Tag: William Greenleaf Eliot
-
March 1863
In January of 1863, Archer Alexander had overheard the area men, plotting to destroy the Peruque Creek railroad bridge, a vital link for the Union troops. Risking his life, he would make his way to warn the troops of what was about to happen. By February, the identity of the informant was known, and his…
-
A Woman in the Shadow
Louisa was born around 1810 to a woman enslaved by John McCluer, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian elder in Rockbridge County, Virginia, who was also her father. When McCluer’s daughter Nancy married James Alexander in 1820, Louisa would meet Alexander’s enslaved man named Archer Alexander. Louisa and Archer would marry …
-
FEBRUARY 1863
He thought to himself “Go for your freedom, ef you dies for it!'” So he held on his way right southward,.. he fell in with a party of … negro men, who, like himself, were making for freedom; [on February 17, 1863] but … they were overtaken by a band of mounted pursuers, who compelled…
-
The Emancipation Monument
On April 14, 1876, a 70-year-old black man named Archer Alexander, would be immortalized as the man that represented the former enslaved on the Freedom Memorial in our Nation’s Capital. President Lincoln was the very man who had given him freedom …
-
William Greenleaf Eliot
Within two years, he would take in a Fugitive Slave from St. Charles County, and under that law, could have been jailed himself. However, he would instead assist that slave in achieving that freedom, an act that he said President Lincoln himself (who was a personal friend) helped in.
-
September 24, 1863
Archer was emancipated for “his important services to the U.S. Military forces.” He was freed by the Order of Brig. Gen. Strong, which was announced on September 24, 1863.
-
The Untold Story
Isn’t it time we tell the whole story? There is so much more to this man’s life than we knew. Recent research has uncovered so much more…
-
Upcoming events on September 24th
Now over 150 years later we will honor the life of this hero with two important events, on Saturday, September 24, 2022. Saint Charles City and County will recognize this hero Archer Alexander at 10 am in the morning in front of the OPO Startups at 119 South Main, where the courthouse stood in 1863.…
-
Abolitionist William Greenleaf Eliot
His early years in St. Louis would soon find him caught between the two forces of the rising conflict regarding the issues of enslavement…
-
What would you do?
Imagine yourself enslaved in a state that is caught between two hostile forces. On a cold winter’s night in Missouri in January 1863, Archer Alexander overheard his enslaver Richard Pitman holding a secret meeting in the back room of the local Postmaster and storeowner James Naylor, in his mercantile on the Boone’s Lick Road in…
ARCHER ALEXANDER 