Morgan County may not be racially diverse today, but that was not true of this area in the mid-19th Century. Dr. Coy Robbins, in his well-researched book African Heritage in Morgan County, Indiana, documents the migration of free persons of African heritage into Indiana before and after statehood was established in 1816. Indiana's constitution prohibited slavery, and blacks saw the same opportunities in this new territory that their white neighbors did - cheap farm land and room to establish new communities.
By the eve of the Civil War, Indiana's 1860 census listed 11,428 blacks and mulattos, a term used in that census to denote mixed-race individuals as well as Native Americans. They lived in all but four of Indiana's counties, with the largest concentrations in Wayne, Randolph, Marion and Vigo counties. There were 109 blacks and mulattos in Morgan County in 1860, the eve of the Civil War, more than in any of the surrounding counties except Marion. (See Table 1.)
Morgan County's black population dropped from its high of 109 in 1860 to 56 in 1870, perhaps due to increased job opportunities in Marion County. But it rebounded to a high of 150 in 1880, and remained strong through the turn of the century. As you can see in Table 2, our black population dropped dramatically after 1920.
Most of our early African American pioneers were farmers - just like their white neighbors. They settled predominantly in southern Washington Township through 1870, but the 1880 census shows black communities in half of our fourteen townships, as well as the towns of Mooresville, Morgantown, Monrovia and Martinsville. Those living in Clay Township may have come to Brooklyn to work in the brick factories; Janice Enk and I also saw a large group of Irish workers living in Brooklyn boarding houses when we indexed this census, and we found a group of Macedonians in Brooklyn in the 1910 census, presumably for the same reason.
The black community in southern Washington Township was centered around Reed's Chapel, established by a donation of land from John Reed, mentioned in his will in 1845. Apparently this community had close ties to the Owen County black community, because a newspaper item in the Martinsville Republican for 13 January 1876 says, "The gentleman of color, and preacher from Spencer, failed to make his appearance at Reed's Chapel last Sunday." (African Heritage in Morgan County, Indiana, pg. 31)
Traces of the cemetery associated with this Methodist Episcopal church can still be found today. While the headstones are in sad disrepair, inscriptions for eleven burials have been documented, included nine Reed family members, Sarah Gowens and Mary Jane Goins. The death dates on these stones range from 1844 to 1876.
A second black cemetery, Crockett Cemetery, is located in Baker Township. No headstones have survived, but its site is marked by a small hand-carved angel and grave indentations. Local residents remember that the last burial here was of a woman from Indianapolis in the 1920s.
None of the neighbors today knew why the cemetery was called Crockett Cemetery, but a search of the index to Coy Robbins' book turned up a fascinating document which he found during his research in Morgan County records - a slave bill of sale. Deed Book L Page 329, recorded 13 February 1847, is a bill of sale filed originally by Samuel Crockett of Wythe County, Virginia, recording the purchase on 25 July 1832 of "a certain male negro slave named Bill (or William) to Lucinda Stuart -- a free woman of color and wife of the slave."
During the years before the Civil War it was difficult for blacks to live freely, even in a free state like Indiana. Dr. Robbins says: "Under the new provisions [of the Fugitive Slave Law] agents of southern slave holders could declare any citizen of African descent to be a 'runaway slave.' In these cases, the accused could not assert his right of habeas corpus or the right to testify on his own behalf. These amendments [passed in 1850] left the free people of color without any legal protection against kidnapping, false accusations and future enslavement in the South."
Lucinda and William knew the importance of that bill of sale to their free life together, and they took the extra step of recording it in the Morgan County deed records after settling here, to protect themselves from the possibility of return to Virginia as fugitive slaves. It was common for slaves to take the surnames of their former owners, which is apparently what William did.
The 1850 census for Washington Township shows Henry Stewart, 28 years old, head of household with his wife Petina, age 25. Also in the household are John Stewart, age 29; P.E. Stewart, a female, age 25; Lucinda Crocket, age 34; and four male Crockets: Alexander, age 22, Robert, age 20, L.D., age 18, and Sanda M., age 18. All of the people in this household were born in Virginia with the exception of Petina, who was born in Indiana. In 1860 Alexander Crockett is found in Washington Township with a wife and two children; in 1870 he's living alone, and in 1880 he's living with Permelia Steward, her daughter Lucinder, and Lucinder's son Lon. Lucinda is not found after 1850.
