Green (Book) Means Go

 By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

 

For Black motorists in the mid-20^th century, hitting the road could be a dangerous proposition. Travelers frequently had their cars vandalized and could find themselves attacked by whites or arrested arbitrarily by the police. Throughout the Jim Crow south, Blacks were frequently denied service at hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and other public accommodations. It happened in the north too. Since 1873, New York has had laws against discrimination in public accommodations, but that didn’t stop some New York hotel and restaurant owners from refusing to serve Black customers.

Enter The Negro Motorists Green Book. Created by Victor Hugo Green, a Black postal worker from New York City, the book provided Black motorists with a list of places across the nation where they knew they would be given service. The lists included hotels, tourist homes, restaurants, night clubs, gas/service stations, beauty salons, and barber shops. An updated version was published yearly from 1936 to 1966. Travelers were encouraged to write in the names, addresses, and kind of business of friendly places they knew about to keep the lists fresh.

The Negro Motorists Green Book not only helped to protect Black motorists in their travels, it helped to promote Black businesses. Black women benefited especially considering that most tourist homes and beauty salons were women-owned. Getting listed was free, but businesses could pay to have their listing displayed in bold or with a star to denote that they were “recommended.” Esso Standard Oil Company, as a major sponsor of the Green Book, became the gas station of choice for Black motorists. A number of Black Essos station owners were featured in the various articles included in each book. Other articles profiled popular black tourist destinations like Idlewild, Michigan; Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts; and Belmar, New Jersey.

While each addition of The Negro Motorists Green Book devoted pages to accommodations in New York City, accommodations for Black motorists upstate were few and far between. Mrs. J.A. Wilson’s tourist home (bed and breakfast) at 307 East Clinton Street in Elmira was first listed in 1940.  Like many of the businesses listed in the Green Book, Mrs. Wilson’s tourist home was a Black-owned business. Almaria M. Wilson began operating her home as a boarding house in 1925 to supplement her husband John’s income. She continued to operate it until 1942. Outside of her work, Wilson was an active member of the Douglass Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church and the Topaz Reading Circle.

Green Book, 1940. Courtesy of New York Public Library

Later editions of the Green Book featured the Elmira landmark Greet Pastures, located at 670 Dickinson Street. The book listed it as a tourist home, but it was so much more. Opened in 1932 by Beatrice Johnson, her husband Richard, and her brother Edward Hodges, Green Pastures was a restaurant, bar, and night club which happened to offer lodgings, especially to the traveling musicians who played there. Green Pastures was a happening place. As the only Black-owned night club in the Twin Tiers, it was considered an important stop of the Chitlin' Circuit and hosted jazz and blues bands from all over the country. Green Pasture’s kitchen was known for its soul food, especially their fried chicken, ribs, biscuits, and collard greens. In 1972, the original building was demolished and the club moved to a new location at 723 Madison Avenue. It closed in 2011. 

Green Book, 1955. Courtesy of the New York Public Library

 

By the 1960s, the once popular Green Book was becoming obsolete. Even before the passage of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, the work of activists was lessoning the impact of racial discrimination in public accommodation. The rise of the interstate system in the late 1950s was driving back-road Black-owned hotels out of business. By 1963, the editors of the Green Book were struggling to justify its existence. The final edition was issued in 1966 under the new name Travelers' Green Book: 1966–67 International Edition: For Vacation Without Aggravation. No longer focused on Black travelers, the last edition featured a white woman on the cover. Green Pastures of Elmira was still listed though.

 

Green Book, 1966. Courtesy of the New York Public Library

Fly the Friendly Skies? The First African American Stewardess

 By Susan Zehnder, Education Director

Do you remember Mohawk Airlines? The “Route of the Air Chiefs” airline carried passengers all around New York State. 

It was one of the first feeder airlines to take advantage of the 1944 Civil Aeronautics Board’s (CAB) push to increase access to regions previously not served. A decade later, Mohawk Airlines increased another kind of access, by hiring the nation’s first woman of color as a stewardess.

