Black Detroit
Page 33
16.General Friend Palmer, Early Days in Detroit (Hunt & June; repr. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1979), 105.
17.Michigan Historical Society Journal 9: 395; and https://archive.org/details/michiganhistoric09michuoft.
18.Thomas Meehan, “Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, the First Chicagoan,” Journal of Illinois State Historical Society 56 (Autumn 1963), 451.
19.Burton, op. cit., 227.
20.Harley Lawrence Gibb, “Slaves in Old Detroit,” Michigan History 18 (1934), 145.
21.Ibid., 146.
22.William Renwick Riddell, “The Negro Slave in Detroit When Detroit Was Canadian,” Michigan History 18 (1934), 48–50. Mr. Kenny was responding to a letter from McKee that was listed as an auction item at Swann Galleries in New York on March 21–26, 2015 for $800–$1,200. Here’s how McKee, writing to his brother James from Fort Detroit, expressed his exasperation about his runaway slave: “I sit down hastily to inform you that Bill [Kenny], Hannah’s son, ran away to General Wayne’s camp while I was lately in Lower Canada. I have since heard that he intends to go to see his mother in Pittsburg[h]. I beg therefore if you can find him that you will take him & send him to be sold, if you can get a good price for him at some considerable distance from Pittsburg[h] or this country. Be perfectly on your guard & do not trust to one word of what he may say. He was left in charge of my house here on my going to Quebec & took the opportunity of my absence to go off with many things belonging to me.” A note in the brochure adds: “As both Upper Canada and Pennsylvania had passed gradual abolition acts, the handling of the sale was a delicate matter, so brother James would not have been able to make the sale in Pittsburgh. Slavery documents from the Western Frontier are scarce, and McKee’s involvement adds to the interest.” See Swann Galleries catalog, Mar. 21, 2015, p. 15.
23.McRae, op. cit., 82.
24.Tiya Miles, “Slavery in Early Detroit,” Michigan History, May–June 2013, 33–35.
25.Martelle, op. cit., 15.
26.See www.daahp.wayne.edu/biographiesDisplay.php?id=97.
27.Gail Buckley, American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm (New York: Random House, 2001), 47; and Bernard C. Nalty, Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military (New York: Free Press, 1986), 21.
28.Ferris E. Lewis, Michigan Yesterday and Today (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale Educational Publishers, 1980), 231.
29.David M. Katzman, Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in the Nineteenth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973), 6.
30.Ibid., 7.
Chapter 2: The Blackburn Affair
1. Karolyn Smardz Frost, I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007), 159.
2. Ibid., 160.
3. George B. Catlin, The Story of Detroit (Detroit: Detroit News, 1923), 321.
4. Ibid., 167.
5. Detroit Journal and Advertiser, July 19, 1833; and Frost, 167.
6. Frost, op. cit., 168.
7. Betty DeRamus, Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad (New York: Atria Books, 2005), 66. This may not be exactly correct, according to an interview with Frost, since Willoughby was freed in Kentucky on August 1, 1817, but one of his daughters was born in Ohio in 1824 (recorded in the 1850 census in reference to Julia Willoughby Lambert, wife of William Lambert and the younger daughter of Benjamin and Devorah Willoughby). It was shortly after Julia’s 1824 birth in Ohio that the Willoughby family moved to Detroit.
8. Ibid., 67.
9. DeRamus, op. cit., 68.
10.Peter Gavrilovich and Bill McGraw, eds., The Detroit Almanac: 300 Years of Life in the Motor City (Detroit: Detroit Free Press, 2001), 515.
11.Norman McRae, “The Thornton Blackburn Affair,” in Detroit Perspectives: Crossroads and Turning Points, ed. Wilma Wood Hendrickson (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), 96.
12.DeRamus, op. cit., 73. Later it was reported that Lewis or Louis Austin, who had bravely assisted in Thornton’s escape, was shot and died two years later from his wound. See Frost, 179.
13.Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan, 2d ed, vol. 12 (Lansing, 1908), 592.
14.Frost, op. cit., 189.
15.See www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/books/review/Reynolds-t.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0. “Upper Canada (now Ontario) had just passed the Fugitive Offenders Act to allow for the extradition of criminals to the US, but they had to have committed a felony, or capital crime such as murder, horse theft or rape in order to qualify,” Frost advised me in an e-mail. “This was the first test case of the new law, and just running away from slavery did not qualify, since slavery was just about to be abolished in the British Empire, but inciting a riot and trying to kill the Sheriff did, which is why the Blackburns were accused of the two crimes by Mayor Chapin.”
