(Warning: This is not about current politics. It is presented for those here who have said they enjoy my writing. If politics is your only interest, please return to the KOS homepage. Thanks.)
To me, what you are about to read is one of the most incredible and inspirational things I have ever heard of. And it is true.
Everyone is busy with the 2010 Census now. Filling it out, mailing it. And then... forgetting it.
But what you and I put down about ourselves on that paper now, is going to last a long, long time. Long after our flesh is dust.
But to someone who comes along 150 years from now, it is going to tell our story. Or at least a part of it. I doubt if any of our information is going to be as inspirational as what I am about to tell you... but maybe somebody’s will. To someone of a future generation prowling around in things past.
I learned of this story some forty years ago. But the story itself happened 160 years ago. For that is when the 1850 Federal Census was taken.
It wasn’t taken like it is now of course. Letters were not sent out. Calls were not made to people who didn’t return the letters.
In those days, the Census takers went by horse out in each county, from family to family. Most times, the families were far between.
As I said, I stumbled across this story as a young man of 19 or 20, looking for hours and hours at rolls and rolls of census microfilm, trying to find out "where I came from," and from whom I was descended.
To be specific, I was reading the 1850 Census, of Lauderdale County, Alabama, when I stumbled upon what I am about to tell you.
What I found, was this: The Census taker, a man by the name of Hiram Kennedy, came to the home of a woman named Sara Coffee, wife of Richard Coffee.
They were living East of the "Military Road," the famous road General Andrew Jackson took going to the Battle of New Orleans, the same of which splits Lauderdale County, Alabama, almost in equal halves.
Kennedy stopped at the Coffee’s house on the thirtieth day of October, in the year of our Lord 1850. He asked questions about her family, and she told him, and he jotted down the information that she had told him into a ledger he carried with him.
He learned that she had been born in Tennessee and was 46 years of age. And that her husband was born in North Carolina, and was 50. They had the following children at home:’
Joel, age 19, a student.
Nimrod, 13
Joshua, 11
Mariah 15
Prudence, 17,
Elizabeth, 9,
and little Sara, age 5.
There farm was worth $4,000.00. Quite a bit in those days.
So far, all was normal.
Then he asked about slaves, and they had quite a few. But they did not compare to John Peters of the county, who had 168, nor the Donalson Estate, which had 160, or to H. D. Smith, who had 137, (By 1860, ten years later, John Peters would have 313 slaves.)
Kennedy didn’t take the names of the slaves. That apparently, was unimportant to the country in 1850. Only how many there were, their sex as represented by "m" or "f", and the ages of each. Such as,
1 m, 21
1 f, 12
1 f, 42
and so on.
But then he made a single mark near the listing of one of the male slaves, and that is what is so surprising. Even astounding to me.
After Kennedy finished talking with Mrs. Coffee, he went on to the next family down the road. He would be on the road all of cold November and December, until his part of the census was done.
And when he finally did finish with all the families that he was supposed to record in the county, he made a final entry. It said,
"Whole number of pages: 122.
"Whole number of free inhabitants: 5, 124." (The number of slaves in the county was over 3,000. By 1860, ten years later, that number would grow to 6,737.)
Then Kennedy signed and dated his Census work as follows: "December 30, 1850. H. Kennedy."
And then life went on, and all the people he had talked to, and he himself, all eventually died, and were buried, and faded away into time... leaving only precious little information about themselves... including the information they had given on the 1850 Census of Lauderdale, County, Alabama..
Then much later someone photographed the pages of the census he had taken, and put them on microfilm.
And along about 1969 or 1970, I sat down in front of a microfilm reader, loaded the 1850 census, and read what the Census Taker wrote all those years ago, trying to find out where and who I came from... realizing even at an early age, everything is the result and consequence of actions... some taken long, long ago. And that nothing happens by "accident."
I found what I was. and was NOT searching for, which I will tell you about another time.
But what I also found, was what the Census taker wrote, about one of the Slaves of Sara Coffee.
As I said, she had quite a few slaves. All unnamed in the census.
But as I read about them, only that one in particular had information about him that was so surprising, so incredible, so astounding, that I have never forgotten it.
Try for a moment, to picture what I saw.
Across the top of the census ledger are several columns. The biggest column is for the names of the slave owners, such as Ms. Coffee. To the right is the second column, for slave information. As I said, it does not have the name of a slave there. All it has is the number "1." This stands for one human being, black – who it was deemed, was not important enough to have their name listed in the census.
To the right of this the next column gave the sex of the slave: Male or female, m or f. Then the age of the person, for example
1 m, 3,
1 f, 21
1 m 42, etcetera.
The list is long. No names of human beings at all.
And page after page in the census ledger this went on.
Yet in all this sameness, there jumped up off the page at me one single ray of hope.
For there was another column to the far right on the page, that is a living testament – evidence – proof – that the 1’s were not numbers, but real people: people who wanted to be free.
What is that proof I found?
It is simply this: It was a column written there, labeled: Fugitives From The State.
And in this block the census taker was sometimes forced to put down an X, noting that a black human being had fled from a slave owner and the bondage of slavery.
But that STILL is not the incredible part. For as long as they have strength, some young men and women will always try to escape whatever bondage they find themselves in, and find freedom.
So what on earth makes one slave of Sara Coffee so different, that I would remember that person so many years after first learning about him.
Look at the ledger entry one last time.
Indeed there is an X in the Fugitives from the state column.
And it is after a mark that read 1 male.
But what the line read COMPLETELY was this:
1 male, 98, FUGITIVE FROM THE STATE.
Yes, you read it right. 98.
A ninety-eight year old slave had escaped.
What does this mean to us today? What story does it tell us?
It tells us not only that there were people willing to struggle to be free back then, who can be examples for all of us today – but also that one of those examples was a man ALMOST ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD. A man who evidently could take it no longer and had to try to be free. And did try. And succeeded. For at the time of the 1850 Census... he was on the loose. Free. A Fugitive from Slavery.
To white people at that time he was an escaped slave, a fugitive.
But to himself... he was at long last free.
Now go one step further, and do a little math. It will tell you tha this man was born in 1752, which was even when our country was still not free itself, but under British rule.
There is no way to tell how long this man had been a slave, but it is known, that old men were NOT brought over from Africa to be sold. But only young and healthy men and women... who could be forced to work against their will... for a long, long lifetime.
So the man had probably been a slave ever since his young adult life. Or could have been born a slave in this land.
But at age 98... he broke free.
Possibly, Sara or Richard Coffee didn’t even have anyone try to look for or find him. Possibly no slave hunters were even called in.
No one knows that part. But at 98, his working days must have been long behind him.
Maybe Sara said to the overseer, "Just let him go."
And maybe... just maybe, he lived to have a few years of freedom.
I hope so.
All of that though, we will never know.
But for me, and I hope for you, just knowing he existed and what he did at the age he did it at, is inspirational.
Few excuses are stronger than... "Oh, I’m too old to do or try that now."
But on the other hand, few desires are stronger... than the desire to be free.
And that desire doesn’t grow any weaker with age. Even advanced age.
You can keep a person in bondage, in literal chains all their life... and it was done for how many hundreds of years in this country.
But that doesn’t put out the spark of freedom that lives on in each soul.
Even a ninety-eight year old soul.
So the next time you think you can’t do something, no matter what it is, think of
1 m, 98.
Fugitive from the State.
A free man.
And then, if all you can do is run...
Then By God run your best.
Be free.
And if you're too old...
If you can't run anymore...
Then walk your way the best you can.
Will Bevis.
WillBevis.com