1807 - Black Daniel
Image: Drawing of Worthington Academy Building once on this siteAs you look east down Dublin-Granville Rd, the clay bank where the street begins to descend was left by melting glaciers that created a wide river. This was the site of Amos Maxfield’s brickyard. Maxfield’s records for the Worthington Academy include payment for work at his brickyard on November 7th, 1807 to “Black Daniel”. The Worthington Academy, which replaced a double log cabin that served as a church, school and meeting place, started instruction here in the new two-story brick building in 1811. (Now the site of the Deshler library or Kilbourne building/Co-Hatch, Sew to Speak).When Governors Thomas Worthington and Edward Tiffin moved from Virginia to the Northwest Territory, they settled in the area which became Chillicothe, Ohio. At that time, they were obligated to free those they enslaved. By 1804, the year following Ohio gaining statehood, the Ohio legislature enacted Black Codes which required any Black person living in Ohio to provide a certificate proving his freedom to the county clerk and to any employer of that person. In 1807, the legislature strengthened these Black Laws with restrictions on a variety of issues from gun ownership to marriage. These discouragements to Black immigration continued until they were repealed in 1849. No records reveal how long Daniel lived in the community or if he had a family. Frontier Ohio was not a welcoming environment for Blacks, although individual villages, like Worthington, sometimes were.
1821 - The Freeing of Isham
Images: 1) Artist rendtion of the Freeing of Isham, 2) Franklin Chronicle MastheadLet’s think about the lives of two early Justices of the Peace, the highest legal authority in Sharon Township, James Kilbourn and Arora Buttles. As a teenager Arora Buttles worked in Amos Maxfield’s brickyard, perhaps alongside “Black Daniel”, making bricks. One assumes he may have approved of the western pragmatism of the “underground railway” that resorted to helping those escaping slavery to reach free territory. When James Kilbourn entered the US Congress in 1813, he lived and worked with both slave owners and early abolitionists. This included many who founded the American Colonization Society, such as his brother-in-law, Lincoln Goodale in Columbus. While Buttles and Kilbourne shared the same New England cultural heritage of freedom, they had quite different personal experiences with free Blacks living in early Ohio. Would they have felt the same way about the illegal act of the mob that freed Isham from a slave catcher? In June of 1821, an advertisement by Kentucky plantation owner Robert Turner in the Franklin Chronicle, a newspaper printed in Worthington, offered a $500 reward for a fugitive from slavery named Isham who “was taken a few days since, near this place [Worthington] and was set at Liberty...he is supposed to be still in the neighborhood or gone toward Lower Sandusky and Canada & is well known to some in the vicinity.” While neither Kilbourn nor Buttles is known to be involved, the advertisement suggests that the Worthington community may have been aware of who Isham was, and how he might have been freed. At the time, $500 was an exceptional amount of money, and the fact that no follow up article about Isham’s capture or payment of the reward was printed may speak to the attitude of the community of Worthington at that time.
St. John's Episcopal Cemetery
The 1830 census for Franklin County lists around 300 “colored” residents. Of those recorded, only two families (those of Benjamin Lee & John Lee) and several single men lived in Sharon Township. In 1830 and 1831, Sexton George Griswold recorded two of Benjamin and Nancy Lee's infants being buried in this early cemetery in the southeast corner. The markers of the Lee children can no longer be located, as is the case with many headstones in this cemetery. The burials reflect that Blacks were part of the community, although perhaps on the fringe. Griswold's records note that the Lee infant buried in 1831 was a patient of local doctor Kingsley Ray, indicating that the family did have access to a physician. The 1850 Sharon Township census reveals that Benjamin and Nancy Lee, both born in Virginia, had six children living. An 1878 city directory lists Benjamin Lee as a basket maker.
