This post is the second of two posts on the first newspaper-identified “slave stampede” in American history from Kentucky; see also 1847 Kenton and Boone County Stampedes: Part 1.

DATELINE: AUGUST 20, 1847, NEAR CASSOPOLIS, MI

Early on Friday morning, August 20, freedom seekers Perry Sanford, Reuben Stevens (or Stephens), and members of the Sandford family awoke to a loud knock and an eerily familiar voice. “We all recognized it as the voice of Jack Graves, the master of [Joe] Sandford and the brother of my master,” Perry Sanford recalled. [1]

Perry Sanford, Stevens, and the other Sandfords were among 33 enslaved Kentuckians–men, women, and children–who had liberated themselves in two daring stampedes from Kenton and Boone Counties during the spring of 1847. After reaching southern Michigan, the freedom seekers opted to remain in Cass County, where they lived and worked on the farm of local abolitionists in relative security. Months later, however, Kentucky slaveholders traveled north and raided the farms of Michigan abolitionists, insisting that the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act authorized them to recapture freedom seekers, even in a free state like Michigan, as well as seek damages from Northern abolitionists like Shugart who assisted them. The freedom seekers and Michigan residents thwarted slaveholders’ hopes of reenslaving the freedom seekers, though enslavers finally won nominal damages some four years later. In the process, the two stampedes from Kentucky to Michigan exposed the ineffectiveness of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act and prompted disgruntled slaveholders to call for tougher federal fugitive slave legislation as part of the Compromise of 1850.

 

MAIN NARRATIVE

By 1847, Kentucky slaveholders were growing wise to the extensive communities of freedom seekers who chose to settle in southern Michigan. During the winter of 1846-1847, Kentucky slaveholders had dispatched a spy to Michigan. Identifying himself as Carpenter, the man posed as an abolitionist law student in order to gain the trust of local Underground Railroad operatives and identify the location of freedom seekers across southern Michigan. Armed with Carpenter’s information about “the number and exact location of the fugitives,” a group of Kentucky slave catchers traveled to Marshall, Michigan, in January 1847 in an attempt to recapture the Crosswhites, a family of freedom seekers who had escaped from Kentucky years earlier. [2] Local residents in Marshall intervened and rescued the Crosswhites, enraging Kentucky slaveholders. Two months later in March 1847, Kentucky’s legislature decried the “outrages committed upon the rights and citizens of the State of Kentucky… by the citizens of Michigan,” and demanded that Michigan amend its laws “for the purpose of enabling the citizens of Kentucky to reclaim their runaway and fugitive slaves to the State of Michigan.” [3]

Tensions between Kentucky and Michigan were already fraught when Thornton Timberlake, John and Milton Graves, and ten other Kentuckians arrived at Battle Creek, Michigan on August 1, 1847. Intent on recapturing at least some of the 33 freedom seekers, the Kentuckians began going door-to-door posing as washing machine salesmen. But Battle Creek abolitionist Erastus Hussey was not fooled. Within hours of their arrival, the Quaker abolitionist gathered other local residents and confronted the Kentuckians in their hotel. “The people would not allow any of the negroes there to be returned into slavery,” Hussey thundered. Moreover, Hussey warned “that those who contemplated seizing them for that purpose, were endangering themselves by longer remaining in the vicinity.” The Kentuckians took the hint and beat a hasty retreat from Battle Creek, heading south where they regrouped near the Michigan-Indiana border in Bristol, Indiana. However, Hussey feared that the Kentuckians would be back, likely heading for Cass County next; he dispatched letters warning Cass County abolitionists Stephen Bogue and Zachariah Shugart. But due to “the slowness of the mails,” the Kentuckians arrived before his letters. [4]

On the morning of Friday, August 20, the slave catchers fanned out across the farms of Cass County. The Kentuckians had “very accurately drawn maps upon which the houses which sheltered the fugitives were carefully designated,” which likely had been produced by the pretend-law student “Carpenter” months earlier. The Kentuckians planned to split up, capture freedom seekers living on different farms “as nearly simultaneously as possible,” then regroup and head south for Indiana before local residents could react. To carry out their captives back into bondage, the slaveholders brought with them an ominous looking tobacco wagon. [5]

Slave catchers first stopped at Josiah Osborn’s farm, where they surprised and manacled a family of five freedom seekers, “an old man, his wife, two sons and a daughter.” [6] Nearby on Stephen Bogue’s farm, Perry Sanford, Reuben Stevens, and the Sandford fought off Milt and John Graves. Joe Sandford beat them back with “heavy hickory clubs,” but eventually the Graves and the other slave catchers stormed the cabin, capturing Sandford and his family. Perry Sanford and Reuben Stevens managed to slip away, sprinting through a corn field to call for help. The two split up: Reuben Stevens made a beeline for the home of William “Bill” Jones, an outspoken Quaker abolitionist, while Sanford alerted Stephen Bogue. [7]

