Dear Family and Friends,
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
xox
Tags: "Gideon Ashmore" · "Hiram Rutherford" · "Matson Slave Trial"
