While I haven’t put that information up here yet, I have known for a long time that Wesley had slaves. I was rather surprised, for that did not seem to fit in with the image I had formed of the Kerlins as a family.
Imagine my surprise when I tumbled upon the possibility that Wesley’s father- in-law ( Sallie’s father) was the Giltner in the Crosswhite Affair.
Short version :
Adam Crosswhite and his family, escaped Kentucky slaves, were tracked to the abolitionist town of Marshall, Michigan, in 1847 by bounty hunters. Both black and white Marshall residents detained the bounty hunters and smuggled the slaves into Canada. Back in Kentucky, the slave master stirred up intense excitement about “abolitionist mobs†in Michigan. In 1848, the slave owner filed and won a lawsuit against Marshall residents, who had to pay the slave owner court costs and the “value†of his missing slaves, or about $2,000. This case influenced the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which gave slave masters the right to retrieve their “missing property†from anywhere in the country. The Fugitive Slave Act helped ignite the Civil War that led to the Fourteenth Amendment.
Giltner v Gorham (aka the Crosswhite Affair) in 1847.
More about it here and here. ( note that a David Giltner was a witness at Sallie’s second marriage)
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March 2nd, 2006 at 6:47 pm
Nate, computer trouble here, but I am working on an email- your family is fascinating…
sue
August 28th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
I am a middle school teacher in Marshall, Michigan. We teach about the Crosswhite saga. I would love, love, love to have names and addresses of any relatives of people related to those involved in this story. It must have been a complicated relationship, don’t you think.
Something strikes me as particularly poignant — the Crosswhites had a baby while living in Marshall and they named it Frances. Isn’t that amazing??? My personal hypothesis is that the Crosswhites and Giltners were close and had a good relationship – until something happened. Otherwise, why would Sarah Crosswhite pick the name Frances for her only child born in freedom?
Do you know what happened??? The most common explanation is that the Crosswhite kids were going to be sold. Another explanation is that there was a drought.
I would very much appreciate any information you could share about any Giltner/Troutman/Ford/Lee/Crosswhite descendant. We are doing a re-enactment walk with middle school kids later next month. It would be fantastic to have photos from Kentucky — gravesites, pictures of the plantation, etc.
Thanks!
Mary Douglass
Marshall Middle School
279.727.9234 home
269.781.1251 school
January 16th, 2011 at 1:29 am
My gggrandmother was Sarah C. Yeager her parents were Michael and Mary Giltner, and his parents were Francis and Elizabeth Giltner. They are buried in a cemetery in Hunter’s Bottom, Ky. I visited the cemetery in the summer of 2010. I have some info on the Giltner family.