Mohawk airlines was the renamed Robinson Airlines operating out of Ithaca, NY. Inventor Cecil S. Robinson started it as a side business to his aerial surveying company, though it wasn’t always profitable. The CAB push meant the government was willing to subsidize new routes, and Robinson sold operations to Robert Peach, one of his pilots and a Cornell University law student. Peach had learned to fly as a pilot during World War II. By 1948, Mohawk Airlines was certified as a regional carrier and flying routes throughout the region, including in and out of Elmira/Corning. In less than a decade, the company outgrew their Ithaca facilities and moved their headquarters to Utica. The growth in aviation encouraged competition among the airlines, and they actively looked for innovative approaches to appeal to passengers. Social norms were changing. In 1956, the carrier publicly expressed an interest in hiring flight attendants of color, and one year later, Mohawk hired twenty-five-year-old Ruth Carol Taylor.

 

Taylor had lived in upstate New York, graduated from college, and was a practicing nurse. She was born in Massachusetts, the eldest of two daughters of Ruth Irene Powell, a registered nurse, and William Edison Taylor, a barber. The family lived in New York City for a short while, then moved to Trumansburg, so that her father could run a farm. She attended Trumansburg Central High School, and then enrolled at Elmira College.

In 1951, her father died and her mother moved back to New York City. Taylor then transferred to Bellevue School of Nursing in NYC. She graduated and practiced nursing for three years before applying to be a flight attendant. At that time, airlines hired nurses to reassure the flying public, so that was a good fit. However, no airline had hired anyone of color. Taylor, interested in flying, applied to Trans World Airlines (TWA) and was interviewed three times, but was not selected. Determined, she filed a complaint with the New York State Commission on Discrimination. About that same time, Peach, perhaps realizing that things needed to change, instructed his company to look for good candidates. Almost 800 women of color applied and were interviewed to be a Mohawk hostess. The company only hired one, Ruth Carol Taylor. Her first flight was February 11, 1958, and generated so much publicity that TWA quickly hired Margaret Grant and declared her as their first African American flight attendant.

Six months after her first flight, Taylor hit another discriminatory wall and was let go for violating the rule that all stewardesses must be single. She had married her fiancé, Rex Legall. The couple moved to the British West Indies and then to London. They divorced and Taylor moved to Barbados. In Barbados she created the country’s first professional nursing journal. In 1977, she returned to NYC bringing her son and daughter with her.

Ruth Carol Taylor was an activist all her life, fighting for racial equality. She participated in the Civil Rights Movement, co-founded the Institute for InterRacial Harmony, and after her son was mugged, wrote The Little Black Book: Black Male Survival in America or Staying Alive and Well in an Institutionally Racist Society.

 

Being the first of anything isn’t always easy, but seeing Taylor in her uniform certainly encouraged other young women to consider the profession. When interviewed for an article in JET magazine, Taylor shared that she “…didn’t take the job because she thought being a flight attendant would be so great...I knew better than to think it was all that glamourous. But it irked me that people were not allowing people of color to apply…Anything like that sets my teeth to grinding.”

 

An activist to the end, Taylor was 92 when she died in May 2023.

 

Ace Photographer

By Rachel Dworkin, archivist

 Over the years, I must have seen the logo of Ace Photo Studio on the back of a hundred photos in our collection, but I didn’t know much about the studio or George “Ace” Horsey, the man who owned it. Then two of his nieces came in looking to see what we had on their family. In the end, they wound up educating me! They kindly shared their family’s story with me so I, in turn, could share it with you.

 

 

George “Ace” Horsey Jr. (1926-1990) was born in Salisbury, Maryland one of the seven children of Danie and George Horsey Sr. He was always interested in photography. While serving in the United States Army Air Corps in World War II, he got an opportunity to take a training course on the subject. In 1950, Horsey, his wife Mary, and their young family moved to Elmira so he could take a job at the General Electric (G.E.) Foundry as the plant photographer. He took pictures for advertising purposes and the G.E. News, the company newspaper. In 1956, he was elected sergeant-at-arms in the plant’s Electrical Workers Union and served on the labor contract negotiation team at one point. 

 

From G.E. News, January 15, 1954

Outside of work, Horsey was a member of the Douglas A.M.E. Zion Church where he frequently took pictures of members and events. Quite a number of his photographs ended up in the local newspaper throughout the 1950s. In 1956, he began volunteering at the Neighborhood House where he served as the instructor for the Camera Club. He took kids on photo shoots to area parks, taught them how to develop film, and served as judge during their annual photography show. He eventually became involved on the Neighborhood House board of trustees, serving as treasurer for a time.

