Woodman in MO
03-06-2007, 10:09 AM
I'm particular about this cause of the St. Louis connection. Plus it's an honor to go visit the man's grave here.
Dred Scott: Heirs to history
By Tim O'Neil | ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Tuesday, Mar. 06 2007
Lynne M. Jackson is an administrator for a law firm downtown. Martin R. Field
is a stay-at-home dad in Mehlville. William B. Mill is a retired doctor in
Ballwin.
Until this past week, they hadn't heard one another's names. Yet each is linked
by family heritage to major players in the 19th century drama of law and
morality that fractured America's uneasy compromise over slavery — a story that
began in St. Louis, a frontier commercial hub that barely reached where City
Hall stands today.
The central characters were Dred and Harriet Scott, slaves who briefly won
their freedom in a trial in the Old Courthouse only to lose a series of
appeals. The final decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857 — 150
years ago today — said that blacks had no rights
and that slavery could spread into the western territories.
The decision emboldened slaveholders and frightened abolitionists and
free-soilers. It pushed the United States toward the four years of the
nation-reshaping carnage called the Civil War.
Slave owners Peter and Elizabeth Blow of Virginia brought Dred Scott to St.
Louis in 1830. The lawyer who took the case to the federal courts was Roswell
Field, who moved here from Vermont in 1839, the year St. Louis began building
its courthouse. Taylor Blow, a son of the Blows, freed the Scotts quickly after
the decision.
From their alley address near present-day Cole and 10th streets, the newly
freed Harriet Scott took in laundry. Roswell Field got Dred Scott a job at
Barnum's Hotel, just east of the Old Cathedral, where he was a porter and
enjoyed celebrity until his death on Sept. 17, 1858.
Fast-forward five generations. Lynne Jackson of Florissant is a
great-great-granddaughter of the Scotts. Martin Roswell Field is a
great-great-grandson of Roswell Martin Field. William Blow Mill is a
great-great-grandson of Taylor Blow.
Their lives are pleasantly ordinary by contemporary standards. They're married
with children and are churchgoing citizens. They heard family stories growing
up but reached adulthood before fully understanding the complicated tale of
human bondage, politics and courage.
Lynne Jackson Keeping the flame alive
She was 4 years old when she attended the 100th anniversary of the case at the
Old Courthouse in 1957. Her father, John Madison Sr., gave a speech arguing for
racial justice. Her family then went to Calvary Cemetery, where the Rev. Edward
Dowling, a Jesuit raising money for a monument over Dred Scott's unmarked
grave, led a prayer service. No major political officeholders attended.
"There were lights and a lot of people," Lynne Jackson recalled. "Something big
had happened with my great-great-grandfather."
In school, teachers would fuss over her lineage when textbooks opened to the
case. They also fussed over her two children — continuing testimony to the
story's power.
"Ours is an understanding and pride of how there were courageous people who
stood up to the law of the land," Jackson said of her family. "You cannot go
back and change history, but in our time, we all need to make our marks. And we
know that we have that blood running through us."
Among the Scotts' great-grandchildren was John A. Madison, who earned a degree
from the old Lincoln University School of Law and taught in the St. Louis
public schools. He and his wife, Marsulite, had four children. The oldest is
Jackson.
"My father told us a lot about the case and how getting a good education is our
legacy," said Jackson, 54. "Our family was never one to walk around and say,
'We're related to Dred Scott.' We were taught our responsibility today — the
courage to do what's right. Dred and Harriet had the courage to pursue it over
11 years and put their lives on the line. We owe them to see this through."
Shortly after Jackson graduated from Northwest High School in 1970, her family
moved to Ballwin. She graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville,
married Brian Jackson and had two children, one of whom played Dred Scott in a
first-grade presentation. Ten years ago, she was hired by the law firm Bryan
Cave, where she is general services manager.
From the firm's suites in the Metropolitan Square Building downtown, she can
look upon the Old Courthouse. Had her ancestors not sought redress there, she
said, "We could very well have been a slave nation much longer."
Last June, she helped create a foundation — thedredscottfoundation.org — that
wants to erect a statue in Scott's honor. She has assumed the role of family
spokeswoman from her father, who is 81, and helped to plan local
commemorations. Relatives are gathering today at an event at the Main Library
downtown.
Thinking back to the 100-year anniversary in 1957, Jackson said proudly, "It's
a much bigger event today."
