Black History in Madison County Before 1900

Early African American Churches in Madison County

Before the Wilkerson Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded, Methodists in Collinsville traveled to Edwardsville to worship.

A.M.E. minister Rev. Emanuel Wilkerson walked each Saturday from Belleville to Collinsville. He stayed with James and Caroline Singleton in their house on Goethe Avenue. He and the Singletons went to Edwardsville to attend services the next day. Wilkerson walked back to Belleville on Monday and then repeated the journey the following Saturday.

Before long, Rev. Wilkerson began holding services in the Singleton home. The congregation's first church building, built in 1863 at the corner of South Street and South Clinton Street, had a log foundation. The church moved to its current location on Summit Street in 1922.

Salem Baptist Church in Upper Alton began in 1819 as a group of worshippers congregating on James Stewart's farm in a part of Madison County that is now Macoupin County. These free people of color later moved slightly south to settle in the Wood Station area of Foster Township. The church reorganized in 1845 under the leadership of Rev. William Duke Andersen. The congregants met on land purchased by G. Washington Arbuckle, the site of the current church. Worship meetings, held under a temporary roof built of tree limbs, lasted for several days.

The congregation, led by James Henry Johnson, built their first frame-and-clapboard church in the mid-1850s. A 24 ft. x 35 ft. brick church building replaced the original structure in 1876. Samuel Bates and his son John made the bricks. The concrete block church building standing today on the 1876 foundation dates to 1912.

Other early African American churches in Madison County include: Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church, Lower Alton A.M.E. Church (renamed Campbell Chapel A.M.E.), Second Baptist Church (renamed Tabernacle Missionary Baptist), and African Baptist Church (renamed Union Baptist) in Alton; Rocky Fork Bethel A.M.E. Church (renamed New Bethel A.M.E.), in Godfrey; Mt. Joy Baptist Church and Wesley Chapel A.M.E. Church in Edwardsville; Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Ridge Prairie (Pin Oak Township); Mt. Nebo Baptist Church in Newport.

Sources

• Celebrating 150 Years: Fosterburg, Illinois, August 18 & 19, 2007 Sesquicentennial Celebration. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Directory of Illinois African American Resource and Sites. 1995. Manuscript. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Johnson, Charlotte. African Americans in Madison County, Illinois. Collection prepared for the staff at the Madison County Historical Museum and Archival Library. 2001. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Johnson, Cyrus L. A History of Negro Settlement in Foster Township. Presentation, Honoring Foster Township, Spring Meeting of the Madison County Historical Society, Fosterburg Grade School, Fosterburg, Illinois, May 15, 1960. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Mabry, Eddie. The History of Wood River Baptist District Association. St. Louis: John S. Swift, 1996. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Schaefer, Mary Louise. "Sisters recall grandfather who helped to free slaves." Collinsville Herald, August 16, 1979.
• The Single Tree: Singleton Reunion, St. Louis, Mo. Aug. 11, 1990. Manuscript. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• United States census records and other public records.
• United States Department of the Interior National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form [for Salem Baptist Church, 2001 Seiler Road, Alton, Madison County, Illinois]. Certified November 7, 2013. Accessed December 21, 2018. nps.gov
• Wilkerson Chapel A.M.E. Church, Collinsville, Ill. 1862-1964. Booklet. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.

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Early African American Settlers in Madison County

Collinsville Township

Madison County records in 1815 included a "Register of Free People of Color." The list has twenty names. Among them are James Suggs Singleton, his wife Phillis, and their three sons: James, Isaac, and John.

The register says that Phillis (born about 1760) and the children obtained their freedom from a man named Ogle in St. Clair County. Phillis traveled to the Illinois Territory with Colonel Joseph Ogle, a white Revolutionary War veteran. Ogle left New England for Illinois in 1785. He had settled in St. Clair County by 1789.

Census records for 1830 and 1840 enumerate a James Singleton household of "free colored persons" in northern St. Clair County, near Madison County. Sources suggest he is the eldest son of James Suggs Singleton and Phillis Singleton. In 1850, James and his wife Elizabeth ("Betsey") still lived in St. Clair County. James and his sons Isaac, James, and Oliver worked as laborers.

