Signs posted in the courthouse led them down narrow halls, past the courtroom, and eventually to the Office of Records. The clerk at the front desk was eating a late lunch. Or early dinner. She wiped her mouth and smiled apologetically up at them.
“So there is a Mickey D in town?” John asked, looking with interest at the white and yellow McDonald’s bag on her desk.
The woman grinned. “Sorry. If you’ve got a hankerin’ for a Big Mac, you’ll have to go over to Kentucky for it. What can I do for you?”
Kate explained once again about her genealogy project, and the woman abandoned her hamburger and led them to a room behind her office. The walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, each packed to near capacity with books of various sizes and colors. In the center of the room a slanted chest-high counter was provided for those who wished to study the books.
“All the volumes in this room are indices,” she explained. “They’ll tell us which record books to look in next door. Let’s start with births. What year are we looking for?”
“I don’t really know for sure. I mean, I thought I did. My mom and I traced my family back to a Ned Greenfield. In the 1850 census his birth date was listed as 1834.”
“Okay, that’s a start,” the clerk said.
“But now I know he’s not the right Greenfield, so I have no idea on the birth date.”
“Well, let’s see what we can find. Ned is usually a nickname for Edward, Edmund, Edgar, or even Edwin.” She pulled a faded gray ledger from a shelf, plunked it down on the counter, and thumbed to the G section. The only name that came close was Greely. She looked next in the Index of Gallatin County Marriages, and Abby’s eye zeroed in on an entry for a Nebo Greenfield and she felt a rush of excitement. Maybe his given name had been entered wrong. Only on closer examination, she saw the date was 1923. If he was related there was no way to see how.
Nevertheless, Abby got out her steno pad to copy the information in case it led to other Greenfields. But before she could, the clerk whisked the ledger away to make room for the Index of Deaths, the Index of Criminal Records, and three others for which Abby didn’t catch the names. In some, the name Greenfield was entirely absent. In others it was associated with a completely wrong date. None of the variations of Ned showed up as a given name.
The clerk saw Kate’s long face. “Don’t give up. We’re not done yet.” She lay another huge volume down on the counter and opened it to the G’s. “This is the Soundex Index. It will give us surnames with variant spellings. Clerks in years past were notorious for their creative spelling of people’s names. Of course, sometimes they had to come up with their own spelling if the person they were recording was illiterate.”
The Soundex Index listed Greenfeld, Grenfell, and Grenfold as variants of Greenfield, but none of them were Edwards, Edmunds, Edgars, or even Edwins, much less Neds.
“It’s so frustrating,” Kate said. “The 1850 census shows him right here in Gallatin County.”
“Let’s check the Registry of Deeds. If he or his family owned property we can find him that way.”
They struck out completely for any property deeds for the years 1800 through 1899.
“Okay, so much for our theory that the Greenfields once owned Hickory Hill,” Abby said. “What about rentals? Would there be any kind of record for that?”
“Hickory Hill?” the clerk asked.
“Yes,” Kate said. “The census record says Ned Greenfield was born at Hickory Hill, 1834, Gallatin County.”
The clerk looked at Kate for a long moment. Then she whisked the ladder over to the far bookshelf and quickly scaled it. Taking a book from the top shelf, she came down the ladder and placed it on the counter and then looked at each of them in turn. “It’s probably not in here, but…well, it wouldn’t hurt to look, would it?” After a while, she snapped it shut and said, “Wait right here.”
After only a minute or two, she returned with an ancient-looking ledger. They got a brief glimpse of the scarred leather cover, a shade of brown that reminded Abby of her dad’s cordovan dress shoes. A musty smell wafted out when the clerk opened it. Pushing her glasses into place on her nose, she bent and studied the pages of hand-written information closely.
“There,” she said at last and pushed it over in front of Kate. “It’s faint. But look closely. John Granger registered a baby born in his household. Ned Greenfield, born 1834, to Mariah, his cook at Hickory Hill. The father’s name is Charles.”