Martin Field Admiring Roswell's role in history
Martin Field, 47, grew up in suburban Detroit hearing about Roswell Field's
famous son, newspaperman-poet Eugene Field. Teachers fussed over him about
Eugene's famous poems, not his connection to Dred Scott.
Until his 20s, he knew of Roswell Field primarily as the inspiration for his
name "and that he was a famous lawyer." He began reading much more.
"As I learned about the (Scott) case from my father, I admired what Roswell
did," said Martin Field. "He was able to represent someone who was a slave, not
a real popular undertaking, and he was able to do that beyond (seeking) any
kind of fame. He really shunned the spotlight."
In 1993, Martin Field took a computer tech job at the former McDonnell Douglas
Corp. He and his wife, Sheila, moved here from Peoria, Ill., with the first of
their two children. They proudly take the kids to the Eugene Field House and
St. Louis Toy Museum, 634 South Broadway — one block south of Busch Stadium. It
was the home that Roswell Field rented in 1851 to escape the central city.
Roswell's wife, Frances, died five years later. Eugene Field went to the
University of Missouri and worked at several newspapers, ending up in Chicago,
and writing poems such as "Wynken, Blynken and Nod" and "Little Boy Blue."
Roswell Field died in 1869 and was buried next to his wife in Bellefontaine
Cemetery.
Martin Field and his wife now have a business, the Riverfront Soap Works, they
run from home.
Because of the Eugene Field connection, he has been invited to his children's
schools to read poetry. Few people know about Eugene's father.
"People generally recognize Eugene's name," he said. "People will say, 'Oh, I
have read his poems.' When I bring up Dred Scott, they'll say, 'That's a
familiar case.' The name (Roswell) doesn't ring unless you're pretty steeped in
history.
"Maybe that's the way Roswell wanted it."
He can pass along the stories to his children in practical ways. In addition to
the museum, there are streets named after his ancestors in the neighborhood
south of Carondelet Park. Roswell Field owned land there.
"It doesn't feel like 150 years ago when it's right there before us," he said.
"Dred Scott is not just on a shelf and forgotten. Students are reading and
studying the case. It's very interesting, whether I'm connected or not. It does
seem that (Roswell Field) took a real interest in Dred Scott's welfare and his
rights as a citizen.
"That's a lot to admire."
William Blow Mill Looking for good side
Mill grew up with family stories tracing lineage to 17th century Westminster
Abbey in England. He was aware of the connection to the Scotts but only vaguely.
"I didn't think much about it in high school," he said.
These days, the family line is most known for Susan Blow, who in 1873 founded
the nation's first successful public kindergarten at the former Des Peres
School in Carondelet. Peter and Elizabeth Blow were Susan Blow's grandparents,
and her father was Henry T. Blow, a prominent businessman and namesake of Blow
School and Blow Street in Carondelet.
Mill, 74, grew up here and in Cincinnati. While he was a student at Washington
University, his history-minded grandmother inspired him to write a lengthy
paper for an English class about the Dred Scott case, for which he received a
B+. He did not mention his lineage in the text.
"It isn't my story, it's their story," Mill said of his ancestors. "I think
that Taylor and Dred may have been good friends. … The Blows give the picture
of good slaveholders, if there can be such a thing."
After college, Mill flew submarine hunters for the Navy and received his
medical degree from the University of Tennessee. He returned to St. Louis and
worked as a radiation oncologist. He and his wife, Dorothy, have three grown
children and live in the unincorporated Ballwin area.
Mill said he finds consolation in historical evidence that the Blows helped the
Scotts. He noted that Taylor Blow saw to Dred Scott's burial in 1858 in the old
Wesleyan Cemetery, near South Grand Boulevard and Laclede Avenue, and then had
his remains moved to Calvary in 1867 because Wesleyan was being abandoned.
Taylor Blow had converted to Catholicism, and the cemetery rule at the time was
that whites could bury servants there.
At Calvary Cemetery, the top of the tombstone erected over Dred Scott's grave
in 1957 is covered with pennies. The Rev. Robert Tabscott, a lifelong student
of the Scott case, called it an old African good-luck tradition. Lynne Jackson
suggested the connection is to Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, whose
face is on the penny.
The back of the stone says, "Freed from slavery by his Friend Taylor Blow."
