Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and I honestly,
Speaker 1: Tracy could not tell you how I stumbled across this topic.
Speaker 1: It's another one of those cases where I found it
Speaker 1: scrawled in a notebook and went, I should look that
Speaker 1: up and see what that was. And I was like, heavens,
Speaker 1: I should have done this forever ago. Well, and it's
Speaker 1: it's something that when you mentioned to me a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago that you were thinking about it. I
Speaker 1: was like, that name rings a strange bell that I
Speaker 1: can't quite place, and then googled and went, oh, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've had this on my potentials too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about free Frank mcwarder, and his story
Speaker 1: is a really unique one because he was the first
Speaker 1: black man in the United States to design a town
Speaker 1: and plot it and establish a multiracial community there. And
Speaker 1: he did this despite having been born into slavery. And
Speaker 1: his story is one of remarkable perseverance and diligence both
Speaker 1: before and after he became a free man. Frank had
Speaker 1: to work with incredible forethought and purpose to realize his
Speaker 1: goals for himself and his family. So Frank was born
Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy seven, so during the Revolutionary War that
Speaker 1: was in South Carolina on a plantation near the Palacourt
Speaker 1: River that would geographically be in present day Union County.
Speaker 1: Frank's mother, Judah, was an enslaved woman who had been
Speaker 1: kidnapped and taken from her home in West Africa. So
Speaker 1: Frank was born enslaved. It's believed that the white owner
Speaker 1: of this plantation, who was a Scott's Irish man named
Speaker 1: George mcquarter, was Frank's biological father. There's not a lot
Speaker 1: of documentation regarding Frank's childhood, although he presumably was working
Speaker 1: with all the other enslaved people on this plantation from
Speaker 1: a really young age. Information on his mother, Judah and
Speaker 1: what her fate was really doesn't exist. No once Uh,
Speaker 1: once Frank's story shifts, Judy gets completely lost in the
Speaker 1: historical record because in SEV George mcquarter and just for context,
Speaker 1: because there are two different spellings of that name, UH
Speaker 1: is M C W H O R T E R.
Speaker 1: He purchased a tract of land in Kentucky on the
Speaker 1: Green River, and that same year we know that eighteen
Speaker 1: year old Frank was also in Kentucky, presumably having been
Speaker 1: brought there by mcquarter although there is actually some confusion
Speaker 1: in existing histories about whether Frank was sold to someone
Speaker 1: in Kentucky or whether he was still with mcgwarder and
Speaker 1: used to settle the new land that had been acquired.
Speaker 1: I think if you look at the evidence and the
Speaker 1: pattern recognition, he was still with George mcquarter uh and
Speaker 1: mcquarterer had four enslaved people that were doing this work,
Speaker 1: and he was then able to purchase additional land in
Speaker 1: the following years, using that slave labor to settle it
Speaker 1: for farming as well. And just to be clear, this
Speaker 1: was not land that was just vacant waiting for white people.
Speaker 1: This was Indigenous land that had been seeded through treaties
Speaker 1: or otherwise taken. I don't want to get sound like
Speaker 1: they just sort of arrived and we're like, oh, empty land. No.
Speaker 1: It definitely definitely was part of that other problematic aspect
Speaker 1: of our history of just taking indigenous people's homes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I went down a whole huge rabbit hole when I
Speaker 1: was first reading through this, Like about the history of
Speaker 1: of land rights in Kentucky, UM, which is kind of
Speaker 1: outside the scope of this podcast, but uh, it was
Speaker 1: really interesting at the same time. So, the first year
Speaker 1: that Frank was in Kentucky, he met an enslaved woman
Speaker 1: named Lucy who was enslaved by William Denham, and Denham's
Speaker 1: daughter was married to George mcquarter's brother, and that connection
Speaker 1: between the two families is how Frank and Lucy came
Speaker 1: to know one another. Like Frank, Lucy had been born
Speaker 1: into slavery. She was born in seventeen seventy one. Although
Speaker 1: the union had no legal standing, Frank and Lucy mayor
Speaker 1: read at least in their own eyes in seventeen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: and by all accounts they were deeply in love and
Speaker 1: incredibly devoted to one another, although they were of course
Speaker 1: not allowed to live together due to their enslaved status
Speaker 1: with two separate families. One of the things that we
Speaker 1: do not often discuss on the show is how people
Speaker 1: who enslaved other people felt about these marriages, and it
Speaker 1: came up in one of the biographies of Frank, and
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting to discuss because, in short, they
Speaker 1: kind of viewed it as a way to expand their
Speaker 1: property holdings. Particularly for the person who claimed ownership of
Speaker 1: a woman who was enslaved, this could be viewed as
