Forbidden Fruit (29 page)

Connor, James. “The Antislavery Movement in Iowa.”
Annals of Iowa,
Series 3, Vol. 40 (Fall 1970), pp. 450–79.

Cooper, Arnie. “A Stony Road: Black Education in Iowa, 1838–1860.”
Annals of Iowa,
Series 3, Vol. XLVII (Winter/Spring 1986), pp. 113–34.

Curtis, Nancy, Ph.D.
Black Heritage Sites: The North.
New York: The New Press, 1996, pp. 68–72.

Dahl, Linda.
Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen.
Orig. pub. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984; second Limelight Edition, December 1992,
pp. 53–57.

Day, Beth.
The Little Professor of Piney Woods.
New York: Julian Messner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1955.

Dykstra, Robert. “Dr. Emerson’s Sam: Black Iowans Before the Civil War.”
The Palimpsest
(a publication of the State Historical Society of Iowa), Vol. 63, No. 3 (May/June
1982), pp. 66–68.

Ellerbe, Alma, and Paul Ellerbe. “Inchin’ Along: The Story of the Piney Woods School
in the Black Belt of Mississippi.”
McClure’s Magazine,
Vol. 54, No. 2 (April 1922), pp. 7, 8.

Erickson, Lori.
Iowa Off the Beaten Track.
Chester, Conn: The Globe Pequot Press, 1990.

Fort Madison Plain Dealer,
May 27, 1857. An editorial noting that “To the disgrace of the County and State,
Denmark has the name of being the rendezvous of men, who occasionally engage in negro-stealing,
at the same time professing the religion of the gospel. Men of less shrewdness have
been hanged—have received their just desserts—for engaging in practices of which respectable
citizens of Denmark had been accused.”

Garrison, Ramond.
Tales of Old Keokuk Homes.
Hamilton, Ill.: Hamilton Press, 1959, p. 76.

The Gate City,
Keokuk, Iowa, February 25, 1869. Item about Frederick Douglass’s visit to the city.

Gibson, Robert A. “The Negro Holocaust: Lynching and Race Riots in the United States,
1880–1950.” Yale-New Haven Teacher Institute, www.yale.edu/
ynhti/curriculum/units1979.

Gorden, Thomas. Letter to author, Boston, Massachusetts, February 15, 2004, “…The
Rev. Joel and William…kidnapped Benjamin to literally sell him ‘down the river’ in
a slave market that had dollar-inflated by triple between the 1830s and 50s,” according
to Thomas C. Gorden, the great-great-great-great-grandson of the Reverend Joel Gordon.
(There is no evidence that Hugh Gordon could read or write and in his various court,
tax and census papers his name is most often spelled Gordon, but also is written as
Gorden, Gordan or Gordin. His sons who could sign their name used the spelling Gorden.)

———. Letter to author, Boston, Massachusetts, February 21, 2004.

———. Letter to author, Boston, Massachusetts, February 22, 2004.

———. Letter to author, Boston, Massachusetts, February 23, 2004.

Grinnell, Josiah Bushnell.
Men and Events of Forty Years.
Boston: D. Lothrop Co., 1891, p. 211.

Handy, Robert W., and Gertrude Handy. “The Remarkable Masters of a First Station on
the Underground Railroad.”
Iowan
22 (Summer 1974), pp. 45–50.

Harnack, Curt. “The Iowa Underground Railroad.”
Iowan
4 (June/July 1956), pp. 20–23, 44, 47.

Hawley, Charles Arthur. “For Peace and Freedom.”
The Palimpsest
(a publication of the State Historical Society of Iowa), Vol. XVI, No. 11 (November
1935).

Hine, Darlene Clark, Elsa Barkley Brown, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, eds.
Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia,
Vol. I, A–L. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 615–16.
Inventory and appraisement of Hugh Gordon Estate,
1834, Book F, p. 4424. Lists twenty slaves, including “Sharlet.”