Education in Worthington
Images: 1) Union school, 2) Worthington Public School, c. 1880s, 3) 1873 & 1893 public schools on E. Granville from corner of Hartford looking NW, 4) Worthington Public School, c. 1920, 5) Class of 1901, Mary Sheldon back row left, 6) Worthington Public School, 1907, 7) Kilbourne Middle SchoolEarly Worthington schools were subscription schools, and later public schools controlled locally by township directors. Prior to the 1850 census, there are no written records of the number and age of children living in the community and whether they were enrolled in public school. In 1848 the Ohio legislature passed a measure that allowed any town with twenty or more Black students to establish a separate school for them; if their numbers were less than twenty, Blacks were allowed to attend public school. Worthington never qualified to create a segregated school. In 1854, Ohio allowed towns with too few non-white students for a separate school to attend the public school “if no objections are raised.”This building on the southwest corner of Hartford and Granville Roads, was constructed in 1856 as a Union School - the first public school building in Worthington. It served the district from 1856 until 1873. Census records starting in 1850 indicate if children have attended school in the past year. No African-American children in the 1850 or 1860 census records are marked as having received education in the past year. In the 1870 census, some children indicated as Black or Mulatto, are noted as having attended school. Whether they attended school in this public school building or in a private setting is not documented. In 1873, Worthington built a new building across Granville Rd on the Northeast Village Green. A photo of all students in front of this building shows at least three Black elementary-age children among about a hundred students. In 1887 the Ohio legislature repealed all Black Laws including those regarding separate schools. Worthington had escaped the whole Ohio era of segregated public schools, because they had too few Black students. We have no evidence of black children attending public schools before the late 1870s. In 1938 the building now known as Kilbourne Middle School replaced both the 1873 structure and a second building erected on the north side of Granville Road in 1893. Resident Juanita Jones wrote of her personal experiences attending school in Worthington. In a 1971 booklet created by St John A.M.E. Church titled “Black Pioneers in Education” she stated, “This Article more or less reflects the happenings in education in Worthington Schools during the period of the early nineteen-thirties through the mid-forties…” She continued, “You would find about one or two black students in a class in the Worthington Schools at this time. Very little notice was made publicly about race or skin color, but you could observe an uneasiness and quick glances at the black student in music class when songs such as “Old Black Joe” were sung.”In regards to curriculum, she noted “There was the same push for all students to learn the three R’s but for the black student the history or social studies class seemed to barely relate to him. The text and class room discussion mentioned his people only in connection with the slave trade, slavery in the South, the Reconstruction Period, or in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.She reflected, “I think that every black student who has attended Worthington Schools or graduated from the Worthington High School could truthfully say they had been offered the highest quality education they could receive anywhere and with the proper effort on the part of the student, they are prepared to meet the challenge of higher education.”Jones also touched on the opportunities available to Black students after graduation. “The black girl student in earlier days had very little to look forward to after graduation other than domestic type work. Even if clerical courses were taken, the jobs were not available to her. It is a fact that even with a college degree blacks could not always get a job in the field for which they had trained.”
1833 - The Anti-Slavery Society & Ansel Mattoon (72 E. North St.)
Images: 1) House c. 1940; 2) Current photograph of homeThe brick portion of this house was moved from the southwest corner of North and High Streets in 1932 to its present location.Ansel Mattoon, a Worthington blacksmith, purchased the home in 1833. Mattoon was strongly opposed to slavery and was one of the sixty-six founding members of the Worthington Anti-Slavery Society. Forty-two men and twenty-four women signed the constitution at the home of W.S. Spencer on March 28, 1835, making the chapter one of the earliest chapters in Ohio. The objective of both the local Anti-Slavery Society and the state organization was to achieve not only the emancipation of enslaved people, but also “the emancipation of the colored man from the oppression of public sentiment and unjust laws and the elevation of both [enslaved and free blacks] to an intellectual and moral equality with whites.” This is a goal toward which people in this country are still working in 2020. Meeting notes from 1837 declare, “We pledge ourselves to support no Man for any office in these United States who is publickly opposed to the Immortal sentiment set forth in the declaration of our Independence, Viz, That All Men are created Equal, That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; that among these are Life Liberty & the pursuit of happiness”.Ansel Matton hosted Methodist antislavery meetings of Worthington in this home. Records of Underground Railroad activities were not kept by those involved, because it was illegal and carried the threat of a significant prison term. However, oral and written histories, some included in the Wilbur Siebert collection, indicate his home was a station on the “underground railroad”. As a blacksmith and wagon maker, Mattoon could drive his wagon north, often to the Ozem Gardner property in Flint, without arousing suspicion. The Ozem Gardner home still stands and is now owned by the Walnut Grove and Flint Cemeteries.(Private Residence)
1854 - Uriah Heath, Advocate (721 High St.)
