A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America
W. Caleb McDaniel
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: McDaniel, W. Caleb (William Caleb), 1979– author. Title: Sweet taste of liberty : a true story of slavery and restitution in America / W. Caleb McDaniel.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019] | Includes biblioographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018047090 | ISBN 9780190846992 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Wood, Henrietta, approximately 1818/20–1912. | Slaves—Kentucky—Biography. | Women slaves—Kentucky—Biography. | Freedmen—Ohio—Cincinnati--Biography. | Wood, Henrietta, approximately 1818/20–1912—Trials, litigation, etc. | Trials (Kidnapping)—Ohio—Cincinnati. | African Americans—Reparations—History—19th century. Classification: LCC E444.W815 M35 2019 | DDC 306.3/62092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018047090
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Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc. United States of America
In Memory of Winona Adkins (1944–2018)
Great-great-granddaughter of Henrietta Wood
[She] saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.
—Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God
Prologue 1
Part I: THE WORST SLAVE OF THEM ALL
1. The Crossing 11
2. Touseytown 17
3. Downriver 25
4. Ward’s Return 38
5. Cincinnati 44
6. The Plan 54
7. The Flight 67
Part II: FORKS OF THE ROAD
8. Raising a Muss 75
9. Wood v. Ward 83
10. The Keeper 91
11. Natchez 103
12. Brandon Hall 111
13. Versailles 120
14. Revolution 135
15. The March 145
Part III: THE RETURN OF HENRIETTA WOOD
16. Arthur 153
17. Robertson County 159
18. Dawn and Doom 166
19. Nashville 178
20. A Rather Interesting Case 189
21. Story of a Slave 202
22. The Verdict 210 Epilogue 226
Acknowledgments 241
Appendix: An Essay on Sources 245
Notes 259
Index 326
Sweet t a S te of Liberty
Map 1
2
Map
“Story of a Slave,” Cincinnati Commercial, April 2, 1876.
Lafcadio Hearn about 1873. From Elizabeth Bisland, Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn (1906).
Zebulon Ward. Courtesy of Arkansas State Archives, G4543.55.
Moses Tousey Estate Inventory. Courtesy of the Boone County Public Library, Kentucky.
Probable site of William Cirode’s house in
New Orleans. Photograph by author.
Photograph of house formerly used by Lewis Robards as part of his slave jail. Courtesy of John Winston Coleman Jr. Collection on Slavery in Kentucky, University of Kentucky Archives.
The Kentucky State Penitentiary in Frankfort, 1860. Courtesy of Kentucky Historical Society, 2004.41.85.
View of the entrance to the Kentucky Penitentiary. Courtesy of Kentucky Historical Society, 2004.41.54.
Drawing of a Kentucky convict laborer published in 1860, one year after Zeb Ward’s term as keeper ended. Courtesy of Kentucky Historical Society, 2004.41.7.
Map of Versailles showing Ward Villa. From E. A. Hewitt and George Washington Hewitt, Topographical Map of the Counties of Bourbon, Fayette, Clark, Jessamine, and Woodford, Kentucky from Actual Surveys (New York: Smith, Gallup, 1861). Courtesy of Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
Artist’s depiction of Natchez, circa 1856. Courtesy of Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs: Print Collection, New York Public Library.
Survey of the Forks of the Road slave market from 1856, with the stand of Robert H. Elam, the local broker for Griffin and Pullum, shown. Courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Daguerreotype of man identified by descendants as Gerard Brandon. Courtesy of Gerard B. Rickey.
Brandon Hall in 1936. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS MISS,1-WASH.V,1—1. Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Late nineteenth-century photograph of women picking cotton. Courtesy of Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs: Photography Collection, New York Public Library.
Arthur H. Simms. Courtesy of David M. Blackman.
Caroline Person Simms. Courtesy of David M. Blackman.
Union College Law Class of 1889, with Arthur H. Simms pictured third from the right, second row from the top. Courtesy of Northwestern University Archives.
Arthur H. Simms in 1883 or 1884. Courtesy of Winona Adkins.
Arthur Simms Jr. and Neata Simms, children of Arthur and Caroline Simms. Courtesy of Winona Adkins.
Neata Simms Adkins, granddaughter of Henrietta Wood. Courtesy of Winona Adkins.
Arthur H. Simms Sr. with Lawrence Adkins, circa 1948. Courtesy of Winona Adkins.
Lucinda Tousey’s letter to Henrietta Wood. Courtesy of David M. Blackman.
Case file for Wood v. Ward at the Chicago branch of the National Archives and Records Administration. Photograph by author.
Affidavit in case file for Wood v. Ward, signed by Henrietta Wood with her mark. Photograph by author.
Jury’s verdict in Wood v. Ward in 1878. Photograph by author.
Prologue
Zebulon Ward of Arkansas liked to say that he was the last American ever to pay for a slave.
It would have been a “doubtful honor” even if it were true, as one newspaper said about Ward in 1887. Ward’s story, however, was dubious itself, and the true story brought him no honor at all. Eight years before the Civil War began, he had kidnapped a free woman and sold her as a slave. After the war, she had sued him for an enormous amount of money, arguing that she deserved reparations for her enslavement. But Ward preferred to tell his own version of the facts, making himself out to be “The Last Slave Buyer.” Many who heard his story would never learn the truth.1
Tall and broad-shouldered, with a cropped, gray beard, Ward was well known by the 1880s as a man with a knack for spinning yarns, perhaps “the most unique raconteur south of the Mason and Dixon.” Some said he looked like Ulysses S. Grant and had even impersonated the ex-president at a party both men attended. True or not, that was the kind of story he loved to tell, and Ward’s stories often made their way into the press. “Portions of his history are like a romance,” wrote one reporter in 1888.2
By then Ward was one of the richest men in the South, having made his fortune leasing state prisons in the region. He claimed to have served in two wars, and some called him “Colonel.” He may have been most famous, though, as a horseracing enthusiast, a “man of the turf.” Before settling in Arkansas, Zeb Ward had raised Thoroughbreds in his native state, Kentucky, and at one race held in 1863, his horse had been the only one to hear the starter’s signal: the filly won while the other
