Crusade Against Slavery: Edward Coles, Pioneer of Freedom

13. The Preacher

183 13 The Preacher R obert Crawford continued overseeing the Prairieland Farm and its rental for some years, remaining Edward Coles’s agent, watching over and caring for the business interests of Coles’s investment at his Pin Oak farm until at least 1843.1 Crawford appears to have flourished in freedom, and his faithfulness as an agent was well met by his reliable, if rough-hewn, personal qualities. Among those qualities was a gift for preaching. In the early decades after Edward Coles moved to Pin Oak Township in Illinois, a track of ten miles wound through the woodlands and prairie east of Edwardsville toward the little community of Marine. In some parts, the open prairie was awash with grain. Otherwise, gently rolling hills and woodlands prevailed. At one point, this Edwardsville-Marine Road flattened out, and the view opened to a wooded glen containing the Ebenezer Camp meeting ground. Ebenezer was, according to G. C. Lusk, who lived in Edwardsville until 1839, the great center of agricultural, political, social, and religious intercourse in the Pin Oak area. A log building stood there enfolded by a small stand of trees; a clearing opened up beyond and made way for a cemetery. Neighbors flocked to Ebenezer for song and preaching or to bury their own. Preachers came in, and neighbors gathered from all around to hear the Word. If the weather allowed, they would sit “under the drippings of the sanctuary” made by the spreading canopy of trees.2 Robert Crawford preached there. People in Edwardsville as well as Pin Oak came to hear the natural-born preacher. In all likelihood, the man PART TWO 184 many called “Uncle Bobby” could neither read nor write, but he knew the scripture, and he taught it powerfully and faithfully.3 Captain A. L. Brown, editor of the Edwardsville (Illinois) Democrat in 1 912, brought Crawford’s preaching to mind in a reminiscing article. Uncle Bobby Crawford would draw scores of white people from the neighboring towns to hear the Bible brought to life in his unique fashion.4 A Nurturing Presence Twenty years after becoming a free man, Robert Crawford abetted the formation of a church organization that would, in its way, ring in a new era for black influence in America. Crawford was not the central figure in this story. He was a significant, even a leading figure, a source of enduring support, and a nurturing presence. The story of Uncle Bobby Crawford is entwined with the development and expansion of reputedly the longest-lived and still-operational black Baptist organization in America. The national movement of African American Baptist Conventions owes much to the faithful efforts of men like Robert Crawford and others in western Illinois who set the church on a road of community development and social conscience. It was John Livingston and Alfred H. Richardson who provided the power and the glory; Uncle Bobby Crawford gave the Amens of support and foundation. In 1837and 1838, the Union Baptist Church of Alton, the Salem Baptist Church of Ogle Creek, and the Mt. Zion Baptist Church of Ridge Prairie were all formed in western Illinois under the leadership of Richardson, a free black man fromTennessee. Robert Crawford became a member of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church (sometimes called the Ridge Prairie Church).5 Pin Oak Township and that part of it known as Ridge Prairie had become a home place for freed black persons. The Crawfords (Robert and Kate) lived there. Michael Lee moved there sometime after 1817 and married Polly Crawford in 1822. Other free black men and women moved in (Samuel Vanderberg, Henry Daugherty, and Thomas Seton among them). In time, the community supported a milk dump at Kuhn Station, a general store, and a grain elevator. And it supported two churches, one Methodist, the other the Mt. Zion Baptist Church. Several preachers emerged among the black population. White preachers were in the Pin Oak township also. James Lemen Sr., a white Virginian, had lived in Ridge Prairie since 1802. If preaching THE PREACHER 185 were magnetic, compasses pointed to Pin Oak township. It was to Lemen that Richardson wrote in contacting the Illinois Union Baptist Association , a regional organization of white churches, asking for membership on behalf of the black churches then being ministered to by Reverend Livingston.6 Their membership was accepted in 1838. Richardson followed with a request that an association of black...