 

Douglas A.M.E. Zion Church choir, ca. 1960s

Horsey and his family prospered in Elmira. He and Mary had four children: Mary, Barbara, Vanessa, and George III. He encouraged his aging parents and siblings to join him here. Most did. Many of their children still live in the area today. 

 

Danie & George Horsey Sr. with children George Jr., Epluribus, Louise, Richard & Geneva, ca. 1950s

 

Horsey children Mary, George III, Barbara & Vanessa, ca. 1950s

Horsey children Mary, George III, Barbara & Vanessa, ca.1980

In 1958, Horsey opened Ace Photo Studio, Elmira's first Black-owned photography studio. It was originally located at 665 Lake Street, although the studio had a number of homes over the years. Horsey specialized in portraits, weddings, and commercial photographs. He was very interested in historic photography and also offered a service where he would make new copies of customers’ old family photos. Horsey retired and closed his studio in 1984. He died on May 29, 1990, leaving behind his family and a wealth of images documenting over 40 years of Elmira’s history.

Ace Photo Studio, ca. 1970s

 

The negatives from Ace Photo Studio are held by his family. One of his nieces generously allowed me to scan some for this blog. The truth is, there are so many fascinating people and stories in Chemung County and we here at the Historical Society barely know a tenth of them. It is only through the efforts and generosity of the community that we are able to learn about and share them. Thank you, Horsey family, for sharing your story. Thank you to the next person who shares theirs too.

Hired Girls and Domestic Servants

By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

In 1847, Miriam Whitcher, wife of the Reverand Benjamin Whitcher of Elmira’s Trinity Episcopal Church, was struggling to find a hired girl. She wanted one who could make bread, wash, and iron and was good natured, but knew her place. In May, she hired Martha and soon became depended on her, but by September she was fed up with how overly familiar Martha was. She fired her and tried to do without for a while, before breaking down and hiring fourteen-year-old Ellen, the daughter of poor Irish immigrants who “had no ideas of equality and does not seem to think of coming to the table with us.” She couldn’t do the work, however, and was soon replaced by Jane, a twenty-five-year-old Black woman, who could both do the work and know her place. Jane worked for the Whitchers for nearly a year. (See this blog post for more on Whitcher)

The Whitcher situation was not unique. During the mid-19^th century, the entire concept of domestic labor was in flux. In the early 1800s, the nation was predominantly rural and the average farmwife was responsible not only for cooking, cleaning, and childcare, but also gardening, tending livestock, making cheese, spinning, weaving, making the family’s clothing, and often making extra products to sell. A family might temporarily hire a neighbor’s teenage daughter to help the wife out during the planting or harvest or after childbirth. These hired girls would work alongside and supplement the work of the farmwife for brief periods and were generally not regarded as servants. They were part employee, part guest, living under their employer’s roof and eating with them at the table. They also did not make a career out of it, but rather ‘helped’ during their teen years to gain funds and experience before marriage.

Running parallel to this was a system of unfree unpaid domestic labor in the form of slavery. In 1800, there were two households with slaves in Elmira and, by 1810, there were eleven. Enslaved women performed much of the same work as white hired ‘help,’ but these Black women were understood to be inherently inferior. They would certainly never be welcomed at their master’s table. All slaves in New York State were freed as of July 4, 1827, but a system of Black indentured servitude lingered well into the 1830s.  (see this blog post for additional details) For the rest of the 19^th century, domestic service was one of the few careers open to Black women both nationally and in Chemung County.

By the 1840s, a number of compounding factors were beginning to change the nature of paid domestic labor. Increased industrialization shifted textile production from the household to the factory, greatly reducing the amount of work a wife was expected to perform. These same factories offered new, better-paying employment opportunities to young women and girls. The end of slavery in the northern states and the Underground Railroad resulted in a new pool of Black workers who lacked the options enjoyed by white women and could not demand the same levels of pay or respect. The Irish potato famine from 1845 to 1852 resulted in a wave of desperately poor Irish immigrants who were largely in the same boat.

