African-American History : of Washington County & Surrounding Area

African-American History
of Washington County & Surrounding Area

BIOGRAPHIES

Patience (? - 1829) - a bondswoman killed by her master

Greenbury Logan (1799 - ?) - a free black who lived in Potosi in 1830 and later served as a soldier in the Texas Revolution

George Micheau, Sr. (1813-1907)- given a license by Washington County to live as a free man in 1846, "George Misho" was then kidnapped and sold back into slavery.

James H. Johnson (1816-1863) and Eleanor Madden Johnson- great-grandparents of Ralph Bunche

Jean Baptiste Joseph Duclos (1838-1915) - a tale of the Underground Railroad

John Anderson Lankford (1874-1946) - America's first African-American architect

Jim Lamarque (1920- ) - a Negro league ballplayer

Taylor Family - a history of a blended family

Patience (? - 1829)

A provision of the 1820 Missouri Constitution stipulates that

Any person who shall maliciously deprive of life or dismember a slave, shall suffer punishment as would be inflicted for the like offense if it were committed on a free white person.

But as Harriet C. Frazier points out in Slavery and Crime in Missouri, 1773-1865, "This high-minded ideal was doomed at an early date" as "one acquittal after another" was decided when white male juries prosecuted crimes against persons of color. This was never more the case than with girls and women, writes Frazier, who "were doubly vicitmized as females and as blacks and mulattoes." Such is the case in the death of Patience, a young bondswoman who was killed by her master in Washington County, Missouri. A member of the coroner's jury wrote in "Notes on the Death of Patience":

I was summoned in the jury of inquest to take up the body of Patience, a black woman slave of Jacob Fisher and found her to have one bone broke in her left arm and both in her right arm and [a] cut above her right eye, apparently done with the stroke of a stick and her left ear mashed, and hinder part off and the back of her neck broke and a large bruise on her right hip, and I concluded that she was killed by her master. [William Woods, January 6, 1829, Inquest: Slave Patience, Woods-Holman Family Papers, F1, 1820-29, Missouri Historical Society.]

Jacob Fisher apparently escaped punishment for the murder of Patience. Shortly after the inquest he removed himself to the Natchez Trace in Mississippi, appointing his brother-in-law Jacob B. Eversole as attorney, giving him permission to sell "negro slaves, horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, farming utensils, household and kitchen furniture" in his absence from Washington County. Later that same year, through Eversole, Fisher sold his property (see Jacob Fisher House) (Deed Book B, p. 427, 456). What became of Fisher after this, and of those he owned, is unknown.

George Micheau, Sr. (1813-1907)

To read more about the fascinating story of George Micheau's life in, and escape from, slavery see Craig Manson's December 2006 online posting, "The 'French Negroes' of Illinois--The Micheau Family." Last year, Craig made another dramatic discovery when he ran across a court record on this website which shows that Micheau had actually been a free man as early as 1846. Craig writes about this finding in his follow-up "Trying Again Pays Off". As he says, George Micheau's complex story reveals "life in Missouri and Illinois at the lowest point in American history." The grandchildren and great grandchildren of George Micheau are pictured in the photo gallery.

James H. Johnson & Eleanor Madden Johnson

Ralph Bunche (1903-1971) was one of the most famous African-Americans of the 20^th century. He served in the U.S. State Department and in the United Nations. In 1950 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the negotiations that led to a truce in the First Arab-Israeli War (1948–49). In his recent biography of Bunche, Brian Urquhart notes that Bunche's great grandfather was James H. Johnson, a Baptist preacher and farmer from Virginia who, in the mid-1830’s, married Eleanor Madden in Missouri. According to Urquhart, Eleanor’s mother (pictured below) was a slave and her father was a plantation owner of Irish Catholic descent, who decreed that no child of his should be a slave.

While much is unknown about James H. Johnson, we do know that in 1840, James H. Johnson and his wife, Eleanor, were living in Washington County, Missouri. As one of the dozen families of free Negroes in a county where the enslaved population numbered almost one thousand, the Johnsons would have led a precarious existence. Free blacks, whose very existence threatened the institution of slavery, were viewed with suspicion and subject to the capricious interpretation of laws, with the threat at any time of re-enslavement. Perhaps it was for this reason that on June 28, 1842, James Johnson purchased two hundred acres of farm land in southern Illinois, a free state.

It is not clear whether his family immediately moved to Illinois, however, for we find that they appeared before the Washington County court to file emancipation papers on August 18, 1845. The probable reason for their filing these emancipation papers was that Illinois state law required that they produce evidence of their free status in the county where they settled. Perhaps the Johnson family had already moved to Illinois but then returned to Missouri to procure these necessary papers. On the same day, a record of indenture for Sarah P. Johnson, “a mulatto girl about 8 years” was also filed in the Washington County court. This was consistent with a Missouri law, passed ten years earlier, requiring all free Negroes and mulattoes between the ages of 7 and 21 to come before the court and be bound out as servants or apprentices.(It was, as Lorenzo Greene says in Missouri’s Black Heritage, a way “to enslave [free black children] by another name”). It appears unlikely, however, that Sarah was actually indentured, for in 1850 census for Madison County, Illinois, we find Sarah living with her parents and seven siblings on their Illinois farm, which was valued at $1,500.

