Forbidden Fruit (27 page)

Volgenau, Gerry. “From Here to Freedom.”
The Detroit Free Press,
February 9, 2003. In this article Volgenau describes the role of Michigan in the
Underground Railroad and talks about slavery being illegal in the Northwest Territory,
of which Michigan was a part since 1783. Early fugitives therefore ran to Michigan
rather than to Canada, which didn’t become free until 1833, the year of the Blackburns’
flight to Canada.

Wheaton, Thomas R., ed.
African-American Archaeology Newsletter of the African-American Archaeology Network,
No. 13, Spring 1995. The url is www.newsouthassoc.com/newsletters/newsletter13.html.

Williams, Stacy, Dr. “The Revised History of the Black Preacher and the Black Church,”
a series of lectures originally delivered by Dr. Williams to the Council of Baptist
Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity, Detroit, between June 10, 1979, and January 26, 1982.
This talks about the churches that can trace their origins to Second Baptist.

Winks, Robin W.
The Blacks in Canada: A History.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971.

Woodson, Carter G., Ph.D. Free Negro Heads of Families in the United States in 1830
together with a Brief Treatment of the Free Negro, Washington, D.C.: The Association
for the Study of Negro Life and History, Inc. Lists Leonard Lenox as a male in Wayne
County.

Abajian, James de T., comp.
Blacks in Selected Newspapers, Censuses and Other Sources: An Index to Names and Subjects,
Vol. 3, P–Z, Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1977. This gives addresses and other sources
of information for Still family members.

Ager, Susan. “A Long and Heartbreaking List of Names.”
The Detroit Free Press,
April 29, 2004.

Anderson, Matthew. Letter dated January 20, 1907, to his daughters, Helen and Maud,
about the death of their grandmother, Letitia Still.

Appiah, Kwame Anthony, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., eds.
Africana, The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience.
Basic Civitas Books, 1999, pp. 885–86.

Beck, Henry Charlton.
The Roads of Home: Lanes and Legends of New Jersey.
New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1956, pp. 139, 143, 149.

Bedini, Silvio A.
The Life of Benjamin Banneker, the First African-American Man of Science.
Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1972. Talks about the location of the West
African region known as Guinea in the seventeenth century and later, pp. 16, 22.

Beech, Wendy. “From Africa to Lawnside.”
The Philadelphia Tribune Magazine,
October 1993, pp. 10, 11, 14.

Blockson, Charles L. “The Underground Railroad.”
National Geographic,
Vol. CLXVI, No. 1 (July 1984), pp. 3, 9, 10, 11, 13, 29, 30.

———.
The Underground Railroad, First-Person Narratives of Escapes to Freedom in the North.
New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1987, p. 241.

Brathwaite, Edward.
The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770–1820.
Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1971, p. 162.

Chambers, William.
American Slavery and Colour.
New York: Negro Universities Press, 1857. This tells the story of the kidnapping
of a freeman, Solomon Northrup, from New York as well as the Peter Still story.

Cohen, David Steven.
Folklore and Folklife of New Jersey.
New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983, pp. 54, 55, 208.

Converry. Frank W.H. “More on the Life of Dr. James Still, 1812–1882.”
Mount Holly (N.J.) Herald,
Thursday, April 19, 1962.

Correspondence with Honor Conklin, great-great-
great-granddaughter of Miller Conklin, a possible Seth Concklin relative.

Dannett, Sylvia G. L.
Profiles of Negro Womanhood, 1619–1900,
Vol. 1. Yonkers, N.Y.: Educational Heritage, Inc., 1964, p. 217. Profile of Dr. Caroline
V. Still Anderson.

Dinwiddie-Boyd, Eliza.
Proud Heritage, 11,001 Names for Your African-American Baby.
New York: Avon Books, 1994, pp. 4–5.

Ellison, Rhonda Coleman. “Propaganda in Early Alabama Fiction.”
Alabama Historical Quarterly,
Vol. 7, No. 3 (Fall 1945), pp. 426, 427.

Fisher, Alfred C., grandson of Susan Still Fisher. Email to the author.

Florence Times,
July–October 1850. This contains the August 1, 1890, obituary for Major Charles B.
McKiernan, born in Nashville, Tennessee, March 15, 1815, but moved with his father
to the Spring Hill plantation in Colbert County, Alabama. www.rootsweb.com/
˜allauder/obits-florencetimes1890.htm.

Fradin, Dennis Brindell.
My Family Shall Be Free.
New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

“The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims.” Anti-Slavery Tracts, No. 15, New series.
New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1861, p. 17. This contains the item about
the four fugitives’ capture.

Graff, Stephen. “A Journey to Springtown.”
Philadelphia City Paper,
November 11–19, 1999.

Higgs, Muneerah, producer.
The Best Kept Secret.
Documentary on the history of Lawnside, New Jersey.

Hine, Darlene Clark, Elsa Barkley Brown, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, eds.
Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia,
Vol. I, A–L.

James, R. L. “Colbertians.”
Alabama Historical Quarterly,
Vol. 7, No. 2 (Summer 1945), p. 369.

Johnston, N. R.
Looking Back from the Sunset Land; or People Worth Knowing.
Oakland, Calif.: published by author, 1898.

“A Journey to the Seaboard Slave States.”
National Era,
Vol. X, No. 497 (July 10, 1856).

Kaplan, Justin, and Anne Bernays.
The Language of Names.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997, pp. 67–89.

Khan, Lurey.
One Day, Levin…He Be Free.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1972.

“The Kidnapped and the Ransomed.” Classified ad in
New York Daily Times,
June 7, 1856, p. 4.

Knight, Franklin W.
The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 93.

Koedel, R. Craig.
South Jersey Heritage: A Social, Economic, and Cultural History.
Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1979, pp. 86, 87.

