Best Friends

Things are not always as they appear. Let us not judge actions in history against today’s standards,..

Freedom

Shrouded in myth and mystery, like a secret organization, there are few records to document the stories of the “conductors” and the “stations” known as the Underground Railroad.

The 13th Amendment

Congress passed the 13th Amendment on January 31, 1865. It read “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”.

Muhammad Ali’s Ancestor was once in St. Louis Slave Pen

Originally posted on Archer alexander:
In March of 1863, a fugitive slave named Archer Alexander, perhaps the last fugitive slave in St. Louis, had fled a lynch mob in Saint Charles County after exposing his owner’s sabotage of the local railroad bridge. Local Confederates had sawn the timbers, and were waiting for the next train…

History – We All Have It

I recently completed extensive research on the 150 historic properties that line St. Charles Main Street, the most famous Main Street of Missouri.

Missouri’s Emancipation Day

Originally posted on Missouri Germans Consortium:
AN ORDINANCE ABOLISHING SLAVERY IN MISSOURI Be it ordained by People of the State of Missouri, in Convention assembled That hereafter, in this State, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; and all persons held…

The Emancipation Monument

Originally posted on Archer alexander:
“I warmly congratulate you upon the highly interesting object which has caused you to assemble in such numbers and spirit as you have today. This occasion is in some respects remarkable…Wise and thoughtful men of our race, who shall come after us…will make a note of this occasion, they will…

The first Thanksgiving

That first Thanksgiving celebration was not in Plymouth, Massachusetts. While the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags did indeed share a harvest feast in fall 1621, and early colonial leaders did declare days of thanksgiving when we were supposed to give our thanks for continued life. Today we celebrate Thanksgiving because of the crisis that we call the Civil War. Lincoln had declared a Proclamation appointing the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and Prayer on October 3, 1863.

A Veterans Salute

According to family legend this Revolutionary War Veteran heard the first reading of the Declaration of Independence.

Elijah Lovejoy

The mob scaled the building and was about to set fire to the warehouse when Lovejoy was shot five times and killed while defending his press and his right to publish his thoughts on the abolition of slavery. The mob overran the warehouse and threw his press into the Mississippi River.