Bennie,

Ignore the story of the Old Slave House as told in the brochure. While parts of it are true, and other parts, we found, are based on historical events, or at least historical documents, as a whole it doesn't represent the findings of our research. In some places it goes to far. In other places, it doesn't go far enough.

While the slave breeding stories are real and all originate with Robert "Uncle Bob" Wilson, the man who claimed he was a stud slave on seven different plantations, including Hickory Hill, as they are not UGRR related, they are not part of the application for the Network for Freedom designation.

In the application I only included the information we've found on the many kidnappings associated with John Hart Crenshaw and/or the house. The written part of the application is online at www.IllinoisHistory.com/osh-ugrr-application.html.

I agree with the other poster that there should be some type of designation separate (or within) the Network for Freedom to show the different classification of sites:
- UGRR stations
- UGRR conductors
- UGRR hideaways
- Homes/Offices of Abolitionists friendly to escaping slaves
- Antebellum free communities/neighborhoods of color
- Reverse UGRR - for sites associated with organized kidnappings
- Capture sites - where runaway slaves were recaptured
- Places of escape - the plantations from which slaves ran away
- Sites of Uprisings
- Military related sites

Each type of site could have its own icon to go with the overall Network to Freedom logo. Despite the fact that the network has been around for six or seven years it seems like it's still just trying to get off the ground.

The following is the abstract for the Old Slave House application, again a site which once people thought was UGRR related.

Abstract: The Old Slave House outside Equality, Illinois, is the last standing station on the Reverse U.G.R.R. Started by salt maker John Hart Crenshaw in 1838, the home's third floor attic contains 12 rooms long believed to be where Crenshaw operated a secret slave jail for kidnapped free black and captured runaway slaves. A grand jury indicted Crenshaw for kidnapping, once in the mid 1820s (the outcome unknown) and again in 1842 when a trial jury acquitted him. The case's victims, Maria Adams and her seven or eight children, ended up as slaves in Texas. In 1827, Crenshaw took Frank Granger and 15 others downriver to Tipton Co., Tennessee, and sold them as slaves. Crenshaw also kidnapped Lucinda and her children in 1828. She ended up in Barren Co., Kentucky. Contemporary letters identify Crenshaw's role back both cases. Crenshaw also kidnapped Peter White and three others in the 1840s. They were sold into slavery in Arkansas, but later rescued. Stories of strange noises upstairs coming from victims, date to 1851. Despite accounts that the rooms were slave quarters, Crenshaw family stories indicate a distinction between the plantation's household servants and field hands, and the victim's of Crenshaw's criminal activities.