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On September 24, 1863, a St. Louis newspaper announced “Archer Alexander, a negro … whose last master was Richard Hickman Pitman of the County of St. Charles…is hereby declared to be an emancipated slave and a free man!
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Since this story first aired, the site of freedom seeker’s Archer Alexander’s burial has been listed on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom….
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The controversial Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park in Washington DC with President Abraham Lincoln includes Archer Alexander, an enslaved man seen rising in freedom given by the Emancipation Proclamation, first announced on this date…
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Archer Alexander was the last fugitive slave captured in Missouri, and received his freedom on September 24, 1863, for his important services to the United States Military (Union) after informing them of a plot to destroy a local railroad bridge. He saved hundreds of lives, and a vital link conveying troops, funds and supplies for…
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On this date, abolitionist William Greenleaf Eliot would make his final attempt to contact Archer Alexander’s enslaver Richard Hickman Pitman, of Cottleville, asking to purchase him, in order to see him emancipated.
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The discovery that Archer Alexander had been the informant who had passed information to the Union Troops about the Confederate’s plans, sent the whole area around Dardenne Prairie into turmoil! While the trains were halted, and the bridge repaired, everyone from Flint Hill to Naylor’s Store to Cottleville was looking for Pitman’s enslaved man….
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In February 1863, a freedom seeker named Archer Alexander would overhear the local Confederate men in the area, discussing their plans to destroy the Peruque Creek Railroad Bridge. They had been sawing the timbers of the huge wooden trestle, which served as a vital link for the Union Army, carrying troops, supplies and funds across…
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Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order that read “on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be…
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On March 30, 1863, Eliot would address a letter to Archer’s owner Richard H. Pitman asking to purchase him, as he wanted to see Archer Alexander emancipated. In his book, The Story of Archer Alexander, Eliot would later write …
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Archer was a hero in his own right, an unknown American hero, whose untold story is difficult to share yet needs to be told. Don’t you think the time is right? For more about Archer visit https://archeralexander.wordpress.com/ online anytime.
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It started in New Orleans and crept upriver to St. Louis. Then spilled out along the Missouri River until it flowed up the Dardenne. In 1833, Cholera fever took Nancy Alexander, who left behind four small children, two girls and two boys, between the ages of five and eleven…
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Missouri was a slave state that the great orator Henry Clay had compromised with over 10,000 enslaved people when it reached statehood.
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In 1829, a young enslaved man named Archer Alexander was brought to Missouri by his owner…
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Learn the Hidden History of the Emancipation Monument from historians, researchers and authors.
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In July 2019, Archer Alexander’s great-great-great grandson Keith Winstead and author Dorris Keeven-Franke visited Lexington and the Rockbridge Historical Society in Virginia.
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The search for that special slave known as Archer Alexander has begun and needs to be found. Only then can that “true” story, as Keith Alexander calls it, be really known. Not easy when you are trying to find the genealogy of a slave. This is what is known as thorough and exhaustive research, for…
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The untold story of Archer Alexander is the life of an enslaved Virginian born in 1806, and brought to Missouri in 1829. An intelligent man, considered uppity, he wanted freedom. He would work with his fellow slaves in 1836 to build the home of William Campbell on the Boone’s Lick Road. By 1844, he was
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Using DNA the family is looking for other descendants of Archer Alexander. They are planning a reunion in St. Charles County in August 2019.
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When his friend William Greenleaf Eliot shared a photograph of the Emancipation Memorial with Archer Alexander, he emotionally exclaimed I’se free![i] The bronze monument features Alexander, an enslaved African-American on one knee and wearing a slave’s cuff and rising before President Abraham Lincoln. It was dedicated April 14th, 1876, marking the 11thAnniversary of Lincoln’s assassination,…
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Modern science is giving family historians everywhere a big boost. Keith Winstead has been working on his ancestor Wesley Alexander for nearly 30 years, and tried the new technology. The amazing results revealed all kinds of surprises. He knew his family’s connections to Cassius Clay. But it was not until he did further DNA tests,…
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The final resting place of Archer Alexander, who was famously immortalized in the Emancipation Memorial, in Washington, D.C. in 1876 has been found. The location was unknown, and searched for by his descendant Keith Winstead for years.
ARCHER ALEXANDER 