16.Frost, op. cit., 149.
17.Frost, e-mail, June 16, 2015.
18.See http://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit.
19.Silas Farmer, The History of Detroit and Michigan (Silas Farmer & Co., 1889), p. 345.
20.Robert E. Roberts, Sketches and Reminiscences of the City of the Straits and Its Vicinity (Detroit, 1884), 111.
Chapter 3: Black Abolitionists
1. David M. Katzman, Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in the Nineteenth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973), 13; and W. B. Hargrove, “The Story of Maria Louise Moore and Fannie M. Richards,” Journal of Negro History 1 (Jan. 1916), 23–33.
2. Katzman, op. cit., 13.
3. Silas Farmer, The History of Detroit and Michigan (Silas Farmer & Co., 1889), 346.
4. Cara L. Shelly, “Bradby’s Baptists: Second Baptist Church in Detroit, 1910–1946,” Michigan Historical Review, 17, no. 1 (Spring 1991), 3. The departure may have been precipitated also by the desire of a church location closer to the Underground Railroad station.
5. Charles L. Blockson, The Underground Railroad: First Person Narratives of Escapes to Freedom in the North (New York: Prentice Hall, 1987), 197.
6. Ibid., 198. The elaborate rituals of the Order were spelled out by Lambert. In the first chapter, there are three degrees: Captives, Redeemed, and Chosen; another one was listed as Confidence, and all were used on the Underground Railroad. When a conductor or passenger gave the word “cross,” the correct reply was “over.” Another sign included the placing of the right forefinger over the left forefinger.
7. Henry Bibb, Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself, ed. Litwack, Leon, and Meier, intro. Lucius C. Matlack (New York, 1859; Black Leaders of the Nineteenth Century, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 195–96. A rare copy of the narrative is at the Swann Galleries in New York City for auction, priced at $2,000–$3,000. It includes ten pages of testimonials preceding chapter 1, and features a copper-engraved frontispiece portrait by Patrick Reason, eleven full-page engravings, and seven half-page head-and tail-pieces.
8. Ibid., 90.
9. Katzman, op. cit., 13.
10.Wilma Hendrickson, ed., Detroit Perspectives: Crossroads and Turning Points (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), 179.
11.Frank Angelo, On Guard: A History of the Detroit Free Press (Detroit: Detroit Free Press, 1981), 58.
12.Ibid., 72
13.See http://ugrr.mmaps.magian.com/media/Pdf/William_Lambert_People_UGRR_Final_1.pdf.
14.Farmer, op. cit., 347.
15.David S. Reynolds, John Brown: Abolitionist (New York: Knopf, 2005), 299.
16.Ferris E. Lewis, Michigan: Yesterday and Today (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale Educational Publishers, 1980), 249.
Chapter 4: Faulkner and Flames
1. Tobin T. Buhk, True Crime in the Civil War: Cases of Murder, Treason, Counterfeiting. Massacre, Plunder, and Abuse (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2012), 75–76.
2. Ibid., 78.
3. Ibid., 79.
4. A Thrilling Narrative from the Lips of the Suf
ferers of the Late Detroit Riot, March 6, 1863, with the Hair Breadth Escapes of Men, Women and Children, and Destruction of Colored Men’s Property, Not Less Than $15,000 (Detroit, 1863).
5. Ibid., 1.
6. Ibid., 2.
7. Buhk, op. cit., 85–86; and Melvin G. Holli, Detroit: New Viewpoints (New York: Franklin Watts, 1976), 86. Faulkner, according to Arthur M. Woodford, was found innocent of the charges “when the two girls confessed that they had perjured themselves.” See Arthur M. Woodford, This is Detroit: 1701–2001 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001), 71.
8. Ferris E. Lewis, Michigan Yesterday and Today (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale Educational Publishers, 1980), 250.
9. Ibid.
10.Ibid.
11.James M. McPherson, The Negro’s Civil War (New York: Ballantine, 1991), 201.
12.Peter Gavrilovich and Bill McGraw, eds., The Detroit Almanac: 300 Years of Life in the Motor City (Detroit: Detroit Free Press, 2001), 41.
