Slave Escapes in Boone-Duden Country
by Bob Brail
Very few books can be described as having changed history. Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, may be one of them. Published in the early 1850's, Stowe's story helped shape the attitude of many Americans toward slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. One of the best known parts of the novel is the slave Eliza's escape to freedom, including her dangerous crossing of the frozen Ohio River.
Of course, the fictitious Eliza was based on real slaves who had, and would, attempt to escape to freedom. In fact, St. Charles County experienced slave escapes, and several of these took place in Boone-Duden country. One of these slaves, Archer Alexander, is well-known and shares a sculpture with Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D. C. His escape is discussed in the article that follows this one. Little is known about the other escapees, however, as was typical with most fugitive slaves. Even the outcomes of their escape attempts are unknown.
Missouri's laws governing escaped slaves underwent several changes in the decades before the Civil War. In 1825 the state's laws were modified to be more stringent. The new laws allowed anyone to capture a fugitive slave and bring the slave to the justice of the peace. A slave was determined to be a runaway if he was more than twenty miles from his owner's home or the slave's place of employment. If the slave met this criterion, he was jailed and his capture was advertised for a month. If his owner did not claim him, the slave was sold to cover the cost of his confinement in the jail.
About twenty years later, in the 1840's, the Missouri laws were amended to include a system of rewards for a runaway slave. If a runaway at least twenty years old were captured beyond Missouri's borders, the captor would be given a reward of one hundred dollars. If the slave were less than twenty, the reward was fifty dollars. A fugitive slave taken within Missouri was worth twenty-five dollars to his captor, regardless of age. Finally, runaways taken within their home counties, or in adjacent counties, were worth a reward of five to ten dollars. Another change was that the slave's capture now had to be advertised for three months, not one. If the captured runaway was still unclaimed after three months, he was sold at public auction. Missouri legislators stipulated that a portion of the auction's proceeds be given to the state university.
The fugitive slave situation was further complicated in 1850 with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, “which allowed heavy fines to be levied on anyone who interfered with a slaveowner in the process of recapturing fugitive slaves and forced law-enforcement officials to aid in the recapture of runaways.” However, because there was so much sentiment against slavery in the North, enforcement of the 1850 law was difficult; in fact, “the actual operations of the federal system on fugitive recaptures and [return] was notably sporadic.” Slave states like Missouri tended to rely on their own statutes regarding runaways rather then the Fugitive Slave Act.
As the Civil War progressed and the Union army moved deeper into slave states, it became easier for slaves to escape by crossing the Union lines. This was true in Missouri, where its slaveholders “became increasingly motivated to arrest the erosion of slavery in the state.” Slave patrols were formed to monitor the movement of slaves, but as the war progressed and the number of fugitive slaves increased, the slave patrols became ineffective.
The following seven advertisements for fugitive slaves from the Boone-Duden area are representative of the tens of thousands of slaves who attempted to escape their bondage; estimates range from 40,000 to 100,000. Around eighty percent of the runaways were men, and about three quarters were under the age of thirty-five. The typical runaway was in his twenties. The great majority of the fugitive slaves were recaptured. All advertisements are from St. Louis Missouri Republican, except the one for Catharine Pitts' Ann, which is a poster.
The escape of slave Thomas Jefferson occurred August 28, 1853, in Hancock Bottom, southwest of Augusta. His owner was Adolf H. Kunzel, who with his wife Anna were German-born farmers living near Marthasville in Charrette Township. Kunzel had owned two slaves in the 1850 slave census and both were described as “black.” This means that Thomas Jefferson, with his “yellow complexion,” was purchasd by Kunzel sometime after the slave census. Adolf Kunzel died in 1858. Anna still owned two slaves in the 1860 slave census and both are described as “black,” which means that Thomas Jefferson was no longer owned by Anna Kunzel. The outcome of the escape is not known.
