The Man Nobody Came For

On Nov. 13, 1857, the Evansville Daily Journal ran a short item under the headline “ABETTORS OF RUNAWAY SLAVES TAKEN.”¹

“Two men by the names of Bell, father and son, living in this State, opposite to Brandenburg, 40 miles below Louisville, on the Ohio River,” it said, “were discovered to have been guilty of enticing a negro man to run away from his master residing in the neighborhood of Brandenburg.”¹

The item explained that “a strategem was arranged to detect and arrest them.” The Bells were drawn into “a second attempt to run off the wife of the man, whose escape they had effected.” Then came a sentence about a third person: “They had been aided in the first attempt by a free negro, living at Corydon who was to take part in the second enterprise.”¹

The younger Bell was arrested when he landed in Kentucky. Then “a number of citizens from Kentucky” crossed the river and, “on some pretence,” got “the elder Bell and the free negro to go down to the water’s edge on the river bank, so as to bring them within the jurisdiction of Kentucky.” There they “arrested both, and took them across the river, where they were all three examined and committed to prison on charge of running off slaves.”¹

The paper named the Bells. It did not name the free man from Corydon.

His name was Oswell Wright. The Indiana Historical Bureau’s marker in Corydon says he was “born in Maryland early 1810s,” that he “bought land in Corydon, May 1849,” and that in November 1857 “Kentuckians arrested Wright and two white men, Charles and David Bell.” It says the Bells were “rescued in jailbreak 1858.” It says Wright was “convicted May 1859; completed sentence in Kentucky Penitentiary; released June 1864.”²

The marker’s second side gives the reason he is on it: “Wright, a free black, lost his own freedom for helping a slave escape.”²

Hoosier First went back to the newspapers of 1857 and 1858 to see how the story was told at the time. Wright appears in them as “a free negro.”^1,3 The Bells became a cause that drew in armed crowds on both banks, a governor, a chartered ferry and a stage play. Hoosier First found no newspaper in the Chronicling America collection that printed Wright’s name.

A man with papers

The Historical Bureau’s notes for the marker are the best record of who Wright was, and they are built on documents.²

The 1850 census listed him in Corydon as 39 and born in Maryland. The Kentucky Penitentiary’s register listed him as 45 in 1859, also born in Maryland. His headstone suggests he was about 90 when he died in 1875, which the Bureau says “is not close” to the ages given during his life. It estimated his birth in the early 1810s “because Wright himself is the most likely source” for the census and prison figures.²

He bought a lot in Corydon on May 25, 1849. The deed records show he “sold and repurchased lot 128 in Corydon several times in the span of 15 months,” finally selling it in August 1850. The Bureau “could not locate any records that explain why.”²

Harrison County officials listed him in the county’s Register of Negroes and Mulattoes for 1857 to 1863. The Bureau notes that the register “indicates that he was considered a free man in Indiana.” It also notes it “has not located any records that indicate Wright’s status as a free man or a slave around the time of his birth.”²

That paperwork mattered on the night of his arrest. The Bureau’s account says the Kentuckians “immediately arrested Wright because he did not have his free papers.”²

The night of Nov. 7, 1857

The Bureau’s notes reconstruct the night from an article titled “Excitement in Brandenburg,” printed in the Corydon paper, the Harrison Democrat, on Nov. 17, 1857, as a reprint from the Louisville Journal.²

By that account, “supposedly after recruiting David and Charles Bell to assist,” Wright “procured two horses and made his way to the Bell house on November 7, 1857.” The goal was to help the wife of a man named Charles, who had already escaped, to get away as well. Charles Bell crossed the Ohio in a skiff to pick her up and was arrested when he reached Kentucky. A “posse” of Kentuckians then crossed to the Bell house.²

They arrested Wright first, the Bureau’s account says, because he had no free papers. Then they told David Bell that some of his horses were down at the river. When he walked below the high-water line, which Kentucky claimed as its territory on the Indiana side, he was arrested too.²

All three were taken to the jail at Brandenburg, the seat of Meade County, Ky. On Nov. 25, 1857, the county indicted them. The Bells were charged in “the Commonwealth against David Bell & o[thers]” with “enticing a slave to leave his master.” Wright faced a separate charge, in “the Commonwealth against Oswell Wright (Free Man of Color),” for “furnishing a forged pass to a slave.”²

The Bureau’s account, from the same article, says Wright “supposedly” recruited the Bells.² Kentucky’s version, as the Louisville Journal told it in 1858, went further. “Last winter a negro slave was run off from Brandenburg by a free negro who resides in Indiana,” it said. “The latter had been engaged in this nefarious practice for some time, and circumstances transpired which led to the discovery that a white family named Bell, who have a farm opposite Brandenburg, had been aiding and abetting it.”^3,4

In that version, Wright was the leader and the Bells were his helpers. Yet the paper still did not print his name.

