Adam Daniels
12/2/14
American
Literature
“Reminiscences of the busy life of Chauncey
C. Olin” is an amazing recollection of Wisconsin’s surprising
start, and the development of the country-shattering Anti-slavery movement in
Wisconsin, through the eyes of someone that lived it. It takes you from New
York and the movement to the Midwest states to Wisconsin where they were just
getting started. The growth of a small village called Prairie which developed
into Waukesha and became the headquarters of the Anti-slavery movement in
Milwaukee is also illustrated by Olin. Throughout this semester, we have read
and talked about countless slaves and the problems we have faced in our history
with it. When I was looking for something to write about for this project I was
looking for something that would go along with what we read. When I stumbled
upon his hand written notes of the accounts of Joshua Glover and Anti-slavery
movement, I was amazed at how much we, as a state, had contributed and what he
had done to help personally. This is a book I believe every Wisconsin
Literature teacher should teach because Chauncey C. Olin lets you see through
his eyes from 1836 on to the late 1800’s in his exciting life and the
development of the state of Wisconsin and even United States as a whole.
The reason this story is so influential
is because it gives you a first person perspective of Wisconsin shortly after
they started migrating into the state before it was officially even a part of
the Union. Olin moved over from Canton,
New York, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1836 with his brother and family. As he describes his journey, it’s amazing to
see him talk about our great cities as they are just small towns. Cleveland is
described in the first pages, “Cleveland were also small towns, but such timber
as we found around Cleveland was a sight not easily to be forgotten. We
remember distinctly those three-foot poplar trees sixty to seventy feet without
a limb,”(1) Just to think about the city it is now as this forestland covered
all of it before it was as it is today. Cleveland wasn’t the only developing
metropolis during this time.
Chicago
was not yet the Midwest power it is today. In this passage he is describing
Chicago as he is coming in, “Most of the buildings were on stilts, and it was
almost impossible to get through any of the streets with teams without carrying
a rail on our backs to pry them out of the mud, for the streets were generally
on a level with the water in the river,”(2). Finally, he talks about our home
city of Milwaukee and even takes a job helping level the area of Milwaukee from
the hilly area that nature had formed it to be. He describes the change of Milwaukee as he
worked on leveling hills so that more buildings and houses could be built. Mr.
Olin describes his experience, “ Every day we could see a change, and in a few
months the transformation of hills and valleys was wonderful. Then came
buildings to be filled with goods, families, and manufactories. Thus the
improvement went on, and speculation, in a very short time, became very
exciting,”(4). Before reading his account of work in Milwaukee, I had no idea
that they had been leveling hills to make the city of Milwaukee larger or that
the buildings in Chicago were built on stilts because of the flooding
river.
There are a lot of things going on
in Milwaukee besides buildings and land being built and changed during the
development and some of it was economic. Money is something so common and so
powerful today that the world runs on it. I have grown up in a world where
money seems to be everything, and this isn’t necessarily a new concept. The
world has always had its objects (cattle, gold, men, land, and so on) that
would ether make a person or break them. In the 1800’s is where the rise of
money as we know it started to make headway but it wasn’t quite there yet. They
had many ups and downs trying to figure out a system for money, and there were
so many different kinds at the time that every state had their own currency.
Olin talks about the struggle that people had with money and quotes a saying
they had back then, “We shall wake up some morning and find the bills of this
corporation worthless,”(9). It was an interesting process America went through
before we got to the currency that we have today. Banks were printing their own
money and, depending on where you went, would determine it’s viability. The one common currency through out the
states was coins, but they weren’t always worth as much as depending on the
states. Olin talks about it saying, “They had several hard runs on their bank,
but they were always ready and willing to redeem their bills in coin when it
was asked for. I remember at one time there was quite as formidable mob
gathered in front of their bank in Milwaukee, because they could not get their
money changed quite as fast as they wished,”(9). Milwaukee’s bank run by Mr.
Mitchell actually ended up being one of the best banks in the west. Having a personal account of money
fluctuations and problems of the 1800’s is educational on the way money has
transformed over the years.
Olin was a man of many talents and
held many interesting jobs in his lifetime. After working in Milwaukee, helping
out in construction, Mr. Olin moved to Prairie Village and worked as a teacher.
Education during that time period was more of a privilege than a
responsibility. Prairie Village had a Log School-House that was more a
community building than a school as he describes, “It was used for every
purpose possible, such as for schools, meeting of all kinds, debating clubs,
political meetings, religious meetings of all denominations, public meetings of
every kind; in fact there was no other place for meetings,”(7). There was
limited resources back then in a small town like that so it was hard to find
places to gather. There were many other problems besides having to share their
building with other people. Mr. Olin puts it best, “At the time there were
about twenty-five children in the town. This was in 1839-40-41. All of us
teachers labored under difficulties for want of books, for schoolbooks were
very scarce at that time. Some of them having no books during the whole winter.
Some brought old almanacs. All the books one family had was “Pilgrims Progress”
and it came to the school as a text book,”(8). While they had many different adversities
during this time, they made it work.
While the history of Wisconsin has
many elements in it that I found interesting in this book, there is none I
found more interesting and inspiring than the Anti-slavery movement in Wisconsin.
When assigned to this project I had decided because of the common theme in our
readings was slavery. I wanted to find something on slavery in Wisconsin. Then
I stumbled onto an amazing story about Joshua Glover and the anti-slavery
movement in Wisconsin. When I looked deeper into it, I found Chauncey C. Olin’s
hand written account about it. After acquiring it I realized how hard it was to
read his handwriting. I lucked out when I found a book he published in 1893
that had this account and more that was written before and after. He gave a
first hand account of the movement and was even a big part of the movement.