Speaker 1: lucrative because her children would automatically become their property. Uh
Speaker 1: And in eighteen hundred, Frank and Lucy did have their
Speaker 1: first child, a daughter, and they named that daughter Judah,
Speaker 1: after Frank's mother. George mcwardur hired Frank out to other
Speaker 1: landowners in Kentucky who needed labor on their own properties
Speaker 1: and their own farms. And at this point in history,
Speaker 1: this rough area of Kentucky wasn't populated with many people
Speaker 1: who had their own enslaved workforce. In eighteen hundred, the
Speaker 1: reported numbers were a hundred and seventy nine thousand, eight
Speaker 1: hundred seventy three white residents in Kentucky and forty thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred forty three enslaved people. In Pulaski County, where
Speaker 1: mcquarter's property was, there were two thousand, nine hundred twenty
Speaker 1: eight white residents on record and two hundred thirty two
Speaker 1: enslaved people. And that meant that a strong young man
Speaker 1: like Frank was really in demand as rented labor and
Speaker 1: as a consistent revenue stream. Form AC quarter who kept
Speaker 1: purchasing hundreds and hundreds of acres of land at a time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: using the money that he was making renting Frank out
Speaker 1: as labor um as well as other people. But it
Speaker 1: is interesting and I think those those numbers when you
Speaker 1: get to Pulaski County being so small, you realized that
Speaker 1: this really was an area that was not heavily populated
Speaker 1: all at the time. At some point in the early
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, Frank made an arrangement with mcgwarder that Frank
Speaker 1: could hire himself out as a laborer in his limited
Speaker 1: free time, So that meant that Frank could make his
Speaker 1: own money, but as part of the arrangement, it also
Speaker 1: meant that he had to pay an annual fee to
Speaker 1: mcwarder for allowing him to do so. And in some
Speaker 1: cases people who owned enslaved people made more money from
Speaker 1: these monthly payments than they did hiring out their enslaved
Speaker 1: workforce themselves. And since the area still needed a lot
Speaker 1: of labor because there were still a lot of white
Speaker 1: people moving in and trying to set up farms, Frank
Speaker 1: always had work in This arrangement actually would have been illegal,
Speaker 1: but in eighteen o two, Kentucky law changed to allow
Speaker 1: the direct hire of an enslaved person. However, it was
Speaker 1: still technically illegal, but both the laborer and the hirer
Speaker 1: just had to pay a fine. No one was going
Speaker 1: to go to jail over it. This was still even
Speaker 1: paying those fines cheaper for these people than hiring free labor.
Speaker 1: So it was a popular way for landholders to get
Speaker 1: their property cleared and settled and ready for crops. George
Speaker 1: mcgorder didn't stay in the same place for long. He
Speaker 1: moved from his initial Pulaski County, Kentucky homestead to another
Speaker 1: one in Wayne County, and then he moved to Tennessee.
Speaker 1: But unlike when he made the move from South Carolina
Speaker 1: to Kentucky, he didn't take Frank with him when he
Speaker 1: moved to Tennessee, although he was still enslaving Frank. The
Speaker 1: mindset of mcgworder and all this is really not known,
Speaker 1: but one avenue of speculation is that he knew Frank
Speaker 1: wouldn't try to escape and leave his family behind, and
Speaker 1: so he trusted him to take care of his property. Eventually,
Speaker 1: mcgwarder was aware that Frank had a plan of saving
Speaker 1: up to purchase his family's freedom, and he probably thought
Speaker 1: that Frank would never actually accomplish this task, but keeping
Speaker 1: that hope alive for him meant that Frank would keep
Speaker 1: working both on the mcquarterer properties and on his own sidework.
Speaker 1: It's the stable enough situation that George mcquarter clearly did
Speaker 1: not think it was much of a gamble to leave
Speaker 1: Frank behind. Yeah, there is a lot of speculation about
Speaker 1: their relationship and what it was, and whether mcwarder knew
Speaker 1: that he was probably his biological son and what that was,
Speaker 1: but we honestly cannot know. Uh. In the early eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: the demand for saltpeter was on the rise. It could,
Speaker 1: of course be used for a number of things, but
Speaker 1: had become particularly important in the manufacture of gunpowder. That's
Speaker 1: something we talked about in our Antoine Lovoisier episode back
Speaker 1: in and Frank was insightful. He saw this rising market,
Speaker 1: and he knew that saltpeter was being mined from caves
Speaker 1: in the area. So he set up his own small
Speaker 1: business as Saltpeter Works, and he worked mcquarter's land during
Speaker 1: the day, and he worked in his small business at night,
Speaker 1: mining the mineral nighter and then boiling it down to
Speaker 1: get the desired sodium nitrate in the War of eighteen
Speaker 1: twelve contributed to demand, and Frank was very busy rising
Speaker 1: to meet it. Two important things happened in eighteen fifteen
Speaker 1: that affected Frank's situation. First, the War of eighteen twelve ended,
Speaker 1: although the demand for salt peter didn't drop off immediately.