Images: 1) Adams-Bishop-Heath House, 2) Uriah HeathThe original owners of this c. 1817-1818 home, Demas and Susan Adams, most likely ran this property as a boarding house associated with the Kilbourn's nearby “Worthington Hotel” and for students attending the Worthington Academy. In 1830 Adams sold the property to William Bishop, a saddler, and prominent member of the Methodist Church.When Bishop moved from this site to operate the “Bishop House” (Worthington Inn) in 1854, he sold the home to Rev. Uriah Heath, a Methodist minister. Heath advocated for the freeing of enslaved people which led to his role in raising funds to establish Wilberforce College (est. 1856), the nation’s oldest private, historically Black University owned and operated by African Americans. He was also an agent for the Tract Society of the Methodist Conference, and discussed his concerns that free Blacks and retired Methodist ministers should have a place they could own their own home. He was instrumental in developing Worthington’s first residential subdivision, the Morris Addition, on the southeast side of the original village. (Learn more at stop 8).(Private residence)
1856 - The Turk Family (108 W. New England Ave.)
Images: 1) Turk Home, 2) Obituary for Dolly Turk from 1881, 3) Colonial Hills title with racial restrictionOn April 3rd, 1856, when Charles & Lucy Wiley and Nathan & Sarah Mason sold this property to Henry & Dolly Turk, they were doing something historic. The deed indicated Henry Turk “has paid us the full consideration”, described it as “the premises on which the said Henry Turk now resides” and indicated “we have given up his notes”. The Turks, who were both enslaved in Virginia and could neither read nor write, had now become the first Black couple to own their own home in the middle of Worthington. The Turks had been renting the house for some time - perhaps as early as 1840 when Wiley took a mortgage on the property. A June 11th, 1881 issue of the newspaper “The Independent Observer of Worthington & Dublin” stated, "Aunt Dolly Turk, an estimable colored lady of this place, was interred at the cemetery last Sunday. She was formerly a slave in the State of Virginia, where in the year 1838 she was purchased by her husband, Harry Turk, and they immediately came to Worthington, where she has resided up to the time of her death. Our citizens remember her as a good and kind-hearted woman."Several of the Turk children also lived here with their aging parents. Preston Turk is listed in an 1878 directory as a barber in the rear of the “Union Hotel”, now known as the Worthington Inn. Daughter Amanda Turk was briefly married to Nero Monroe, who owned land Iin the Morris Addition. The families who assisted the Turks purchase their home were active members of the Worthington Methodist Episcopal Church (now Worthington United Methodist Church) – a force behind the Underground Railroad in the Worthington area in the years prior to the Civil War. The Wileys and Masons were Methodists living their faith. Years before the Civil War they were not aspiring to assist the Turks to Canada, or contributing money for their passage to Liberia, but welcoming them to Worthington and making it possible for them to buy a home. It is a contrast to the atmosphere that developed as a reaction to the Great Migration of Southern Blacks starting around 1916. During the 1920’s and 1930’s new housing developments such as Riverlea, Colonial Hills and Medick Estates had restrictive covenants preventing people of color from purchasing homes in the neighborhoods. The clause in Colonial Hills abstracts reads “No part of said Colonial Hills District or any building thereon shall be owned, leased or occupied by any person other than one of the Caucasian race but this prohibition shall not exclude or prevent occupancy by persons not of the Caucasian race as domestic servants of any resident of said Colonial Hills District and the declaration by any court of the invalidity of any part of this prohibition shall not invalidate the remainder thereof.” Worthington was no longer a sleepy, rural town, but becoming a commuter suburb. Expansion brought new residents and new attitudes. In an interview in 2013 for WOSU’s Worthington episode of Columbus Neighborhoods, Juanita Jones remarked, “I would like to say that at first the Worthington Community had no problem with race. People of different color lived all over the area, but then as the builders came in then they started to say they were not selling to Blacks and that made a problem and some of the older Whites as well as the Blacks said, “What do you mean? It’s always been an open community.” Another longtime Worthington community member, Rosanna Fields continued, “There were a few objections when we moved in [to Worthington Estates] even though my husband had been born in Worthington, but the objections that we found out were from people who had also moved in recently. They were not old Worthington.”Unlike the Turks, who were able to purchase a home in the heart of Worthington with help from the community, or Blacks who owned land and homes in the Morris Addition (which you will visit next), people of color looking to own new homes in the 1900's were far more likely to encounter purposeful exclusion.(Private Residence)
1855 - The Morris Addition (Intersection of Morning St. & E. Granville Rd.)
