A publication of Lindenwood University Press Fall 2019/Winter 2020 vol. 11, no. 1 ®® pg. 1 Fall 2019/Winter 2020 A publication of Lindenwood University Press vol. 11, no. 1 EDITORIAL BOARD STAFF CONTENTS Mark Abbott, harris stowe state university editor, Jeffrey E. Smith, PhD Steve Belko, missouri humanities council art director, Michael B. Thede pg. 24 Lorri Glover, saint louis university archivist, Paul Huffman pg. Andrew Hurley, university of missouri-st. louis 2 Meredith Marsh, lindenwood university SUBSCRIPTIONS Robert J. Moore, Jr., gateway arch national park Kristine Runberg Smith, lindenwood university ISSN 2150-2633 The Confluence is a nonprofit semi-annual publication of Lindenwood University, St. Charles, Missouri. Andrew Theising, southern illinois university edwardsville All rights reserved. and Lindenwood University Kenneth Winn The Confluence pg. 12 are not responsible for statements of fact or opinion expressed in signed contributions. Requests to reprint any part of ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Confluence should be sent to Editor, The Confluence, c/0 Lindenwood University, 209 South Kingshighway, St. Charles, An undertaking like The Confluence doesn’t happen without Missouri 63301, or via email to [email protected]. the help of many people, both within Lindenwood University © Lindenwood University 2019 and beyond. We owe particular thanks to Provost Marilyn Abbott and the Board of Trustees at Lindenwood for supporting Manuscripts. Any manuscripts should be sent to Editor, this venture. We’d like to take this opportunity to extend our The Confluence, c/o Lindenwood University, 209 S. gratitude to the following people, institutions, and companies Kingshighway, St. Charles, Missouri 63301, or via e-mail for their contributions to this issue of The Confluence; to [email protected]. Print submissions should be In this issue: we could not have done it without you. double-spaced, but will not be returned. For submission guidelines, citation format, and other particulars, consult 2 12 24 Jaime Bourassa http://www.lindenwood.edu/confluence. “Hang Him Decently “To Preserve the “Whose Blood has Flowed Cristal Campocasso and in Order”: Historic Lore for Which and Mingled with Ours”: Chris Duggan Have you moved? Let us know if you have or will Order, Politics, and St. Louis is Famous”: The Politics of Slavery in Nancy Durbin be changing your address so you don’t miss an issue the 1853 Lynching of The St. Louis Historic Illinois and Missouri in Maria Escadlona of The Confluence. Hiram, a Slave Markers Program the Early Republic The Write Fox, LLC, Tim Fox, Principal Subscription Rates. One year, $20. and the Construction Paul Huffman of Community Illinois State Historical Library Visit us on the web at: Historical Memory Library of Congress http://www.lindenwood.edu/confluence. by zachary dowdle by bryan jack by lawrence celani Missouri History Museum ISBN 978-0-9600179-1-1 New York Public Library Lynching became a visible Starting in the 1930s, the The ideas of Illinois and State Historical Society of Missouri tool for slaveowners City of St. Louis began Missouri as divided over COVER IMAGE to deal with community marking historic sites with slavery mask the fluid regulatory issues, as a collection of signs for nature of support for or Originally McDowell’s Medical College, this became the Zachary Dowdle suggests sites to draw attention opposition to slavery in Gratiot Street Prison for Confederates in 1861. For more, in this article. to community memory. the two states, as Lawrence see “‘To Preserve the Historic Lore for Which St. Louis In this article, Bryan Jack Celani explains in this is Famous’: The St. Louis Historic Markers Program and the investigates these article, the winner of the Construction of Community Historical Memory” by signs and their meaning Morrow Prize presented by in downtown St. Louis. the Missouri Conference Bryan Jack, starting on page 12. on History. (Image: Missouri Historical Society) The Confluence is a regional studies journal published by Lindenwood University, dedicated to the diversity of ideas and disciplines of a liberal arts university. It is committed to the intersection of history, art and architecture, design, science, social science, and public policy. Its articles are diverse by design. fall ’19/winter ’20 pg. 2 pg. 3 As the sun set on a wooded pasture in southern Boone County, “Hang Him bringing the seriously injuring her. The John Ellis and Walter C. promise of reprieve child, witnessing her mother Maupin to determine who in pain and unsure about might have committed from the oppressive her aunt’s fate, ran toward the attempted rape. Many August heat, the nearest home for help. concerned citizens arrived at Decently Meanwhile, Hubbard, being Edward