished, we’ve had two good day trips. One trip was with Gorden and Biddie McMath, two members of our writing group, The Manzano Mountain Scribes. They have lived their entire lives in Torrance County, and they had many good stories to tell about their families settling here and about the transition from farm to ranch land. Gorden, one of the four surviving dry land bean farmers, showed us how to look for signs of the wind erosion that ended dry land farming here in the ’40s.

Old one room schoolhouse on East Mesa near Mountainair.

On that trip, Biddie told us about the Claunch Post Office south of here. It’s a combination post office/book exchange. Since we had just sorted and reshelved our books, we had a few to donate, so we headed down to Claunch to find out more. Our ultimate destination was the Owl Bar in San Antonio, and we were taking the long way around.

Gran Quivira is about halfway to Claunch, so we stopped. No one was there; it was as lonesome and windy as ever.

Gran Quivira

Claunch, the geographic center of New Mexico, is no longer a town but it is the center of a ranching community. There are a few houses, the skeleton of a WPA school, the Pinto Bean Elevator & Museum, and the Post Office. The Post Office is in an old store with a huge pot belly stove in the center. On each side wall are shelves full of books sorted alphabetically by author. In the storefront windows are bins of books waiting to be sorted. Anyone can take a book, and you don’t have to leave one in exchange. In one front corner are some chairs and a sofa. The postmistress invited us to look around. She said we had come at a good time, because the mail had just arrived and “everybody” was here. The few folks there were friendly, wanted to know where we were from, gave us advice about the back road to Bingham: Don’t take it; recent rains had made it a muddy mess. I can’t believe I didn’t take pictures!

From Claunch, we drove down to Carrizozo with one detour to the ghost town of White Oaks. White Oaks was once a prosperous mining town. People still live here, but there isn’t much in the way of business – a bar, a couple of museums.

The Gumm House

White Oaks School

The Bank Robbery

Mike wants to fix up this hotel.

The Owl Bar & Cafe - Did you know that the long bar is from Conrad Hilton's first hotel in San Antonio?

At Carrizozo, we turned west through the lava flows at the Valley of Fires, past the Blanchard Rock Shop in Bingham, along the north side of the White Sands Missile Range, and 75 miles beautiful later, into San Antonio, the Owl Bar, and the most famous green chile burgers in New Mexico. From here we headed north through Socorro to US 60 and back home to Mountainair.

Hope to hear from you all soon!

xox

Here is a case of everything turning out for the best.

In 1771, James Ashmore was in his mid-30s, a husband and father of 7 with another on the way. He, along with his half-brother Joshua Hadley,  his brother-in-law Hezekiah James Balch, and his father-in-law, James Balch had migrated from northern Maryland and southern Pennsylvania sometime after 1761.

The political climate in North Carolina was hot. The Regulators were active, and Presbyterian ministers were stirring up rebellion against the fees and regulations imposed by the British. In 1768, James’ cousin, Walter Ashmore, signed the Regulators’ Advertisement No. 9, a petition from the Regulators concerning public fees. James’ brother-in-law, Rev. Hezekiah James Balch, preaching at the Rocky River and Poplar Tent congregations, followed in the footsteps of Reverend Alexander Craighead who was adamantly anti-British.

On May 2, 1771, James and a group of eight friends intercepted and blew up a shipment of gunpowder that was intended to be used to quell the Regulators and their rebellion. Two weeks later, on May 16, 1771, the Battle of Alamance ended the War of Regulation. On June 11, 1771, Governor Tryon issued an amnesty proclamation that did not include the captured combatants in the Battle of Alamance nor the men involved in burning General Waddell’s gunpowder. It was a tense time. Some of the captured Regulators had already been tried and executed.

Here I can imagine James’ wife Elizabeth saying something like, “You are NOT going to leave me a widow with 8 children. Get yourself over there and see what you can work out.”