James III married Caroline Mumford. He started out as a tenant farmer. Singleton moved his family to Madison County and built a house on Goethe Avenue in Collinsville in the early 1860s. By the end of the decade, Singleton had 40 acres of his own farmland and several children (including an 11-year-old son named James). The Singleton farm produced 300 bushels of Indian corn in 1870.

This type of hand corn planter was developed around the time the Singletons grew Indian corn on their farm. To plant corn, the farmer jabbed the point of the tool (known as a bill pick or corn jabber) into the soil. When he pushed the top wooden handle forward, the brace in front of the tool hit the ground, activating a spring. This caused the birdlike "bill" at the point to open and release the seed.

Pin Oak Township

Early African American settlers in the Ridge Prairie area of Pin Oak Township include Robert Crawford, Michael Lee, Samuel Vanderburg, Henry Daugherty, and Thomas Sexton. Henry Blair came to the area in the mid-1850s.

Twenty-five-year-old Robert Crawford and several other people left Virginia for Illinois as Edward Coles's slaves in 1819. Along the way, on a flatboat on the Ohio River, Coles gave the group their freedom. Coles set up Prairieland Farm in Pin Oak Township. Crawford worked on Coles's farm.

By the 1830s, Crawford and his wife Kate had purchased land in Pin Oak Township. (Coles had purchased land for them in what would later become Knox County. The Crawfords sold that land and used the proceeds to buy land in Pin Oak.) Crawford managed Prairieland Farm as Coles's agent. He also pursued a parallel career as a preacher. The Crawfords sold their land in Pin Oak Township in 1843 and moved to Montgomery County, Illinois.

Henry Blair was born in Tennessee in 1816, on the Blair plantation in Montgomery County. He gained his freedom in 1850 and married Rachel McDougal three years later. The couple left Tennessee for Illinois, settling in Pin Oak Township. Blair became a prosperous farmer. The Blair home sat on top of a picturesque knoll. When Blair died in 1880, his nearly 900 acres of farmland valued at $43,925. In terms of share of GDP per person, this amount of wealth is equivalent to $12,600,000 in 2017.

Foster Township

Early African American settlers in the Wood Station area of Foster Township include Samuel Bates, James Ballinger, James Henry Johnson, G. Washington Arbuckle, Moses Stewart, and James Stewart.

The Ballinger family came to Foster Township shortly after the end of the Civil War. Helen Ballinger Walker, daughter of James and Matilda Ballinger, remembers her grandmother making and selling tallow candles from their home in Upper Alton. She used a mold she had from Virginia, where she was born. It was probably very similar to this candle mold from the same time period.

James Henry Johnson was born in 1810 to an enslaved mother in Virginia. After gaining his freedom, he lived first in Kentucky and then in Missouri, working in the lead mines. He and his wife Eleanor (née Madden) moved from Missouri to the Wood Station area in Foster Township. They started Oak Leaf Farm in 1850 with eighty acres. By the time of his death in 1863, Johnson owned 200 acres of contiguous land. Johnson founded and pastored Baptist churches in the Alton area. He also represented Madison County at the State Convention of Colored Citizens of the State of Illinois in 1856. Oak Leaf Farm, still owned by the Johnson family today after over 150 years, qualifies as one of seven "sesquicentennial farms" in Madison County.

Samuel Bates married Martha Arbuckle in 1847 in Madison County. They settled in Foster Township where Bates worked as a cooper. By 1860, the couple had a two-year-old son John, $1,000 of real estate, and $800 of personal property. Bates built a brick home for his growing family in 1865, making the bricks himself. When he died in 1898, Samuel Bates's estate was worth $8,423.25 (equivalent to $2,030,000 in 2017). Bates sent his son John to Shurtleff College in Upper Alton. The lavish party he threw in his home for his daughter's wedding made society news. The house still stands on Wood Station Road at Seiler Road in Alton.

Samuel Bates worked as a cooper when he was a young man. A cooper made barrels for storing everything from flour to molasses to beer. He used a drawknife to shape the barrel staves. After setting the staves into a truss hoop and bending them together using a windlass, he trimmed the free ends with a hand adze.