"Friend," William Mill said. "That's a nice thing to say about somebody."
toneil@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8132
Dred Scott: Heirs to history
By Tim O'Neil | ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Tuesday, Mar. 06 2007
Lynne M. Jackson is an administrator for a law firm downtown. Martin R. Field
is a stay-at-home dad in Mehlville. William B. Mill is a retired doctor in
Ballwin.
Until this past week, they hadn't heard one another's names. Yet each is linked
by family heritage to major players in the 19th century drama of law and
morality that fractured America's uneasy compromise over slavery — a story that
began in St. Louis, a frontier commercial hub that barely reached where City
Hall stands today.
The central characters were Dred and Harriet Scott, slaves who briefly won
their freedom in a trial in the Old Courthouse only to lose a series of
appeals. The final decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857 — 150
years ago today — said that blacks had no rights
and that slavery could spread into the western territories.
The decision emboldened slaveholders and frightened abolitionists and
free-soilers. It pushed the United States toward the four years of the
nation-reshaping carnage called the Civil War.
Slave owners Peter and Elizabeth Blow of Virginia brought Dred Scott to St.
Louis in 1830. The lawyer who took the case to the federal courts was Roswell
Field, who moved here from Vermont in 1839, the year St. Louis began building
its courthouse. Taylor Blow, a son of the Blows, freed the Scotts quickly after
the decision.
From their alley address near present-day Cole and 10th streets, the newly
freed Harriet Scott took in laundry. Roswell Field got Dred Scott a job at
Barnum's Hotel, just east of the Old Cathedral, where he was a porter and
enjoyed celebrity until his death on Sept. 17, 1858.
Fast-forward five generations. Lynne Jackson of Florissant is a
great-great-granddaughter of the Scotts. Martin Roswell Field is a
great-great-grandson of Roswell Martin Field. William Blow Mill is a
great-great-grandson of Taylor Blow.
Their lives are pleasantly ordinary by contemporary standards. They're married
with children and are churchgoing citizens. They heard family stories growing
up but reached adulthood before fully understanding the complicated tale of
human bondage, politics and courage.
Lynne Jackson Keeping the flame alive
She was 4 years old when she attended the 100th anniversary of the case at the
Old Courthouse in 1957. Her father, John Madison Sr., gave a speech arguing for
racial justice. Her family then went to Calvary Cemetery, where the Rev. Edward
Dowling, a Jesuit raising money for a monument over Dred Scott's unmarked
grave, led a prayer service. No major political officeholders attended.
"There were lights and a lot of people," Lynne Jackson recalled. "Something big
had happened with my great-great-grandfather."
In school, teachers would fuss over her lineage when textbooks opened to the
case. They also fussed over her two children — continuing testimony to the
story's power.
"Ours is an understanding and pride of how there were courageous people who
stood up to the law of the land," Jackson said of her family. "You cannot go
back and change history, but in our time, we all need to make our marks. And we
know that we have that blood running through us."
Among the Scotts' great-grandchildren was John A. Madison, who earned a degree
from the old Lincoln University School of Law and taught in the St. Louis
public schools. He and his wife, Marsulite, had four children. The oldest is
Jackson.
"My father told us a lot about the case and how getting a good education is our
legacy," said Jackson, 54. "Our family was never one to walk around and say,
'We're related to Dred Scott.' We were taught our responsibility today — the
courage to do what's right. Dred and Harriet had the courage to pursue it over
11 years and put their lives on the line. We owe them to see this through."
Shortly after Jackson graduated from Northwest High School in 1970, her family
moved to Ballwin. She graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville,
married Brian Jackson and had two children, one of whom played Dred Scott in a
first-grade presentation. Ten years ago, she was hired by the law firm Bryan
Cave, where she is general services manager.
From the firm's suites in the Metropolitan Square Building downtown, she can
look upon the Old Courthouse. Had her ancestors not sought redress there, she
said, "We could very well have been a slave nation much longer."
Last June, she helped create a foundation — thedredscottfoundation.org — that
wants to erect a statue in Scott's honor. She has assumed the role of family
spokeswoman from her father, who is 81, and helped to plan local
commemorations. Relatives are gathering today at an event at the Main Library
downtown.
Thinking back to the 100-year anniversary in 1957, Jackson said proudly, "It's
a much bigger event today."
