CHAPTER XI

____________

BEN

    No one who was not then an actual resident of Montgomery County can accurately describe the anti-slavery sentiment that existed about the time of the famous Dred Scott decision. Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was in every northern household and had been read and re-read by young and old. In the United States Senate, Daniel Webster was making speeches that will live for all time, while in the west, John Brown and Jim Lane were assisting negroes to escape into Iowa, where they were aided and abetted by friendly whites on their night journeys to Canada, the land of the free. Neighbors fought fist fights; brother conspired against brother. About this time, too, the Union League of America and the Knights of the Golden Circle flourished and both held meetings, secret or otherwise, in this country; the one favoring a continuance of war, the other encouraging, if not actually aiding the South. There were reports of mysterious killings attributed to these organizations and everyone was ready to misunderstand, to misquote and to give credence to any rumor that might be set in motion against anyone whom suspicion named as having had anything to do with slavery or as being friendly to its extension into new territory.

    Into the settlement at X________, there had moved a man whose ancestors, back in old Kentucky, had owned slaves ever since there had been slaves to own. He was poor, wretchedly poor, and had removed to the new state, excited by rumors of fortunes to be made here. In going, he had cut loose from his

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relatives and associates—had asked and received nothing from them. So far as they were concerned, he did not exist, except that he had said, when leaving, that he was going to Iowa and expected to locate near a village called X_______, somewhere near the Missouri River. In some indiscreet moment, the Kentuckian had divulged his birth place and told that his people had owned slaves. From that time on, he was a target for insult and ridicule. Open threats were made against him; his nearest neighbors shunned him or passed him without greeting; even the small boys called him "Nigger Wilson" and shied a clod or snow-ball when he came for his mail. He was a man of medium height and with a weak, though kindly, countenance. A scraggy red beard partly concealed a retiring chin, and his whole general appearance was one of resignation. He was as timid and inoffensive as a rabbit and one who would as soon have opened the veins of his right arm as to engage in actual physical combat with anyone.

    One red-letter day the village postmaster received a letter for Wilson bearing the post mark of a town in Kentucky. As it was an event which had not heretofore occurred in the history if [of] his office, he promptly told his wife. Upon one occasion, at a quilting bee, the postmaster's wife had offered to record a bet that Wilson "owned slaves, or had something to do with them, anyway," and this fact may have had something to do with the news leaking out. If she had read the contents of that letter, she might have seen therein, set out in a firm legal hand, the following:

Clusterville, Ky., January 12, 1860

James Wilson, Esq.
    X_____, Montgomery County, Iowa

    Dear Sir: I have to inform you of the death of your uncle, Kirk Wilson, who has left to you by will, one black

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man called "Ben." Kindly advise me what disposition you wish made of the property, Respectfully,

JOHN HEYWOOD
Clerk Probate Court, Benton County, Ky.

    You, who are secure in your homes, who at a moment's notice can call to your aid all the protection the law affords, picture in your mind a half-starved settler, without a friend on earth, sitting on a grocer's good box, and by the light of a tallow dip, slowly spelling out the words of a letter which, if published, meant, as he firmly believed—and not without good cause—death at the end of a rope.

    He knew that there was but one thing to do, and that it must be done immediately. He would tell the people of X_______ that he had never before owned a slave and that he would give this one, so suddenly thrust upon him, his liberty. But no—he now did own one, and, in any event, it was proof absolute that his relatives dealt in the trade. What if he told them he would set Ben free—what good would that do? What mob ever stopped to consider motives or read a letter? It would simply be another case of hanging first. By two o'clock in the morning, he had sufficiently recovered from the shock to be able to indite a letter, on a soap wrapper, to John Heywood, Clerk of Benton County, that Ben should be set free—which he vaguely understood to mean that the negro should be turned out much as one would liberate a horse from a barn. His plan was to exhibit the present letter, together with the one which would be received announcing Ben's freedom, to the villagers, with the result that they would, of one accord, make restitution for the unjust suspicions they had entertained against him. They would say, he argued, that it would be much harder, and therefore more commendable, for a poor man to give up a slave worth perhaps five hundred dollars, that it would be for one who had never owned a "nigger" to part with one.