Sources

• Bassett, Kathie. "Heartland Heritage: Johnson Family's Farm is History in Making." Home Style Magazine, 4, no. 2 (Fall 2010).
• Brink, McCormick & Co. of Illinois. Illustrated Encyclopedia and Atlas Map of Madison County, Ill. St. Louis: Brink, McCormick & Co. of Illinois, 1873. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Celebrating 150 Years: Fosterburg, Illinois, August 18 & 19, 2007 Sesquicentennial Celebration. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Directory of Illinois African American Resource and Sites. 1995. Manuscript. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Find A Grave. Accessed January 2, 2019. findagrave.com
• Gordon, Nicholas. "The Man Who Freed His Slaves: A Narrative of the Life of Edward Coles." Last updated August 22, 2010. Accessed December 27, 2018. poemsforfree.com
• Henry Blair probate documents. Accessed December 27, 2018. ancestry.com (subscription required).
• History of Madison County, Illinois. Edwardsville: W.R. Brink & Co., 1882. Available at the Madison County Archival Library. Also available online at the HathiTrust Digital Library at hathitrust.org
• Illinois Historic Farms: Honoring Our Enduring Heritage. Morley: Acclaim Press, 2015. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Illinois State Archives. Illinois Servitude and Emancipation Records (database). Accessed December 27, 2018. ilsos.gov
• James H. Johnson probate documents. Accessed December 27, 2018. ancestry.com (subscription required).
• Johnson, Charlotte. African Americans in Madison County, Illinois. Collection prepared for the staff at the Madison County Historical Museum and Archival Library. 2001. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Johnson, Cyrus L. A History of Negro Settlement in Foster Township. Presentation, Honoring Foster Township, Spring Meeting of the Madison County Historical Society, Fosterburg Grade School, Fosterburg, Illinois, May 15, 1960. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Kalman, Bobbie. Colonial Crafts. New York: Crabtree Publishing Company, 1992. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Leichtle, Kurt E., and Bruce G. Carveth. Crusade Against Slavery: Edward Coles, Pioneer of Freedom. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2011.
• Mabry, Eddie. The History of Wood River Baptist District Association. St. Louis: John S. Swift, 1996. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• MacNaul, Willard C. The Jefferson-Lemen Compact: The Relations of Thomas Jefferson and James Lemen in the Exclusion of Slavery from Illinois and the Northwest Territory with Related Documents 1781-1818. A paper read before the Chicago Historical Society February 16, 1915. The University of Chicago Press: 1915. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Madden, Betty I. Art, Crafts, and Architecture in Early Illinois. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• MeasuringWorth. Accessed January 2, 2019. measuringworth.com
• Moore, Sam. "A History of Corn: Hand-held Corn Planters and Checkrows." Farm Collector, December 2003. Accessed August 22, 2018. farmcollector.com
• Parish, Norm. "A Legacy on the Land." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 29, 2003.
• Proceedings of the State Convention of Colored Citizens of the State of Illinois, Held in the City of Alton, Nov. 13th, 14th and 15th, 1856. Chicago: Hays & Thompson, printers, 1856. Accessed December 27, 2018. play.google.com
• Samuel Bates probate documents. Accessed December 27, 2018. ancestry.com (subscription required).
• Schaefer, Mary Louise. "Sisters recall grandfather who helped to free slaves." Collinsville Herald, August 16, 1979.
• The Single Tree: Singleton Reunion, St. Louis, Mo. Aug. 11, 1990. Manuscript. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Sloane, Eric. A Museum of Early American Tools. New York: Ballatine Books, 1964. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Tunis, Edwin. Colonial Craftsmen and the Beginnings of American Industry. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1965. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• United States census records and other public records.
• United States Department of the Interior National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form [for Salem Baptist Church, 2001 Seiler Road, Alton, Madison County, Illinois]. Certified November 7, 2013. Accessed December 21, 2018. nps.gov
• Weber, Austin. "Roll Out the Barrels." Assembly, May 1, 2004. Accessed August 1, 2018. assemblymag.com
• "A Wedding Celebration on Wood River." Alton Telegraph, August 23, 1883.
• Winch, Julie. Forgotten Time, Forgotten People: Pin Oak's African American Farmers. Manuscript. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.

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Slavery and the Law in Illinois, 1720-1865

Slavery began in what would later become Illinois in 1720. Philippe Francois Renault left France for reputed gold and silver mines in Upper Louisiana (which included the future states of Illinois and Missouri). Along the way he stopped in Saint-Domingue and bought 500 slaves to work the mines.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory. But current slaveholders were "grandfathered in" and exempted from the new law. In 1803, the Indiana Territory systemized long-term indentures. This skirted the law and effectively reinstituted slavery in what would later become the state of Illinois.