For whatever reason, on June 22, 1771, James Ashmore decided to turn himself in and ask for a pardon for the nine men. However, at the same time that he was requesting a pardon, he was naming names. His deposition is here. When the pardons were not granted, but their names were known, things became, shall we say, uncomfortable. In November 1771, the community asked again for the men to be pardoned, but the pardon was rejected and the men went into hiding until 1775 when the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence was signed. Reverend Hezekiah James Balch was one of the first signers.

James and Elizabeth made their way to Georgia where the ‘fractious’ Samuel Ashmore was born in 1775. After a brief stay there, they moved on to Tennessee where James’ youngest son, Amos, was born. So had James not turned himself in, he might have been caught and executed. Had he been caught and executed, Samuel would not have been born; had Samuel never been born, we wouldn’t be here today. So, just as my mother-in-law says – everything always turns out for the best.

Today the group known as the Cabarrus Black Boys (a term I take issue with because they weren’t black, they weren’t boys, and Cabarrus County didn’t exist until 1792) are considered to be heroes of the American Revolution. Here is an historic marker and fountain (with the wrong date) to prove it.

For a more detailed account of the entire episode, see The Cabarrus Black Boys – A Noisy Night in 1771.

xox

Around 1828, my g-g-g-great grandfather Samuel Ashmore and his very large family settled in Coles County, Illinois. His son, Hezekiah, founded the town of Ashmore, and most of the rest of the family settled on farms near Oakland, then called Independence. Samuel’s son Gideon, also known as Matt, ran a tavern (or a curiosity shop or a hotel, depending on the source you read) in Independence/Oakland. In 1847, Matt Ashmore sheltered a run-away slave family in his hotel. Matt Ashmore then enlisted the help of his friend, abolitionist Hiram Rutherford. The slaves’ owner hired Abraham Lincoln as his lawyer and sued for the return of his slaves in a case known as Matson vs Ashmore et al. In the end, Lincoln lost the case, and the freed slaves, with the help of Ashmore and Rutherford, soon after set sail for Liberia. Matt Ashmore and his family moved to Wisconsin where he founded the town of Arena. Rutherford remained in Oakland and wrote a history of the town, and Lincoln went on to become President of the United States.

The people of Oakland host a reenactment of these events every September. More information is here, here, and here. The last is a report from a man who attended the event in 2009 and then returned in 2010 to play the part of Frederick Douglas (who was not actually part of the real event).

Eastern Illinois University has a good description of the event on a website called Photographic Images and the History of African Americans in Coles County.

Here is a letter Dr. Rutherford wrote to John Bowman in 1847 about the event.

Finally, I am including an article that was transcribed from The Oakland Weekly Ledger of July 17, 1896, and apparently reprinted in the Tuscola Review on September 7, 1922. It is not a news account, but a story written nearly 50 years later by D. T. McIntyre. It gives the flavor of the language and the prejudices of the times.

Matson Slave Trial

A Famous Coles County case written up – The scene was laid in Oakland, shifted to Charleston and back here again to freedom.

Perhaps no event connected with the early history of this county attracted more local interest than this trial, and the incidents which led up to it. The trial itself occurred in the fall of 1847. For many years prior to that time one General Robert Matson resided in the state of Kentucky and was the owner of slaves, among which was the subject of this trial, Jane Bryant and her children. The husband of this woman was Anthony Bryant, a free man and a licensed exhorter in the Methodist church in that state. Some time during the year 1845 Matson, being pressed with debt, brought this woman and her four children to this state, in order to save them from being taken and sold for his debts, and located them on his farm some three miles east of where the town of Newman now stands. The woman, while an ignorant slave, seemed to have gotten the idea somehow that by her coming to a free state she would become a free person. Her husband, old Anthony, came voluntarily along with his said wife and children, and was living with them at the time of the occurrence, as hereinafter related. In the early part of the year 1847 it became noised abroad that this man Matson had determined to take this family back to Kentucky, their former home, and this brought up the incidents as hereinafter related.