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    Jim Wilson's ideas were not very definite as to the constitutional points involved, or whether it was right from a moral standpoint to own slaves. He had always referred to colored men as "niggers," a name which grated on the sensitive ear of X_______, he had always supposed, though he could give no other reason than it had always been so, that it was perfectly legitimate to own a slave, providing one had money enough to buy one. The remembrance of his having expressed these and similar sentiments in the hearing of the people of X_______, filled him with terror, and at the particular moment he was writing the clerk, a four foot prairie rattler would have been a more welcome visitor than his own thoughts. The letter, when finally completed, written in a cramped, nervous hand, read as follows:

                              X_________, Montgomery County, Iowa

     John Heywood, Clerk
       Dear Sir: Your letter received. Ben is free. Yours,
                                    JIM WILSON,

    The postmaster's wife noticed that a light burned in Wilson's window late that night and mentally recorded the fact

    The mails of the frontier were necessarily slow and often delayed by floods and storms, so it was no unusual occurrence if a reply to a letter—even if answered immediately—when coming from a distance, did not reach its destination for several months. In the meantime, Wilson was suffering from a severe attack of "high strikes." He had carefully buried under the floor of his cabin the letter from the clerk, but the feeling that he was all alone with his secret was so overwhelming, that the chances were against his keeping the matter concealed and at the same time preserving a well balanced mind. What if he talked in his sleep—a thing he knew he did, as he had often been awakened by his own cries. What if the clerk did not answer at once? What if the letter were intercepted or lost?

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Worst of all, the postmaster's wife had a habit of looking at him as if she knew.

    Time alone brings relief from all things, and one evening there was placed in Wilson's trembling fingers a letter which he instinctively knew to be from Heywood, the clerk. It informed Wilson that his simple statement that Ben was free, was not a compliance with Kentucky law, and that before said intended act could be made of effect and legal, an affidavit, etc., properly drawn and accompanied by the necessary fee must be forthcoming. He took great pleasure in referring Wilson (who had not seen a dollar since he left Kentucky) to the law firm of Good & Wise, who, he said, could probably realize something form the sale of the chattel. This was all, but it was enough for poor Wilson, and for a time his mind refused to work. Somewhere the sun was shining; somewhere the birds were singing; but it was not in or about X________. After a time it came to him just what must happen: there would be the rail, the tar and the feathers. Then, in his wavering mind, he pictured the lifeless body of a man swinging to and fro in the prairie breeze—and the man looked like Wilson.

    The postmaster's wife, true to her trust, again observed the tell-tale light, and the next morning told Mary, who worked at the hotel, that it was the second time she had seen the light, and that it always occurred after Wilson had received a letter from Kentucky. The letter that Wilson wrote that night was composed in the same spirit as one might be if written by an innocent man just before the death warrant is read. He informed Heywood that he had no money, didn't want Ben, and that he couldn't hire lawyers. He again added that "Ben was free," a statement he had repeated to himself time and time again, and one he had resolved to make when the mob came with the tar and rope. For some reason the clerk never answered this letter, or if he did, Wilson never received it, and

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it was more than eighteen months before Wilson again heard from his property.

    During the interval, the man had grown suddenly old, and walked with a decided stoop. His every action was evidence of guilt of some kind, for he would start at the slightest sound and would often stand for some moments in one place, gazing apparently at nothing. He had known Ben, and knew that he was too good a servant to run away, but still it was a satisfaction sometimes to think that he had done so. He was in this frame of mind when he received a letter from one of the county commissioners of Benton County, Kentucky:

                     Clusterville, Ky., August 3d, 1861.
James Wilson, Esq.
   X______, Montgomery Co., Iowa
  Dear Sir: I beg to inform you that "Ben," your col-
ored man servant, died on the 30th of June, and was
buried the 2d of July. There being no one to claim the
body, he was buried at the expense of the county. We
hope to hear from you soon and request that you enclose
$80.00, the expense of burial. There were some personal
effects, which will be forwarded you if you so desire.
Respectfully,
                  ROBERT BURNEY,
   Chairman County Commissioners, Benton Co., Ky.

    In sheer despair, Wilson replied to this communication. He wrote the commissioner that he had tried his best to free Ben; that he had no claim on him and that he could not pay the expense. This done, he gave himself up for lost. He was confident that the commissioners would not be satisfied until they had written some one in X________. to ascertain his financial condition. The war had been going on for some time and the hatred toward slavery had increased. Soldiers had returned to the county, some maimed for life and some in boxes, and

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Wilson was sure that the fact that he had tried to free Ben would not save him; it would be considered only in connection with the manner of his death.

    Strange to say, the commissioners were never again heard from, and Wilson kept his secret carefully hidden, divulging it only after President Lincoln's proclamation. Through some awkward course of reasoning, he seemed to think this official act applied to the dead as well as to the living.

    Several things had happened to Wilson in the meantime: He had been defeated in two lawsuits—one involving the title to his home. His barn had been burned to the ground; his dog poisoned; his sanity questioned; his health nearly ruined; and he had been completely ostracized by the society of X________ and Montgomery County—which only proves that it is much easier to free a slave in a free state than it is to free a free slave in a slave state.

*    *    *    *     *

    Editor's Note—The story of the negro, "Ben," is substantially true. Ben was owned in Montgomery County and title had been acquired as has been herein stated—by will. He was a cook, and married, and "Ben" was his real name. Wilson and other names are, of course, fictitious, as the real owner is still alive. The attempt to "free Ben" was made as described and only failed through indecision, fear and want of funds.