The Old Slave House

Imagine you’re a wife and mother and you are at home one night cooking dinner for your daughters. Your husband and son are away on business and it’s just a peaceful Spring night for you and your girls to spend some quality time together. The still of that evening is suddenly shattered when the front door bursts open and rough-looking men file in. You clutch your daughters to your side, but it does no good as the men are too powerful for you to stop them. They take you somewhere and tie you up in one of the men’s basement and then a few days later, you are handcuffed and tied in the back of a wagon and spirited out of the state. You and your daughters are sold into a life of slavery and never heard from again.

This is a true story. It happened near Equality, Illinois in the year 1842. And the man behind this diabolical deed was named John Crenshaw.

John and Sina Crenshaw

John Crenshaw, a man known as the "Salt King of Southern Illinois," had a long history of involvement with kidnapping free blacks and shipping them back down South into slavery in what was known as a reverse Underground Railroad. His base of operations was what has become known today as the Old Slave House.

The Old Slave House, photographed by me in the late 1970's

The Crenshaw House, started in 1834, and completed in 1838 sat atop a hill in Gallatin County and was known by it’s owner and all who lived in the area as the Hickory Hill Plantation. Abraham Lincoln, while campaigning in 1840 for William Henry Harrison, was a guest at this residence, such was it’s owner’s importance. (My Great-Great-Grandmother danced with Abe at the party that night, but that's another story.) Crenshaw owned and operated a salt mine and was a very big man in those days. It was said that the taxes collected from his businesses alone were fully one-seventh of the revenue for the State of Illinois. The Illinois State Constitution during this era had forbidden slavery but allowed it in certain circumstances. Such was the case with salt mining. The law permitted the use of slaves at the salt works since the labor was so arduous that "no free men could be found to do it." Well, in my mind, that certainly does not justify slavery, but that’s history for you.

As to the Crenshaw House itself, it was the scene of many gay parties and entertainments. But, little did the guests know that right above them, on the third floor, was where the slaves were housed. At night they were kept chained into 12 tiny cubicles, while during the day they were forced to do his manual labors. John Crenshaw owned 700 slaves, which he kept in various locales for the work of his salt mines, and in his grist mill, a steam sawmill and a distillery. We even know that he used the third floor to breed his slaves. One such story came from "Uncle Bob" Wilson, the alleged stud slave, who was a real person and who told a number of people that he had been kept upstairs at the Crenshaw house.

So, what became of this man who was not considered "much of a saint" by members of his own church? In 1848, he lost a leg when his slaves attacked him, allegedly because of a particularly brutal beating Crenshaw was dispensing to several female slaves at the time. In 1850, he moved his family into the nearby town of Equality and hired a German family to take over the operations at Hickory Hill. By all accounts, he became a pious man toward the end of his life and had left his life of crime behind. The house atop Hickory Hill still stands, although it is currently not open for admission. It was purchased by the State of Illinois in 2003 and because of funding woes, remains closed to the general public at this time. I was fortunate enough to be able to tour it in the late 1970’s, when it was still a popular attraction. I can still see the worn, wooden stalls where human beings were kept chained in a life of servitude. That image will never leave me.

One only hopes that John Crenshaw is getting his just rewards in his present situation.


This is the first in a series of blogs dealing with the local history and landmarks of my immediate area. Please let me know what you thought of it.