Authors: Betty DeRamus
Smith, Jessie Carney, ed.
Notable Black American Women.
Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1992.
Sterling, Dorothy.
Black Foremothers, Three Lives.
Old Westbury, N.Y.: The Feminist Press, 1979.
Still, William.
The Underground Railroad.
Reprint. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., 1970, orig. pub. as
The Underground Rail Road,
Washington, D.C.: William Still, 1871.
Thalimer, Carol and Dan.
Country Roads of Georgia.
Castine, Me.: Country Roads Press, 1995, p. 1.
Tiffany, Nina Moore. “The Escape of William and Ellen Craft.”
The New England Magazine,
Vol. 1, No. 5 (January 1890), p. 524.
Volo, James M., and Dorothy Denneen Volo.
Encyclopedia of the Antebellum South.
London and Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. On page 4 the book talks about the various
means slave women induced miscarriages, including using both the root and seed of
the cotton plant.
Young, Ida, Julius Gholson, and Nell Hargrove.
History of Macon, Georgia.
Macon, Ga.: Lyon, Marshall & Brooks, 1950. Sponsored by The Macon Woman’s Club.
Abstract of Census for Territory of Michigan, 1830, p. 42. Shows a total white population
of 21,346, total free colored of 261 and total slave of 32.
“Bethel A.M.E. Church.” Pamphlet on Bethel A.M.E. Church, another noted Detroit Underground
Railroad stop and haven for both fugitives and activists. The Colored Methodist Society
in 1839 founded what became Bethel AME Church, now the oldest African Methodist Episcopal
Church in Michigan.
“Blacks in Detroit,” a reprint of articles from the
Detroit Free Press,
December 1980. The booklet contains articles about Detroit’s premier black abolitionists
George DeBaptiste and William Lambert and calls two Detroit churches, Second Baptist
and St. Matthews Episcopal, Underground Railroad stops. On page 56, an article titled
“Politics and the Pulpit: A Tradition,” written by Harry Cook and Joyce Walker-Tyson,
says that St. Matthews raised money for antislavery crusades and that the first public
school for black youngsters was established in the basement of Second Baptist in 1842.
Casselman, Alexander Clark.
Richardson’s War of 1812.
Toronto: Historical Publishing Co., 1902. Information about John Askin.
Catlin, George.
The Story of Detroit.
Detroit: The Detroit News, 1926. Gives the address for the Steamboat Hotel.
Catterall, Helen Tunnicliff, ed.
Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro,
Vol. I,
Cases from the Courts of England, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.
New York: Octagon Books, Inc., 1968, pp. 347–48.
Created for the Ages: A History of Mariners’ Church of Detroit.
Detroit: Mariners Church of Detroit, 2001. On page 43, this book states that “As
many as 5,000 slaves passed through Detroit’s Second Baptist church on their way to
freedom.” On page 444, it states that “The evidence indicating that Mariners’ Church,
joining the ‘freedom ferment’ of the 1830s, may have played a role in the struggle
to liberate refugee slaves came to light in 1954. Moving the edifice from its original
location on Woodward, the C. A. Johnson Company, Detroit contractors, discovered a
tunnel leading from the church’s lower, or basement, level to the river’s edge. The
tunnel was spacious enough to enable a grown man to walk upright, according to company
officials who later made a verbal report to the Rev. Richard W. Ingalls, Rector beginning
in 1965. No written record of the find has appeared.”
DeRamus, Betty. “Slaves Met Tricksters, Spies on Freedom’s Trail.”
The Detroit News,
Tuesday, February 8, 2000. Contains the story of steamboat owner Sylvester Atwood’s
conversion to abolitionism.
Douglass, The Reverend William. “The Colored People of Detroit: Their Trials, Persecutions
and Escapes.” A pamphlet containing articles that appeared in the
Detroit Daily Post
January 1 and February 7, 1870.
Farmer, Silas.
The History of Detroit and Michigan, or, The Metropolis Illustrated: Chronological
Cyclopaedia of the Past and Present: Including a Full Record of Territorial Days in
Michigan and the Annals of Wayne County.
Detroit: S. Farmer & Co., 1884, pp. 345–46. An account of the Blackburn riot.
Fishbaugh, Charles Preston.
From Paddlewheels to Propellers: The Howard Ship Yards of Jeffersonville in The Story
of Steam Navigation on the Western Rivers.
Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1970, p. 4. Talks about the population
of Louisville and the steamboat industry in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
Friend, Craig Thompson, ed.
The Buzzel About Kentuck: Settling the Promised Land.
Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 1999. On pages 243–55, Karolyn
Smardz relates the tale of the Blackburns.
Gavrilovich, Peter, and Bill McGraw, eds.
The Detroit Almanac: 300 years of Life in the Motor City.
Detroit: Detroit Free Press, 2000. This is a source for information about Stevens
T. Mason.
Glazer, Sidney.
Detroit: A Study in Urban Development.
New York: Bookman Associates, Inc., 1965. Contains information about the black population
in early Detroit.
Hall, James.
Notes on the Western States.
Philadelphia: Harrison Hall, 1838.
Hine, Darlene Clark.
Hine Sight—Black Women and the Re-Construction of American History.
Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson Publishing, 1994. The book talks about the various reasons
for the formation of Detroit’s Second Baptist Church, whose original members included
many of the Blackburn rioters.
Horton, James Oliver. “Blackburns’ Road to Freedom One of Many That Touched Detroit.”
Detroit Free Press,
February 25, 2002.
Hudson, Blaine J.
Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in the Kentucky Borderland,
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002.
Interview with Norman McRae, January 2000.