Speaker 1: The second was that George mcquarter died. Now while mcquarter's
Speaker 1: children said that George had intended for Frank to be
Speaker 1: manumented upon his death, and he had also told Frank
Speaker 1: that there had never been any formal will written up
Speaker 1: that specifically said that. So mcquarter's airs filed a manumission
Speaker 1: document that wasn't really that at all, stated that they
Speaker 1: intended to quote set at liberty and give freedom to
Speaker 1: a Negro slave named Frank in the state of Kentucky
Speaker 1: late the property of George mcquarter deceased if said negro
Speaker 1: gave Abner mcquarter the sum of five hundred dollars as
Speaker 1: the price of his freedom. But that same document said
Speaker 1: that they also wanted him to keep tending the farm
Speaker 1: in Kentucky as a condition of this array, basically making
Speaker 1: a loophole where he couldn't really be free. They also
Speaker 1: didn't think he had nearly enough money to pay that
Speaker 1: five hundred dollar fee. Yeah, it's uh. It's interesting because
Speaker 1: they did file documentation, which was not always common, but
Speaker 1: they also did it in a way that was really
Speaker 1: um strictly beneficial to themselves and not upholding what everybody
Speaker 1: believed that George mcwarder had actually wanted. But two years
Speaker 1: after mcward's death, Frank did buy freedom, although he did
Speaker 1: not buy it for himself, but instead for his wife Lucy.
Speaker 1: He paid eight hundred dollars so that she could be
Speaker 1: free first. That was considered a very large sum. In
Speaker 1: the seventeen years since they had declared themselves husband and wife,
Speaker 1: Lucy and Frank had had thirteen children together, although only
Speaker 1: four of those children had survived to adulthood. In freeing Lucy,
Speaker 1: Frank was ensuring that any future children they had would
Speaker 1: not be born into slavery, and this was actually a
Speaker 1: rather urgent matter for the couple because Lucy was pregnant
Speaker 1: at the time. Now it is unclear if anyone outside
Speaker 1: of Lucy and Frank knew this information when the transaction
Speaker 1: took place in April eighteen seventeen, but when their son,
Speaker 1: Squire was born in September of that year, he was
Speaker 1: born a freeman. That eight hundred dollars paid to William
Speaker 1: Denham for Lucy's release, which as I said, was considered
Speaker 1: a very high amount, has led to speculation that Denham
Speaker 1: may have actually been aware that Lucy was carrying a child.
Speaker 1: In a moment, we will talk about how life for
Speaker 1: Frank and Lucy changed after Lucy's freedom had been bought. First,
Speaker 1: we're going to pause for a quick sponsor break. The
Speaker 1: start of a free life for his family meant that
Speaker 1: even though Frank himself was still enslaved, he had a
Speaker 1: wider range of options at earning money. Lucy, as a freewoman,
Speaker 1: could legally do things that Frank could not, even she
Speaker 1: was a woman, and she was just as enterprising as
Speaker 1: her husband. Because the area of Kentucky where they lived
Speaker 1: and worked for decades was still considered frontier, enslaved people
Speaker 1: knew how to do a lot of things. They kind
Speaker 1: of had to be jack of all trades. And just
Speaker 1: as Frank could clear land and build houses and farm
Speaker 1: and mine, among other skills, Lucy had learned to tend fields,
Speaker 1: but also how to weave and to spin and to knit,
Speaker 1: and she used those skills to make additional money for
Speaker 1: the family, so she would make handicrafts and sell them,
Speaker 1: among other things. And she also took in laundry, and
Speaker 1: Frank continued to produce saltpeter on the side, and the
Speaker 1: two of them saved as much as they could with
Speaker 1: the intent of expanding their families freedom. Two years after
Speaker 1: Lucy became a free woman, Frank purchased his own freedom.