When slave catchers reached Zachariah Shugart’s farm near Cassopolis, William Casey (formerly Lewis Gardner) “grabbed a three-legged stool and gave them a battle.” Casey struck his “young master” (likely James Scott, the son of enslaver Charles W. Scott) ” a terrible blow” with the stool; Casey and other abolitionists claimed that the younger Scott died of his wounds weeks later. Slave catchers eventually subdued Casey and his daughter Mary, but Casey’s fierce resistance bought time for his wife Elizabeth to crawl out a small window at the back of the cabin and race through a nearby corn field for help. It was likely Elizabeth Casey who first reached Zachariah Shugart’s house and “gave the alarm.” [8]

In all, slave catchers captured between nine to 10 of the 33 freedom seekers. The captives included William Casey (formerly Lewis Gardner) and his daughter Mary; Joe Sandford, his wife Celia (or Cena) Sandford, and their young daughter. The other captives included the family of five seized at Osborn’s farm, which may have been the Hughbanks family.

Crucially, Reuben Stephens, Perry Sanford, and Elizabeth Casey had all managed to evade capture and tipped off local abolitionists Bill Jones, Stephen Bogue, and Zachariach Shugart. Jones, Bogue, and Shugart each rallied local residents to the freedom seekers’ defense. The slave catchers at Osborn’s farm soon found themselves “surrounded by a throng of angry and threatening men, among them some free negroes.” Other slave catching parties encountered similar resistance. The Kentuckians headed south and regrouped at Odell’s Mill, where at daybreak they were met by an even larger group of angry Michiganders armed with “stout club[s].” The Michiganders made clear that the slave catchers “could not proceed further southward, unless they went without the negroes.” The confrontation nearly escalated to violence, but Quakers Josiah Osborn, Stephen Bogue, and Zachariah Shugart insisted that “only peaceable and lawful measures should be employed.” Outnumbered and cut off, the Kentuckians reluctantly agreed to go before a justice of the peace in the county seat at Cassopolis. [9]

Meanwhile, local abolitionists sabotaged the slaveholders’ distinctive-looking tobacco wagon, which they had left back on Osborn’s farm. First, local residents stripped the wagon of its wheels; later, they reportedly pushed the wagon into nearby Birch Lake. The wagon became a part of local Underground Railroad lore nearly a century later in 1936, when swimmers spotted the wagon submerged “under 100 feet of water.” A year later in 1937, a local newspaper reported plans to recover the wagon for display at the Cass County Historical Museum. [10]

Once in Cassopolis, Timberlake, Graves, and company hired a local lawyer, George Turner, who counseled the slave catchers that they had little hope of success. “Although the [1793 Fugitive Slave] law was up on their side,” Turner explained, “it would be almost an absolute impossibility” to return south with the freedom seekers, “even if an order was secured from any court in Cass County.” The Kentuckians ignored Turner’s advice and proceed anyway. While Timberlake, Graves, and company sought out a justice of the peace, local authorities charged all the Kentuckians with kidnapping. Authorities also pressed additional charges against four of the Kentuckians for trespass on Josiah Osborn’s property, and singled out another slave catcher for assault and battery. The Kentuckians had to post $2,600 bail as they waited for a rendition hearing to decide the fate of the nine captives. [11]

Meanwhile, local abolitionists were determined to frustrate the slaveholders’ attempt to use the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act. Although it was a federal law, the 1793 statute entrusted enforcement largely to state and local officials throughout the North. State and local officials across the North often did not enforce the law as vigorously as slaveholders would have liked. The local judge in Cass County, A.H. Redfield, was absent, so abolitionists applied to a sympathetic judge in neighboring Berrien County, Ebenezer McIlvain, for a writ of habeas corpus. McIlvain agreed to hear the case and traveled to Cassopolis on Monday, August 23. [12]

The Kentuckians quickly realized that they were fighting an uphill battle with the antislavery-leaning McIlvain. “This unprincipled scoundrel declared before he went on the bench, that he intended to set the negroes at liberty,” the slave catchers alleged. Whatever McIlvain may have uttered, he quickly released the freedom seekers on a technicality: the Kentuckians had not brought a certified copy of Kentucky’s laws authorizing slavery. A Covington newspaper decried “this most atrocious piece of abolition villainy,” and denounced southern Michigan as a “vile den of Negro thieves and recreants to every principle of honor and common honesty.” [13] 