In the summer of 1847 Mat Ashmore, as he was familiarly called, kept a hotel in the village of Oakland. He was a man of about 40 years of age, was a wide-a-awake business man, and nothing pleased him so well as a stiff legal fight, and in these contests he never knew when he was whipped, and like the bulldog he never let go. His father had been a captain under Gen. Jackson, and his reverence for that distinguished hero was so profound that he believed the sun had its first rising at the general’s birth and would go down in total darkness at his death. He was a Tennessean, a pioneer of 1829, and built the first house in Douglas county. Like most pioneers he died poor but left as a legacy to his thirteen children his hate and detestation of the institution of slavery.

The news of the determination of Gen. Matson to take Jane and her children back to Kentucky soon became known to them, and as might naturally be expected threw them into a paroxysm of grief. While old Anthony was a free man, he could not be compelled to return with his family to Kentucky, but neither he nor his wife could bear the idea of being separated from one another, and she supposing that she became free on coming to a free state, strenuously objected to returning with her children into slavery. In her desperation she sent the old man out for aid and help. He naturally carried his sorrows to his church brethren at Camargo and Sargent. They were dreadfully sorry for him, would pray for him but could not help him. Above all they begged of him not to mention the fact that he had called on them; and so with soft words, “sent him empty away.” Sick at heart he came to Oakland, knowing no one, but by the merest accident happened to blunder against Mat Ashmore, and told him his entire story and failure with his own people. Ashmore went at once and counseled with Dr. H. Rutherford, and they decided to protect them, whatever the cost might be. Whatever may have been Ashmore’s intentions can only be conjectured. He was a strong anti-slavery man, a strict Presbyterian and hated the Methodists most cordially.

Ashmore and Rutherford informed old Anthony of their determination to protect him and his family and assured him that no pains should be spared to prevent his wife and children from being taken back into slavery. The joy of the old Negro can be better imagined than described. He returned to his home, loaded his family into his four horse wagon, and early the next morning arrived at Ashmore’s hotel, bag and baggage, wife, children and his (line is missing from transcribed copy) and had left “Massa Bob done gone fast asleep.”

Ashmore and Rutherford, now the guardians of these otherwise friendless slaves, got into a buggy and drown down to Charleston, where they laid the case before their mutual friend, Col. Ficklin and with good judgment took his advise (sic). They then returned to Oakland to await developments. All the while poor old Anthony and his enslaved wife and children were carefully cared for at Ashmore’s hotel, without cost or charge therefore, little dreaming that they were to be the subjects of the romantic incidents which were soon to take place.

Upon every hand it was plainly visible that a storm of no small magnitude was brewing. Matson was making threats against both Rutherford and Ashmore. The great majority of the people were in sympathy with these two heroes. The only question was, will they stand firm when the magnitude of the undertaking was fully realized. Matson was determined and at that distant period the laws of the state seemed to be in his favor. Everybody was waiting in suspense, but they did not have to wait long. In about two weeks the storm broke, and the legal contest which was to determine the freedom of Jane and her children was to take place. It commenced by the issue of a writ by one William Gilman, a Justice of the Peace, commanding Jane and her children to appear before him forthwith and answer the claim of Robert Matson, claiming their services as due to him, etc.

How absurdly preposterous such a proceeding seems to us, as we stand upon the summit of the civilization of the nineteenth century and look back upon it. The idea that a poor ignorant Justice of the Peace should assume to sit in judgement upon the question of the freedom or bondage of five human beings would seem beyond the range of possibility. But strange as it would seem, it was nevertheless a veritable fact, and will forever stand as a burning blot upon not only the history of this county but that of the entire state of Illinois.

Immediately upon the service of this monumental writ, Mr. Ashmore, wishing to conform to the laws, bundled Jane and her children into a wagon and himself drove them down to Charleston where they were, under pretext of being kept safely, lodged in jail and kept in confinement as felons until their new trial, which was set two days later.