Speaker 1: Mcward family demanded an additional three hundred dollars on top
Speaker 1: of the five hundred dollars that they had stipulated in
Speaker 1: their manumission documents. In eighteen twenty, on a federal insis record,
Speaker 1: Frank listed himself without a last name, opting instead to
Speaker 1: be recorded in the ledger as free Frank. That was
Speaker 1: largely a matter of practicality. Including the word free in
Speaker 1: his name helped to establish to everyone that he was
Speaker 1: not enslaved, and as a measure to help prevent being
Speaker 1: kidnapped by anybody claiming that they did not know that
Speaker 1: he was a freeman. We have talked in other episodes
Speaker 1: of the show about laws that encouraged basically the kidnapping
Speaker 1: of of free black people, whether they had ever been
Speaker 1: enslaved or not, to so called return them to slavery
Speaker 1: and freedom came with some new problems, particularly because this
Speaker 1: was still a sparsely populated area so small town mindset,
Speaker 1: and it became widely known that Frank had spent a
Speaker 1: total of sixteen hundred dollars on his and Lucy's freedom
Speaker 1: in the course of two years. This, of course, led
Speaker 1: to speculation that Frank might have more money, which led
Speaker 1: to one of Denim's to Chldren, attempting to sue the
Speaker 1: couple in eighty three, after William Denham had died. The
Speaker 1: suit was for the sum of two hundred twelve dollars,
Speaker 1: which William's descendant, Obadiah Denham, claimed had been loaned to
Speaker 1: the couple in the years between when Lucy became a
Speaker 1: free woman and when they purchased Frank's freedom. The couple
Speaker 1: took the tech of not denying it because they knew
Speaker 1: that would not work, so instead they pled that Lucy,
Speaker 1: under the law of fem coucher, where a woman's legal
Speaker 1: obligations are automatically transferred to her husband, had no responsibility
Speaker 1: for such an agreement and Frank, being enslaved at the time,
Speaker 1: could not enter into any legal contracts. She's a pretty
Speaker 1: ingenious approach to defense. This case bounced around through a
Speaker 1: number of courts. It went through appeals and then got
Speaker 1: sent back to lower courts, but ultimately the ruling was
Speaker 1: in favor of free Frank, and in some of those
Speaker 1: documents his wife is listed as free Lucy. That case
Speaker 1: was significant in several ways. First, that established that a
Speaker 1: free back woman could be considered legally married even if
Speaker 1: her husband was enslaved, because she was outside the bounds
Speaker 1: placed on enslaved people by state law, those laws would
Speaker 1: have restricted their legal marriage. It also established that the
Speaker 1: civil obligations of transferred responsibility associated with fem coverture could
Speaker 1: be applied to free black women in this kind of
Speaker 1: a situation. Also, just for clarity, you will also just
Speaker 1: hear that kind of adapted that phrase to coverture when
Speaker 1: we had Stephanie Jones Rodgers on she used that terminology,
Speaker 1: but it's the same thing. It is also worth noting
Speaker 1: that it was intensely brave for this couple to fight
Speaker 1: this whole thing in court in Kentucky, which was a
Speaker 1: slave state. Another factor in this case was that one
Speaker 1: of their sons, who was called Young Frank, was enslaved
Speaker 1: at the time by Obadiah Denim, having been born when
Speaker 1: Lucy was still considered the Denim's property, and Denim had
Speaker 1: threatened that he would sell the twenty one year old
Speaker 1: Young Rank as a means of intimidation. However, during all
Speaker 1: of this case, Young Frank was able to make an
Speaker 1: escape and he fled to Canada, and with the young
Speaker 1: man gone, Denham had lost his most significant intimidation tactic. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: five years later, Free Frank traded his Saltpeter operation to
Speaker 1: Obadiah Denim in exchange for menu mission for Young Frank,
Speaker 1: so that transaction giving up his Salt Peter business was
Speaker 1: not a move of desperation. It was one of so
Speaker 1: many actions that Free Frank had taken as part of
Speaker 1: a much larger plan. As the eighteen twenties unfolded, Frank
Speaker 1: and Lucy had decided that they wanted to leave Kentucky
Speaker 1: entirely and move their family to a free state. There
Speaker 1: were multiple factors that fed into this decision. Other than
Speaker 1: the obvious desire to live outside of a slave state,
Speaker 1: He and Lucy had three children who had been born free.