The Morris Addition was Worthington’s first subdivision, named after Calvery Morris, a Cincinnati businessman who provided financing for the development, along with George McCullough. Reverend Uriah Heath, however, was the force behind this addition. (See stop 6.) He sold lots as early as 1855, and the plat for Morris Addition was accepted for the records on 28 February 1856. This plat included 118 lots bordered on the north by current East Granville Road, on the west by current Morning Street, on the south by South Street and on the east by Andover. Plymouth Street was originally known as McCullough, Greenwich Street was Spencer, Andover St. was Foster. While it was intended as a place for retired Methodist ministers and free Blacks to own homes, it is unknown whether any ministers lived here. St. John A.M.E. church was eventually built in this area, and records indicate that free Blacks did build and occupy homes in the area through the second half of the 19th century on. As the tour progresses through these streets, the stories of some of these families will be told.
The Scott Family - 195 E. Granville Rd.
Images: 1) 195 E. Granville, 2) Harriet Scott's manumission papers, 3) 1872 map of Morris Addition showing James Scott's land, 4) 1894 advertisement for barber Bev Scott from the Westerville Public OpinionThis house is located on the north half of lots 9 and 10 of the Morris Addition. On 9 July 1862, James Scott acquired the south half of lots 9 and 10, which is the property directly south of the current structure at 195 East Granville Road. The 1872 plat map of Morris Addition shows the northern half of lots 9 and 10 in the name of Walter Foss, while the southern half including a structure was in the name of James Scott. Sometime after 1872, James Scott obtained the vacant northern half of lots 9 and 10, since on 8 February 1878, James and Harriet Scott conveyed the northern half of lots 9 and 10 to their son William “Bev” Scott for $100.00. James and Harriet Scott, along with two of their children, William and James, had been enslaved in Virginia. The Worthington Historical Society holds Harriet Scott’s manumission papers stating she was freed by the will of Ann Watkins in December, 1858. The 1860 Powhatan, Virginia census document indicates that all four family members were emancipated. In notes taken by historian Frank Corbin, he wrote that Harriet told his Grandmother Vest the family was so hungry they ate blackberries on the trip to Ohio. Documents in the Corbin papers indicate that James Scott built a house on the southern portion of lots 9 and 10 and that William B. (Bev) Scott, son of Harriet and James, built the house at the southwest corner of Plymouth and East Granville Road. Since neither of these houses appear on the 1868 tax list, it would seem that James Scott built his house circa 1870. It seems likely that William B. “Bev” Scott built the original portion of the house now standing at 195 East Granville Road circa 1880. The addition to the front of the house appears to have been added circa 1895. Scott worked as a barber with shops both in Worthington and Columbus. He also built a two-story frame business building on the east side of High Street on lot 101 (now 666 High/The Whitney House) around 1895. He sold the building in 1904. He and his wife Hester and daughter were still living at 195 East Granville Road in 1928 as shown by the Worthington Directory. (Private Residence)
James & Ada Kiner Scott - 184 E. Granville Rd.
As you look across the street, the white house to the left of the brick home was another property owned by the Scott family. On 10 April 1893, W. F. and Fondelia Griswold sold lot 9 in the Griswold East Side Addition to James Scott for $400.00. This was one of the first lots sold in the new addition, and was sold before the plat was officially recorded. The $400.00 consideration for this lot 50 feet wide and 260 feet in 1893 indicates that there was a house on this lot at the time of the conveyance from W. F. and Fondelia Griswold to James Scott. Frank Corbin’s note indicate that "James Scott divorced his first wife and later married Ada Kiner, a founder of the African Methodist Church on Plymouth Street." He further reported, "They built a frame house on the north side of Granville Road near Plymouth which is still standing." James Scott placed an advertisement in the newspaper in February 1897 indicating, "House Cleaning Time will soon be here. I am better prepared than ever to do all kinds of house cleaning, white washing, etc. James Scott. Also caterer for parties, Worthington, Ohio." James Scott died in 1918. The 1928 Worthington Directory showed Ada Scott living at 184 East Granville Road. On 8 December 1893, Ada Scott conveyed this property to her niece Ada Kiner Thompson and Forest A. Thompson. On 2 November 1938, Ada Scott died at the home of her niece, Mrs. Forest Thompson on East Granville Road. The obituary indicated she had been born in New Hope, Virginia in 1859, her parents being enslaved. She came to Worthington about 1895 to serve as a nurse for Mrs. Henry Fay. Learn more about the Kiner family history at stop 14.(Private Residence)
St John A.M.E. Church (682 Plymouth St.)