Iowa Census, 1856, Lee County: “ ‘Julyiannn Piles,’ 36, William, 15; George, 10, Ruan,
5; Josephus, 7, all born in Kentucky, J.W. Piles, 8, Daniel, 7, James, 4, Frances
Gordon, 83; Walker Catline?, 24, husband of Emily; ‘Henry Pills,’ 70; ‘Charlotte Piles,’
57, Barnun, 27, Ellen, 24, Pelina, 19; Elisabeth, 13, Henry, 10, Mary A., 8, Emily,
32.”

Iowa Census, 1860.

Jones, Charisse. “Owning the Airwaves.”
Essence,
October 1998.

Jones, Laurence Clifton, 1884–1975, www.africanpubs.com.

Jones, Laurence C., comp.
Little Journeys to Piney Woods.
Mississippi: Piney Woods School, 1956. The story of Jones’s near hanging appears
on page 32.

Jones, Mrs. Laurence C. “The Desire for Freedom.”
The Palimpsest
(a publication of the State Historical Society of Iowa), Vol. VIII, No. 5 (May 1927),
pp. 154–61.

Keokuk City Directory, 1887. Lists Barney Pyles, driver, residing at 1426 Bank.

Keokuk Public Library, information on deaths and burial places of Charlotta and Harry
Pyles.

Lee County, Iowa, GenWeb Project, 1879. Keokuk, Iowa, Biographies, Index of Names.
Barney Pyles, teamster, is listed as son of Charlotta and Harry Pyles, p. 5, www.rootsweb.com/ialee/data/bios/keobiodx.html.

Let’s Travel: Pathways Through Iowa.
Pamphlet. St. Paul, Minn.: Clark & Miles Publishing, Inc., 1996.

Lopez, Barry Holstun.
Of Wolves and Men.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978.

Lucas, Marion B.
A History of Blacks in Kentucky,
Vol. 1,
From Slavery to Segregation, 1760–1891.
The Kentucky Historical Society, 1992, p. 4. Description of hemp farming.

Lustig, Lillie S., S. Claire Sondheim, and Sarah Rensel, eds.
The Southern Cook Book of Fine Old Recipes.
Reading, Pa.: Culinary Arts Press, 1939, pp. 5, 6.

Matlack, Lucius C.
The History of American Slavery and Methodism from 1780 to 1849; and History of the
Wesleyan Methodist Connection of America.
In two parts, with an Appendix. New York: No. 5 Spruce Street, 1849.

McLaughlin, Lillian. “Brave Black Women in an Intrepid Family.”
Des Moines Tribune,
Wednesday, May 14, 1975.

McLeister, Ira Ford, and Roy Stephen Nicholson.
History of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America,
rev. ed. Marion, Ind.: The Wesley Press, 1959.

Mid-American Frontier, Gazetteer of the State of Missouri.
New York: Arno Press, 1975. Talks about the physical landscape of Howard, Monroe
and Shelby counties.

Mills, George. “The Crusade of John Brown.”
Annals of Iowa,
Series 3, Vol. XXXV, No. 1 (Fall 1959).

Missouri: A Guide to the Show Me State,
compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in
the state of Missouri, American Guide Series, copyrighted 1941, the Missouri State
Highway Department, pp. 478, 479. Describes Waverly and the Missouri River.

Moulton, Candy.
The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West from 1840–1900.
Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1999, pp. 160, 259.

Newhall, J. B.
A Glimpse of Iowa in 1846; or the Emigrant’s Guide, and State Directory; with a Description
of the New Purchase: Embracing Much Practical Advice and Useful Information to Intending
Emigrants. Also, the New State Constitution,
2nd ed. Burlington, Iowa: W. D. Skillman, 1846, p. 91.

Notes from National Public Radio tribute to the International Sweethearts of Rhythm,
broadcast on public radio stations nationwide on March 25, 2004, and including an
interview with Helen Jones Woods.

Parkman, Francis.
The Oregon Trail.
New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., Inc., 1964.

Pierson, Dudley. “A Home Away from Home.”
African American Family Magazine
(Southfield, Mich.: Metro Parent Publishing Group, Inc.), November 2002.

The Pine Torch
(Piney Woods, Miss.), Vol. XVII, No. 6 (April 1928), p. 4.