Chapter 5: Early Years of the Black Church
1. Norman McRae, The History of Second Baptist Church, 1836–1986 (Second Baptist Church of Detroit, 1986), 55.
2. Betty DeRamus, Freedom by Any Means: Con Games, Voodoo Schemes, True Love and Lawsuits on the Underground Railroad (New York: Atria Books, 2010), 130.
3. McRae, op. cit., 55.
4. Ibid., 60.
5. “Chronology and Outlines of the Episcopal Church,” Papers of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Michigan, Michigan Historical Collection; Katzman, op. cit., 43; and www.pluralism.org/profiles/view/71797.
6. David M. Katzman, Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in the Nineteenth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), 21.
7. McRae, op. cit., 61.
8. Nathaniel Leach, The Sesquicentennial Chronological History of Second Baptist Church, 1836–1986, 41.
9. Cara L. Shelly, “Bradby’s Baptists: Second Baptist Church in Detroit, 1910–1946,” Michigan Historical Review 17, no. 1 (Spring 1991), 4.
10.Robert A. Rockaway, The Jews of Detroit: From the Beginning, 1762–1914 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986), 40.
11.Ibid., 26, 34.
12.Ibid., 40.
13.John B. Reid, “A Career to Build, a People to Serve, a Purpose to Accomplish: Race, Class, Gender, and Detroit’s First Black Women Teachers, 1865–1916,” Michigan Historical Review 18, no. 1 (Spring 1992), 11. Although Richards is the primary teacher in the essay, others include Delia Pelham Barriers, Meta E. Pelham, E. Azalia Smith Hackley, Theresa Smith, Etta Edna Lee, Lola Gregory, Sarah Webb, Clara Shewcraft, and Florence Frances Cole, whose father, James Cole, was considered the wealthiest black man in Detroit.
14.McRae, op. cit., 80.
15.Detroit Plaindealer, May 2, 1890, p. 1.
Chapter 6: Black Arts in the Gilded Age
1. Wilma Hendrickson, Detroit Perspectives: Crossroads and Turning Points (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), 194.
2. “Theodore Finney,” in Fred Hart Williams and Hoyt Fuller, “Detroit Heritage,” typewritten manuscript in Fred Hart Williams Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library; also cited in Herb Boyd and Leni Sinclair, Detroit Jazz Who’s Who (Detroit: Detroit Jazz Institute, 1984), 78.
3. Peter Gavrilovich and Bill McGraw, eds., The Detroit Almanac: 300 Years of Life in the Motor City (Detroit: Detroit Free Press, 2001), 105.
4. David Katzman, Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in the Nineteenth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973), 171.
5. “John W. Johnson,” Fred Hart Williams Papers.
6. Samuel R. Charters, Jazz: New Orleans 1885–1963 (New York: Oak Publications, 1963), 2.
7. Rachel Kranz, The Biographical Dictionary of Black Americans (New York: Facts on File, 1992), 98.
8. “Harry Guy,” Fred Hart Williams Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.
9. W. C. Handy, Father of the Blues (New York: Macmillan, 1941), 64.
10.Herb Boyd and Lars Bjorn, interviews with the musicians for the Jazz Research Institute in 1978. Trafton was in his seventies when he returned to school at Wayne State University to complete his degree and was a student in two of my classes.
11.Fred Hart Williams and Hoyt Fuller, “Theodore Finney Papers,” Detroit Heritage, typewritten manuscript in Fred Hart Williams Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.
12.Robert Hayden, American Journal 1913–1980 (New York: Liveright, 1978).
13.Albert McCarthy, Big Band Jazz (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Pub. Corp., 1974), 22.
14.See www.daahp.wayne.edu/biographiesDisplay.php?id=21.
15.Gene Fernett, Swingout! Great Negro Dance Bands (Midland, MI: Pendell Pub. Co., 1970), 25. John Chilton, Who’s Who of Jazz: Storyville to Swing Street (Chilton Book Publishing Co., 1978), offers some different facts about Cook’s life. For example, he contends that Cook obtained a doctorate from the Chicago College of Music.
16.Fernett, op. cit., 27.
17.Detroit Tribune, Feb. 11, 1939, www.ipl.org/div/detjazz/Stompin.html.
18.Francis H. Warren, compiler, and John M. Green, ed., Michigan Manual of Freedmen’s Progress (Detroit: John M. Green, 1915), 69.