Legislation in 1813 prevented free Black people from immigrating to the Illinois Territory. As a result, free African Americans already living in Illinois had to register with the county clerk.

There were 847 indentured servants/slaves, 326 free Black people, and 29,628 white people living in Illinois when the territory became a state in December 1818. The new state prohibited slavery within its boundaries. The following March, the First Illinois General Assembly enacted a system of "Black Laws" limiting the rights of free people of color. Section 1 of the "Black Laws" required all free people of color moving to Illinois to register with the county clerk and provide certified proof of their freedom.

Three books commonly known as "Emancipation Registers" record the registration of free people of color in Madison County 1830-1860 as required by law. The original volume 1 is titled Negro Book and is part of the Madison County Historical Society's collection housed in the Madison County Archival Library.

The affidavit below appears in volume 3 of the Madison County registers. In it, Singleton's father swears that he and his wife Betsey are free people of color and that James Singleton Jr. is their son, born free in St. Clair County. He then gives a physical description of his 21-year-old son as required by the registration process. (James Singleton Jr.'s grandfather James Suggs Singleton was required to register with the county over thirty years earlier, in 1815.)

In addition to making it very difficult for free African Americans to remain in or move to Illinois, the "Black Laws" prohibited slaveholders from freeing their slaves. Violators incurred a $1,000 penalty.

Despite these barriers, Illinois's free Black population grew tenfold by 1840. The white population exploded to sixteen times its initial size at statehood. The 1840 census also counted 331 slaves living in the "free state" of Illinois. Delegates adopted a new constitution in 1848 that required legislation prohibiting free people of color from immigrating to the state. The General Assembly passed the Black Exclusion Law in 1853.

James Henry Johnson, an early settler of Foster Township and a delegate for Madison County at the Illinois State Convention of Colored Citizens, worked to repeal the "Black Laws." It finally happened in 1865. The thirteenth amendment to the United States Constitution became a law in 1865. The amendment prohibited slavery nationwide. Unfortunately Johnson died in 1863 and didn't live to see it.

The 1825-1857 Madison County Courthouse featured this wooden ballot box. Initially constructed with donated materials and funded by donations, the building was nicknamed "Donation Courthouse." The brick structure had dirt floors and a second story accessibly only by ladder.

The "Donation Courthouse" is shown in the center of this 1882 illustration. The single-story building to the left is the clerk's office. The building to the right is the county jail. From History of Madison County, Illinois, plate facing p. 344. The clerk's office was later repurposed as Lincoln School, a racially segregated school for African American children in Edwardsville.

Sources

• Generations of Pride: African-Americans in Illinois: A Selected Chronology. Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and the Illinois Association of Museums, 1995.
• History of Madison County, Illinois. Edwardsville: W.R. Brink & Co., 1882. Available at the Madison County Archival Library. Also available online at the HathiTrust Digital Library at hathitrust.org
• Illinois African-American Resource Guide. Illinois State Library Special Report Series 6, no. 2 (Fall 1999).
• Illinois Census Returns, 1810, 1818. Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library 24, Statistical Series 2. Edited, with introduction and notes by Margaret Cross Norton. Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1935. Available online at the Internet Archive at archive.org
• James H. Johnson probate documents. Accessed December 27, 2018. ancestry.com (subscription required).
• Johnson, Charlotte. African Americans in Madison County, Illinois. Collection prepared for the staff at the Madison County Historical Museum and Archival Library. 2001. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Laws Passed by the First General Assembly, of the State of Illinois, at Their Second Session, Held at Kaskaskia, 1819. Kaskaskia: Published by authority, 1819. Available online at the HathiTrust Digital Library at hathitrust.org
• Madison County Illinois Circuit Court CONTENTdm Website. Slave Emancipation Register, 1820-1860. Accessed January 3, 2019. madisoncountycircuitclerk.contentdm.oclc.org Volume 1 available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Meites, Jerome B. "The 1847 Illinois Constitutional Convention and Persons of Color." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, v. 108, no. 3-4 (Fall/Winter 2015). Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Perkins, James H. Annals of the West: Embracing a Concise Account of Principal Events, which Have Occurred in the Western States and Territories, from the Discovery of the Mississippi Valley to the Year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty. 2nd ed., rev. and enl. by J.M. Peck. St. Louis: James R. Albach, 1850. Available online at the HathiTrust Digital Library at hathitrust.org
• The Single Tree: Singleton Reunion, St. Louis, Mo. Aug. 11, 1990. Manuscript. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. Accessed January 3, 2019. slavevoyages.org
• United States census records and other public records.
• Westerhold, Mary T. and the Madison County Historical Society. Images of American: Madison County. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2013. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.