Purcell, Leslie Harper.
Miracle in Mississippi: Laurence C. Jones of Piney Woods.
New York: Comet Press Books, 1956.

Redford, The Reverend A. H.
The History of Methodism in Kentucky,
Vol. I. Nashville: Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1868, pp. 18–27. Talks about
early Methodist preachers in Kentucky.

Ricketts, S. P., and Grace L. Ricketts. “The Underground Railroad of Southwestern
Iowa,” from the Papers of Elvira Gaston Platt, 1853–1974, Iowa Women’s Archives. Iowa
City: University of Iowa.

Rydjord, John.
Indian Place Names.
Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968. Contains information about Chief
Keokuk.

Sernett, Milton C.
North Star County, Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom.
Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002, p. 77.

Siebert, Wilbur H.
The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom.
New York: MacMillan, 1898, pp. 42–43.

Silag, Bill, ed.
Outside In: African-American History in Iowa, 1838–2000.
Iowa City, Iowa: State Historical Society of Iowa, 2001, Chapter 3.

Simon, F. Kevin, ed.
The WPA Guide to Kentucky.
Compiled and written by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Work Projects Administration
for the State of Kentucky. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996.

“Slavery at Farmington,” a brochure produced by Farmington Historic Home, a historic
museum home in Louisville, Kentucky, owned and operated by Historic Homes Foundation,
Inc.

Smith, Frederic C.
One Hundred Ten Years of Public Education in Keokuk.
Keokuk: Keokuk Community School District, 1961.

Smith, Warren Thomas.
John Wesley and Slavery.
Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986, p. 94. Quote from John Wesley.

Staples, Brent. “The Black Seminole Indians Keep Fighting for Equality in the American
West.”
The New York Times,
November 18, 2003.

Styron, William.
Sophie’s Choice.
New York: The Modern Library, 1999.

Todd, John.
Early Settlement and Growth of Western Iowa; or Reminiscences.
Des Moines: Historical Department of Iowa, 1906, pp. 152–53.

Turton, Cecil Marie.
The Underground Railroad in Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.
Columbus: Ohio State University, 1935.

Van Ek, Jacob. “Underground Railroad in Iowa.”
The Palimpsest
(a publication of the State Historical Society of Iowa), Vol. II, No. 5 (May 1921).

Varhola, Michael J.
Everyday Life During the Civil War: A Guide for Writers, Students and Historians.
Cincinnati: Writers Digest Books, 1999, pp. 10, 11.

Washington County (Kentucky) Court, Deed Book N, p. 107, transcribed-edited, Thomas
K. Gorden, Boston, Massachusetts, 2000.

Washington County (Kentucky) Court records of the seizure of Frances Gordon’s slaves
on October 22, 1853, sworn to by James R. Parrott, March 14, 1854, and copied from
Washington County Court records by Willis Gorden, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Washington County, Kentucky, Bicentennial History, 1792–1992.
Paducah, Ky.: Turner Publishing Company, p. 282. Contained in the archives of the
Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Washington County, Kentucky, tax list, 1819.

Williams, Ora. “Underground Railroad Signals.”
Annals of Iowa,
Series 3, Vol. XXVII (April 1946), pp. 297–303.

Wubben, Hubert H.
Civil War Iowa and the Copperhead Movement.
Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1980.

Wundram, Bill, Tricia DeWall, Jeffrey Bruner, Tom Thoma, and Bill Zahren.
Iowa Celebrating the Sesquicentennial.
American & World Geographic Publishing, 1995.

Yanak, Ted, and Pam Cornelison.
The Great American History Fact-Finder.
Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993, p. 49.

Bolden, Tonya.
Strong Men Keep Coming: The Book of African American Men.
New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1999.

Drew, Benjamin.
A North-Side View of Slavery. The Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in
Canada. Related by Themselves, with an account of the History and Conditions of the
Colored Population of Upper Canada.
Boston: John P. Jewett and Company, 1856.

Hill, Daniel G.
The Freedom-Seekers: Blacks in Early Canada.
Toronto: Stoddart Publishing Co., Ltd., 1992.