Images: 1) St John A.M.E. Church, 2) Church Interior, 3) Bethel A.M.E. Revival Notice from 1888, 4) St. John congregation from the mid-1900's, 5) St. John A.M.E. choirIn 1819, Rev. Jacob Blakemore organized Methodist Societies around Ohio and beyond. One of the results of this missionary work, was a Methodist Colored Society in Worthington, which eventually became St. John African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church. There are few written accounts about these early societies, as literacy among Blacks was rare during this period. In a St. John A.M.E. Church publication, “Forward with Brotherhood: Negro History Week” from 1969, it is written, “Since the origin of Worthington in 1803 all church doors of all the historical denominations have opened their doors to black people.” Around 1819 there were less than 300 free Blacks in the Central Ohio region, and they often gathered in their homes or barns to worship. Prayer meetings would be held in homes in Worthington and Mrs. Millie Alston conducted church and Sunday School in her home on Plymouth St. in the early 1890’s. In 1896, under the leadership of Peter Banks, Worthington began to organize a home church for the Black community. D.H. Taborn, C.B. Kiner, J.T. Horton and James Birkhead were actively involved in the early efforts. The congregation met in the Worthington Town Hall in 1897 (Stop 4), and also purchased a lot from Mrs. Mille Alston for $50.00. The first building, called Bethel A.M.E. Church, was a home that was moved and converted to a church. By 1914 the growing congregation outgrew the first building, and had the current building constructed by local carpenter, Mr. Hard. It was at this time the church was renamed St. John A.M.E. Church. The congregation remained in the building until 2004, when it moved to Crosswoods Drive. In a 1989 interview Dr. Lon Scatterday, age 86) recalled St. John A.M.E. church from his childhood. He said “Worthington was a quiet village about that time with about 700 people, all very friendly. There were very few black families, but no animosity at all. They most all lived in the same area, and had their own A.M.E. Church. I can remember going to the A.M.E. Church with a horse and buggy as a youngster. I would tie up my horse to a hitching post just to listen to the "colored people" sing. I even remember going into their service. It was always a very friendly atmosphere between blacks and whites.”
The Clark Family & Walnut Grove Cemetery
Images: 1) Nora Banks Clark, 2) Jesse Clark's grave at Walnut Grove CemeteryHarry Clark, owned land on the Northeast corner of this intersection and lived here from the 1920s until 1942, when his family moved to the corner of Morning and Stafford. He married Nora Banks, daughter of St. John A.M.E. organizer, Peter Banks. One of their daughters, Martha married Squire Todd, subject of the next stop at 174 E New England Ave. Harry Clark’s father Jesse Clark was among the nearly 180,000 African Americans who served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Clark served as a Private in Co. A of the 17th U.S. Colored Infantry and is buried at Walnut Grove Cemetery. Jesse Clark and wife Martha Lucas Clark had three children, Nelson, Harry and Ora Clark. Clark was raised in Pike County and moved to Central Ohio in the 1870s. He lived in Worthington by the 1900 census, and he is buried in Walnut Grove Cemetery. Walnut Grove Cemetery (which is located at High St & Lincoln, south of the Historic District) was laid out as the village cemetery when St. John’s Episcopal Cemetery was reaching capacity. The first burial was in 1859, but a records book was not maintained until 1910. On March 2, 1910 they “resolved that all lots north of Maple Alley and west of Lots 81 and 82 be reserved for the sale to Collard [sic] People Exclusively and that no other lots be sold to Collard People.” This is the first official indication of segregation in Worthington and reflects the Jim Crow era when colored was accepted language. Although blacks had been part of Worthington, and buried in the village from the beginning, it is likely they had been regarded as second class citizens. It was the cemetery that first recorded it officially.While many headstones along Maple Alley no longer remain, visitors can still find the graves from the early 1900’s including those of Private John Hood, James Birkhead and family and others. (See "Pocketsights" tour for Walnut Grove Cemetery, stop 5)
Squire Todd - 174. E. New England Ave.