Speaker 1: They were growing up in a place where their future
Speaker 1: was precarious at best, and even as a freeman, Frank
Speaker 1: knew that his own future was justice fragile. As Pulaski
Speaker 1: County had become more populated over the years, the economic
Speaker 1: opportunities for Frank and Lucy had dwindled. There was more competition,
Speaker 1: the demand for Saltpeter had dropped off. Frank had wisely
Speaker 1: diversified his income streams, and he made money through farming
Speaker 1: and land speculation. But he really knew those sources of
Speaker 1: money we're going to get tighter and tighter. Frank and
Speaker 1: Lucy did not hide their intentions to leave Pulaski County.
Speaker 1: They started telling people quite a while in advance, and
Speaker 1: this was in part to protect their children who remained
Speaker 1: enslaved in Kentucky. Frank wanted to make it very very
Speaker 1: clear to the white people enslaving his family that he
Speaker 1: had every intention of purchasing his children's freedom. Frank and
Speaker 1: Lucy were, of course, terrified that something could happen after
Speaker 1: they moved, that their surviving children, Judas, Sally, and Solomon
Speaker 1: could potentially be sold to someone else, and that they
Speaker 1: would then lose track of them. But their hope was
Speaker 1: that in making all of these plans openly and being
Speaker 1: very friendly about it, and maintaining assurances that they were
Speaker 1: going to make enough income in Illinois where they planned
Speaker 1: to move to make good on their intentions, that they
Speaker 1: would give the people who were holding their family members
Speaker 1: lives in their hands confidence that they had a sure
Speaker 1: sale in the future. Frank, ever, the planner, secured attractive
Speaker 1: land in Pike County long before he left for Illinois.
Speaker 1: He made a trade or sale deal with a doctor
Speaker 1: Elliott there, and this deal free Frank got a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty acres of Illinois land, and in exchange, Dr
Speaker 1: Elliott got a parcel of Frank's land in Kentucky plus
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars. This was again all very transparent to everyone,
Speaker 1: careful signaling on Frank's part to the community that he
Speaker 1: was leaving that he would be back for his remaining
Speaker 1: enslaved children, and to the community that he was moving
Speaker 1: to that he was a man with financial stability who
Speaker 1: was serious about settling there. All, they sold off his
Speaker 1: remaining assets in Kentucky for the money that he would
Speaker 1: need to get his new property up and running and
Speaker 1: productive as a farm. All of this prep to move
Speaker 1: to Illinois was in line with the way that Frank
Speaker 1: tended to live and plan anyway, but there were very
Speaker 1: clear legal reasons for it as well. Illinois required that
Speaker 1: a free black man moving into the state needed to
Speaker 1: file their manumission documents and had to pay a bond
Speaker 1: of one thousand dollars. That payment was intended to ensure
Speaker 1: that the person would stay out of trouble and would
Speaker 1: not become a burden to the state, and Free Frank
Speaker 1: was in a fairly unique position to have the financial
Speaker 1: liquidity and the paperwork from mcward's family to meet these requirements. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these kinds of requirements were not unique to Illinois, and
Speaker 1: folks are wondering um He also had a written character
Speaker 1: references prepared, another requirement that had been added to the
Speaker 1: list for entry and to Illinois. Frank's official character document
Speaker 1: was stated September seven thirty and signed by nineteen residents
Speaker 1: of Pulaski County. It reads, in part quote, whereas free Frank,
Speaker 1: a man of color, intends leaving this state and we're
Speaker 1: moving to the state of Illinois. We therefore state that
Speaker 1: we have known Frank for many years, some of us
Speaker 1: upwards of twenty years, and that he has always been
Speaker 1: an honest, industrious man, punctual to his word in all
Speaker 1: of his dealings. The statement also details how Frank worked
Speaker 1: diligently first to free his wife, then to free himself,
Speaker 1: and states that quote Lucy has always sustained a good
Speaker 1: character as a virtuous industrious woman. So in the fall
Speaker 1: of eighteen thirty, Frank, Lucy, and their freeborn children, Squire
Speaker 1: Commodore and Lucy Anne, moved to Illinois in covered wagons
Speaker 1: loaded with farming tools to start a new life. Free
Speaker 1: Frank was fifty three at this time and Lucy was
Speaker 1: fifty nine, and their freed son, Young Frank, had returned
Speaker 1: to Kentucky from Canada after Free Frank had obtained his
Speaker 1: manumission documentation, and he got things ready and moved with
Speaker 1: them as well. This entire trip had to be so
Speaker 1: thoughtfully planned. A black family traveling by wagon from Kentucky
Speaker 1: to Illinois would just not be safe if they had
Speaker 1: trusted the wrong ferryman on a river where if they
Speaker 1: drove through the wrong area, Free Frank and his family
Speaker 1: could very well have been enslaved again. Aside from that,
Speaker 1: there was the real threat of bandits, and they had
Speaker 1: to survive during this journey over the course of a winter.