A search of the deed records turned up a connection between this family and the land on which Crockett Cemetery is found. On 25 September 1851 Henry Stewart purchased the land from William Wilson (Deed Book P Page 376), who had originally bought it from the U.S. Government in 1848. Henry sold the land to John Harvey in 1866.
We find no headstones for Crocketts or for Henry Stewart in any of our cemetery records; it is likely that William and Lucinda are buried in Crockett Cemetery, along with other Crocketts and Stewarts. And it's possible that members of the family moved to Indianapolis in later years, returning periodically to bury their family members in the family cemetery.
By 1900 many of the blacks of Washington Township have moved to Martinsville to work in the thriving sanitariums. An employee of Highland Sanitarium, Willis Clark, opened Clark's Sanitarium at 140 N. Main Street in 1901, advertising his new venture in The Recorder in Indianapolis on 22 February 1902: "Clark's Sanitarium -- with hot and cold mineral baths. Open all year. The only colored Sanitarium in the country, is making wonderful cures of rheumatism and stomach troubles." Willis Clark's dream apparently was short-lived, though, because we find no other record of this sanitarium after this date.
A second black sanitarium was the Southern, on West Morgan Street. Formerly known as the Buis Sanitarium, it was purchased by Dora Thompson in 1919 and opened for blacks. This venture was also unsuccessful, and the land was sold to the Branch Grain and Seed Company.
Albert Merritt (1871-1958), beloved founder of the Boy's Club in Martinsville, born near Bowling Green, was the son of former slaves. He came to Martinsville Mineral Springs Sanitarium in the 1890s from a job as a porter at the Sennings Hotel in Louisville, and lived at the sanitarium for the rest of his life, never marrying. He worked with the children of Martinsville for fifty years, building a clubhouse on North Marion Street. Merritt Park on the northwest end of town is named for Albert.
Morgan County's black pioneers came here to find peace and prosperity. By the 1920s the climate in this, as in most other rural Indiana counties, was hostile and fearful, and our black communities left to find happiness elsewhere. We treasure their contribution to our county's history, and hope that descendants of the Crocketts, Stewarts and other early black settlers will one day return to their first Indiana home.
| TABLE 1 |
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| County | 1820 | 1830 | 1840 | 1850 | 1860 |
| Brown | 23 | 19 | 0 | ||
| Hendricks | 5 | 17 | 36 | 45 | |
| Johnson | 6 | 20 | 15 | 19 | |
| Marion | 73 | 258 | 650 | 825 | |
| Monroe | 8 | 70 | 13 | 27 | 25 |
| MORGAN | 31 | 90 | 97 | 109 | |
| Owen | 25 | 148 | 156 | 85 | |
| Putnam | 6 | 27 | 34 | 19 | |
| Indiana | 1,230 | 3,629 | 7,168 | 11,262 | 11,428 |
| Source: U.S. Population Census reports, compiled in African Heritage in Morgan County, Indiana by Dr. Coy Robbins, c. 1991 | |||||
| TABLE 2 |
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| Year | Total | Year | Total | |
| 1830 | 31 | 1910 | 94 | |
| 1840 | 90 | 1920 | 51 | |
| 1850 | 97 | 1930 | 8 | |
| 1860 | 109 | 1940 | 14 | |
| 1870 | 56 | 1950 | 23 | |
| 1880 | 150 | 1960 | 8 | |
| 1890 | 115 | 1970 | 7 | |
| 1900 | 106 | 1980 | 8 | |
| Source: U.S. Population Census reports, compiled in African Heritage in Morgan County, Indiana by Dr. Coy Robbins, c. 1991 | ||||
[A note on the tables: Dr. Robbins cites the Federal Census for his population figures. As we know, no 1890 census exists for Indiana; I could not find in this book where he obtained the 1890 population figures.]