Martin Field Admiring Roswell's role in history
Martin Field, 47, grew up in suburban Detroit hearing about Roswell Field's
famous son, newspaperman-poet Eugene Field. Teachers fussed over him about
Eugene's famous poems, not his connection to Dred Scott.
Until his 20s, he knew of Roswell Field primarily as the inspiration for his
name "and that he was a famous lawyer." He began reading much more.
"As I learned about the (Scott) case from my father, I admired what Roswell
did," said Martin Field. "He was able to represent someone who was a slave, not
a real popular undertaking, and he was able to do that beyond (seeking) any
kind of fame. He really shunned the spotlight."
In 1993, Martin Field took a computer tech job at the former McDonnell Douglas
Corp. He and his wife, Sheila, moved here from Peoria, Ill., with the first of
their two children. They proudly take the kids to the Eugene Field House and
St. Louis Toy Museum, 634 South Broadway — one block south of Busch Stadium. It
was the home that Roswell Field rented in 1851 to escape the central city.
Roswell's wife, Frances, died five years later. Eugene Field went to the
University of Missouri and worked at several newspapers, ending up in Chicago,
and writing poems such as "Wynken, Blynken and Nod" and "Little Boy Blue."
Roswell Field died in 1869 and was buried next to his wife in Bellefontaine
Cemetery.
Martin Field and his wife now have a business, the Riverfront Soap Works, they
run from home.
Because of the Eugene Field connection, he has been invited to his children's
schools to read poetry. Few people know about Eugene's father.
"People generally recognize Eugene's name," he said. "People will say, 'Oh, I
have read his poems.' When I bring up Dred Scott, they'll say, 'That's a
familiar case.' The name (Roswell) doesn't ring unless you're pretty steeped in
history.
"Maybe that's the way Roswell wanted it."
He can pass along the stories to his children in practical ways. In addition to
the museum, there are streets named after his ancestors in the neighborhood
south of Carondelet Park. Roswell Field owned land there.
"It doesn't feel like 150 years ago when it's right there before us," he said.
"Dred Scott is not just on a shelf and forgotten. Students are reading and
studying the case. It's very interesting, whether I'm connected or not. It does
seem that (Roswell Field) took a real interest in Dred Scott's welfare and his
rights as a citizen.
"That's a lot to admire."
William Blow Mill Looking for good side
Mill grew up with family stories tracing lineage to 17th century Westminster
Abbey in England. He was aware of the connection to the Scotts but only vaguely.
"I didn't think much about it in high school," he said.
These days, the family line is most known for Susan Blow, who in 1873 founded
the nation's first successful public kindergarten at the former Des Peres
School in Carondelet. Peter and Elizabeth Blow were Susan Blow's grandparents,
and her father was Henry T. Blow, a prominent businessman and namesake of Blow
School and Blow Street in Carondelet.
Mill, 74, grew up here and in Cincinnati. While he was a student at Washington
University, his history-minded grandmother inspired him to write a lengthy
paper for an English class about the Dred Scott case, for which he received a
B+. He did not mention his lineage in the text.
"It isn't my story, it's their story," Mill said of his ancestors. "I think
that Taylor and Dred may have been good friends. … The Blows give the picture
of good slaveholders, if there can be such a thing."
After college, Mill flew submarine hunters for the Navy and received his
medical degree from the University of Tennessee. He returned to St. Louis and
worked as a radiation oncologist. He and his wife, Dorothy, have three grown
children and live in the unincorporated Ballwin area.
Mill said he finds consolation in historical evidence that the Blows helped the
Scotts. He noted that Taylor Blow saw to Dred Scott's burial in 1858 in the old
Wesleyan Cemetery, near South Grand Boulevard and Laclede Avenue, and then had
his remains moved to Calvary in 1867 because Wesleyan was being abandoned.
Taylor Blow had converted to Catholicism, and the cemetery rule at the time was
that whites could bury servants there.
At Calvary Cemetery, the top of the tombstone erected over Dred Scott's grave
in 1957 is covered with pennies. The Rev. Robert Tabscott, a lifelong student
of the Scott case, called it an old African good-luck tradition. Lynne Jackson
suggested the connection is to Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, whose
face is on the penny.
The back of the stone says, "Freed from slavery by his Friend Taylor Blow."
"Friend," William Mill said. "That's a nice thing to say about somebody."
toneil@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8132