Young’s land, since 15-year-old Young claimed as property by “very stout and pluck to Nancy Hubbard the backbone successfully several black men. Following zachary traveled home resisted his assaults” with a physical examination of and in dowdle with her sister the assistance of her parasol.1 Young’s enslaved people, Amanda soon returned to the group determined that Mary Jacobs and the scene with a nearby the likely perpetrator was Amanda, Jacobs’ resident, Joseph Armstrong. a man named Hiram. The young daughter. The assailant managed investigators returned to the Order”: Order, to escape just before justices with Hiram to conduct The three had attended the Armstrong’s arrival. their impromptu trial. funeral service of Harrison Hubbard, quite shaken from Upon hearing the evidence Politics, and Jacobs and hoped to make the traumatic experience, and testimony of several it home before the waning “preserved her person from witnesses, Ellis and Maupin light disappeared. Arriving at tarnish, receiving no injury determined that there was a fence, Hubbard dismounted except on the face, throat insufficient evidence to the 1853 2 her horse to remove the bars. and eyes” from the attack. hold Hiram and let the man Jacobs and the young girl return to Young’s property. passed through the barrier While any attack of With the justices preventing Lynching this sort on a young white and waited while Hubbard further action, the collection guided her horse through woman would cause of citizens dispersed, at the gate and replaced the considerable disruption in least momentarily. of Hiram, bars. From a nearby thicket, an agrarian community, the a man, completely nude fact that Hubbard identified except for some leaves stuck her nude assailant as an a Slave in his hair, allegedly seized enslaved man intensified the teenager and dragged the anxiety. As night settled her into the woods. The on the region on August commotion startled Jacobs’ 12, 1853, a large number of horse, which threw her off, black men were taken before an informal hearing held by Justices of the Peace fall ’19/winter ’20 pg. 4 pg. 5 Based on a “proper affidavit made by a brother of the young lady,” Justice Thomas Porter of Columbia issued a warrant for Hiram’s arrest. As Diane Miller Sommerville manner. By creating the seeming Thomas Porter of Columbia points out in her book, Rape and paradox of an orderly mob, the issued a warrant for Hiram’s Race in the Nineteenth-Century citizens of Boone County arrest. The sheriff, warrant in South, despite the outrage such enacted a compromise solution hand, proceeded to Edward a case would have inspired in that appealed to the sensibilities Young’s property south of a slaveholding community in of Democrats and Whigs—the Columbia to retrieve the suspect the days before the Civil War, former favoring popular justice that same night. Arriving at Southerners tended to allow legal and majoritarian rule with the Young’s farm late in the evening, processes to unfold. Antebellum latter appealing to law, order, and the sheriff was unable to locate lynchings of enslaved people due process—to reinforce the Hiram. Young assured the sheriff were not entirely unheard of, but racial order.6 that he would retrieve the man they were far rarer than those and deliver him to Columbia. that occurred during the late- Concerned about the well-being nineteenth and early twentieth of his investment, Young appealed centuries.3 Since the owners of to the sheriff to ensure Hiram enslaved people had a financial would have a fair trial. Young stake in the prosecution of their delivered on his promise, bringing “property,” an element of class- Hiram to the Columbia jail before based conflict sometimes arose the sun rose Wednesday morning.7 when an enslaved person stood accused of a crime. Slave owners, With the prisoner secure in in an attempt to retain the value the county jail, court officials set of their human investment, would his trial to take place just four hire attorneys to defend the days later on Saturday, August 20. accused, while non-slaveholding In the meantime, Young visited whites opted at times to the office of a Columbia lawyer 4 named James S. Rollins and circumvent formal proceedings. John Ellis lived at a farm As the sectional crisis heated southeast of Columbia, secured his services for the defense Missouri, and was Justice of the of the enslaved man. Rollins was up over the course of the 1850s, Peace from 1844 to 1878. He anxieties in slave societies, was a fairly prominent citizen a 40-year-old attorney who had, in Boone County, including like many others in the region, particularly those situated on as one of the first curators of the border of slave territory, the University of Missouri. been born and educated in the (Image: Historical Atlas