I decided to see if I could find any of the names and places mentioned by Charley Garlick in his autobiography first printed in 1902 by Joseph Howells in Jefferson.
With new technology and advancements as well as updated resources and access to those resources, I not only was able to find almost all of the men Garlick mentioned as helping him but also some of their homes, historical markers and documents. It has been a fascinating discovery which I hope to add to Garlick’s autobiography and make available next year.
In Garlick’s book, he mentions that J.B. Vashon and Thomas McKeever kept a regular station on the Underground Railroad, and there he found refuge for three days near Pittsburgh. I discovered that Vashon was one of the wealthiest Black men in the city.
Thomas McKeever owned a beautiful home in West Middletown, Pa., with a large barn outback where he hid slaves. His 200-year-old home still stands. I found a photo of the falling down barn in the back yard, but it cannot be used for print without permission from the Ohio History Connection. Recently, during excavation, a hidden room was found under the kitchen presumed to hold slaves.
When Charley finally reached the home of Anson Garlick, he had planned to continue to freedom in Canada since runaways were still being chased by slaveholders and slave hunters. But after seeking the advice from Anson Garlick, he decided to stay and go to school. It was a wise move. For three years,1843-46, Garlick studied hard while attending the local district school during the winter and working the rest of the year.
In 1846, Charley went in search of his brother with Anson Garlick. They thought he had settled in Butler County, Pa. Seeing a Black man with a white man, the crowd at a camp meeting assumed the white man was a slave holder. They thought Mr. Garlick was using Charley as a decoy to try and get his brothers, who were living nearby. Both were taken prisoner. But after they produced a paper from Deacon Hubbard of Ashtabula, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, both were released.
Charley was thrilled to find his brothers and stayed with them for one year before returning to Ohio. At the close of one year, as Charley was nearing his labor there working on Squire Marshall’s land, he saw 13 slaveholders, recognized by the broad-trimmed hats they were known for.
Charley notified Squire Marshall, then took off running to notify the other “colored boys,” he said, who worked there also. Charley ran into a ravine and escaped. The slaveholders were overtaken by those who vowed to protect the former slaves. A notice was put in the paper by Squire Marshall warning them they would be met with graves if they tried to return, and they never did.
The following year of 1847 while returning to Ohio, Charley discovered Mr. Garlick had moved to Dorset and owned some 700 acres of land southwest of the center of town. He joined their household and worked in the dairy and around the farm.
He tried to attend school at Dorset to continue his education, but Squire Laribee and F. S. Hollister, men of the town, objected, so he returned to his old school at West Andover where he worked for his board at Jotham Bailery’s. I plan to research these names and the school to add to Garlick’s history.
Garlick decided to further his education in 1847 and went to Oberlin College, which welcomed Black students. The College was a forerunner in abolitionist activities. Reverend N. T. Chamberlian of the West Andover Congregational Church helped him and recommended he attend the college. He was in a class of sixty to seventy “colored boys,” he said, who stayed in Liberty Hall.
In 1852, old Mr. Galick had died, the home sold and fearing the Fugitive Slave Law, Garlick emigrated to Canada. He returned in 1853 on the steamer, Cleveland, then boarded the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula railroad, just completed. Arriving in Ashtabula, he took the stage with Al Phelps as the driver. He arrived in Jefferson and walked all the way to his old home which had been sold to Messrs. Barton and Jenkins.
Charley had enlisted with the 3rd U. S. Heavy Artillery in Company G six years earlier and served at Fort Pickering at Memphis, Tennessee. At the end of the war in 1865, he came home and found many things changed in his absence. Mrs. Garlick had remarried to Aseph Carter, who was living on a place at South Chestnut Street that was owned by the estate of Judge Woodbury in 1902. He began to work for Mrs. Garlick/Carter’s half-brother, T.S. Edwards.
Mr. Edwards had disposed of the old farm in Dorset and was engaged in the grocery business on Main Street in Ashtabula, not far from the Fisk House. He gave Charlie a place at his friends’ house where he remained until 1870. He then moved to Austinburg and then came to live with Judge J.A. Giddings, who then occupied the old Giddings house on the corner of Chestnut and Walnut Streets in Jefferson.
Six years later, the old family mansion was entirely destroyed by fire, and with it all of Garlick’s early possessions. He then moved into the back room of the former Giddings law office. A brick home was built on the spot of the old mansion by Joshua R. Giddings’ son, Joshua Addison Giddings.
Garlick never married or had children. His immediate family from all his brothers and sisters was widely separated. His mother died at 103 years of age in 1893 at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Leathe Lewis, at Smithfield, Fayette County, Pa.
At the time of the writing his book, Garlick still had a sister and two brothers living, Oscar D. Bogguess and Richard Bogguess, who lived in Youngstown. The descendants of these two brothers were in the tour group that visited the Jefferson Historical Society several weeks ago.
Garlick’s concluding statement reveals his thankful heart so well. He wrote, “Of myself, I can only express gratitude that I have been allowed to see the downfall of the accursed institution of human slavery in our glorious country and to see the countrymen of my race, many of them taking such advanced positions in national affairs, to see them given the advantages of schools and colleges and become thus fitted for greater usefulness to themselves and their race.”
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