Mr. U. F. Linder was Matson’s attorney and Gilman was a mere tool in his hands. With him to decide the case the trial would be a mere farce. Mr. Ficklin wisely called for a board of three associates to sit with said Gilman, and Captain John Eastin and a gentleman by the name of Shepherd were put on the bench. Shepherd was said to have some little sympathy with the defense. Eastin was as rank a pro-slavery man as Gilman, but was a conservative man and careful in making his decisions. It would seem almost a hopeless undertaking to go before such a court-two to one and expect an acquittal, but it was the best that could be done. The evidence was simple enough and indisputable. Matson had brought these people to the state of Illinois, a free state, and domiciled them there. Enough evidence was taken to occupy two days in the taking of it. It was written down with a view to submitting it to the coming circuit court. But that was what Mr. Linder determined should never happen. While all that was going on Ashmore and Rutherford announced that they would not stay short of the Supreme Court of the United States. Linder felt sure of his case. He said it was his business to furnish the court with a plausible reason for conviction, and as to an appeal, he would manage that.

Matson’s henchman, Joe Drew [Dean], had sworn that the defendants had arrived from Kentucky. Matson had called his attention to the fact and declared that he did not intend to free the Negroes by so doing, but would keep them here temporarily and return them to Kentucky at his convenience. He had done the same thing with other Negroes years before, two of them being sons of this same woman. On that evidence Linder tried to float the laws of Kentucky into the state of Illinois, calling it the law of the domicile following the master and its property wherever he went: quoting Blackstone and other authorities in abundance. He threw all the force of his great forensic powers into his argument. Dr. Rutherford, in speaking of that effort, says: “I have heard him a hundred times but never knew him to make so great an effort. The court adjourned for dinner. Matson was elated; he and I boarded with Judge Cullum and ate at the same table. We were always on speaking terms and discussed our controversy in good humor. He had the manners of a gentleman. In the afternoon Mr. Ficklin made, by way of reply, as I think, the very best effort of his life. I felt that the honors were easy at leat. The court turned all out of doors and made up their verdict.”

During the progress of the trial outside work was going on. Anticipating a verdict Joe had procured a wagon and a pair of horses, hitched to the court house fence, had thoughtfully put straw in the bed of the wagon and was seen to put pieces of bed cord in, the design of which as all know, was to hustle Jane and the children inside, tie her and then he, with an assistant as driver, and James and Van Eastin as horse-back guards, were to make a rush for the state line. While all this preparation was going on Dr. Rutherford and Ashmore were not idle either, and had organized a pursuing company of some eight or ten determined men. Two of this last named squad are still living, Col. Chapman and Dr. Van Meter, of Charleston. They, like the Eastins, had tied their horses to the court house (sic) fence waiting the result, while pistols, guns and other weapons flouted dramatically in the air. Things now looked as if bloodshed was inevitable. The whole community was aroused to a fever heat, and it was plainly evident that in case the court should order Jane and her children to be returned into slavery that desperate measures of resistance would surely be resorted to and which would inevitably result in bloodshed. Mr. Ashmore’s brother, the squire, had taken the necessary affidavit of Jane Bryant and children preparatory to suing out a writ of habeas corpus, or appeal. Unfortunately Linder was the master in Chancery and the only officer who could issue the proper writ to take them out of Matson’s hands, in case he should secure possession of them. Linder had reportedly promised the prompt performance of that duty. However, a deputy sheriff had been found and provided with horses which were tied to the fence, ready to carry the writ and go with the posse in pursuit of and to arrest the fugitives. Evidently the case before the court would have been lost had not the court become aware that the proceedings on the outside were not mere theories. Eastin’s brothers were in the scheme to rescue the defendants and he himself was the leading mind of the court. That court discovered that “It had no jurisdiction, that Jane and her children were of African descent, and found in this state without a certificate of freedom, and that they be advertised and sold for jail fees,” as the black laws of that day directed.

The judgment was better than had been expected. Linder raved and cursed the court for its poltroonery, and stated that he would have refused the writ of habeas corpus had Matson gained the case. Poor Jane and her four innocent children had to go back to jail again to await the day when they would be sold under the hammer to pay the jail fees, but which their bold and noble defenders determined should never take place, and which, be it here said, never did take place, as the subsequent history of this wonderful trial will show. But to return to the thread of my story. As this poor innocent woman, holding her still more innocent children by the hand marched back to the jail a large crowd followed them, and in all that throng there was hardly a dry eye to be seen. Never, perhaps, was there seen in this county a greater manifestation of true genuine sympathy upon any occasion. That night as the infamous Joe Drew left town he was egged in a most horrible manner. Old Matson was arrested and brought from his farm down to Oakland and bound over to court for keeping a mistress in his house. In return for this indignity Linder brought suit against Ashmore and Rutherford for harboring five persons of negro (sic) descent contrary to the provisions of the so-called black laws for $2,500 each.

