Jeff Gill
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[This is third in a series of stories called "Twelve Years Old in
Granville," each set in a particular year from the perspective of a
twelve year old, based on our local history with a bit of literary
license to help the narrative along.]
1841
Jane knew that her mother didn't want her near any crowds, not after
the last year.
Even adults here in Granville had been pulling pranks and doing
tricks on each other, since the huge rallies for Tippecanoe and Old
Kinderhook, Harrison and Van Buren, had so riled up all the Whigs and
Democrats.
Horses lost their tails, and well-aged eggs flew when crowds pushed
close, protecting the names of people who would never want to be seen
clearly doing such mischief. It had gotten so bad, when the Whigs
announced their nomination of the Hero of Tippecanoe for the
presidency, that young women had to fear for getting jostled and
bumped on the street, even if only by accident.
But last fall Jane had climbed out onto the roof of the buttery that
extended from the house below her bedroom window, and swung down the
branches of the maple tree out back, so she could walk up Bowery and
down to a vantage point where she could see the Grand Illumination:
all of Broadway and most of the streets adjoining were lit with
candles in every window. Trundling along, pulled by cheering young
men of the Literary and Theological Institution, were carts with
broad sheets of parchment nailed to staves along the outer edges, and
a row of oil lamps inside projecting profiles and puppets in sharp
black outline onto the warm brown panels.
Every window was lit, except in a few houses known to support the
Sage of Kinderhook, president for the last four years. Some of those
houses lost panes to thrown hickory nuts, to the general disapproval
of all but the most political in the village.
Now Mr. Harrison had been elected, had died after a month, and Mr.
Tyler was sworn in, of whom it was now realized: he came from
Virginia. The slavery question flared all the brighter, as both sides
suspected the other of ill-dealing, and no one asked the slaves what
they thought.
The Atwell house had never seen a slave, but people from the South
would occasionally pass through with their African servants, exciting
no little discussion. What had Jane sneaking out the back fence and
down Pearl to Fair Street, lined with elms, and over another two
blocks, was a loud discussion in the Academy building, one you could
hear many blocks away.
Crossing the Lancaster Road, she saw the crowd of men in profile,
like the illumination, inside against the windows, and a larger crowd
outside, the boys clambering up on the sides of a sea of wagons
nearby, trying to see in.
Then suddenly, there was a stir throughout the crowd, a silence
within that spread without, and then dimly, from inside, a loud voice
calling "There'll be no shackles here! Make way for Liberty."
In silhouette she saw a man being lifted up and passed over the heads
of the crowd inside, a few hands grasping for him and being beaten
back by others. Then the actual person, a black man, came feet first
out the top of the door, and was gently set on the ground.
Mr. Hillyer she knew, and he pushed through the crowd at the door
leading two horses; he leapt on one after helping the African fellow
onto the other, and together they galloped up to the Broadway
crossing, disappearing to the west beyond Sugar Loaf.
She was glad she had snuck out again, but marveled at what she had
seen; heading home, it occurred to her that she couldn't, this time,
ask her mother to explain it all.
[The slave known only as John escaped, with much local assistance,
after a habeas corpus hearing presided over by Judge Samuel Bancroft
in the Old Academy Building in 1841.]
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