“Guilty of no offense”

Across the river, the story was told differently. In Indiana’s telling, the Bells were victims.

In October 1858, the New Albany Tribune looked back on the arrests. The Cleveland Morning Leader reprinted its account, and so did the Ohio abolitionist paper the Anti-Slavery Bugle.^5,6

“About a year since,” the Tribune wrote, “an old man by the name of Bell, together with one of his sons, residing in Harrison county, nearly opposite Brandenburg, Kentucky, were kidnapped and carried into Kentucky on suspicion of secreting runaway slaves.”⁵

“There was no positive evidence going to implicate the Bells in anything of the sort,” it said. The information had been given “by a miscreant, who has several indictments for perjury hanging over him.”⁵

The Tribune described armed men crossing at night, “armed with pistols, bowie knives and other weapons, but no warrant of law.” It said the elder Bell was “seventy years of age.” It said Kentuckians stood guard over his wife and a little girl, “threatening to blow out her brains if she made any resistance, and yet she was too sick at the time to get out of bed.”⁵

The Bells, it said, were held in the Brandenburg jail “as criminals of the darkest dye, for more than nine months.” Bail was set at $10,000 for the two, “an amount so excessive that they could not give it.” A Harrison County man, “Col. Marsh,” who had tried to raise bail, was “shot down in the streets of Brandenburg,” and his killer escaped.⁵

The Tribune concluded that the Bells were “guilty of no offense against the laws of Kentucky, or of the Union.”⁵

The Tribune’s account mentions an old man, his son, his wife, a little girl, a perjured informer and a murdered colonel. It does not mention the third prisoner from Harrison County. Oswell Wright does not appear in it at all.

The rescue

In the summer of 1858, two more Bell sons came home from the West. The Tribune said Horace and John Bell had been “residing in California.” The Louisville Journal said Horace “had been to Nicaragua.”^5,3

The Evansville Daily Journal printed the story of what happened next on Aug. 5, 1858.⁷ Its account began: “A year ago an old man named Bell, and his son living in this State opposite Brandenburg were suspected by the citizens of Meade county, Kentucky, of being privy to or abettors of fugitive slaves. They were watched and found to be in communication with some free negroes in the interior of the State whose visit to Bells’ house led to the subsequent proceedings.”⁷

On the day of a barbecue at Garnettsville in Meade County, most of Brandenburg was away, including the jailer. “Between one and two o’clock, in the afternoon, the two California Bells landed at Brandenburg, and proceeded to the jail,” the Evansville paper said, “and demanded the keys to the cells.”⁷ The jailer’s wife and a young man were in charge. The sons “immediately released their father and brother, and placing a pair of revolvers in the hands of each, the whole party escaped from the jail.”⁷

Townspeople chased them to the landing and fired. “The Bells returned the fire,” the paper said, and “kept a crowd of twenty pursuers at bay, till they had secured their skiff and a safe passage across the river.” It reported that no one was believed to be wounded.⁷ (The scanned text of the Evansville page is poor. Obvious scanning errors in these quotations have been corrected, and the Louisville Journal’s later account agrees on the main points.^3,4)

The Historical Bureau’s note on the rescue, based on a July 31, 1858, letter to Kentucky’s governor, says the same: the sons “demanded the keys to David and Charles Bell’s cell,” and “David and Charles Bell were removed from the prison and given revolvers.”²

None of the rescue accounts Hoosier First read mention Wright. The record does not say whether he was in the same jail that afternoon. It does say what happened to him next. In May 1859, ten months after the Bells rowed back to Indiana, the Meade County Circuit Court convicted him.²

The cause

The Bells’ story kept growing.