Matson tried to steal the Negroes out of jail upon two different occasions but failed in both instances, as Lew Hutchinson, the then sheriff was an honest man. The circuit court convened at last and with it was to come the long deferred sale of the Negro woman and her children. Old Bob Matson appeared upon the scene again. He had now arranged to bid in the woman and her children, but that gallant Col. Ficklin went before the court which was then presided over by Judges Wilson and Treat, and procured an order stopping the sale until the further order of the court. This order was postponed from time to time until one Saturday night when the case was heard. The written above alluded to was subitted to and arguments made by Linder and Abraham Lincoln for old Matson, and Col. Ficklin and Charles Constable for the Negroes. Linder’s plea was light and weak compared with his effort before the justice of the peace. His Kentucky law was out of place in that court. Lincoln’s argument was poor too, and he gave the case away by admitting that if Matson brought the slaves to this state and set them to work on his farm they were entitled to their freedom. Ficklin and Constable on the other side acquitted themselves in a manner worthy of their subsequent fame, and the cause they then plead. The judgment of the court was that he Negroes became free by being so brought into this sate, and the order for their sale was set aside, and they were ordered released from imprisonment, which was accordingly done. Late that Saturday night old Matson learned the judgment of the court, and mounting his horse struck out in the darkness for his farm at Black Grove thirty miles away. On Monday morning at ten o’clock he crossed the Wabash river and never came back again. The next morning, which was Sunday, Mat Ashmore loaded Jane and her brood into his wagon and started home to Oakland by way of St. Omer, and Dr. Rutherford on horseback, took the straight line through the timber, and reached Oakland considerably in advance of Ashmore in the wagon.

As Dr. Rutherford was dismounting from his horse old Anthony saw him and came breathless to him for the news of the trial, which being told him he went double quick in his old gig tearing down the road to meet his family with Ashmore in the wagon. He met them some two miles out in the country, and Ashmore afterwords stated that it was “worth a horse to have seen the jubilee. As soon as Anthony came in sight he began to shout and sing, and at the same time his wife began on the same strain. They sang and laughed and prayed and hugged one another all at the same time. Their joy was indescribable; it knew no bounds.” No wonder, poor things, their redemption was now complete. They were in a free state, no longer slaves, but free, in all which that word implies.

But this brief sketch of this wonderful drama would not be complete without more particular reference to the persons engaged in it, and in the discharge of that duty I don’t’ know that I can do better than to use the language of Dr. Rutherford himself in speaking of his attorneys, that were engaged in the litigation. He says: “Of the subsequent history of Mr. Lincoln we are all familiar, and while I would detract nothing commendable there from, still justice demands that it be said that neither his speeches nor his conduct at and during this litigation was worthy of his name and subsequent fame. Mr. Linder, an old-time member of the Coles County bar, was an orator certainly remarkable. Charley Constable, who was afterwords the honored judge of the circuit court in this county, was retained to defend against the “black laws” suit, was the best educated lawyer at the bar, the only one who had ever attended a law school. He with his able assistant Col. Ficklin, threw the case out of court and with it ended the operation of the so-called ‘black laws’ in this county. Of Mr. Ficklin little need be added to what has been already written. At a ripe old age he was gathered to his Father. It was my privilege, with many other old friends, to look upon his familiar face and to see him with due honors placed in the ground. That night the court convened and held a memorial service to his honor. I sat by and heard with pleasure, the many good and kind things said about him by his fellow members of the bar, but strange to say, the best and greatest event of his life was not mentioned. They did not know perhaps that in that, his last journey, he would pass St. Peter’s gate bearing as a ticket pass the shackles of five slaves, for the good apostle to look upon and honor.”