When James H. Johnson died on August 22, 1863, he left a widow and ten children--Sarah, James P., Elizabeth Ann, Edwin F., Margret H., Amos Aaron, Eleanor L., Thomas N., William, and Susanna (Madison County, Illinois Probate Records). Thomas Nelson Johnson (1850-1890), who was 13 years old at the time of his father’s death, later married Lucy A. Taylor (1855-1928). Their daughter Olive Agnes Johnson (18?2 - 1917) was the mother of Ralph Johnson Bunche.

Jean Baptiste Joseph Duclos(1838 - 1915)

Joseph Duclos was born in Old Mines, Missouri on October 30, 1838. His mother, Malina Duclos (1818-1899), was a slave of Cecile (Aubuchon) and Antoine Duclos. His father, Jean Baptiste Joseph LaMarque, was a slave of Marie Louise (Bolduc) and Etienne Lamarque. Dating back as far as the mid-1700s, Joseph’s family, who spoke only French, lived most of their lives in the portion of Ste. Genevieve County that would later, in 1813, become Washington County, Missouri.

After 1862, hundreds of thousands of former slaves enlisted on the side of the Union Army. Both Joseph and his brother, Etienne Duclos, did exactly that, enlisting in August 1862 as “colored recruits” in Company A of the 32nd Regiment of the Enrolled Missouri Militia.

Here, the story of Joseph Duclos becomes intertwined with that of a white man, James Shields (born May 10, 1810 in County Tyrone, Ireland). James Shields was classically educated, spoke three languages and was the only individual to ever serve as a U.S. Senator from three different states. Shields was commissioned by Abraham Lincoln as a brigadier general of the U.S. Volunteer Army. After the Civil War, he settled in Carrolton, Missouri. According to oral histories in the African-American Duclos/DeClue family that have been passed down for more than a century, General Shields brought Joseph and two of his brothers, Xavier (Zabbie) Duclos and Etienne (Acan) Declos from Canada to Missouri. In a 1972 letter from Joseph’s daughter Cora, to her nephew, James Allen DeClue Sr. (Joseph’s great-grandson), she stated how her mother, Rena, had told her of Gen. Shields having brought her father here from Canada.

Joseph’s whereabouts at the end of the Civil War are unclear, but a descendant, David De Clue, has made a convincing case that he and his brother Etienne made their way via the Underground Railroad out of Missouri to Chicago, Detroit, and Canada. There, a chance meeting with Gen. Shields and conversations about Missouri could have led to an early bond that facilitated the brothers’ return to their home state after January 11, 1865, when the Missouri legislature officially ended slavery. A second possibility is that the meeting occurred in Illinois, but the remainder of the story remains the same: Joseph, a slave at birth, and James, an educated Irishman, ultimately became the best of friends, both settling in Carrolton County, Missouri in the late 1860s or early 1870s. In 1878 Joseph and his wife Rena celebrated the birth of their only son, James Shields DeClue; it was known that he was named after his father’s best friend, General James Shields.

Joseph DeClue died on June 21, 1915 at the age of 76. He is buried in St. Mary's Cemetery in Carrollton, Missouri.

This biographical sketch is adapted from a longer profile by David De Clue. For more information, please contact him at sitzar@gmail.com

John Anderson Lankford(1874-1946)

John Anderson Lankford has the distinction of being the first African-American architect in the United States with an established architectural office. He was also an attorney, blacksmith, real estate broker, professor, and author.

John Anderson Lankford was born on December 4, 1874, on his parents’ farm in Potosi, Missouri, one of eleven children of former slaves Philip Anderson Lankford and Nancy Ella Johnson Lankford. Mr. Lankford’s paternal grandfather was Rev. Philip Andrew Lankford (b. 1813, Caucasian) ; his paternal line can be traced back to the 1600s in France and to 1645 in Albemarle County, Virginia. Of John Anderson Lankford’s ten full siblings and three half-siblings, the lines of descent for six may never be known since some were slaves born prior to the end of the Civil War.

After attending public schools in Potosi, Lankford worked in Crystal City, Missouri, in a plate glass factory. Following this, from 1889 to 1896, he attended Lincoln Institute (now Lincoln University) in Jefferson City, Missouri. It is reported that in order to get enough money to travel from Crystal City to Jefferson City, he met a porter who took him to St. Louis and on to Jefferson City, where he took classes and worked as a janitor to earn money for his books. He also worked at the Plymouth Rock Pants Company in order to earn money for his clothes and at a steam laundry in order to get his laundry cleaned.

Lankford was invited by Booker T. Washington (via letters sent to numerous promising African-Americans of the day) to attend Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. First, between his time at Lincoln and Tuskegee, he worked in a blacksmith shop in St. Louis. To pay his board at Tuskegee, where he took chemistry and physics classes between 1896 and 1898, Lankford not only worked in the foundry and steam fitting department, but also as in amateur photographer.