Olin
co-owned a paper called “Freeman” in 1846; he had made it an anti-slavery
paper. He recollects it, “Although the paper eked out a precarious existence,
occasionally levying upon its friends for the support that was absolutely
necessary to keep its head above water, it never wavered from its strong
anti-slavery principles, urging their adoption with a vigor, faithfulness and
ability that made its influence felt wherever it was perused,”(21). Through out
his years with the paper it had changed hands and went in and out of debt
multiple times, but they always had a strong backing from the anti-slave
movement and helped push things along in the movement.
While
I was originally interested in Mr. Olin because of his tale of Joshua Glover
but there was much more to be told than one story. The first one he talks about
is a girl named Caroline. It was through her that Wisconsin’s Underground
Railroad from Waukesha to Canada was made and helped countless others to be
made. Caroline was a slave from
Kentucky, when she was able to escape she took a ferry up the Mississippi. She
was fair skinned being a child of two mixed slaves and was able to blend in
with most of the other people by dressing up to look apart of the crowd. She
made it to Milwaukee with the help of one of the conductors who helped her
escape after figuring out her situation. After making it to Milwaukee she
stopped a colored man named Titball who she confided in and was able to stay
with him. When Titball was confronted about Caroline and her where abouts, he
sold her out. Luckily, a boy that worked for Titball and overheard the
conversation saved her. After two men named Finch and Lynde heard about her
situation they sought her out and helped hide her. The Slave Hunters then went
out to find her checking houses all over Milwaukee and eventually making their
way to Waukesha, which was known for its Anti-slavery sentiment. While this was
going on they, helped her make it to Samuel Brown who helped her the rest of the
way all the way to Canada where she was then free. Samuel Brown continued to
help runaway slaves creating the official track of the Underground Railroad and
helped many find their freedom. Caroline was the first one to band together
ant-slavers to help her escape and started a trend that changed the lives of
many.
The story of Joshua Glover is a tale
of heroism and strength of the Anti-slaver movement of the likes I had never
heard before that took place in 1854. Joshua Glover was a slave from St. Louis
that had escaped and made his way to Racine. His master and a US Marshal,
appointed to Milwaukee, captured Joshua in Racine without the proper means.
They had no warrant or authority to arrest him in Racine. Joshua tried fighting
them when they captured him and he was beaten severely. After being brought to
Milwaukee a man named Sherman Booth road down to Milwaukee gathering a crowd of
Anti-slavers riding through the streets saying,” Ho, to the rescue! Ho, to the
rescue! Ho, to the rescue!” to get the people excited and together. The people
were infuriated with the brutal and unfair punishment the owner and Marshall
had given the slave. After the group had
marched down there to get him out and be rightfully trailed they met together
to decide the next course of action. The Racine sheriff in the meantime got a
warrant for the arrest of the Marshall and Slave owner for the unlawful beating
of Glover. When they refused to comply the Sheriff and their men left. Mr.
Booth had been meeting with people and eventually with the backing of many of
the followers and knowing that there were many more riled up and ready to help
in Milwaukee. They set off to go to Milwaukee and get Glover out. They what
happened next is best told through the words of Mr. Olin.
“Mr. Booth made this announcement publicly,
when the crowd made a rush for the jail. On arriving there, a demand was made
for the keys fo the jail of the under-sheriff of the jail, S. S. Conover. But
the request was denied, whereupon, about twenty strong and resolute men seized
a large timber some eight or ten inches square and twenty feet long and went
for the jail door; bumb, bumb, bumb, and down came the jail door and our came
Glover….. Glover was well kept in hand by his rescuers from the jail to
Wisconsin street, about one thousand people following in the wake,” (56-57).
The
fact that so many people came out to rescue one slave is amazing. The people
refused to let him go and when a man named John A. Messenger found out about
what was going on. He had the crowd put Glover in his buggie where he raced him
out of the town being chased down by the Marshall and his posse. Mr. Messenger
and Mr. Glover made it to Waukesha, escaping the Marshall, and was taken to Mr.
Olin. Mr. Olin took him back to Racine to and from there the people of Racine
brought him to Canada. Mr. Booth, who had helped Mr. Glover, was burned to
death publicly by a mob that favored slavery. This is a story I think everyone
from Wisconsin should be told. It’s a heartening story from Wisconsin that helped
the movement of Anti-slavery in Wisconsin.
When
I think about the stories I read in Chauncery C. Olin’s book, “Reminiscences of
the Busy Life of Chauncey C. Olin” its inspiring and educational for me. It
doesn’t just show me some of the history and hardships of Wisconsin but it also
showed me the great and many thing the people of Wisconsin did for our country.
There are many things that this story taught me like the history of money in
Wisconsin, hardships of teaching, the development of cities, and the
Anti-slavery movements made in my home state, and I believe that every
Literature class should teach his book to give an appreciation of where we have
come from.
Work Cited
Olin,
Chauncey C., b. 1817. Reminiscences of the busy life of Chauncey C. Olin"
pp. i-lxxv in: A Complete Record of the John Olin Family ... (Indianapolis:
Baker-Randolph Co., 1893). Online facsimile at http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=1557
"The
Fugitive Slave Case at Racine and Milwaukee." Wisconsin Pinery (Stevens
Point, Wis.), April 13, 1854. Online facsimile at http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=1561
Olin,
C.C. (p 82-5062)
Early
Anti-Slavery Excitement in Wisconsin 1842-1860,
Relating
history of two fugitive slaves, Caroline Watkins and Joshua Glover
Micro
300
from:
Library
State
Historical Society of Wisconsin
No comments:
Post a Comment