By mid-1800s, 15 to 30% of all urban households had at least one domestic servant. Unlike the old ‘help’ previously employed by farmwives, these women were employed full-time and year-round. A small, middle-class household like the Whitchers might have a single maid-of-all-work who would cook, clean, and do laundry alongside their mistress. A larger, more prosperous household might employ a cook, a laundress, and multiple maids, maybe even a nanny or governess as well. In these households, the lady of the house would act as manager overseeing their labor without performing any of it herself. Having a servant became a sort of status symbol. It also freed up upper class women to become involved in charities, clubs, politics, and self-improvement. 

 

Nanny employed by the Diven family, ca. 1890s

Locally, there are a couple well-known domestic servants, both associated with Mark Twain. One was Mary Ann Cord (1798-1888), the cook at Quarry Farm. Mary Ann had been born into slavery in Maryland. In 1852, she was sold away from her husband and their seven children and brought to New Bern, North Carolina. It was there she found her youngest son, Henry, during the Civil War. He had escaped to freedom years before and found work as a barber in Elmira. She came to Elmira with him and where she met and married Primus Cord. From 1870 until her death, she and Primus worked for the Cranes of Quarry Farm, her as cook and him as groundskeeper. In 1874, Mark Twain wrote A True Story Word for Word as I Heard It based off of her life story (see this blog post for additional details).

 

Mary Ann Cord. Image courtesy of Elmira College

Katy Leary (1856-1934), meanwhile, was born and raised in Elmira, the daughter of poor Irish immigrants. In 1880, she took a job with the Clemens family sewing baby clothes. She worked for them for the next thirty years serving as a lady’s maid, housekeeper, nurse, chaperone, traveling companion, seamstress, nursemaid, and nanny. After Samuel Clemens died in 1910, Katy left service and opened a boarding house with her pension money. Interviews with Katy were the basis for the book A Lifetime with Mark Twain, published in 1925. 

Katy Leary, ca. 1925

 The life of a domestic servant in the late-1800s was unpleasant. Pay was low, the hours were long, and the work could be grueling. Servants often lived within their employers which left them with little privacy and made them vulnerable to exploitation. Domestic servants tended to either be young and unmarried, or older widows returning to the workforce. While some women, like Mary Ann and Katy, made careers out of it, most domestics preferred to abandon the field in favor of marriage or other employment.

 

Take a Look: New in the Galleries

 by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

Everyone who has been to the museum has a favorite artifact or document that they remember long after they’ve visited. One of my personal favorites is not currently on display, but it's something I often share with groups. It is a connected series of iron links that make up an unassuming Victorian pot scrubber. Because it's function is not immediately obvious, it can spark people's curiosity to look a little longer and look a little closer in order to discover more.

The object was used during the early 20th century to scrub pots clean, and I use it to prompt questions like these: Who used it? How did they use it? Why was it used? What was the user’s position in society? What limitations did the user have or not have when using it? Each question has the potential to reveal new information. The stories behind the answers can help us understand history in new ways.

A new resource is now available to help visitors connect with our museum objects and the stories behind them. Inspired by a comment from our office manager, Samantha Sallade, and a suggestion from our archivist Rachel Dworkin, our curator, Monica Groth, recently created the first of what will be many self-guided tours available for free at our front desk. These tours take you through the galleries on a scavenger hunt to discover new connections to the artifacts and documents on display. 

This is one way to check assumptions and appreciate the object for what it is while we consider its place in history. Of course many of our exhibits change throughout the year, and not everything we have is on view at all times. We have thousands of artifacts and documents in the collection that are available for research, but are not on display due to their condition, conservation concerns, or the fact that we simply do not have space for everything. It doesn’t mean that we value the items any less.

We share stories of Chemung County events, people, and places through our exhibits and frequently add to and update them in order to tell these stories more completely based on what we verify.  Sometimes visitors share information and sometimes we uncover new information that helps us reframe those stories. Our volunteers working on HistoryForge have put in many hours collecting and entering data to tell more complete stories of Chemung County’s past. They meet twice monthly, and if you'd like to get involved, contact coordinator Andrea Renshaw at HistoryForge@ChemungValleyMuseum.org for more information.

Self-guided tours that are currently available are "Black Stories of Chemung County" and "Women's Lives in Chemung County." We plan to update these pamphlets periodically and to create more based on different topics, as we work to keep our collections fresh, relevant, and inclusive of the history of Chemung County residents.