Journal of the Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Detroit From the Time
of Its First Organization, September 21,
A.D
.
1824. July 19, 1833.
Journal of the Proceedings of the Common Council,
July 24, 1833.
Journal of the Proceedings of the Common Council,
July 25, 1833.
Journal of the Proceedings of the Common Council,
August 1, 1833.
“Justice at Last—The Great Detroit Riots of 1863.”
The Detroit Daily Post,
January 1, 1870.
Kane, Joseph Nathan.
Famous First Facts.
New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1964. On page 124, the book talks about the bread
riots sparked by Sylvester Graham’s advocacy of homemade wheat bread.
Kunnecke, Martina, of the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, interview
with author, Louisville, Kentucky, October 2003.
LaBrew, Arthur.
The Detroit History That Nobody Knew (or Bothered to Remember, 1800–1900).
Privately printed, Detroit 2001.
Larrie, Reginald.
Makin’ Free: African-Americans in the Northwest Territory.
Detroit: Blaine Etheridge Books, 1981, p. 20. Defines the term “boss barber.”
A Legacy of Resistance, the online version of records of the Burton Historical Collection
of the Detroit Public
Library, www.citycom.com/web/heruseye/Textfiles/
ALegacyofResistance.html. Articles on the site discuss the Blackburn riot, the Underground
Railroad in Detroit, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and John Brown’s visit to Detroit
in 1859.
Lenox, Leonard. Biography index cards, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public
Library. Lists Scipio Lenox and Caroline French as the children of Leonard Lenox from
Newton, Massachusetts. Scipio Lenox is identified as the son of Cornelius L. Lenox
(“colored”) “who bought claim 718 in Springwells, formerly the property of John Askin.”
Lightfoot, Madison J. Biography index card, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit
Public Library. Listed as having a grocery on the corner of Beaubien and Fort.
Lucas, Marion B.
A History of Blacks in Kentucky,
Vol. I,
From Slavery to Segregation, 1760–1891.
Frankfort, Ky.: The Kentucky Historical Society, 1991, pp. 9, 10.
McRae, Norman. “Blacks in Detroit, 1736–1833: The Search for Freedom and Community
and Its Implications for Education.” A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Education) at the University
of Michigan, 1982.
———. “A Chronology of the Black Experience in Detroit, 1736–1870. Unpublished. Descriptions
of fugitive slave ads in the
Detroit Gazette
in the early 1820s appear on page 7 of this paper.
———. “Thornton and Rutha: Free Blacks North and South, The Blackburn Affair.” Draft
of an unpublished paper for middle schools, pp. 1–6. Dr. McRae is former head of social
studies curriculum for the Detroit Public Schools and has written books and delivered
lectures on Detroit history.
“More Historical Errors on Underground Railroad Monument.” Press release issued on
December 7, 2001, by International Underground Railroad Monument Collaborative headed
by Sharon-Elizabeth Sexton. It notes that “Before Michigan became a state, it was
the place where fugitives headed before slavery was outlawed in Canada. Even Canadian
enslaved blacks came to Michigan for freedom.”
“Our New Voters: Past History of the Colored People of Detroit.”
Detroit Daily Post,
February 7, 1870. This contains the reference to the blind horse and to Daddy Walker,
who is referred to once as Daddy Grace.
Prince, Bryan.
I Came as a Stranger: The Underground Railroad.
New York: Tundra Books, 2004.
Quarles, Benjamin.
Black Abolitionists.
Orig. pub. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.
Riendeau, Roger, and the staff of the Ontario Ministry of Censorship and Culture.
An Enduring Heritage: Black Contributions to Early Ontario.
Toronto: Dundurn Press Limited, 1984.
Ripley, C. Peter, ed.
The Black Abolitionist Papers,
Vol. II,
Canada, 1830–1865.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.
Robinson, Wilhelmena S.
International Library of Negro Life and History, Historical Negro Biographies.
New York: Publishers Co., Inc., under the auspices of the Association for the Study
of Negro Life and History, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970.
Ruchames, Louis.
The Abolitionists: A Collection of Their Writings.
New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1963, pp. 179–84. Talks about Charles Lenox Remond’s
campaign against segregated trains.
Runaway slave advertisement for “Thornton.”
Louisville Public Defender,
July 7, 1831.
Runyon, Randolph Paul.
Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad.
Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1996. Describes Calvin Fairbank’s arrest
in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
“St. John’s–St. Luke Evangelical Church of the United Church of Christ.” Pamphlet
from St. John’s–St. Luke Evangelical Church of the United Church of Christ in Detroit
about the original German-speaking church’s habit of hiding runaway slaves in caskets
or having one walk behind the casket in a phony funeral procession. Once the procession
reached the Detroit River, the slave would leap into a waiting boat and sail to free
Canada.
Second Baptist Advocate,
Vol. 6, No. 1, 1957, indicates that the abolitionist church’s support for the freedom
struggle continued in the twentieth century. A February 18, 1957, letter from Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. to Dr. A. A. Banks Jr., then pastor of the church, noted that
the church had contributed more money to the Montgomery Improvement Association than
any other American church. Second Baptist 151st anniversary booklet, June 11, 1987,
details the story of the church’s founding by former members of First Baptist of Detroit.
Second Baptist Advocate,
Vol. 4, No. 1 (anniversary ed.), April 1955.
Smardz, Karolyn E.
The Story of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn.
Privately printed, 1991.
Stocking, William.
The Detroit Post,
May 15, 1870. An interview with George DeBaptiste that recounts his early history
in Virginia and his subsequent activities as an Underground Railroad agent in Cincinnati,
Ohio; Madison, Indiana; and Detroit.