Antebellum Era

Antebellum Era. Liberty African American Legacy Memorial. , Kate “Katie” Atchison Gordon Nelson (1877 – 1953), Kate “Katie” Atchison Gordon Nelson was born in Liberty, Missouri in 1877. Descendants claimed that she told her family that her biological father was David Rice Atchison, the proslavery senator from Clinton County, Missouri and U.S. president for a day. Her family is listed as “mulatto” in the 1870 census., Katie was hired by Hebert and Flora Hill to cook and do laundry for their family in their home located at the corner of Lightburn and Wilson. One of the stipulations for Katie was to be tolerant of the children and the aging Phillip Reddish, who fought for the Confederacy and sat in the corner near the warm stove. Katie worked for the family for nearly twenty years, until after World War II. Like many African American women, she worked as a servant in the homes of wealthy white families in Liberty., One of the Hill daughters, Louise, remembered she and Katie would eat lunch together as Katie was preparing dinner. She recalled that when, as a child, she ruined a tablecloth trying to help with the laundry without Katie knowing that Katie comforted her by saying “Your momma has so many linens that she won’t even know this one is missing.”, When Katie began working for the Hill family, she was married to her second husband, Park Nelson, a longtime day laborer for the Yancey family. Only a few years before that, Herbert Hill was the undertaker for two of Park’s children and Katie’s first husband, Ben Gordon. Katie retired in the 1940s to California to live with her children. In 1948, hearing that Herbert Hill died, she took the train back to Liberty so she could pay her respects to the Hill Family. She passed in 1953 and her story initiated the research for this Legacy Memorial project., Lucy Jacobs Stewart (between 1852 to 1854 – 1939), Lucy Jacobs Steward is part of a long tradition of midwifery in Missouri and among many guiding hands in the tapestry of life in Liberty. Neighbors sent for Granny Stewart, as she was called, to assist laboring women. We do not know how many babies she caught, but she was a trusted member of the community and was consulted on a variety of family issues at a time when 50% of births in the United States occurred at home, assisted by a midwife., Lucy was part of the first generation of African American Missourians to start a family outside the bonds of slavery. The oldest of the six children of Albert and Sarah Jacobs, she raised her family wit her husband, John S. Steward, on Main Street in Liberty. They put their children though school, even though they had not been to school and could not read nor write., Two of their children were still living in 1900: Taylor, a day laborer like his father, and Daisy, a domestic worker. Lucy and John moved to South Street and later to South Missouri Street. Their wages allowed them to own their own home, mortgage-free, at each location., Unlike their white neighbors on South Missouri Street, they continued to work until their senior years. Throughout their lives, the children of the neighborhood were attracted to their loving home. Lucy outlived her husband by 12 years. Her younger sister, Lillian Gannt, was with her when she died on a cold February morning in 1939 at the age of 85. Generational wisdom was passed down through Lucy and elders like her., Paulina Dougherty Robinson (1856-1945), Paulina Dougherty Robinson, daughter of enslaved parents, Catherine “Kitty” Dougherty’s Multnomah plantation, ten miles northwest of Liberty. In 1945, she was the last surviving ex-enslaved African American in Clay County. She was married to James Albert Robinson Sr., and their son, James Albert Robert, Jr., was a world war one veteran., During childhood, Paulina and her mother traveled by wagon on a family vacation to Old Mexico with Major Charles Ruff’s family who owned Paulina’s father, Benjamin Ruff. Upon their return to Liberty, Major Dougherty offered to purchase Benjamin from the Ruff’s so that Paulina’s family members would neither be separated nor sold on the auction block. In an account recorded in Mrs. Jack Dougherty’s diary, Lizzie Helman, Paulina’s sister, remembered Major Dougherty as a kindhearted man who treated his enslaved workers in a humane manner. Lizzie said that Major Dougherty never sold the enslaved but would buy them., On the Multnomah plantation, Paulina and all the enslaved lived in groups of houses on the east and west side of the plantation house. Their houses were two to four rooms, with a fireplace, front yard and farm animals. Major Dougherty’s wife taught the women to spin and weave and the children to read. The work and workers were shifted every week, and all workers were paid wages, including overtime., At the close of the Civil War, Paulina paid one dollar to attend Laura Armstrong’s subscription school for African American and Indian youth in an upstairs room in Armstrong’s house on Mill Street. Aunt “Plina,” as Paulina was affectionately known, worked as a domestic and lived to age 90., Perry Samuel (1868-1938), Born three years after the Civil War in what is now Kearney, Missouri, Perry Samuel was the stepbrother of the notoriously celebrated bank robbers Frank and Jesse James. Perry was the product of a union between Dr. Ruben Samuel (the third husband of Zerelda James who was Frank and Jesse’s mother) and Charlotte Garrett, whom he enslaved on the James Farm., In his obituary in the Kansas City Star, Perry was quoted as having said that he “served as the lookout for the James boys, warning them when strangers approached the home during visits with their mother.” Perry said he saddled Jesse’s horse for him the night Jesse left for St. Joseph, a few days before Jesse was killed by Bob Ford on April 3, 1882. Perry and his mother, Charlotte, continued to live on the James farm taking care of Zerelda, who had lost her right hand during a Pinkerton raid on the farm, until she died in 1900., After Perry left the James farm, he first married Lydia Harris in 1893 and then Susie Willis in 1900. John T. Samuel, of the Samuel family, purchased a home in New Liberia, the segregated south end area of Liberty as a gift for Perry. During this time, Perry made a living by shoveling coal. Two of Perry and Susie’s children died in infancy and were buried in the segregated section of Fairview Cemetery in 1914, as was his wife in 1929. Twenty years later, Perry worked as a teamster at Corbin flour mill, and in the 1930 census indicated he still had ownership of his home in Liberty., Kate “Kitty” Thompson Alexander (1831-1912), Census records vary, but Kitty Alexander reported that she was born during the 1830s in Kentucky. In the 1900 federal census, Kitty said that she had ten children and eight were still alive. Four known children are buried in Fairview Cemetery., In 1869, students at William Jewell College (WJC) deemed the dining hall meals too terrible to eat, and the couple who ran the kitchen was not willing to make any changes. The replacement was Kitty, with her two daughters, who were young teenagers, listed as assistant cooks. By 1897, she had worked at the college for almost 30 years and had become a beloved fixture for the boarding students., When a new cooking stove was installed, Kitty, who had worn out her three previous stoves, cooked a full-course Thanksgiving dinner, mince pie and three kinds of cakes. Following the dinner, a student delivered a speech entitled, “Aunt Kitty, the Model Cook.”, She died at home in 1909, and her obituary stated that leading Liberty citizens and the college faculty attended her funeral. Articles said she spiritually aided the students in addition to being an excellent and resourceful cook, and WJC alumni announced a collection for a headstone., In 1923, Des Moines University President John W. Million reported that he still carried a 50-cent coin Kitty gave him upon his graduation from WJC. Rather than use the coin as intended for his education at Johns Hopkins, he carried it in his pocket as a symbol of encouragement. Kitty was a role model and a comfort to Jewell students. They matured under her friendship and were guided by her fail and principles.