 

AFTERMATH

After McIlvain released the nine captives, local abolitionists rushed the freedom seekers to the farm of Ishmael Lee. There, the nine released captives rejoined with a larger group of about 52 freedom seekers; many from the two Kentucky stampedes, and other local Black residents alarmed by the Kentuckians’ raid. Immediately, the group of 52 freedom seekers continued northeast to Schoolcraft, Michigan, where abolitionists Dr. Nathan and Pamela Thomas offered them food. “They soon arrived, took the provisions without alighting, and passed in safety to Canada,” remembered Pamela Thomas. Most of the freedom seekers put down roots in Canada, but not all. Perry Sanford, Lewis Gardner/William Casey, his wife Elizabeth, and their daughter Mary all stayed in Battle Creek, Michigan, where they continued to work for abolitionist farmers. [14]

Most of the freedom seekers were safely in Canada, but the legal fallout from the August 1847 rescue was only beginning. Section 4 of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act authorized enslavers to sue abolitionists who harbored freedom seekers for damages. Graves, Timberlake, and the other enslavers involved in the raid were likely encouraged to do so by the outcome of another penalty case: in late 1848, Kentucky slaveholder Francis Glitner won damages from residents of Marshall, Michigan for their role in rescuing the Crosswhite family nearly two years earlier. [15]

In January 1849, slaveholders Thornton Timberlake, John and Milton Graves, and Charles Scott all filed penalty cases under the 1793 federal Fugitive Slave Act. The trial began in December 1850. Thornton Timberlake sued for $2,000 for 5 individuals, Jonathan, Nancy, Mary, Robert, and Gabriel; Milt Graves sued Stephen Bogue for $600 for Perry Sanford; John Graves sued Bogue for $1,500 for 3 freedom seekers valued; and Charles Scott sued Bogue, Shugart, Jones, David T. Nicholson, and even McIlvain for $900 for Lewis Gardner/William Casey. For their defense counsel, Michigan abolitionists hired Jacob M. Howard, later a US senator who would play a crucial role in drafting the 13^th Amendment abolishing slavery. The first case ended in a mistrial in January 1851. [16]

A retrial began in December 1851, but most defendants opted out. The Michigan farmers were still struggling to pay the $2,200 in legal fees incurred during the first trial. Instead of enduring another trial, Ishmael Lee (whose farm the freedom seekers stayed at after their release by McIlvain) and David T. Nicholson agreed to settle with the enslavers out of court: Lee and Nicholson paid the slaveholders’ counsel, Abner Pratt, a total of $1,000, plus $300-500 for legal costs. Cass County abolitionists had started a subscription to pay off their legal fees, though it remains unclear how much of the cost Lee and Nicholson shouldered alone. [17]

As far as slaveholders were concerned, the rescue of the freedom seekers and the long, expensive process to recover damages only confirmed the need for tougher federal fugitive slave legislation. Back in Kentucky, a Covington newspaper denounced the August 1847 rescue as a “most atrocious piece of abolition villainy.” Michigan abolitionists’ defiance of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, the paper argued, made clear that “things have indeed come to a startling condition when such conduct is not only allowed to pass unpunished, but actually receives the sanction of public approval in the North.” [18] In particular, McIlvain’s involvement in the case highlighted what slaveholders viewed as the unreliability of Northern state and local officials. Increasingly, slaveholders believed that Northern officials like McIlvain could not be trusted to honor slaveholders’ property rights. [19]

The August 1847 raid and rescue was among several key cases during the late 1840s that led slaveholders to demand a tougher federal fugitive slave law. As part of the Compromise of 1850, enslavers would ultimately secure a new, more draconian Fugitive Slave Act, to be enforced by federal officials.

 

FURTHER READING

Alfred Mathews’s and Howard Roger’s histories of Cass County provide the most detailed accounts of the August 1847 raid and rescue. [20] Perry Sanford’s 1884 newspaper interview offers a key eyewitness account to the raid. [21]

Historian Carol Mull covers the August 1847 raid in detail in her book, The Underground Railroad in Michigan (2010). [22] David Chardavoyne has provided the most detailed account of the legal penalty cases stemming from the rescue in his article, “Michigan and the Fugitive Slave Acts” (2004). [23]

 

[1] For Perry Sanford’s recollection, see Mary G. Butler and Martin L. Ashley (eds.), “Out of Bondage,” Heritage Battle Creek, vol. 9 (Winter 1999), 78-81, [WEB]. Original interview with Perry Sanford from Sunday Morning Call, August 3, 1884.