Speaker 1: Even after they arrived after months of traveling, they would
Speaker 1: still have to settle the land and faced racism that
Speaker 1: was still pervasive in free states. Yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: good time for an aside. Free states were not really free.
Speaker 1: The divide between states where slavery was legal and states
Speaker 1: where it was not is often kind of simplified in
Speaker 1: a way that makes it easy to think of free
Speaker 1: states is more welcoming to black people than they were.
Speaker 1: In moving to Illinois, Free Frank and his family may
Speaker 1: have had a reduced chance of being captured and kidnapped
Speaker 1: and enslaved once again, but they also still lived twenty
Speaker 1: miles from a slave state, and it was very, very
Speaker 1: common for black people to be captured in free states
Speaker 1: and taken to slave states. And even aside from that
Speaker 1: very real danger, free Frank did not have much in
Speaker 1: the way of rights when he moved to Illinois. The
Speaker 1: eighteen eighteen Illinois Constitution forbade black men from voting, from
Speaker 1: serving in the militia, from serving as surers, from testifying
Speaker 1: in court cases against white people and from having access
Speaker 1: to public education. And then there were all those requirements
Speaker 1: we mentioned just a short while ago, which were specifically
Speaker 1: designed to keep free black people from moving into the state. Additionally,
Speaker 1: the state supported the ideology of the American Colonization Society,
Speaker 1: which wanted to resettle free black people in Africa. This
Speaker 1: was yet another tactic intended to curtail black immigration and
Speaker 1: settlement in the state. But despite all of those barriers,
Speaker 1: Frank had seen the potential to acquire property and build
Speaker 1: a life in Illinois, and he was undaunted. And we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about how things played out once he
Speaker 1: and the family got there. After we paused for a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors. When Free Frank arrived in Illinois
Speaker 1: with the intent to settle in Hadley Township, he first
Speaker 1: went to the Pike County Clerk to file all of
Speaker 1: that required paperwork, And in Free Frank's case, he was
Speaker 1: expected because his land purchase had already been recorded, so
Speaker 1: they knew that he and his family was coming. And
Speaker 1: then the entire Frank family put all of the experience
Speaker 1: they had from settling farms for their white enslavers to
Speaker 1: work getting their own farm in order. In the first year,
Speaker 1: they just focused on subsistence farming and storing enough food
Speaker 1: to get them through the next winter, and then they
Speaker 1: started focusing on cash farming. In the following years, Lucy
Speaker 1: and Frank, who were Baptists, found a certain degree of
Speaker 1: social and religious access updance from some of the neighboring
Speaker 1: white farmers through their regular attendance of services at one
Speaker 1: of the settlers homes nearby. Free Frank was, as has
Speaker 1: been obvious, enterprising. In eighteen thirty four, he realized that
Speaker 1: there was a need for a road to Atlas to
Speaker 1: the west so that produce and livestock could be shipped
Speaker 1: along the river, so he started clearing one himself. Once
Speaker 1: he had the road cleared, all the farmers started to
Speaker 1: use it. In eighteen thirty six, the State Act was
Speaker 1: passed to complete the road and make it a public highway.
Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty five, in the midst of all of that,
Speaker 1: Frank made a return trip to Kentucky, having saved up
Speaker 1: enough money to purchase the freedom of his son Solomon.
Speaker 1: But when he got to Pulaski County, he discovered that
Speaker 1: Solomon had been sold one of the things he and
Speaker 1: Lucy had been afraid of, but Free Frank was able
Speaker 1: to locate the purchaser who lived nearby, and he was
Speaker 1: able to convince him to let him secure his son's
Speaker 1: freedom for the price of five fifty dollars. Also in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty five, Free franc A quired a plot of
Speaker 1: land from the federal government for a hundred dollars that
Speaker 1: was eighty acres in size. While he planned to continue
Speaker 1: to make land investments, his biggest priority had been freeing
Speaker 1: Solomon for using his money, and he continued for years
Speaker 1: to balance the goals of freeing his remaining family members
Speaker 1: and ensuring that he was building a life and a
Speaker 1: home for them once they were free. But that particular
Speaker 1: plot of land would become significant as his landholdings grew
Speaker 1: and Free Frank worked to establish himself and his family
Speaker 1: in their new state. He became aware that it was
Speaker 1: going to be really beneficial to him if he could
Speaker 1: adopt a legal surname as a means of ensuring that
Speaker 1: no one could question the deeds on any of his
Speaker 1: property or any other of his legal dealings. So in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty six, he petitioned to have his name legally
Speaker 1: changed to Frank mcwarder. In this case, he left the
Speaker 1: H out of that last name. That's a variation on
Speaker 1: the spelling of the person who had enslaved him. There
Speaker 1: has been so much speculation over this choice, but there
Speaker 1: is no real record of Frank's actual line of thought
Speaker 1: and what led him to that decision. Clearer though, we're
Speaker 1: Frank's legal desires. As soon as the name change was complete,
Speaker 1: Frank mcgworder made a second petition to request that he'd
Speaker 1: be given additional legal rights, including the right to purchase
Speaker 1: property in that name and to participate in legal actions.