Kate peered at the page for a moment, and then holding her place in the book, closed it on her hand to see the title: Slave Registry, Gallatin County. She looked up at the clerk.
“They were indentured servants,” Abby said. “Not slaves, right? After all, Illinois is a free state. It always has been.”
“You didn’t know?” the clerk said. “There were slaves in southern Illinois as early as 1719. The French brought them—”
“We’re not concerned with what the French may or may not have done before Illinois became a state in 1818,” Ryan said.
“Well, yes,” the clerk said cautiously, “Illinois came in as a free state. The state constitution forbade slavery. And, yes, most of them were indentured servants. Technically. But since they were held indefinitely—in perpetuity—you’d have to say it was slavery.”
“Most of them?” Abby said.
“Well, at the salt works…there they had outright slavery. You see, salt was so important to the whole economy—of the state and the nation. Why, at one time, one-fifth the state’s revenues came from salt, and—”
“But the Constitution? What about the Constitution?” Abby realized she was sputtering and tried to calm down.
“Well, you see, the state of Illinois paid the United States Treasury thousands of dollars annually for a special exemption to use slave labor at the salt works. How else would they have been able to keep production up?”
“So you’re saying John Granger owned Ned Greenfield?” John said. “He and the others were his slaves?”
“That can’t be right,” Ryan said. “Everyone’s been telling us Granger’s house was a stop on the Underground Railroad.”
“Maybe he changed his opinion about slavery later,” the clerk said.
Abby couldn’t think of what to say, and Kate looked shell-shocked.
Fortunately, John managed to smile and thank the clerk for her help. “We’ll let you get back to your lunch. And sorry. It’s going to be cold by now.”
“Not a problem.”
They left the records department and went single file back down the narrow hall. When they came to the courtroom, this time the door was open. The juror boxes were empty and the judge had already left, but lawyer-types in summer-weight suits were still there gathering up their files at the tables for the defense and prosecution.
Abby was about to continue walking past when she noticed that what she had thought was the wall behind the judge’s bench was slowly rolling up like a huge white projection screen. A courtroom official was working a control switch in the far corner of the room.
As the screen lifted, a mural painted on the wall beneath it was revealed. The title, on a banner at the top of the mural, was History of Gallatin County. Dozens of people were portrayed, representing the early civil and military leaders and ordinary citizens—farmers, laborers, and housewives—who had played roles in the development of the county. Prominent in the center of the mural were wooden barrels labeled Salt. Beside them black slaves labored at the industry upon which the Gallatin County economy had been founded. In the sanitized depiction before them, the slaves wore simple but glowing white shirts and trousers and happily worked away, apparently content to expend their lives for the benefit of the citizens of Illinois. A status they had no hope of attaining.
Abby’s heart did a strange gallop, and she thought she might vomit. She had to get outside. Quick. She started to edge past John, but an elderly black man wearing a green uniform stood behind her, broom in hand, watching the courtroom. Seeing Abby’s panicky attempt to leave, he stepped aside and released a dry, rusty chuckle. “You look a mite upset by our famous mural. I’d venture to say you’re not from around these parts.”
“It’s disgusting,” Ryan said.
“Yeah. Well. You know.” He chuckled again. “At least they cover it up when court’s in session,” he said philosophically as he pushed his broom down the hall.
They sat on the steps of the First Bank of Illinois, grateful for its shade, while they watched the Ohio River roll by a short distance away. Abby had read about the bank in the brochure. But when they had followed Route One down for a quick peek at Old Shawneetown before leaving, she still hadn’t been prepared for the sight of the colossal bank sitting all alone on the abandoned street. The bank had once held the money made by the sweat and blood of slaves. Mighty King Salt, Abby thought and then remembered Shelley’s poem.