Mr. Chairman, it was not my good fortune to be present at the bar meeting last above referred to by Dr. Rutherford, and I now beg to digress from the thread of my story to put on record my feeble tribute to the memory of Co. Ficklin. He was my life-long friend, and to my dying day I shall never forget his painstaking kindness to me when I first commenced the practice of law thirty-five years ago. I had repeated occasions to go to him or to some of the older members of the bar for advise on points of practice or otherwise, it made no difference how busy he might be he always would stop and answer my questions fully and carefully. He was a man of remarkable kindness of heart, and possessed of one of the most equable dispositions I ever met with. He was by far a better man that he was generally considered. I join heartily in all that Dr. Rutherford says of him and would adopt his beautiful language as my own.

But to return to the thread of my story, Jane Bryant the slave was about forty years of age, slightly pocked marked and a bright mulatto. She was said to be the daughter of James Matson, and elder brother of old Bob Matson. Her mother was a concubine and Jane had a younger brother, Sim, who lately died at Tuscola, who was as black as ink. Jane shared the condition of her mother. Her two eldest boys were evidently of white parentage, one of the little girls she had with her had long red hair and blue eyes, the other three were darker than herself. But one was clearly legitimate, all the others had no surnames. With all this degeneration Jane possessed two striking characteristics – a desire for freedom and a grateful heart. The first due to her Saxon blood, the last is preeminently the negroe’s (sic) birthright.

Soon after her return from Charleston she had a son born to her whom she named for Mr. Ashmore. Poor woman, that was all she could do in the way of payment for his great services. As might naturally be expected she dreaded Matson’s vindictiveness, she feared lest her children should be kidnapped and carried back into slavery, so accepting an offer from the Colonization Society she went to Liberia. Settling down there her last child was born and in grateful remembrance of her redemption from bondage, and the great services done in her behalf by Dr. Rutherford she honored him with its name.

Jane the slave, but subsequently a free woman, now sleeps quietly beyond the seas, in her native soil of distant Africa. And good old Anthony, after his sad and more than eventful life, has laid his weary body down, with all his sorrows and heartaches, and gone to that reward of which he loved so much to sing and talk while with us here below.

But Ashmore, that brave and noble man; full of years and good works, laid down his burden some four years ago in the state of Wisconsin. In fact all the actors in that extraordinary proceeding, so noted at the time and so soon forgotten, have passed away one by one, save one, Dr. Hiram Rutherford.

By reason of their respective characteristics of these gentlemen they were well fitted for that grand undertaking. Their exceeding kindness of heart, their devotion to freedom, and their sympathy for the down trodden was mutual and identical.

Here therefore, ends the history of one of the first skirmish battles, which, we are proud to say was fought and won on the soil of this county, in the cause of human liberty, and against that most detestable and horrible institutions, human slavery, and saving from its unspeakable grasp, at least one mother and her four children.

–D. T. McIntyre

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Another thing my grandma used to say was that her people were from “down around Ashmore.” What she didn’t say, or what I didn’t hear, was that her people actually were Ashmores. It turns out that my grandmother’s great-grandmother was Letitia Ashmore Hogue, a daughter of Captain Samuel C. Ashmore, an early settler in Coles County, Illinois where the town of Ashmore was named after Letitia’s brother and Samuel’s son, Hezekiah Ashmore.

While some of the facts of his life are in dispute – for instance, the whereabouts of his birth – much is known about Samuel C. Ashmore. Wherever he lived, he involved himself in the life of the community. While living in Tennessee, he was involved in the creation of counties, the building of roads, and the establishment of churches. He was a commissioned officer under Andrew Jackson during the Creek Indian campaign and at Battle of New Orleans (War of 1812). In Clark County, Illinois, he served as one of the county’s first three commissioners. He was a Justice of the Peace in Coles County, Illinois where he died in 1836.

Samuel Ashmore was married twice. He and his first wife, Letitia Guthrie, had 10 children. When Letitia died in 1815, he promptly married Ruth Cowan and had seven more children.