19.Ibid., 3.
20.Ibid., 92.
21.See www.blackpast.org/aah/hackley-emma-azalia-1867–1922.
22.M. Marguerite Davenport, Azalia: The Life of Madame E. Azalia Hackley (Boston: Chapman & Grimes, 1949), 157.
23.See https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/keiler-anderson.html; and Allan Keiler, Marian Anderson: A Singer’s Journey (New York: Scribner, 2002).
24.Lisa Pertillar Brevard, A Biography of E. Azalia Smith Hackley, 1867–1922, African American Singer and Social Activist (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), 122.
25.Detroit Plaindealer, Jan. 9, 1891, p. 4.
26.Katzman, op. cit., 160; M. A. Majors, Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities (Chicago: Donohue & Henneberry, 1893), 335; and Mrs. N. F. Mossell, The Work of the Afro-American Woman (Philadelphia: Ferguson, 1908), 15. Mrs. (Gertrude) Mossell was married to Dr. Nathan Francis Mossell, the first black graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and was the sister of Maria Louisa Bustill, who was married to William Drew Roberson, the father of Paul Robeson. A fairly detailed history of the genealogy of the Bustill, Mossell, Robeson, and Tanner families (Dr. Mossell’s brother, Aaron, married Mary Louise Tanner, the aunt of Henry Ossawa Tanner, the great painter) is in Martin Duberman’s Paul Robeson (New York: Knopf, 1988), 5, 8. And Lambert’s connection with the AME Church Review put her under the guidance of Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner, the founder and first editor of the publication from 1884–88. See William Seraile, Fire in His Heart: Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner and the AME Church (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988), preface, i. Bishop Tanner was Mary’s brother and Henry’s father. And though Lambert didn’t make it into the inaugural edition of the Review in 1884, D. A. Straker did.
27.Jessie Carney Smith, ed., Notable Black American Women (Detroit: Gale Research, 1992), 230.
28.Detroit Plaindealer, Apr. 14, 1893, p. 5. Either she had returned from Omaha, or her job in charge of the Mission-Monitor, published in Nebraska, didn’t require her to be out there. She was given that assignment in January, according to the Plaindealer, and Dunbar’s recital was in April. Dr. James Ames, running for the state legislature, benefited from Pingree’s campaign and was the last black elected to the lower house until 1920.
29.Detroit Plaindealer, May 12, 1893, p. 5.
30.Alma Forrest Parks, “Survey of Detroit,” Negro Digest, Nov. 1962, p. 88.
31.Warren, op. cit., 65.
32.Randall Kenan, ed., James Baldwin: The Cross of Redemption, Uncollected Writings (New York: Pantheon, 2010), 126.
Chapter 7: The Pelhams and the Black Elite
1. Detroit Plaindealer, Apr. 11, 1890, p. 8.
2. Francis H. Warren, compiler, and John M. Green, ed. Michigan Manual of Freedmen’s Progress (Detr
oit, 1915), 91. It’s in Warren’s manual that Pelham is said to be the second son and the fifth child.
3. Cleveland Gazette, Saturday, Feb. 16, 1895, 2.
4. Ibid., 3.
5. Warren, op. cit., 92.
6. See www.blackpast.org/aah/national-afro-american-league-1887 –1893.
7. Ibid. Other sources include: Benjamin R. Justesen, Broken Brotherhood: The Rise and Fall of the National Afro-American Council (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 2008); Nina Mjagkij, Organizing Black America: An Encyclopedia of African American Associations (New York: Garland, 2001); and Jack Saltzman, Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History: The Black Experience in the Americas (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006.) See also David Levering Lewis’s W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1919): Biography of a Race (New York: Holt, 1993), 230. Lewis contends that the Council, which attempted to pick up the struggle where the League left off, did very little and was basically ineffective before it faded completely. Moreover, he disparaged Fortune as an alcoholic. But this didn’t seem to bother Booker T. Washington, who kept him among the executives at the National Negro Business League, and Fortune was a loyal, unwavering supporter of Washington’s policies, all of which were widely publicized via his paper, the New York Age.
8. Warren, op. cit., 91.
9. Peter Gavrilovich and Bill McGraw, eds., Detroit Almanac: 300 Years of Life in the Motor City (Detroit: Detroit Free Press, 2001), 107.
10.Louis R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 15.