African Americans in Worthington Before the Civil War
Much has been written about the underground railroad in Ohio and Worthington area participants such as Ansel Mattoon and Ozem Gardner. Little has been known, however, about free blacks who lived and worked in Worthington long before the Civil War. Evidence suggests that African Americans were part of the Worthington community almost from its very beginning.
A record kept by Amos Maxfield for making bricks for the Worthington Academy shows work Tuesday, November 10, 1807 by "Black Daniel." Sharon Township's first blacks were very likely manual laborers who rarely appeared in the town records.
They probably came north from Chillicothe where Worthington merchants traded regularly. A number of the Virginians who settled in the Chillicothe area brought former slaves with them, and that community had a significant Negro population from its earliest days.
The New Englanders who settled Worthington were opposed to slavery in principle, and there is evidence that free blacks felt secure in the community. An 1821 advertisement by Louisville, Kentucky plantation owner Robert Turner offered $500 reward for a runaway Negro named Isham who "was taken a few days since, near this place [Worthington] and was set at liberty - he is supposed to be still in the neighborhood or gone towards Lower Sandusky and Canada & is well known to some in the vicinity."
This was an astronomical reward for a runaway slave. Columbus newspapers frequently carried advertisements for runaways, typically describing each person and offering $10 or $20 reward. "EDMOND is about five feet eight inches high, very heavily built, and very black, and is inclined to lisp in his speech; very talkative when spoken to, and pleasing countenance: sometimes pretends to preach; and is about 35 years old."
A $500 reward in the depressed economy of 1821 might have bought a hundred acre farm with buildings, and Ohio law made anyone who harbored a fugitive slave subject to a $100 fine. The fact that Isham's story was well known locally, but there is no record of his recapture, reflects the cohesiveness of the Worthington community in opposing slavery.
This does not mean that free blacks in the Worthington area were considered equal to their white neighbors. Ohio's first constitution gave blacks no political rights. They could not vote, serve in the militia, or on juries. The law required them to post $500 bond before making settlement, and prohibited anyone from employing a black without a certificate of freedom.
These latter conditions tended to be more loosely enforced in small communities with few blacks who were known and accepted, than in urban areas such as Cincinnati with a large and sometimes transient Negro population.
In the 1830 U.S. Census, the earliest which survives for Franklin County, there were approximately 300 "colored" persons in the county, including two families and several individuals in Sharon Township. One of these, the Benjamin Lee household, was still here in 1850 when each person was enumerated. Benjamin and Nancy Lee, both born in Virginia, had six children at home. In 1850, Worthington had three "black" and two "mulatto" families, all giving Virginia as their place of birth.
There is little evidence to show how these families interacted with the community. We do know that in August 1830 and September 1831 two infant children of Ben Lee died and were buried in the southeast corner of St. John's Episcopal Church burying ground, which at that time served the entire community. One child was recorded as Dr. Ray's patient, indicating that this black family had access to the services of a white physician.
Three of the blacks and mulattos in the 1850 census were laborers, with one a farmer, one a barber, and one a house joiner. Dr. Peter Goble's and dentist Arius Kilbourne's families had mulatto girls, Permelia Carter and Betsy Jenny, living in their households as domestic servants.
The first black family to own a home in the village of Worthington was Henry and Dolly Turk in 1856. They paid $250 for lots 112 and 97, now the northeast corner of Evening and New England, which their deed described as "being the premises on which the said Henry Turk now resides."
Worthington had no bank to provide a mortgage loan, but the purchase was made possible by personal loans to Henry Turk from Charles and Lucy Wiley, Nathan and Sarah Mason, Celia Wiley, and Elias Lewis.
When Dolly Turk died in 1881 she was eulogized as a former slave whose freedom had been purchased by her husband in 1838, before they came to Worthington.
Dolly Turk signed her name with an "X" when they transferred their home to their daughter, Jane Amanda, in 1864. She may not have had the opportunity to learn to read and write, but she had known freedom and owned property in Worthington.
SOURCES:
Amos Maxfield's work record for the Worthington Academy, 11 December 1807 is in the Griswold Papers, 1800-1810, photocopy at the Worthington Historical Society.
Turner's advertisement for Isham appeared in the Franklin Chronicle, 11 June 1821. This appears to be the incident which Wilbur H. Siebert, "Beginnings of the Underground Railroad in Ohio," Ohio Archaeological & Historical Quarterly, Vol. 56 (1947) pp. 71-72, attributes James Kilbourne with confronting a slave owner and allowing a local citizen to cut his black fugitive free. Siebert dates this incident in 1812, apparently incorrectly, since this dramatic incident does not appear in the 1812 Western Intelligencer, which was printed in Worthington and carried a wide variety of local news.
Joseph Harrison's advertisement offering $10 each for four Negro runaways including EDMOND appeared in the Ohio State Journal, 27 October 1832. A summary of the legal status of Negroes under Ohio's first constitution and "Black Laws" is in Frank U. Quillin, The Color Line in Ohio, reprint edition (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) pp. 21- 22.
Blacks are recorded in the U. S. Census for Franklin County, Sharon Township, Ohio: 1830, pp 162-163; 1840 p. 168; 1850 pp. 17-34. The Benjamin Lee infant burials were recorded in G. H. Griswold's sexton record, St. John's Episcopal Church, 1825-1843.
Deeds from Elias Lewis and the Wiley's to Henry Turk are recorded in Franklin County Deed Record 59, pp. 543-544. Henry and Dolly Turk's deed to Jane Amanda Turk is in Vol. 95, p. 429. Dolly Turk's death notice was quoted from the 11 June 1881 Independent Observer in the 15 September 1938 Worthington News.
This article is one of a series of 31 articles originally published in the Worthington News and then in the book "Probing Worthington's Heritage" copyright by Robert and Jennie McCormick. The 1990 book is out of print, but copies are available at the libraries of the Worthington Historical Society and the Old Worthington Library. Much of this content was later included in the book "New Englanders on the Ohio Frontier" which can be purchased at our Gift Shop.
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