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African American Soldiers in the Civil War

Simon Bradley and the 56th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry

The United States War Department created the Bureau of Colored Troops in May 1863. President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation the previous New Year's Day declaring freedom for people held as slaves in the Confederacy and inviting them to serve in the Union Army.

The Union Army began recruiting Black soldiers in Missouri as soon as the United States Colored Infantry (USCI) was established. Enslaved people in the non-Confederate slave state of Missouri didn't benefit from the Emancipation Proclamation. But if a Missouri slave joined the Union Army – with or without his owner's blessing – he received a certificate of permanent and irrevocable freedom. As a pretense to placate proslavery Missourians, the Army named the first regiment of African American recruits from Missouri the 3rd Arkansas Infantry (African Descent).

Simon Bradley was born in Kentucky in 1846. Like its bordering neighbor Missouri, Kentucky was a non-Confederate slave state. It isn't known whether Bradley was born into slavery or where he lived in 1863. We do know that Bradley turned seventeen years old in August 1863, the same month the 3rd Arkansas was organized in St. Louis. Bradley joined the regiment before it became the 56th United States Colored Infantry the following March.

The 3rd Arkansas/56th USCI primarily provided garrison duty at Helena, Arkansas, for three years. After gaining liberty via the Emancipation Proclamation, thousands of former slaves came to Helena seeking a place to live. The desperate and unhealthy conditions in Helena, Arkansas, inspired the soldiers of the 56th USCI to nickname it "Hell-in-Arkansas." About a third of the 1,416 men who served in the regiment died of typhoid, malaria, or dysentery in Helena.

Private Simon Bradley served with Company K, which numbered among five companies of the 56th USCI that spent time occupying DeValls Bluff, Arkansas. The White River port town served as a Union supply depot, receiving men and material via the river and then shipping them to Little Rock by rail. The five companies returned to Helena in August 1866 and boarded the steamboat Continental to muster out in St. Louis.

By the time Bradley and the rest of the soldiers on the Continental arrived in Cairo, Illinois, thirteen men had died and dozens were ill. Over fifty soldiers died on board between Cairo and an island near Jefferson Barracks, where the survivors were quarantined. The regiment's remaining companies arrived in St. Louis on the Platte Valley, but were soon sent to join the others on "Quarantine Island" – both steamboats were infected with cholera. The official death toll for the 56th USCI from the shipborne cholera epidemic reached 175.

The combined tragedies of rampant disease at the regiment's duty station in Helena and cholera on their trip home claimed the lives of 649 soldiers of the 56th USCI. An additional 25 soldiers were killed or mortally wounded in action at Wallace's Ferry in July 1864. The lucky 52% of the regiment who survived included Private Simon Bradley.

Bradley married Martha E. Wilson shortly after the war ended. The couple initially settled in Christian County, Illinois, and had nine children. The family later moved to Edwardsville. Bradley supported his family by working as a laborer, a stationary engineer, and a hoisting engineer. Bradley also worked as a fireman and watchman in Edwardsville coal mines. After Martha died in 1897, Bradley married Lizzie Stuart. He died in 1928 and is buried in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. The cemetery also contains a monument to Bradley's comrades who died of cholera on "Quarantine Island."

The 29th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry

It isn't known how many Black Civil War veterans besides Simon Bradley settled in Madison County after the war. We do know that at least eighteen African American men who served with the United States Colored Troops are buried in Madison County.

We also know that ninety African American soldiers lived in Madison County at the time they enlisted with the United States Colored Troops. Ten were killed in action and one died later from battle wounds. Eight more died of disease and five were discharged due to disability. Per policy, all higher-ranking commissioned officers in the United States Colored Troops were white. Non-commissioned corporals and sergeants were promoted from the Black ranks. For more details about these soldiers and their service, view this Roster compiled by Madison County Historical Museum and Archival Library staff.