Speaker 1: The State of Illinois General Assembly approved the petitions, and
Speaker 1: he went from free Frank to Frank mcgworder, and all
Speaker 1: of his children were given that last name as well,
Speaker 1: and his legal rights as a free black man expanded considerably.
Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty six, after his name changed, Frank mcwarter
Speaker 1: submitted a platte for a new township on the land
Speaker 1: he had purchased from the government, and that was where
Speaker 1: he founded New Philadelphia. The town plaque that he registered
Speaker 1: with the state featured a hundred and forty four plots
Speaker 1: with a connected roadway system, and starting in April of
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty seven, the lots of New Philadelphia began to sell,
Speaker 1: and the purchasers of those laws were a mix of
Speaker 1: black and white. New Philadelphia was the first town in
Speaker 1: the US planned and established by a black man, and
Speaker 1: as it developed, it was integrated, with black and white
Speaker 1: residents living side by side and the children all attending
Speaker 1: one school. It was not entirely integrated. The cemeteries were
Speaker 1: still segregated. As the town grew, Frank once again looked
Speaker 1: to the future in terms of ensuring his family's welfare.
Speaker 1: He wanted to make sure that if anything happened to him,
Speaker 1: Lucy would be protected and could inherit his land. So
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty nine, Frank and Lucy were finally legally
Speaker 1: married under Illinois state law in an actual formal ceremony.
Speaker 1: When Frank was asked during the ceremony if he would love,
Speaker 1: cherish and support his bride, he replied, why, God, bless
Speaker 1: your soul. I've done that for the last forty years.
Speaker 1: The sweetest thing uh New Philadelphia continued to grow in
Speaker 1: the years leading up to the Civil War, though the
Speaker 1: region on that border of Illinois in the slave state
Speaker 1: of Missouri. It was in a state of conflict between
Speaker 1: pro slavery factions and abolitionists. Even so, New Philadelphia, still
Speaker 1: a small farming community, made it through the war and
Speaker 1: saw a bit of a surgeon residence. After emancipation in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five, the town was at its largest, with
Speaker 1: one hundred sixty residents and a variety of small businesses.
Speaker 1: The promise of a railroad in Pike County, Illinois, offered
Speaker 1: hopes for even greater prosperity, but when the rail line
Speaker 1: was laid at the end of the eighteen sixties, it
Speaker 1: bypassed New Philadelphia. While many households hung on there. This
Speaker 1: ultimately doomed the small town. It just was obsolete. New
Speaker 1: Philadelphia slowly declined as the nineteenth century progressed, and by
Speaker 1: the middle of the eighteen eighties there weren't many members
Speaker 1: of the village left. In the half century from eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety to nineteen forty, New Philadelphia really vanished into history,
Speaker 1: as abandoned buildings spelled down and wild native flora grew
Speaker 1: over the cross and the roads. Frank had lived in
Speaker 1: New Philadelphia for the remainder of his life until he
Speaker 1: died on September seven, eighteen fifty four. Throughout the years
Speaker 1: from eighteen seventeen to eighteen fifty seven, Frank mcwardo worked
Speaker 1: tirelessly to keep his family together and to free the
Speaker 1: ones who had been enslaved. You'll notice that's three years
Speaker 1: past when he died, but we will explain Ultimately he
Speaker 1: had personally purchased the freedom of nine people, including Lucy
Speaker 1: and himself, and this included grandchildren that his daughters had
Speaker 1: while they were enslaved. Judah, Lucy and Frank's oldest daughter,
Speaker 1: was finally freed when she was fifty, but even after
Speaker 1: he died, Frank's family continued his efforts to free the
Speaker 1: entire family. Seven more people, Frank and Lucy's grandchildren and
Speaker 1: great grandchildren were freed with the money that he had
Speaker 1: left behind and from sales of land that he had
Speaker 1: left his children uh in those three years after his
Speaker 1: death and over the years, the general tally is that
Speaker 1: the family's freedom had cost thousand dollars again in eighteen fifties. Total.