Tours like these can help visitors see documents and objects from different points of view. For example, in the "Women's Lives in Chemung County" self-guided tour, we highlight this photo of Jenny Dunmeyer on display in the Bank Gallery. Jenny was part of the Women's Ambulance Defense Corps (WADC) , a volunteer group of young women ages 18-45 who helped out during World War II.

Jenny Dunmeyer (center) wearing her WADC uniform

The WADC admitted women of every race and background except Japanese. What privileges did they have that Japanese women did not? As a Black woman, Jenny was included in this group during the war, but what were her experiences post-war? You can read more about her life in a previous blog on the Reid family, You can also view Jenny's story from another point of view since she is also included in the self-guided tour "Black Stories of Chemung County."

If you have a suggestion for a tour, mention it to our receptionists or write to me directly at Educator@ChemungValleyMuseum.org. And the next time you’re in the museum, pick up one of our self-guided tours for yourself. It’s a chance to see Chemung County history through different lenses, and the museum through fresh eyes.

 

Ernie Davis Day

By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

On the evening of February 3, 1962, around 1,400 people packed into the Notre Dame High School’s gym for the banquet in honor of Elmira’s favorite son, Ernie Davis. It was the last stop in what had been an action-packed day. The banquet was attended by such notables as state and local officials; teachers and coaches from EFA and Syracuse University; representatives from the Cleveland Browns and, of course, Davis’s mother. They were all there to pay tribute to his accomplishments and toast his up-coming career as a professional football player.

Although Ernie Davis is Elmira’s hometown hero, he wasn’t actually born here. He was born in New Salem, Pennsylvania and grew up in Uniontown. At the age of 12, he moved to Elmira with his mother and step-father. Here, he excelled at baseball, basketball, and football. While playing for Elmira Free Academy, he earned two All-American honors in basketball and football and was heavily recruited by colleges. He ended up attending Syracuse University where he played football and majored in economics and finance. In 1961, he became the first Black player to be awarded the Heisman Trophy. After graduating, he was recruited by the Cleveland Browns, signing the most lucrative contract of any NFL rookie up until that time. The citizens of Elmira could not have been prouder.

 

Planning for Ernie Davis Day began in late November 1961, shortly after Davis was awarded the Heisman Trophy. The day overall was going to be sponsored by the Elmira Association of Commerce with assistance from various fraternal groups and corporations. For months, the planning committee worked to schedule events, secure venues, and arrange speakers. They raised funds to buy Davis a new 1962 Thunderbird.

Officially, Ernie Davis Day began at 2pm at the YMCA with a youth meet-and-greet sponsored by Pepsi-Cola. Unofficially, kids began to gather on the sidewalk outside as early as noon. By the time Davis and his friend and fellow football player Jim Brown showed up a little after 1:30pm, there were nearly 400 boys running around. By the time the meet-and-greet officially began, the number had swelled to 700. There were speeches by Ernie Davis, Jim Brown, EFA football coach Bill Wipfler, and others. Each child received a card autographed by Davis and Brown. A few lucky ones actually got to shake their hands.

 

Next, Ernie headed off to an informal press reception at the Notre Dame High School library along with the ever-present Jim Brown, plus coaches Ben Schwartzwalder of Syracuse University and Arthur Modell of the Cleveland Browns. They schmoozed for an hour or so until Governor Nelson Rockefeller arrived around 5:30pm and the real press conference began.  

Around 6pm, the crowd started gathering for the banquet. Speeches began at 9pm after everyone had eaten their fill and there were a lot of speeches. Governor Nelson talked. President Kennedy talked, or at least wired a toast to be read aloud on his behalf. There were toasts by Ernie’s high school and college friends, his teachers and coaches, the mayor, and the Star-Gazette sports writer who had coined the nickname “Elmira Express.”  All of them wanted to celebrate Davis’s accomplishments and the promising start to his pro football career.

Sadly, his promising career never came to be. In the summer of 1962, Davis was diagnosed with leukemia. Ernie Davis died in a Cleveland hospital on May 18, 1963 at the age of 23. His wake at Elmira’s Neighborhood House on May 21 drew over 10,000 mourners. His funeral featured speeches by many of the same teammates, friends, and coaches who had spoken at his banquet. Even President Kennedy sent a statement to be read aloud. It was, in many ways, a dark reflection of the earlier, happier Ernie Davis Day.