LaBrew, Arthur.
The Afro-American Music Legacy in Michigan: A Sesquicentennial Tribute: Studies in
Nineteenth Century Afro-American Music—Series II.
Detroit: Michigan Music Research Center, Inc., 1987. This talks about how people
ran notices in the black press as late as 1900 trying to find relatives from whom
they’d been separated for decades.

Logan, Rayford W., and Michael R. Winston, eds.
Dictionary of American Negro Biography.
New York and London: W. W. Norton & Co., 1982, p. 573, William Still.

Lucas, Marion B.
A History of Blacks in Kentucky,
Vol. 1,
From Slavery to Segregation, 1760–1891,
The Kentucky Historical Society, 1992, p. 2. Repeats the false story that Peter and
Levin Still were kidnapped from Philadelphia and sold into slavery.

Luntta, Karl.
Jamaica Handbook.
Chico, Calif.: Moon Publications, Inc., 1996, pp. 221–22.

Malone, Dumas, ed.
Dictionary of American Biography,
Vol. IX,
Sewell-Trowbridge.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, pp. 22–23.

Martin, John Bartlow.
Indiana: An Interpretation.
Orig. pub. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1947; reprint, Frances Martin,
1992, pp. 9, 11, 26.

McCloy, James F. “The Black and African Influence on New Jersey Place Names.”
Bulletin of Gloucester County Historical Society,
Vol. 14, No. 8 (June 1975), p. 29.

Middleton, Kenneth. “The Manumission of Candas Still.” The Central (N.J.) Record,
Thursday, April 11, 1974. The author writes about finding a document in the township
of Evesham, Burlington County, N.J., documenting that Thomas Wilkins freed the Negro
slave Candas Still on March 2, 1787. He speculates that Candas was a relative of Levin
Still and her presence in Burlington County drew Levin and his runaway wife to sparsely
settled Evesham township. Wilkins was a Quaker.

“Noted Abolitionist Dead—William Still, Author of the Underground Railroad and Clerk
of the Pennsylvania Anti Slavery Society Passes Away.”
Afro American National Edition,
Maryland, July 16, 1902, Roll 2, January 4, 1902, through August 22, 1903, Wayne
State University Kresge/Purdy Library, Newspapers and Periodicals, Detroit.

Paige, Howard.
African-American Family Cookery.
Southfield, Mich: Aspects Publishing Co., 1995, p. 94. Aletha Tanner’s story.

Pickard, Kate E. R.
The Kidnapped and the Ransomed, Being the Personal Recollection of Peter Still and
His Wife “Vina,” after Forty Years of Slavery.
Syracuse: William T. Hamilton, 1856. The Appendix contains a profile of Seth Concklin
written by Dr. William Furness.

“Recollections of Peter Still.” From the
Syracuse Journal,
reprinted in
National Anti-Slavery Standard,
Vol. XVII, No. 7, Saturday, July 5, 1856.

Ripley, C. Peter, ed.
The Black Abolitionist Papers,
Vol. II,
Canada, 1830–1865.
Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1986, pp. 205 and 519 (mentions
Letitia Still).

Robinson, Wilhelmena S.
International Library of Negro Life and History, Historical Negro Biographies.
New York: Publishers Co., Inc., under the auspices of the Association for the Study
of Negro Life and History, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970.

Sellers, James Benson.
Slavery in Alabama.
Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1950, p. 29. Talks about the plantation
of John Peters of Florence, Alabama.

Sharif, Dara N.
Scholastic News,
January 17, 2003.

“Slaves Liberated—A Family United—Story of Two Kidnapped Boys,”
Cincinnati Columbian,
January 4, 1855.

Smith, Jessie Carney, ed.
Notable Black American Women.
Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1992.

“Still Family Bibliography,” compiled by Bonita Still Austin, great-great-granddaughter
of Dr. James Still.

Still Family Reunion Banquet program, Saturday, August 9, 1986, Best Western Hotel,
Bellmawr, New Jersey. The program includes music by William Grant Still.

Still, Clarence, Jr., grandson of Charles Still, one of Sidney and Levin Still’s 18
children, interview with author, Peter Mott House, 26 Kings Court, Lawnside, New Jersey,
October 11, 2003.

Still, Gloria Tuggle.
Still Family Keepsake, 2002.
Lawnside, N.J.: GTS Communications, 2003. This is a family reunion booklet prepared
by the Still family.

Still, Kierra, interview with author, June 29, 2003, at Still Family Reunion.

Still, Mary.
An Appeal to the Females of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Philadelphia: Publication Society of AME Church of Philadelphia, 1857.

Still, William. “An Address on Voting and Laboring.” Delivered at Concert Hall, Tuesday,
March 10, 1874. Philadelphia: Jas. B. Rodgers Co., 1874.

———.
The Underground Rail Road.
Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872.

———. Letter to Mr. J. M. McKim.
The Pennsylvania Freeman,
Philadelphia, August 22, 1850, p. 2, telling the story of Still’s first meeting with
his brother, Peter.

Stormont, Gil R.
History of Gibson County, Indiana: Her People, Industries and Institutions.
Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Co., 1914. On page 225 there is a letter dated February
18, 1851, from Seth Concklin to William Still. See also p. 231 (description of Stormont’s
house and his vigilance in watching out for the slave hunters who shadowed him).

Switala, William J.
Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania.
Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2001. Tape produced by Lawnside Historical Society,
Lawnside, N.J., 1992.

Thrasher, Albert.
On to New Orleans: Louisiana’s Heroic 1811 Slave Revolt,
2nd ed. New Orleans: Cypress Press, June 1996.

Washington, Booker T.
The Story of the Negro: The Rise of the Race from Slavery,
Vol. 1. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1909, pp. 218–21.