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
She realized she’d quoted it aloud when John gave her a look. No sand around, of course, just a muddy riverbank and an empty road that dead-ended where the town once sat. A tugboat pushing a barge upriver tooted as it passed under the Kentucky bridge just downstream from them. She imagined herself further back in time, before the bridge, when, according to the brochure, an enterprising pioneer named Barker had made a living ferrying people across the Ohio in his boat.
Earlier in the summer Abby had learned that Alton, a Mississippi River town on Illinois’ western boundary, had been an important entry point for slaves escaping from Missouri. Hundreds, if not thousands, had been conducted through Alton on the Underground Railroad north to safety, helped by the Miles family, among many others.
But here on the eastern boundary, slaves coming from Kentucky and points south had the Ohio River to contend with. Had they sighed in relief to be in the free state of Illinois only to find themselves re-enslaved at the salt mines of Gallatin County? How long had it taken them to find out they weren’t safe? Not yet. A worse thought came to Abby, and she struggled to get her head around the idea. Ned Greenfield was born a slave in the land of Lincoln. If she were to go down to the riverbank and cup the water in her hands for a drink, would it taste salty? The Saline River emptied into the Ohio. But how many tears of fear, anger, pain, and disappointment had also added their saltiness through the years?
John picked up a flat pebble and skimmed it across the empty street. Abby snapped out of her reverie and turned to Kate. She was still watching the barge being pushed up river. Her eyes were red and her hair blew unnoticed into her face. Ryan was patting her ineffectually on the back.
“Don’t worry, Kate,” Abby said. “We’ll go back and time-surf back until we find out the connection between them.”
“Sorry, Abby,” John said. “But that theory the librarian had about the white Ned Greenfield owning the slave Ned Greenfield? Well, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if he was born at Granger’s Hickory Hill mansion.”
Seeing Kate’s misery, John’s expression softened. “We’ll figure out something.”
Ryan took Kate by her shoulders and looked into her face. “Kathryn, I don’t think there’s any connection between that slave and your ancestors. You and your mom just got the wrong Greenfield, that’s all. Maybe he’s not even named Ned. Let’s just leave before we waste any more time in this place. When we get back to Chicago I’ll—”
“No, not yet. Let’s try a little longer.”
Abby flipped her phone open. “I’ll call Patty Ann and see if she had any luck with Miss Granger.”
The phone number Patty Ann had given Abby was to their landline. She didn’t own a cell phone. She left a message on the answering machine for her and decided to call Merri while she waited for her to call back.
Unlike Patty Ann, Merri picked up on the first ring, as if she had been waiting by the phone.
“So when are you getting home?” Merri asked. “Mom said we can call out for pizza again tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Merri, we won’t be there in time for pizza. We’ve been following the wrong Ned Greenfield, a black slave. We’re going to do a little more time-surfing and follow him in case he leads to the right Ned Greenfield that connects to Kate’s relatives in Chicago.”
“Hey, maybe you’ll meet up with that guy from Charlotte’s attic,” Merri said. “He was going to Chicago.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Have you been time-surfing?”
“No, it’s not working, dang it. You know? The man we saw when we time-surfed with Kate.”
Abby’s phone chirped. “I’ve got to go, Merri. I’ve got a call coming in.”
“Okay. Call me later.”
Abby switched over to Patty Ann. “Hey, we’re almost back to Equality. What did you find out from Miss Granger?”
“She seems to be fine,” Patty Ann said. “So y’all can go see her. Only don’t go in until I get there.”
“Good,” Abby said. “Because we didn’t find any more information in Shawneetown. Except, did you know that the salt mine used to be worked by slaves? The free state of Illinois actually used slaves to—”
“Of course, I know that,” Patty Ann said. “Everyone around these parts knows that. But no one in Equality wants you writing about all that horrible stuff. It’ll ruin any chance we have for tourism.”
“We are not writing a book,” Abby said. “We’re only trying to—”
“You know that and I know that, but lots of other people don’t know that. Why do you think everyone’s so worked up? I’ve got to hang up so I can get over to Miss Granger’s before you beat me there.”
“Okay, see you in a few minutes.”