Speaker 1: That is a great deal more today. In recent years,
Speaker 1: New Philadelphia has been the focus of ongoing archaeological projects
Speaker 1: and efforts to have it recognized for its historical significance.
Speaker 1: Frank and Lucy mcwarter's descendants have been involved in those efforts,
Speaker 1: ensuring that the family's history is part of that discussion,
Speaker 1: and New Philadelphia was listed on the National Register of
Speaker 1: Historic Places in two thousand five. In two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: it was designated a National Historic Landmark. The National Park
Speaker 1: Service made it part of their National Underground Railroad Network
Speaker 1: to Freedom program in ten and it is believed to
Speaker 1: have been part of that network, but national park status
Speaker 1: for the site has remained elusive. In a preliminary reconnaissance
Speaker 1: survey of New Philadelphia was conducted by the National Park
Speaker 1: Service and their recommendation was that the site had issues
Speaker 1: of feasibility for needed staffing and also creating quote opportunity
Speaker 1: used for public enjoyment at the site, although it was
Speaker 1: also noted that the site holds special meaning for people,
Speaker 1: so it should be supported through quote local, state, and
Speaker 1: or nonprofit efforts to continue to preserve and interpret the
Speaker 1: story of New Philadelphia. Free Frank, Yeah, and they're really
Speaker 1: cool legacy. Yeah. I love that story. It's one of
Speaker 1: those things where, um, on the one hand, you wanna
Speaker 1: find it uplifting and amazing, and on the other you're
Speaker 1: like this person had to do so much to to
Speaker 1: get to like level. Yeah. Well, and it it illustrates
Speaker 1: for me that there were a lot of different ways
Speaker 1: that enslaved people resisted what was happening. Like, uh, we
Speaker 1: have talked about a lot of different things on the
Speaker 1: show about people um escaping from slavery, about people liberating
Speaker 1: themselves from slavery, about slave uprisings, like a a lot
Speaker 1: of different ways um to resist and to have agency.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the examples of how that
Speaker 1: could be really complicated because like Frank was doing so
Speaker 1: much to free himself and his family, but in order
Speaker 1: to do that, like he kind of had to buy
Speaker 1: into the system, Like he had to pay money into
Speaker 1: the system that was enslaving him, which is uh, like
Speaker 1: it's that has come up on the show before. I
Speaker 1: feel like it came up in the Frederick Douglas episode,
Speaker 1: but I could be misremembering um that Like like that
Speaker 1: that was criticized sometimes within abolitionist communities of like why
Speaker 1: are you why are you buying into this in order
Speaker 1: to free your family because it was like it was complicated,
Speaker 1: that was the option that he had. Yeah, yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of bummed it's not a national park, but
Speaker 1: you never know. I suppose it could happen in the future,
Speaker 1: but I'm I'm not. I'm not expecting it. UM. I
Speaker 1: have a very briefless their mail. Uh. This is from
Speaker 1: our listener, Eric, and it refers to both episodes that
Speaker 1: you've done the research on and one that I worked on,
Speaker 1: and he writes, thank you for two things. One for
Speaker 1: doing a segment on the public universal friend a personage
Speaker 1: who mostly turns up an anecdotal history books such as
Speaker 1: those by Carl Karmer, or we get a picture of
Speaker 1: someone vague and eccentric driving about in a moon shaped carriage. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then two for to mon Bay marvelous. I have
Speaker 1: been three seasons and have found that season four is
Speaker 1: currently streaming on the BBC. The Game of Thrones comparison
Speaker 1: is apt. No character is to be trusted or to
Speaker 1: be underestimated. Keep up the very fine work, Eric, and
Speaker 1: I mostly wanted to do this to say, like, uh
Speaker 1: for two Monbai, don't don't thank me except unless you're
Speaker 1: thanking me for bringing it to your attention, because I
Speaker 1: think I technically have a credit on it that show
Speaker 1: under the I Heart distribution. But that is all John
Speaker 1: Dryden's work and his amazing team, so they put together
Speaker 1: something early special there. If you have not checked it out,
Speaker 1: you should do it um. If you would like to
Speaker 1: write to us, you should also do that. You can
Speaker 1: do that at History Podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find us on social media as Missed
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