On Saturday, May 6, 1854, a second slave escaped from the farm of Adolf Kunzel. This slave was named Jefferson. It is impossible not to note the similarities between these two slaves named Jefferson who escaped from Kunzel. Both are about forty years old. Both are mulatto, although one is described as “yellow” and the other as “dark.” Both are larger than average, one described as weighing 175 pounds, and the other as “heavy” (the average Civil War soldier weighed less than 150 pounds). They wore identical hats. The most significant difference is heighth, which differs somewhere between two and five inches. If this is the same individual, it means that Thomas Jefferson was captured, returned to Kunzel, and escaped again less than a year later. The outcome of the escape is not known.
The escape of Isaac from the farm of Matthew A. Clay of Femme Osage Township occurred on May 6, 1854, the same date as Jefferson's escape from Adolf Kunzel. Since Augusta is only a few miles from Marthasville, it is not unlikely that Isaac and Jefferson escaped together, but there is no way to prove this. Clay had owned six slaves in 1850, and one of them was a twenty-one year old male, the same age of Isaac in 1850. Clay owned Isaac by 1853, for there is a St. Charles County Circuit Court record dated 1853 listing Matthew A. Clay, and Isaac in a slave partition. No one knows if he was successful in his escape attempt. Clay's estate still owned three slaves in 1860, none of whom were the right age to be Isaac (Clay had died earlier that year).
Sometime between the 1850 slave census and 1854, Virginia-born Catharine Pitts of Dardenne Township purchased the slave Ann (Pitts had owned five slaves in 1850, but Ann's birth year is not close to any of theirs). This escape took place on August 2, 1854, from the city of St. Charles, where apparently Pitts had “rented” Ann to “A. King,” probably Virginia-born lawyer Andrew King. Pitts offered the legal reward. The outcome of Ann's escape attempt is not known.
Fortunatus Castlio, who eventually founded the town of Mechanicsville/Howell after the Civil War, went to California with two of his brothers in 1849 to prospect for gold. He apparently returned with a quantity of money, because he immediately began buying land upon his return. He purchased his first slave in 1852 and three more the following year. The escape of his slave Jack took place on November 12, 1858. The outcome of the escape is unknown. Castlio owned eight slaves in 1860; one of the males falls within the broad age range the advertisement gives.
Ann, who was twenty-five years old, escaped from Kentucky-born Daniel Hays (Daniel Boone's grandson) of Femme Osage Township, on February 17, 1862. Hays had owned four slaves in 1860, and one of them was a twenty-four year old female, who may have been Ann. Unlike the other advertisers, Hays states that whoever catches Ann “will be liberally paid for their trouble.” The outcome of the escape is not known.
The Daniel Hays home is now part of Matson Hill Park on Stub Road, just off Highway F. The house, built in the 1830's, may have been the slave Ann's place of work as a house slave. This farm most likely was the starting point of her attempted escape.
An 1861 St. Charles County Circuit Court record lists Hutchison and “Peter, slave” in same file. Peter Lewis's escape from his Hamburg-based owner took place on October 14, 1863. The outcome of this escape is unknown, although Peter's last name provides a clue. The 1870 census lists several blacks named Peter Lewis, but if the Peter named in this ad was born in Missouri, he may have been one of two men listed in the 1870 census: either a farm laborer from St. Louis County or a day laborer from Henry County, Iowa.
As is so often true of our understanding of the past, it can be difficult to imagine how the area in which we live was ever part of those momentous events we now consider “historical.” Perhaps it would be good to remind ourselves as we drive along Highway 94 from Weldon Spring to Marthasville that many of the fields we pass were at one time worked by slaves, and that several of those enslaved people made desparate attempts to gain their freedom.
Sources: “Archer Alexander” (encyclopediaofvirginia.org); Federal Population Censuses; Federal Slave Censuses; “Fugitive Slave” (britannica.com); “Fugitive Slave Laws” (housedivided.dickinson.edu); Missouri Judicial Records Historical Database (s1.sos.mo.gov); “Missouri's Early Slave Laws: A History in Documents” (sos.mo.gov); Pitts runaway slave advertisement (Missouri History Museum); Runaway Slaves in the United States” (encyclopedia.com); Slave Stampedes on the Southern Borderlands (stampedes.dickinson.edu); “Slavery on the Western Border: Missouri's Slave System and Its Collapse during the Civil War”by Dianne Burke (civilwaronthewesternborder.org).