Seventy-four of the ninety men in the roster enlisted with Company E of the 29th USCI. The regiment of Illinois recruits was sworn into service in April 1864 as part of the Fourth Division of the Ninth Corps. The 29th USCI participated in siege operations against Petersburg and Richmond from the summer of 1864 through the spring of 1865. Nine soldiers from Madison County died in the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864, during the siege of Petersburg. The regiment also fought in the Appomattox Campaign. The campaign ended the war and one Madison County soldier lost his life. A total of 234 of the regiment's 2,072 soldiers died from combat wounds and disease.

Sources

• Adams, Simon. "Battle of the Crater." Enclyclopædia Britannica. Accessed February 6, 2019. britannica.com
• Erwin, James W. [Author's website]. Accessed February 6, 2019. jameswerwin.com
• Find A Grave. Accessed February 6, 2019. findagrave.com
• Hicken, Victor. "The Record of Illinois' Negro Soldiers in the Civil War." Journal of the Illinois Historical Society, v. 56, no. 3 (Autumn 1963). Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Illinois State Archives. Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls (database). Accessed February 6, 2019. cyberdriveillinois.com
• Milligan, Bill. "56th Colored Infantry Honored for Bravery." Call Newspapers, May 12, 2018. Accessed February 6, 2019. callnewspapers.com
• Mouser, Joseph. "The United States Colored Troops (1863-1865)." BlackPast, July 22, 2017. Accessed February 6, 2019. blackpast.org
• National Park Service. The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Database. Accessed February 6, 2019. nps.gov
• Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Illinois. Revised by J.N. Reece. Springfield, 1900-1901. Available at the Madison County Archival Library. Also available online at the HathiTrust Digital Library at hathitrust.org
• Roll of Honor: Record of Burial Places of Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Army Nurses of All Wars of the United States Buried in the State of Illinois. Vol. II. Springfield, 1929. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Sauber, Bill. "DeValls Bluff (Prairie County)." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. Accessed February 6, 2019. encyclopediaofarkansas.net
• United States. Department of Veterans Affairs. "Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery." [U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website]. Accessed February 6, 2019. cem.va.gov
• United States census records and other public records.
• "Veteran of Civil War Died Friday." Edwardsville Intelligencer, January 28, 1928.
• Zagier, Alan Scher. "Former Slaves Who Fought in Civil War Remembered in St. Louis." STLToday, May 27, 2014. Accessed February 6, 2019. stltoday.com

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School Segregation in 19th-Century Madison County

Prior to 1874, public schools in Illinois didn't accept African American children. Black churches filled the gap.

Helen Ballinger Walker was a toddler when she came to Foster Township with her parents James and Matilda Ballinger. She attended Salem Baptist School at Salem Baptist Church. James Henry Johnson's teenage son Thomas Johnson was the school's teacher (he later attended Shurtleff College in Upper Alton). Prior to 1860, Salem Baptist School was held in the basement of Samuel Bates's house.

Union Baptist Church, founded in Alton in 1837 as African Baptist Church, constructed its first church building in 1853. School began a year later in the church's basement. Mt. Zion School in Pin Oak Township, run by Mt. Zion Baptist Church, was another early church-run school. All three schools were established through the work of the Wood River Colored Baptist Association in concert with the Friends to Humanity.

The Illinois General Assembly passed legislation in 1874 requiring public school systems to admit Black students. Communities reacted by creating separate public schools for African American children. Lincoln School (also known as Lower Town School or First Ward School) opened in Edwardsville in 1877 on the former site of the Madison County "Donation Courthouse." The sole teacher, William E. Kelley, held classes in a brick building originally used for the county clerk's office. The Black school in Collinsville was also called Lincoln School.

Black Madison County residents protested racial barriers to education from the beginning. In September 1873, a group of African American Altonians met and resolved "that we accept no 'colored school'; but that we send our children to the schools of our respective districts" (Alton Telegraph September 12, 1873). In September 1892, a group of parents approached the Edwardsville school board and protested conditions at First Ward School. They asked the board to either make improvements or abandon the school in favor of integration.

Citizens also took the fight to the courts. John Peair of Upper Alton filed suit in 1888 against the school board to get his two children enrolled in the white school. The Illinois Supreme Court decided in favor of Peair. But since the decision technically applied only to Peair's children Tony and Cora, local officials refused to integrate the town's schools generally.

