Busy in the Cause: Iowa, the Free-State Struggle in the West, and the Prelude to the Civil War

9. North and Back: Captors and Liberators

9 North and Back Captors and Liberators I The slavery conflicts in Kansas gradually quieted down but not completely for the flow of fugitive slaves from the Kansas Territory to Iowa continued up to the Civil War. The first publicized event of early 1860 came in mid-winter. Four young black men appeared on Friday, February 3, in Tabor, Iowa. These “finely built big men” in their early twenties had left the Choctaws in the Indian Territory of southern Kansas, where some Indian tribes enslaved blacks. Blacks also were fleeing Cherokee slavery.1 The names of three of these runaways are known: John Martin and brothers William Thompson and John Thompson.2 By early evening, townsmen had made ready a twohorse covered wagon, and two Tabor men, Edward T. Sheldon and Newton Woodford, drove their four passengers northeast over snow-covered ground toward Lewis, Iowa. About sixteen miles out they approached Mud Creek, a tributary to the West Nishnabotna River. They stopped at a spring near the road to feed and water the team. Here two young men from the Mud Creek settlement of nearly all Democrats spotted them. Sensing the strangers to be rescuing blacks, the two hurried over to the nearby farm of the local justice of the peace John Cramer. Cramer issued the two a warrant, and they sped back to make an arrest, catching up to the wagon party a few miles North and Back . . 177 northeast of the river crossing. Brandishing weapons, the two men took the wagon group into custody with little resistance.3 The captors accompanied the wagon back to Justice Cramer’s place, where the two Tabor drivers, Sheldon and Woodford, were held overnight. Cramer, without evidence that the black men were runaways and unsure of what to do, held the two drivers for a hearing at his place while directing the local men to take the four wagon passengers to the jail in Glenwood, the county seat several miles west. Once there, however, the catchers learned that the sheriff was away on business until later that night. When some of their friends in town began talking up the idea of taking the captives to Missouri, the two catchers had cold feet, fearing this situation was becoming far more complicated than they had expected.4 So Joe Foster, one of the fellows urging a Missouri run, took the reins to convert the jail idea into a kidnapping scheme. The two original slave catchers abandoned their involvement after helping Foster escort the black men back to where they had captured them. After initially putting their captives in a barn outside town, they soon moved them to Joe Foster’s place on Silver Creek, about three miles from Justice of the Peace Cramer’s quarters . Meanwhile, Foster recruited five other men to help make the dash for Missouri.5 A local man got wind of the scheme and informed a local Congregationalist farmer near Glenwood. The farmer brought word to Tabor about the waylaid covered wagon group and of the black men’s jailing in Glenwood. George Gaston quickly brought together several antislavery neighbors at his house to figure out what to do. About midnight, responding to a knock at his door, Mills County sheriff E. B. Samson opened it to find a party of Tabor men asking if he had the black men in his jail. Being unaware of the unfolding events, Sampson replied there were none to his knowledge, but he went to the jail, where the jailor also reported 178 . . North and Back that he knew nothing about them. Upon hearing this news, the Tabor party now suspected that the reported captors were in fact kidnappers transporting the four black men to Missouri, so they rode off in that direction.6 When their search proved fruitless, the pursuers returned to Tabor and waited. On Saturday a man arrived in town who reported that a trial concerning the two Tabor whites caught driving the black men through the area was under way at Justice Cramer’s house. The man had urged Cramer to postpone the proceedings for a day, and the justice granted his request. So on Sunday at 1:15 p.m. Tabor men attended the court, and two of the men acted as counsel for the defendants. Through the afternoon and into the evening Justice Cramer listened to arguments. While the hearing was in progress, two young Tabor...