Mr. Lankford received a B.S. from Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. (1898), where he later taught (1900-02). Here he met his wife, Charlotte Josephine Turner Upshaw (1876-1973), who was the granddaughter of the famous religious leader and political activist Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (1834-1915). Following his time at Shaw, Lankford received several Masters Degrees, a law degree, and, later in life, numerous honorary degrees.

Professor Lankford came to Washington, D.C. in July 1902 with a commission in hand to design and supervise the construction of a new hall for the Grand United Order of the True Reformers. True Reformers Hall was a stately, five-story brick building notable for its arched, 18-foot windows and ornamental frieze. The building was considered remarkable because it was financed, designed, and built entirely by African-Americans.

(Right): True Reformers Building, 1200 “U” Street N.W., Washington, D.C. The newly renovated 1903 structure, now a state-of-art office complex and home to the Public Welfare Foundation, contains a modern, two-story auditorium appropriately called, The John Anderson Lankford Auditorium. The building housed stores as well as the offices of physicians, lawyers, and newspaper bureaus. In addition, the building served as the headquarters for the First Separate Battalion, Washington's black national guard unit, and a dance hall where Duke Ellington played his first gig for 75 cents.

(Left): The First Presbyterian Church of Potosi, Missouri (1909), which is still in active use almost 100 years later. Lankford designed and constructed numerous churches still standing today throughout the United States and as far away as Capetown, South Africa, but it is evident that he had a great fondness for this, his first church design. In his 1916 book, Lankford said, “This edifice is an English Gothic, classical structure, solid stone; the plans were procured by us, by winning a competitive context against ten white architects whose offices were located in different sections of the United States. The committee for the church awarded us for our architectural services first prize. Cost of the church thirty-five thousand dollars; committee and entire congregation are white.” (Photo credit: Esther Carroll)

During John Anderson Lankford’s lifetime, he served on numerous professional and civic organizations. In his later years, he helped establish the School of Architecture at Howard University, and during WWII, he was the supervising architect at the Washington Naval Yard. John Anderson Lankford passed away July 2, 1946.

The preceding biographical sketch was excerpted from the work of David Marshall-Rutledge de Clue, a distant cousin of John Anderson Lankford’s. Mr. de Clue has spent over 25 years researching the African-American Lankford and DeClue lines, which include many notable figures such as architect Clinton Stevens Harris (1900-1992), television pioneer Korla Pandit (John Redd) (1921-1998), and space shuttle Columbia astronaut Michael Anderson (1959-2003). Questions and comments may be directed to Mr. de Clue at sitzar@gmail.com

PB Lankford

Jim Lamarque (1920 - )

Jim ("Lefty") Lamarque was regarded as one of the best southpaws in Negro league baseball during the 1940's (The Negro Leagues Revisited by Brent P. Kelley). Jim was born in Potosi on July 20, 1920. In an interview, he said that in Potosi, "We had a black club and a white club. The white club's pitcher hurt his arm some kind of way, so they asked me--a black boy--if I would pitch for the white club. We only played a few games a season, but I played two seasons with them and we won most of our games. The Kansas City Monarchs heard of me and they wondered why a black boy would be pitching on an all-white team, so they got in touch with me and I came to the Monarchs in 1942" (Kelley 164).

Jim Lamarque played for the Kansas City Monarchs for the next eight years. He said in an interview, "I almost quit the Monarchs my first year. I was 19 years old, homesick and tired of being the youngest player on a team of older players. Tired of being taunted as 'Dizzy's boy,' after Mr. Dizzy Dismukes, the road secretary of the team, the man who hired me. We were playing in St. Louis , just 72 miles from the tiny town where I was raised, Potosi, Missouri . So I stashed my bag under the bed and hid until the team bus was gone. Just as I was getting the bag out, Satchel Paige walked in. He was our top pitcher, and I had been living with him since I joined the team. He drove his own automobile to the games, and he told me just to throw that bag in his car and to get in and hurry up about it. So I did. And I'm awfully glad.

(Above) Kansas City Monarchs, 1946. Jim Lamarque, top row, 3rd from left.

"Satchel taught me other things too. I got to be a pretty good pitcher because of him. Except once. See, I had this pitch, a drop pitch I called it. Never seen anyone else throw it. You grab the ball between your fingers and thumb and throw it hard as you can, and it turns end over end and drops just as it crosses the plate. Nobody wanted to hit against me because of that pitch. I'd throw it on 3-2 because I knew it would work. Well, one time I was facing Josh Gibson of the Homestead Grays—the best hitter I'd ever seen. They told me he had hit 75 home runs in a season. Well, I faced him twice, and I struck him out twice with that drop thing. Next time up, I had two strikes on him, and Satchel signals to me from the dugout, waste one. So I throw one shoulder high and out, but it was too close in. Gibson took that thing over the stands, over the park, over everything. Satchel just shrugged at me. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'He does me like that too" (Sports Illustrated, July 6, 1992).