Images: 1) 174 E. New England Ave, 2) Potter Wright House when next to the 1926 Methodist Church on High Street, 3) Worthington Feed & Transfer Ad from 1926 Worthington News, 4) 680 High Street, Building that was Worthington Feed & Transfer, pictured when occupied by Eicher Insurance, 6) Interior of Worthington Feed & TransferThis structure originally stood on inlot 133 of the original plat of Worthington, now the location of the Worthington Methodist Church on the east side of current High Street. This structure is thought to have been built for early Worthington settler Potter Wright prior to 1827. Potter Wright erected a shop and manufactured carding and spinning machinery, and other machinery used in cloth making and cloth dressing. The property was conveyed to the Worthington Methodist Church in the early 1920’s and in September 1925, some six months after a new church building was initiated, a notice appeared in the Worthington News stating, "The frame and brick building on the new Methodist Church property is to be removed and is for sale." For over six months, the new Church and the house occupied the same lot. Sometime in the fall of 1925, Squire T. Todd moved the frame portion of this property from lot 133 to lots 54 and 55 of the Morris Addition (174 East New England). Mr. Todd was a prominent African American citizen of Worthington who operated a successful feed store, Worthington Feed and Transfer Company, on the east side of High Street in Worthington from 1914 - 1934. While residing in Perry Township, Mr. Todd had purchased the New England Avenue lots in August 1915. It is reported that Mr. Todd used a team of oxen to move this house. The 1928 Worthington Directory showed Todd, Martha, his wife, and Janet E. and Squire T. Jr. living at 174 East New England. When he died in 1952, Todd lived at 305 Tuller Street (E. North Street) when he died in 1952.(Private Residence)
The Kiner Family & "Bird Song" - Methodist Church lot
Images: 1) "Birdsong" before moved to Short Street on the Methodist Church site, 2) Charles B. KinerCharles Kiner was one of the four men instrumental in the formation of St. John A.M.E. Church. He was the son of Benjamin and Frances Kiner, who were emancipated in Virginia at the end of the Civil War. In the book The Thin Light of Freedom, Edward Ayer writes of the Freedmen’s Bureau’s efforts to reconnect families separated during the war. He said, "In a few instances, the efforts worked. Benjamin Kiner had moved to Ohio and wrote his wife Frances back in Augusta in 1866, through the connections of the Freedmen's Bureau. "I would like to have you come out here and I hope you will make up your mind and come with the children", he urged. "I should like to have all the children with me as they can go to school." The family moved to Ohio, and to Worthington near the turn of the century.By 1900, Benjamin Kiner, age 85 and a widower, was living in Worthington with the family of his son Charles. His daughter Ada Kiner Scott had come to Worthington in 1895 to serve as a nurse for Mrs. Henry Fay.Charles Kiner is reported to have been the first African American to hold public office as Town Marshall in 1891. At one time he rented a home that stood in the place, known as the “Principal’s Cottage” or “Birdsong”. The house was used by the principal of the Worthington Female Seminary that stood where the parking lot is located today. The house was later moved behind the post office on Short Street.
William Harris & Hotel Central, 649 High St.
Images: 1) Worthington Inn, 2) Stables visible behind the Inn, 3) Livery and Stable sign next on the corner of High & New England when Hotel CentralFrank Corbin, who lived through the 1900s in Worthington wrote, “No conversation of the Black community in Worthington's past would be complete without some mention of William Harris... When he first loomed into my field of recognition, which would be about 1910-11 when I was first getting out of dresses. (They did that to boys in those days.) ""William Harris knew horses and one thought of Lexington, Ky green fields and embellishing (?) foals when one thought of Bill. I never knew what his marital status or whether he had any family.""It was his knowledge of horses that led him to George Van Loon, the proprietor of Central hotel (Worthington Inn) or vice versa. Van Loon, as well as setting the best table in Franklin County and operating a livery stable (a large barn in the rear of the premises) also had a contract with the Boston Police and Fire Departments to furnish them with remounts, and this is where Bill Harris and his experience entered the picture." "After a sufficient number of good serviceable horses had been purchased and assembled at the livery they were trotted through town a column of fours. One rider on each near horse and a line to the bridles of the other three. It looked much like a column of cavalry, 4 abreast, out East Granville Road to the RR where they were led into the box car that was to transport them to Boston. It was Harris’ job to accompany his charges to the eastern metropolis and to take care of their needs during the journey.""Bill usually slept in the Van Loon's stable, not because of any idea of segregation, but because the danger of fire required someone to be on the premises. And, if only we knew the truth perhaps Bill preferred the horses. In any case the stable has had an unusual significance in the history of mankind, and Bill was not oblivious to the fact.”
