Project Scroll Research Note 2026-35: The Kentucky raid at Cassopolis in the papers of 1847: a messenger on the Sabbath, Charles E. Stuart for the Kentuckians, and a South Bend report
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: In August 1847 a party of Kentuckians raided the Quaker settlements of Calvin and Penn townships, Cass County, Michigan, for freedom seekers, and were themselves arrested; at a hearing at Cassopolis the nine captives were set free. Three reports of 1847 that the county histories and modern accounts do not use bear on it. A Centreville report reprinted in the Signal of Liberty of 4 September says "A messenger arrived in this village on Sabbath evening last, to procure the legal services of C. Gurney Esq.," and that "the Kentuckians were still brandishing their bowie-knives": the case was undecided on a Sunday. The Jackson Patriot, quoted in the Signal of 6 November, says Charles E. Stuart of Kalamazoo, newly elected to Congress and later a United States senator, "got into his buggy, went over to Cassopolis," "held a consultation with the Prosecuting Attorney," and "the complaint of kidnapping was dismissed"; the 1882 county history knows him only as the lawyer in whose office the Kentuckians' spy read law. And the South Bend Register of 27 August, reprinted on the front page of the New-York Daily Tribune of 11 September, reports that at Cassopolis "another lot of these hunters" had to "back out and call it a drawn game, leaving their slaves to the liberty they had achieved." Project Scroll Research Note 2026-35, version 1. The note sets out the record quoted, where it is held, what it changes, its limits, and what was searched before calling it new. Web version: projectscroll.com/discoveries/notes/2026-35/.
Author: Urbanski, Michael
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225311290