Beyond these facts, there are two wonderful accounts of his life, both written in the 1800s, that give us some idea of his character and personality.

The first was written by Dr. Hiram Rutherford, a doctor and historian in Coles County, Illinois, and a friend of Samuel’s son, Gideon Madison Ashmore. (The long version is here.)

“Captain Samuel Ashmore is admitted to have been the first settler in this neighborhood. Accompanied by his grown sons — Claybourne, who was then married, and George W. and Madison who were single men — he pitched his tent on what was long after known as the Laughlin farm, now owned by Mr. Andrew Gwinn and the heirs of Snowden Sargent. This was in the year 1829….As a frontier man, his training, habits and education eminently fitted him for the work. Large of frame, strong in body and with a determined will; like Ajax he only asked for day light and fair play….It is probable that Captain Ashmore was born in South Carolina or Georgia, but we first know of him living on Duck River in Tennessee. Here he had the honor of serving as a commissioned officer under General Jackson, was out in the Creek Indian campaigns, and fought at the battle of New Orleans. It is needless to repeat that his opinion of his great commander bordered on reverence, and was fondly cherished by him to the day of his death. (My note: One of his sons was named General Jackson Ashmore.) Resolving to leave Tennessee, whose chattel slavery he thoroughly detested, with his brothers William, James and Amos and all their families, he came to the Wabash country; here he soon fell into the chronic frontier style of life, common today as it was then. First to make an improvement and next get too hot for a sale, and that is made, go to chopping again upon another claim. If it be true that a rolling stone gathers no moss, it is apparent that the tramp farmer is a failure. By the help of his sons he opened a farm near Darwin, cleared off one hundred acres of bottom timber, built a two story house, several stables and out houses and after that he sold the whole caboodle to his son-in-law for $600, in order to get to the Ambraw country. It is scarcely necessary to say that Mr. Ashmore never became a rich man.

Having succeeded in selling his first location to Mr. Laughlin, Mr. Ashmore moved down to Hoge’s Branch, where most of his sons and sons-in-law had by this time settled. He commenced work on what is now known as the Barbour farm. Here after filling the office of justice of the peace, he died in 1838 (sic), aged as his tomb stone states sixty years. (My note: Hoge’s Branch is named for Samuel Hogue, Letitia Ashmore Hogue’s husband.)

One of the great difficulties of a biography is to sketch the character of a man whom the author has never seen. It is a still greater difficulty in the presence of his surviving children, and his descendants — “numerous as the sands of the sea” — to do that work faithfully, especially when all you can say of him is not praise. Like the rough frontiersman that he was his hand was ready, if struck, he returned the blow with interest and effect like a good son of the church militant; a strong friend and hospitable; a bitter enemy and vindictive. Probably he talked too much, a weakness common to the times when it was thought necessary for every man to give an opinion, whether he had a reason for it or not. Then again chimney corner jurisprudence was a fruitful subject for discussion; we don’t know that in our own times the habit is any better than it was then. Mr. Ashmore had hot blood and in behalf of what he supposed was his “rights,” spared neither himself nor others.

“What was his disposition?” we inquired of his venerable and respected daughter-in-law.

“Well, sir, he was a very fractious man — when he got angry.”

To show that he had a fountain of humor in him, it is related that driving cattle once in Tennessee, in a terribly muddy road, he met a broad cloth snob (broad cloth was scarce then) who in disregard of drover courtesies forced his horse into the midst of the herd, producing considerable confusion. In a moment Ashmore comprehended his man and riding up to meet him greeted him as an old friend, “Why, how are you!” held out his hand and grasping that of the snob’s with an iron grip, he put spurs to his horse and dragged the fellow off his saddle into the mud.”

The second set of reminiscences was written by one of Samuel’s sons, C.O. Ashmore, in a letter to Dr. Rutherford.

“Our first cookhouse was built by putting forked poles in the ground and covering with clapboards, and our sleeping quarters was a covered wagon and father’s carriage, which was the only carriage in the country at that time.