In October 1858, the Louisville Courier reported that Kentucky authorities had been “attempting to re-arrest the parties.” It said the elder Bell and his son “have left for parts unknown, and their estate in Harrison county, Ind. was sold a few days since.”⁸

Then, on a Saturday in late October, Horace Bell was seen in New Albany. Five Louisville police officers crossed the river, the Courier said, and “found Bell on Main street going towards the Depaw House, where he intended taking the stage for Corydon. He was immediately seized and taken to the wharf.” Two of his sisters were on the ferry and “strenuously objected.” The officers “drew their revolvers” and made the crew take the boat across.⁸

New Albany rose up. A Louisville dispatch of Oct. 25 said, “The fire-bells were rung, and a large meeting was held in the evening. Upwards of a hundred persons have chartered a ferry boat, and intend leaving for Brandenburg to-day. They avow their purpose to rescue Bell.” It said “Governor Willard, of Indiana, has promised a requisition on the governor of Kentucky for the men who captured Bell.”⁹

The Cleveland paper reported that the Indianians had chartered “the ferry boat Adelaide” and left for Brandenburg, “heavily armed and full of fight.”⁵

Southern papers told it another way. The New Orleans Daily Crescent ran a New Albany dispatch under the heading “Abolition Excitement”: “An armed expedition left here last night for Brandenburg, Ky., for the purpose of rescuing Horace Bell, the slave thief.”¹⁰

No battle came. On Nov. 4, 1858, the New-York Daily Tribune quoted the Louisville Courier: there had been “a complete settlement of the late unhappy difficulties.” Bell “would be tried in Brandenburg, and reasonable bail taken,” and several New Albany men stayed “to accompany Bell home.”¹¹

On Nov. 6, the New Orleans paper quoted the Louisville Journal of Oct. 30. Horace Bell had “arrived in New Albany last night, and was received at the theater, where Miss Dennin was personating him in the new drama with vociferous applause.” He had been examined at Brandenburg and bail was given.¹² (The bail figure is unreadable in the scan, so this story does not give it.)

Within a week of his capture, Horace Bell was back in Indiana, out on bail, and an actress was playing him on stage.

The one who stayed

Here is what the Historical Bureau’s documents say about Oswell Wright over the same months.

He was indicted Nov. 25, 1857, as “Oswell Wright (Free Man of Color),” for “furnishing a forged pass to a slave.”² He was convicted in May 1859 in the Meade County Circuit Court.² He “began his five-year prison term in the Kentucky Penitentiary on June 7, 1859; he was released after serving his full term on June 7, 1864.”² The prison register gave his crime as “enticing slaves.”²

He served five years to the day.²

Hoosier First found no petition for his pardon, no meeting called in his name and no newspaper account of his release in the pages it searched. That does not prove none exists. The Indiana State Library and the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives hold records Hoosier First has not seen.

Coming home

He came back to Corydon.²

The marker says he “died in Corydon March 31, 1875.”² The Bureau’s notes cite the Cedar Hill Cemetery plat record, which places him in plat 1, row 3, grave 324, and a photograph of his headstone sent by the woman who applied for the marker.²

The marker was placed in 2008 near the corner of Maple and Chestnut streets in Corydon. The Leora Brown School was among its sponsors.²

What the record shows

The record has three parts.

First, Kentucky’s courts. They named him and charged him, alone, with forging a pass. They convicted him and sent him to prison for five years, and he served every day of it.²

Second, Kentucky’s newspapers. They saw him as the leader of the escape, “engaged in this nefarious practice for some time,” but they did not print his name.^3,4

Third, Indiana’s newspapers. They called the Bells’ arrest a kidnapping and the Bells “guilty of no offense.” They covered the jailbreak, the second kidnapping, the armed ferry and the play. In the coverage Hoosier First found, they said nothing about the free Black man from Corydon who had been taken the same night.^5,6,7

There are reasons that might explain the silence. A white Hoosier taken from Indiana soil was a question of state sovereignty, and of Kentucky reaching across the river. A Black man arrested without his free papers stood in a different position. Hoosier First does not know which reason, if any, explains the coverage, and it does not claim to.

What it can say is what happened. The two white men were rescued by their family, and by October 1858 the Louisville Courier reported that they had “left for parts unknown.”⁸ The Black man stayed behind and served the full sentence. Then he came home to Corydon, the place he had registered as a free man, and is buried there.²

How he died

Oswell Wright died in Corydon on March 31, 1875, according to the Historical Bureau’s marker. The Bureau confirmed the date from his headstone in Cedar Hill Cemetery.² Neither the marker nor its notes say how he died, and Hoosier First did not find a newspaper notice or other record of the cause. The records it read do not say.