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Reuben and Mary Jane
- Oregon State University Press
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153 Reuben and Mary Jane Only a few details are known of the lives of Robin and Polly Holmes following the 1853 court decision that gave them back their children. But a great deal is known about their eldest daughter, Mary Jane, who was soon to meet another former slave, Reuben Shipley. When Judge Williams returned to the Holmeses the custody of their children, only Roxanna and James went to live with them in Salem. Another child, Leonidas, or Lon, was already living with his parents. But Mary Jane continued to live apart. Several accounts say Mary Jane Holmes had been given by Ford as early as 1850 to his daughter, Josephine Boyle, probably as a house servant. The 1850 census lists Mary Jane as a member of the Boyle household. Ford’s comment in a letter in 1852 that he sold one of his slaves possibly referred to Mary Jane.1 Boyle and her husband, James Boyle, a doctor, lived near the Fords on seven hundred and fifty acres north of Rickreall Creek, where they built a large colonial house with a portico above, and a porch in front, “a very fine house’’—recalled Caroline Burch. According to Burch, James Boyle began his medical practice in Indiana and was the first physician in Polk County. He saw patients over a wide area. Notwithstanding Judge Williams’ decision, Mary Jane continued living with the Boyles, “not as a slave, but a member of the household.’’2 It may well have been her decision to remain with the Boyles, as she legally was free to go. There is one known description of Mary Jane as a younger woman, and that is from Pauline Burch, who wrote approvingly that “Mary Jane through the years found time to answer calls for help when her neighbors were in need. Mary Jane as a girl and young woman was short and quite stout and very loveable. This sweetness of disposition would have made her many friends in the Philomath community.”3 Burch insisted that Ford never sold nor gave Mary Jane to his daughter, Josephine Boyle, and that Mary Jane did not live with the Boyles. She said Mary Jane would sometimes visit the Boyles and stay with them temporarily. A census taker who recorded her living there in 1850 was mistaken, Burch insisted. “Mrs. Boyle had Mary Jane stay with her during the weeks just before the court decision. . . . Robin and Polly had a very small house at that time, and there was little room for the three additional children, nor provisions for them.’’ 154 d D Breaking Chains However, the evidence shows that years after Judge Williams’ ruling, Ford was still trying to maintain his hold on Mary Jane. The 1857 Dred Scott decision may have encouraged him to think that Judge Williams’ ruling against him was no longer valid. d D We don’t know how Reuben Shipley and Mary Jane Holmes met. They lived about thirty miles apart. Shipley was fifty-seven in 1857, twice the age of Mary Jane, then twenty-eight. The little known about Mary Jane’s early life would seem to indicate she had scant leeway to venture very far from home. Shipley, then a free man and a successful Benton County farmer, evidently sought a new wife. He had learned his wife in Missouri was dead. He also had been unable to regain his sons, who remained in Missouri as slaves. Someone brought Reuben and Mary Jane together. Could it have been Dr. Boyle, whose practice extended into Benton County? Had Boyle realized that he and his wife could not keep Mary Jane and looked for an opportunity to send her elsewhere? It is certainly conceivable that Reuben Shipley, or one of his white friends, was a patient of Boyle and that Boyle learned from one of them that Shipley was looking for a wife. Whether Boyle played a role or not, Shipley found out about the black woman living single in Polk County, met her, and proposed marriage. The couple wed on July 18, 1857, at the Holmeses’ Former slave Mary Jane Holmes Shipley Drake in a photo taken about the year 1924, a few years before her death. As Mary Jane Holmes, she was a central figure in a suit brought in Polk County by her father to free her from her slave owner. She had two marriages, to Reuben Shipley and Alfred Drake, both of whom preceded her in death. (Benton County Historical Society...