[2] Alfred Mathews, History of Cass County, Michigan (Chicago: Waterman, Watkins, & Co., 1882), 109-115, [WEB]; Howard S. Rogers, History of Cass County, from 1825 to 1875 (Cassopolis, MI: W.H. Mansfield, 1875), 131-142, [WEB]; David G. Chardavoyne, “Michigan and the Fugitive Slave Acts,” The Court Legacy (The Historical Society for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan) vol. 12, no. 13 (November 2004), 1-11, [WEB].

[3] Quoted in Senate Rep. 143, 30^th Cong, 1^st sess., p. 2.

[4] Mathews, History of Cass County, 109-115, [WEB]; Rogers, History of Cass County, 131-142, [WEB]. According to abolitionist Levi Coffin in Cincinnati, a white Kentucky man sympathetic to the freedom seekers caught wind of slaveholders’ plans and alerted him. Coffin sent a messenger to Young’s Prairie to warn Bogue and Shugart, but he arrived too late. See Levi Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, The Reputed President of the Underground Railroad (Cincinnati, OH: Western Tract Society, 1876), 368, [WEB].

[5] Butler and Martin L. Ashley (eds.), “Out of Bondage,” 78-81, [WEB]; Mathews, History of Cass County, 109-115, [WEB]; Rogers, History of Cass County, 131-142, [WEB]; Cass County (MI) Advocate, quoted in Covington (KY) Licking Valley Register, October 15, 1847.

[6] Mathews, History of Cass County, 109-115, [WEB]; Rogers, History of Cass County, 131-142, [WEB].

[7] Butler and Martin L. Ashley (eds.), “Out of Bondage,” 78-81, [WEB].

[8] Butler and Martin L. Ashley (eds.), “Out of Bondage,” 78-81, [WEB]; Mathews, History of Cass County, 109-115, [WEB]; Rogers, History of Cass County, 131-142, [WEB]; Coffin, Reminiscences, 370, [WEB]; see Lewis Gardner/William Casey’s obituary, “Slavery Days Recalled,” Detroit (MI) Free Press, January 24, 1893.

[9] Mathews, History of Cass County, 109-115, [WEB]; Rogers, History of Cass County, 131-142, [WEB].

[10] Slaveholders reported the damage done to their wagon in Covington (KY) Licking Valley Register, September 17, 1847. On efforts to recover the wagon, see Cassopolis,” Unionville (MI) Crescent, March 5, 1937.

[11] Mathews, History of Cass County, 109-115, [WEB]; Rogers, History of Cass County, 131-142, [WEB].

[12] Mathews, History of Cass County, 109-115, [WEB]; Rogers, History of Cass County, 131-142, [WEB]; Chardavoyne, “Michigan and the Fugitive Slave Acts,” 1-11, [WEB].

[13] “Infamous!,” Covington (KY) Licking Valley Register, September 3, 1847; Covington (KY) Licking Valley Register, September 17, 1847.

[14] Carol Mull, The Underground Railroad in Michigan (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010), 113.

[15] Chardavoyne, “Michigan and the Fugitive Slave Acts,” 8, [WEB].

[16] Chardavoyne, “Michigan and the Fugitive Slave Acts,” 8-9, [WEB]. For the case files, see Thornton Timberlake v. Josiah Osborn, National Archives Identifier: 12563235; Thornton Timberlake v. Josiah Osborn, et al. National Archives Identifier: 12562895; Milton W. Graves v. Stephen Bogue, National Archives Identifier: 12561278; John L. Graves v. Stephen Bogue, National Archives Identifier: 12563250; Charles Scott v. Zachariah Shugart, Stephen Bogue, David T. Nicholson, William Jones, and Ebenezer McIlvain, National Archives Identifier: 12563189; John L. Graves v. Stephen Bogue, William Jones, and Ebenezer McIlvain, National Archives Identifier: 12562736.

[17] Chardavoyne, “Michigan and the Fugitive Slave Acts,” 9-11, [WEB].

[18] “Infamous!,” Covington (KY) Licking Valley Register, September 3, 1847.

[19] On criticisms of McIlvain, see Covington (KY) Licking Valley Register, September 17, 1847.

[20] Mathews, History of Cass County, 109-115, [WEB]; Rogers, History of Cass County, 131-142, [WEB].

[21] Butler and Martin L. Ashley (eds.), “Out of Bondage,” 78-81, [WEB].

[22] Mull, The Underground Railroad in Michigan, 111-113.

[23] Chardavoyne, “Michigan and the Fugitive Slave Acts,” 1-11, [WEB].