Mayor Henry Brueggemann instituted public elementary school segregation in Alton in 1897. When siblings Minnie and Ambrose Bibb returned to Washington School after the summer break, they were directed to Lovejoy School instead. Alton had just constructed two new schools — Lovejoy School and Douglass School – designated as Black schools. Alton's other five schools became white schools. Scott Bibb and other parents brought their kids back to school and demanded that teachers let them in. The teachers refused to teach any Black children sitting in the classroom.

The African American community boycotted the designated Black schools. Scott Bibb sued the mayor in 1899. The case The People of the State of Illinois, ex-rel., Scott Bibb v. The Mayor and Common Council of the City of Alton bounced back and forth between the Madison County courts and the Illinois Supreme Court for eleven years before the latter finally decided in Bibb's favor. Locally, Alton authorities interpreted the decision as applying only to Minnie and Ambrose, who were eighteen and nineteen years old, respectively, by the time the case was decided.

Despite attending different elementary schools, Black and white students in Alton always attended public high school together. The first African American student graduated from Alton High School in 1873. Collinsville and Edwardsville, however, took a different approach. Instead of integrating or establishing separate high schools, the school boards paid for Black students to attend Lincoln High School in East St. Louis, Lincoln University High School in Jefferson City, or Sumner High School in St. Louis. This meant that the teenagers had to live apart from their families in order to continue their education. In some cases, parents instead sent their kids to stay with relatives in Carbondale, Decatur, Evanston, or other locations where they had access to public high schools. Attending a local high school meant incurring the expense of private school tuition.

Integration didn't come to most Madison County city schools until well into the twentieth century. Some parts of the county saw integration in the 1940s. The first African American students to attend Edwardsville High school enrolled in the 1950–51 academic year. Other schools remained segregated until the 1970s.

Some rural schools in Madison County were never segregated. The one-room Wood School in the Wood Station area of Foster Township, built in 1859, taught both Black and white students when they weren't working on their family's farms. This 1898 class photograph includes four grandchildren of James Henry Johnson family: Clota (standing, second from right), Grace (middle row, third from right), Sadie (middle row, standing at left), and Birdie (seated next to Sadie).

Grace and Clota Johnson both graduated from Sumner High School in St. Louis. They spent the school year separated from their parents and siblings in Foster Township. Instead, Grace and Clota lived with Rev. and Mrs. Stevens and their family in St. Louis so they could attend high school.

Sources

• Alton Telegraph. Various articles.
• Collinsville Kahoks. History & Tradition. Accessed January 3, 2019. kahoks.org
• Directory of Illinois African American Resource and Sites. 1995. Manuscript. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Edwardsville Intelligencer. Various articles.
• Hurd, Harvey B., ed. The Revised Statutes of the State of Illinois, 1877. Chicago: Chicago Legal News Company, 1877. Available online at the HathiTrust Digital Library at hathitrust.org
• Illinois African-American Resource Guide. Illinois State Library Special Report Series 6, no. 2 (Fall 1999).
• "The Illinois Race War: Story of the Troubles in Upper Alton." New York Times, January 15, 1890.
• Johnson, Charlotte. African Americans in Madison County, Illinois. Collection prepared for the staff at the Madison County Historical Museum and Archival Library. 2001. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Johnson, Cyrus L. A History of Negro Settlement in Foster Township. Presentation, Honoring Foster Township, Spring Meeting of the Madison County Historical Society, Fosterburg Grade School, Fosterburg, Illinois, May 15, 1960. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Meisenheimer, Harold. Scrapbooks about Alton schools. Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Portwood, Shirley J. "The Alton School Case and African American Community Consciousness, 1897-1908." Illinois Historical Journal, v. 91, no. 1 (Spring 1998). Available at the Madison County Archival Library.
• Portwood, Shirley J. "School Segregation in Southern: The Alton School Case, 1897-1908." Illinois History Teacher, v. 12, no. 1 (2005). Accessed January 8, 2019. lib.niu.edu
• Stern, Ron. A Centennial History of Madison, Illinois, 1891-1991.
• United States Department of the Interior National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form [for Salem Baptist Church, 2001 Seiler Road, Alton, Madison County, Illinois]. Certified November 7, 2013. Accessed December 21, 2018. nps.gov

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