The Terror of the Fugitive Slave Act

By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

Earlier this month I got the coolest gift for my birthday. And by I, I of course mean the museum, but the donation came on my birthday, so I’m counting it. The gift in question was a letter from Mary and Seymour Fairman of Elmira to Mary’s parents in Fredonia, dated July 8, 1845. In the letter, the Fairmans talked about Elmira’s small, but growing, Black community and the problem of slave catchers.

Mary wrote:

We have for citizens in this place some hundred and fifty or two hundred Negros mostly if not all run-away slaves. They are constantly coming away from the south— Last summer six came here together, two on three weeks ago. Some four or five more came, and yesterday five more from Maryland arrived in search of them. The poor fellows have a good many staunch friends all. And last evening two or three of them went around and told all of them of the arrival of the hunters so they might be on their guard. One of the latest arrived Negros has been in the employ of the first man in the place—not an abolitionist, and when he and his family heard of the arrival of these creatures seeking after the poor negroes that they might drag them back again to slavery, they shed tears. The gentleman has given the negro his rifle to defend himself with—We think the southerners will not be able to take the negroes away if they succeed in finding them.  

 

Seymour recounted the following:

Those slaveholders are making quite the effort to catch their slaves. Judge Dunn has issued precepts for them and the sheriff is attempting to arrest them. Some three of them were sent by their abolition friends into the country about 6 miles to escape detection but the sheriff heard of them and started in pursuit with five slave holders, but one of the leading abolitionists found out that they discovered the negro retreat and mounting his horse he rode about six miles in 30 minutes to warn them of their danger. He arrived about 20 min before the sheriff. It will be impossible to take them.

 

With the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, slave catchers became an ever-present threat to Blacks throughout the United States. Under the law, slave owners and their agents could snatch any Black person they liked after obtaining a warrant from a judge. Armed with a warrant, slave catchers could search and seize with impunity, even in free states and anyone who harbored a fugitive or tried to interfere with an arrest could be charged and fined $500. The law was wildly unpopular throughout the North and many states passed personal liberty laws designed to nullify or at least blunt the impact. New York, for example, enacted a personal liberty law in 1840 which guaranteed anyone accused of being an escaped slave the right to a jury trial and attorney. Despite various Northern state’s attempts to circumvent the laws, hundreds of Blacks, both free-born and fugitive, were kidnapped and forced into slavery.   

In 1850, the new Fugitive Slave Act made the problem exponentially worse. Slave catchers no longer required a warrant and the right to a trial was explicitly stripped. What’s more, state and federal law enforcement were now required to help slave catchers and could be fined $1,000 for refusing to do so. They also received a bonus for each person captured. The fines for those assisting fugitives was bumped up to $1,000 as well.

The act was hugely unpopular throughout the North. Many fugitives and free-born Blacks fled their homes in the North for the safety of Canada. Riots erupted in Massachusetts, New York, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as angry mobs attempted to prevent slave catchers from kidnapping their targets. One such riot in Christiana, Pennsylvania turned deadly in September 1851. A slave owner by the name of Edward Gorsuch, aided by his son, nephew and a federal marshal, attempted to take four men. The townsfolk defended them in a pitched battle that ended with Gorsuch dead, his son and nephew wounded, and the marshal fled.  

In 1858, a confrontation with a slave owner here in Elmira nearly ended just as badly. An elderly Black man who had fled slavery to settle in Canandaigua was dying and wished to return to the South to be with his family. He wrote to his former master asking him to come and collect him. The pair stopped in Elmira, staying at the Brainard House on the corner of Water and Baldwin. When the town got word of what was happening, a posse of Black and white abolitionists assembled to rescue the man. Local bookseller Frank Hall, attempted to calm the situation declaring, “If this fugitive wishes to return home to his master, he shall go. If he don’t want to go back there is no power on this earth that shall force him from this place for that purpose.”  

Three Black leaders, Sandy Brant, Jefferson Brown, and John W. Jones, spoke with the man to determine his wishes. They explained to the crowd that the fugitive wanted to go, but the mob would not be deterred. A second group headed to the train station to keep them from boarding the train. In the end, Sheriff William Gregg ended up smuggling the man and his master out of the hotel and spiriting the pair away to Southport so they could board the train safely on the far side of the river. 

 

Both Fugitive Slave Acts were officially repealed in 1864, but their legacy still casts a long shadow.