(pg. 32)
MARKSVILLE, LOUISIANA - Marksville was the parish seat of Avoyelles where Solomon at last secured his freedom. It was here that Solomon's New York friend, Henry B. Northup, arrived on a Red River boat. The lawyer employed by Henry B. Northup was John P. Watdill, a lawyer of considerable prominence in the state. Waddill was a state senator in 1848 and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1852. It was Samuel Bass, a carpenter living near Marksville with a free woman of color, who sent Solomon's letter to his wife, Anne, in New York, describing his whereabouts after an absence of twelve years. Bass' role in freeing Northup cannot be overlooked; he risked possible death from irate planters who were extremely sensitive regarding "the peculiar institution" during this last decade before the Civil War. Bass died two months after Northup's release from slavery, and the same lawyer, Waddill, left a note in his diary is a brief note regarding the Northup case in which he obviously considered nothing more than a routine case.
Ralph Cushman was the presiding judge, a man doomed to die within the next months of a yellow fever epidemic which swept the river towns, including Marksville.
It was from Marksville that the sheriff set out to locale Platt, the slave, whose identity was not established as Solomon Northup. The following day necessary proceedings took place in the Avoyelles Parish Courthouse, Marksville, which freed the kidnapped slave.
The names Waddill (a street) and Cushman (a cemetery) survive in Marksville.
It was a slave, identity unknown, who was kept at the Avoyelles Sheriff's office to help locate slave. It was he who was responsible for providing information leading to the Epps Place and Platt.
Louisiana, Slave Records, 1719-1820 about Augustine
ReplyDeleteName: Augustine
Gender: Female
Age: 6
Birth Year: abt 1801
Other History: sold or inventoried in a group; Member of a family group; Slave's mother is listed in the document; This slave sold with his or her mother.
Comments: sale of 2 plantation on 1 arpent other 30, beasts, utensils and slaves
Family: mom and 4 girls
Mother's Race: Black
Mother's Age: 26
Mother's Birth Year: abt 1781
Members of Group: 2 plantations, implements, beasts and slave
Document Date: 3 Nov 1807
Location: Avoyelles
Document Number: 1
Notary: Alienation Book A
Document Language: French
Document Depository: New Orleans Public Library
Seller: Francois Tournier
Buyer: Martineau Landreneau
Selling Value: 8500
Selling Value US$: 8500
Augustine Mcglory in entry for Ellen Cass
Louisiana, Deaths Index, 1850-1875, 1894-1956
Attach to Family Tree
COPY PRINT SOURCE BOX SHARE
Name: Ellen Cass
Event Type: Death
Event Date: 18 Apr 1922
Event Place: Alexandria, Rapides, Louisiana
Gender: Female
Age: 76
Race (Original): Colored
Birth Year (Estimated): 1846
Birthplace: Marksville, Louisiana
Father's Name: Samuel Bass
Mother's Name: Augustine Mcglory
Spouse's Name: John Cass
Certificate Number: 4081
The memoir ends with his telling of how he reacquired his freedom, aided by a man named Samuel Bass. Bass was born in Canada but lived and died in Marksville, LA in Avoyelles Parish. Bass died of pneumonia August 30, 1853 – age 46, while at the home of Justine Tournier (a free woman of color), only months after Solomon was freed.
I have a theory that Bass was actually poisoned by strychnine for helping Northup escape. Any thoughts on how to research this?
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