Journey
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Journal entry September 12, 1829 Passed by the spot where two negro traders had been murdered by their chained slaves 2 or 3 weeks before. The torn fragments of their clothes were scattered about, the bushes beat down, the grass and leaves torn up, and other marks of a violent contest. Seven of the negroes…
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In 2019, I retraced the steps of Archer Alexander as he was brought from Virginia to Missouri, with his wife Louisa, and his son Wesley. They had spent over eight weeks traveling over 1,000 miles, a trip that can be made today in less than 11 hours.
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When Archer arrived in Dardenne Prairie in Saint Charles County on October 8th in 1829, he was 23 years old. Born in 1806, his parents Aleck and Chloe were the property of the Alexander family. He was owned by James Alexander of Rockbridge County, near Lexington, in Virginia. His wife Louisa, born as property of…
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The enslaved person called Archey, was named for William Campbell’s maternal grandfather, Archibald Alexander, who was also an ancestor of the Alexander and McCluer families also in the caravan. All Presbyterian elders, and farmers in Virginia, they had served in the Revolutionary War and all owned slaves. Archer, who was born in 1806, also had…
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Forty one days ago, on August 20, 1829 William Campbell first wrote: I started from Lexington, Virginia on a journey to the state of Missouri. My own object in going to that remote section of the Union was to seek a place where I might obtain an honest livelihood by the practice of law. I…
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Like his father and mother before him, Archer had never been away from Rockbridge County Virginia where he had been born in 1806. He had never seen anything what he’d encountered these past six weeks. The caravan had entered Illinois, where the first state Constitution in 1818 stated that while slavery shall not be “thereafter…
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The caravan completed its’ crossing of the state of Indiana. America was on the move.These things are not on the mind of these fifty weary travelers, of which Archer Alexander is a member. In 1876, the Freedom’s Memorial a monument in Washington, D.C. was the vision of thousands of the formerly enslaved people that President…
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On the 27th of September the caravan is crossing Indiana. This is the journal of William Campbell, moving four families from Rockbridge County Virginia to Saint Charles County Missouri. The caravan is made up of just four families. Between the Alexander, McCluer and Wilson families, they own twenty-five people, half of the caravan. Archer Alexander…
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On the road for thirty-seven days, William Campbell’s journal tells us that Archer and the caravan have traveled over five-hundred miles.
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The caravan is on the migratory route of buffalo, known as the Buffalo Trace, facing several difficulties now. The roads are bad and rocky, and are thickly wooded. When their best horse dies from eating green corn, William Campbell blames the locals. Things are not going well for Archer and the group that left Lexington,…
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Next day passed through a barren corner of Harrison Co. It is destitute of both wood and water. Poor soil covered with low brush. The roads alternately good and bad.Crossed Blue River at Fredericksburg. Next day passed through a poor country, and a small town called Pool [Paoli] The county seat of Washington [Orange] County.…
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Next day proceeded on our way to Louisville, a handsome well built business-like place on the Ohio River. Staid sometime in market house which was abundantly supplies with fish, flesh, fruit and vegetables. Supplied ourselves with provisions and left…
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This is the journey of Archer, the enslaved property of James Alexander of Lexington, Virginia. Alexander is a member of a caravan of families moving from Rockbridge County, Virginia to Saint Charles County Missouri. If we listen closely to this journal of William Campbell, we might hear the voices of the enslaved… after all this…
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This is the journey of Archer, the enslaved property of James Alexander of Lexington, Virginia. Alexander is a member of a caravan of families moving to St. Charles County in Missouri being led by his cousin William Campbell, a young attorney hoping to set up a law practice there. If we listen closely to Campbell’s…
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This is the journal of William Campbell (1805-1849) leading four families from Lexington, in Rockbridge County, Virginia to St. Charles County Missouri, written in 1829. There are 55 people in this caravan, 25 of which are enslaved. Among the enslaved is Archer Alexander.
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James and Nancy (McCluer) Alexander had five children at the time they left Lexington, Virginia. John who is seven who is seven-years old, William who is five, Agnes Jane who is aged three, and little one-year-old Sarah Elizabeth. They lose one child on the journey.Among their enslaved people are Archer Alexander, born in 1806 in…
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Other McDowell “kin” back in Rockbridge were the family of Elizabeth Preston McDowell, who had married Thomas Hart Benton, who would be one of Missouri’s first Senator’s from 1821 until 1851. Their daughter Jessie would marry John C. Fremont. ..
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Boone was initially prosperous, owning seven slaves by 1787, the Campbells were headed to St. Charles County in Missouri where Boone had last lived and died…
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of the journal of William Campbell, leading four families and their enslaved people from Rockbridge County, Virginia to St. Charles County, Missouri… Rain. Fleming County is richer than those we had before passed through; some good houses.
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from William Campbell’s journal…with the slave Archer Alexander…moving from Virginia to Missouri,,, Hard rain in the morning. Very wet. Proceeded to Flemingsburg, a flourishing town of about 1,000 persons. It has a large proportion of well built brick houses. Saw a cotton factory, on a small scale. Encamped at Sulphur Spring one mile from Flemingsburg……
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William Campbell was a young attorney, in search of a place to set up a law practice in the future. The weather has become rainy, and the terrain is very rough, with only small settlements. Determined to see the Courthouse in every County Seat along the way, he has moved on to Clarksburg, Kentucky…
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While the caravan stops for a day of rest, and to attend the First Presbyterian Church in Portsmouth, for Archer the day is just like any other….
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Today’s entry describes a recent uprising against a slave trader named Gorden, that had occurred nearly three weeks earlier. His partner Petit, and his wagon driver named Allen had been killed. Six slaves were to be hung for their murder. This is the same road that Campbell and thousands of other families are using to…
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Passed by Greenupsburg, KY, a handsome little village on a bottom of the Ohio River. The beautiful new steamboat Virginia cam sailing majestically down the Ohio River. My brother, [Charles Fenelon Campbell] took passage on her for Ripley, Ohio.
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William Campbell’s journal – Had great difficultly ferrying the mouth of Big Sandy. The ferry and ford filled with quick sands and the banks almost impassable for heavy loaded wagons. We here left the state of Virginia, and entered Greenup Co, Kentucky.
ARCHER ALEXANDER 