Kidnapping in New York: 19th Century

• In March 1834, 7-year-old Henry Scott was practicing letters at the African Free School on Duane Street in Manhattan.

• The school had opened in 1832 and had been absorbed into the public school system.

• Two men, one a southerner and the other a New York sheriff, walked in and said they came for Henry.

• Richard Haxall, a Richmond industrialist who built a fortune in railroads and other businesses, said Henry was Haxall family property.

• The teacher and school superintendent were told that Haxall and the New York sheriff were arresting Henry as a runaway.

• The students shouted, "Kidnappers!" and "Let him alone!"

• The Black and white abolitionist community mobilized for a legal battle.

• Haxall and the sheriff dragged Henry before New York City recorder Richard Riker.

• Riker also served as the main judge in the Court of Common Pleas.

• Riker had been a district attorney, fought a duel, and was a member of the New York State Assembly.

• Riker looked more like a clerk or bookkeeper than a politician.

• Shot in the leg during a duel, Riker was taken to his home on Wall Street.

• Riker had been serving as city recorder for over five years.

• One of the recorder's responsibilities was to hear cases of people accused of being runaways from southern slavery.

• Ruggles had publicly named Riker as a key cog in the New York Kidnapping Club.

• With the word of a white person, Black New Yorkers fell prey to kidnapping.

• Riker served his southern masters and promoted the Union by returning suspected runaways.

• The Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution required fugitives from service to be handed over to their owners.

• Riker made his stance clear when an alleged runaway was brought before him.

• Riker said they "Northern Judges damn the Abolitionists".

• Haxall was joined by southerners, and black observers saw Riker as a friend of white southerners.

• Elizur Wright gathered intelligence for a series of newspaper articles called "The Chronicles of Kidnapping."

• Haxall claimed Henry belonged to his mother, Clara Haxall.

• New York law required agents to present proof that they were an official and documented representative but Haxall had no such proof.

• Riker ordered the child to jail while Haxall was given time to produce his father's will.

• Henry's classmates helped to release Henry from the clutches of the New York Kidnapping Club.

• The scars of Henry’s arrest remained on the city.

• Parents warned kids and strangers tricking them

• Slave catchers made money in pursuit of runaways.

• Thousands of ads promised rich rewards for runaways.

• One agent was white lawyer named Fontaine H. Pettis, who had moved from his home in Virginia to New York City in 1833

• He committed Perjury in an earlier case.

• Pettis placed newspaper advertisements in Virginia and Washington, DC for his services.

• New York City contains an estimated 5,000 runaway slaves.

• The New York Kidnapping Club could place victims on ships docked at Manhattan.

• Kidnappers could place the victims on ships headed for Southern slave trades.

• John Lockley lived with his wife and their twelve-year-old son in Lower Manhattan.

• Lockley received a knock in the middle of the night.

• Rufus Haywood along with a police officer came for Lockley

• Lockley’s real name was Joe Branch

• New York Lawyers, Thomas Lowrance Wells and B.D Silliman would try to make the case

• Riker allowed Haywood to find witnesses while Lockley sat in jail.

• Black activists would combat it by offering testimony of the falsely accused.

• Rufus Haywood had a black brother and his father was also Rufus Haywood

• Haywood convinced Rikers That Lockley was actually named Joe Branch.

• There were around 15,000 Black residence living in New York.

• Southern slave owners demanded that they receive the runaway slaves

• the cost of slaves run over $1,500

• federal law allows the south to capture slaves and bring them south

• Governors of slave States wrote to northern states to help with runaways.

• civil war breaks out if there is an injustice.

• US Constitution was created via series of compromises

• H. Ford Douglas states “ Constitution of the United States is Pro-slavery”

• Boudinot and Nash sent free people into bondage

• Riker saw jury trials as an inconvenience.

• The lockley case presented a chance to get rid of jury trials

• Haywood relied on attorney, Thomas Wells and they were democrats.

• Jury trials in Fugitive cases were unconstitutional

• Justice Josiah Hoffman wrote the opinion of the court siding with Riker

• Black people were facing another choice when they became accusers

• Stephen Downing combines Compilcity on the apart of city officials to return an accused runaway to Bondage , virginia

• May or June 1832, Stephen Downing ran away and settled near Walnut Street in New York and look the name of Downing

• Jail for months while the court decided his fate.

• Riker sent justices his reasoning and opinions on the matter.

• By summer Judge sent Downing to be sold at Virginia.

• Disintegrating poor neighborhoods, animal and human waste in streets.

• A coal choked as if difficult breathing conditions for the youth.

• In the early 1940s the curtain Aqueduct brought water to the city, which was consistent.

• Poor people will have to use water for drinking.

• The city also provided funds with the poor and Orphaned African Americans.

• The world class cities are now fallen to Fire.

• Winter was the most dangerous time of year

• Fireman made futile attempts with brandy with in the East River.

• December 16, 1835, Night was unusually cold

• Hayes smelled smoke

• Engin company one appears

• 40 Buildings leveled by 10 o’clock

• Fire hydrants froze

• Looters made over with items stores

• New Yorkers face the most worst year since before that

• All is consternation in distress.

• gathering meeting a colored citizens with the other black leaders.

• Downing and his men use Vinegar to stop the fire from burning the newspaper offices

• Now the new year opens a with an air of sadness.

• The Journal of Commerce, editor,Gerard Hallock had been reared in mes-

• For next three decades, Haller use the jornal on the Union.

• power house has absorbed the shock.

• the place of unsightly ruins will rise stores.

• it would have been heard,

• Out of the ashes with emergence moderBanking capital

Work crews be seen and up in lower Manhattan.s After the 1835 Great Fire

After new street the new home is orat and clean and or orderly. No obstacles can continue to wealthy From eating of more Land. The crowded city has hardly spread around the Street.

1830 New York become 10 hectic. There so many black residents. New Yorkers of boats races were describing. Halleck a new use the government. Many people had changed the name.