We broke out 20 acres and planted to corn before we built our house. In breaking the prairie we used his yoke of cattle and one team of horses on the lead and your humble servant rode the lead horses. We planted our corn by cutting into the sod with an ax and dropping the corn in the hole thus made and pressed the sod together with our feet, and our corn went 75 bushels to the acre. After our corn was planted, we built our house. The house was 24×16, built of white oak logs. We lived in the house until cold weather without any door or sash to the windows, and there was no chimney. Also this was the first that built on that locality.

The nearest neighbors was about 700 Kickapoo Indians, their encampment was on the Brushy Fork, about 7 miles from our place. There was no white neighbors to come and see us or visit; and we was glad when some of our Indian neighbors would call around and see us. The first white visitors we had was my brother Clayborn (Samuel) and his wife (Sarah), they came 40 miles on horseback and I can tell you we were glad to see them come riding in, it was one year after we had came. And the first white woman my mother saw after we had came there was Mrs. Moddrell, and that was in December when my brother G. J., (General Jackson) was born. Mrs. Moddrell lived in St. Omar, then called Moddrell’s Point. She was the grandmother of Sterl Curtis. General Jackson was born December 14, 1829 and he was the first white child born in Douglas County.

We had to endure a great deal of hardships and privations in those early days. We had to go 35 miles to mill to get our corn ground to make bread. We had no roads and quite often we would get stuck in the mud, and we would have to unload our wagons and carry the loads long distances on our backs, and we would have to hallew and thrash our ox teams for all we were worth to get our empty wagons out of the mud, and I tell you a big piece of corn bread would taste awful good when we got through with such a job as that, if we were so lucky as to have some along with us. And there were times when we were unable to get our corn ground and we had to content ourselves on hominy; and we had to do without bread quite a while sometimes. The men would be compelled to be away from home and mother and the three little children would have to stay several nights alone at a time.”

So here you have a glimpse of life on the Illinois prairie in the 1830s. You can expect a few more posts about the Ashmore family, because it turns out that more is known about Samuel’s parents, his grandparents and their travels.

Fractious. Isn’t that a great word?

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My paternal grandmother used to say her family was Scotch-Irish. Well, she used to say a lot of things. For instance, “Up the stump without a paddle.” What could that mean? Why do you need a paddle on a stump? Like many of the things she said, I didn’t know enough about this to ask more; I just accepted it. But now I’m asking, what is Scotch-Irish?

Scotch-Irish is an American term given to the Ulster Scots who immigrated to America from the Plantation of Ulster. These are the English and Scottish Protestants who were planted in Ulster in the early 1600s by King James with the intention of bringing peace to the region. Well, as we all know, that didn’t work out too well, and 100 years later, driven by conflict, drought, and high rents, many of these people began to immigrate to America. By the time of the American Revolution, 250,000 Ulster Scots had immigrated. Most of them landed in Philadelphia, some remaining in Pennsylvania and others moving south along the Great Wagon Road into the Shenandoah Valley. Some continued west on the Wilderness Road.

It turns out that Grandma’s people followed the same migration trail. Moses Moody, 1735 – 1815, lived and died in the Shenandoah Valley. Moses’ son Briant, 1776 – 1843, and his wife, Phebe Jenkins, moved west, first into West Virginia in 1800 where their son Bryant was born, and then in about 1814 to Mad River, Ohio. Bryant Moody, 1804 – 1868, grew up and married Margaret McCollister. In 1830, their son Isaac was born in Mad River. In 1839, Bryant and Margaret picked up and moved to Coles County, Illinois. The family didn’t make the trek alone; siblings, cousins, parents, and in-laws also came to Coles County. In 1851, Isaac Moody married Harriet Phelps, whose parents had made the journey west by flatboat on the Ohio River. Now, for the time being, the families were settled as blacksmiths and farmers, and by the time my father was born, they had been there for 75 years.

As for “up the stump without a paddle” – apparently “up the stump” means to be pregnant or at least in an embarrassing position, and “without a paddle” means to be in a dire predicament without resources. Does that help?

Have a great weekend!

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