Week 8: WSU's Archives - Champaign, Clark, and Logan County

This week I headed to the Champaign County Clerk of Court's office and Wright State University's Special Collections and Archives located in Dunbar Library. If you'll remember from last week, I had to check WSU's microfilm for Clark County Court of Common Pleas records as well as locate the Black and Mulatto Register for Logan County. I also had set up a meeting with the Champaign County Clerk of Courts to gain access to their storage location to look for original Manumission and Emancipation records. I will start the blog post for this week with where I started - Champaign County.

Champaign County Court House.

The Clerk of Court for Champaign County, Penny S. Underwood, was a great help during the records search for Champaign County. She set me up with her intern, Hannah, who let me look through all the records I wanted and even helped me with the locations of some of the journals I could not find. Due to a couple of fires, especially one that started in the records room and spread to the rest of the court house, there were not a lot of records to look through. However, I did find an original Manumission record for a Black man named Barry from 1809. While that was the only original paper Manumission record I found, I am pleased to say that the rest of the Clerk of Court journals had already been recorded on microfilm and can safely be viewed at a variety of locations.

Metal probate boxes charred from a court house fire.

Application for a certificate of freedom for Barry.

Next on my list was to return to Wright State University to search their archives for the Logan County Registry and to look at microfilm for Clark County. Sadly, I was unlucky in the microfilm search, but the Logan County Black and Mulatto Register was beautiful to see. The Logan County book lists 132 names with a date span of 1824 - 1857.

Manumission record for Eli Wilkins.

Manumission record for the Banks family.

There were two very interesting records included in the Logan County book. First, there was the record of all the enslaved people Emancipated from George C. Mendenhall of Guilford County, North Carolina. In all, 28 people were granted their freedom upon Mendenhall's death. There was even a tiny photograph of the Mendenhall home in the folder where the book is kept.

Home of George C. Mendenhall ca. 1810. Photo courtesy of Fred Hughes.

The second, and most fascinating record from the book was the Manumission record of a man named Everett Byrd. Collin W. Barnes, a Justice of the Peace in Northampton County, North Carolina, certified that Everett Byrd was a "free man of color" and that he had known Mr. Byrd's mother and grandmother. Mr. Barnes stated, "[A]s to his freedom this is, nor can be, no manner of doubt as he descended from a white woman who was his grandmother."

Excerpt from the Manumission record for Everett Byrd.

These 132 names are only the tip of the iceberg concerning Logan County, however. The County is certainly famous for having the shortest street in America and America's oldest concrete street, but there is another, far more important piece of history for which Logan County is famous - its ties to Abolitionists and to the Underground Railroad. If you ever head anywhere in Ohio that takes you through, or close to, Logan County, be sure to check out the Logan County History Museum and ask about Logan County's role in the Underground Railroad.

That's all I have for this week. I hope you all enjoyed and come back next week when I visit the Montgomery County Records Center and Archives.

Thanks, and be good!