In 1855, a man named Joseph slipped away at night from the Missouri plantation where he was enslaved, crossed the Mississippi River to Cairo, Illinois, and boarded an Illinois Central train bound for Chicago.
The man who claimed to own him, Thomas Rodney, followed him north and lost him in Chicago. Rodney then sued the railroad for selling Joseph a ticket.
That lawsuit reached the Illinois Supreme Court, which ruled that Black people in Illinois were presumed to be free, so a railroad didn't need proof of freedom to sell someone a ticket.
Southern Illinois historian Darrel Dexter will tell Joseph's story at 2 p.m. Saturday at Bloomington Public Library, alongside a statewide traveling exhibit on the Underground Railroad.
"I wasn't looking for the story of Joseph Rodney," said Dexter, who grew up in Cairo and says he stumbled across it.
"Otherwise, it probably would be hidden among many other stories of people who were enslaved and people who sought their freedom on the Underground Railroad."
From Missouri to Cairo
Joseph was born into slavery in the 1820s in Mississippi County, Missouri, just across the river from Cairo.
"I was able to kind of piece together his life story, not on records specifically from him, but on records pertaining to the person that enslaved him," Dexter said. "Records of enslaved people can be found in especially probate records of the enslavers."
Joseph was enslaved by John Rodney, who left him to his son, Thomas. Dexter said Joseph was held in southeast Missouri until he was about 24.
"And then he decided he had had enough, 1855," Dexter said. "During the night, he left the plantation where he was held and made his way to Cairo."
"When he got to Cairo, he found people that would help him and they bought him tickets and sent him north on the Illinois Central train to Chicago," Dexter said. "And that's where he found his freedom."
Newspapers at the time said a well-known free Black woman in Cairo bought two tickets, but they never printed her name.
"I think the readers in 1855 knew very well who the newspaper was talking about, but they were careful not to give her name," Dexter said. "And I have a theory about who that woman was."
Dexter thinks she was Melinda Harville. Only about 15 free people of color lived in Cairo in 1855, in two households, and Harville headed one of them.
"It's only a working theory or hypothesis that Melinda Harville was the woman who helped Joseph in Cairo," he said.
The ride to Chicago took more than 24 hours.
"Now you could take Amtrak in probably six hours, but it took him over 24 hours to get there," Dexter said.
Partway north, the conductor stopped Joseph.
"When the conductor came up to him and was getting tickets, he asked Joseph, 'where are your freedom papers?'" Dexter said. "And Joseph said, ‘Oh, I forgot them, I left them at home.’ But he said, ‘I'm a free man.’"
The conductor was ready to put him off the train, the usual outcome for Black passengers who couldn't show papers. Then a passenger spoke up for him: Dr. Daniel Arter, a physician and local Republican Party leader.
"A prominent man from the area intervened, said, 'I know Joseph, I know the family that he lives with or stays with, and he's all right. You can let him continue his travels to Chicago,'" Dexter said.
Dexter believes Arter knew the Rodney family and genuinely thought Joseph was free.
"I think it was just luck," Dexter said. "I don't think it was set up."
A face-to-face meeting in Chicago
Thomas Rodney was close behind. Dexter said one train a day left Cairo for Chicago, at 6 a.m., so Rodney was likely about a day behind Joseph.
"He wasn't waiting for him in Chicago, but he was hot on the trail, so to speak," Dexter said.
Dexter said Thomas and Joseph met each other on the street in Chicago.
"Their eyes locked," Dexter said.
Joseph was then taken away by people newspapers called his "friends," which Dexter said could be a code word for people on the Underground Railroad who were helping enslaved people searching for their freedom.
Under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Rodney needed a U.S. Marshal to take Joseph back.
By the time he went looking for one, Joseph was gone.
After that, Joseph's trail goes cold.
"I'm not sure if he went to Canada, if he stayed in Chicago, if he went somewhere else. He definitely changed his name," Dexter said. "And I can find no record that he ever was re-enslaved."
The court case
Rodney sued the Illinois Central in Alexander County Circuit Court in fall 1855, claiming the railroad had enticed Joseph away. The case was first heard at the county courthouse in Thebes.
The railroad won, and the Illinois Supreme Court upheld that judgment in 1857.
"What the Supreme Court case said in Rodney versus the Illinois Central Railroad was that in Illinois, people are assumed to be free regardless of color," Dexter said. "And that had not been the way Illinois looked at people of color before that."
Before the ruling, Dexter said a white citizen of Illinois was required to stop every person of color that they met and didn't know to be free and have that person prove that they were free.
Afterward, he said, trains sold tickets to anyone who came with money, and anyone claiming a person as property had to prove it.
Dexter said the ruling boosted the morale of people of color that lived in the state of Illinois.
He's less sure the railroad itself sided with the Underground Railroad.
"But I do know and I am satisfied that there were employees of the Illinois Central who were working together to help people that were enslaved and wanted to be free, find their freedom," he said. "The Illinois Central was just the means of getting that freedom."
'A celebration of freedom'
Most freedom seekers documented in southern Illinois crossed the Mississippi River and moved north from safe house to safe house rather than by rail, Dexter said. Many of the people who helped them were white members of a Reformed Presbyterian church known as the Covenanters, around Sparta and Eden in Randolph County.
Black Illinoisans helped too, in places like Quincy, Alton and Sparta. Dexter said early Underground Railroad historian Wilbur Siebert "tended to focus on the activities of white men," so many of those stories went untold.
"What's unique about the story of Joseph is that he got help from a Black woman in Cairo," Dexter said.
The railroad also connects the story to Central Illinois. The Journey to Freedom exhibit features George Burroughs, a Canadian-born Black man who worked as a porter on the Illinois Central and helped freedom seekers in the region.
Dexter said people who helped freedom seekers took real risks.
"If any of these people had been active in the Underground Railroad, been caught, tried and convicted, they would be sent to prison, they would be fined, they would be harassed," he said. "So it's important to remember the struggle that people went through.
"When I give the presentation about Joseph Rodney, I say, this is a celebration of freedom," he said. "And if we can't celebrate freedom in this country, regardless of political party or ideology, then there's something very wrong."
Darrel Dexter presents Joseph Rodney: Freedom Seeker on the Illinois Central Railroad at 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, in Community Room 2 at Bloomington Public Library, 205 E. Olive St. The program is free and will be livestreamed on the library's YouTube page. The library and the McLean County Museum of History are presenting the program. It accompanies Journey to Freedom: Illinois' Underground Railroad, a traveling exhibit from Looking for Lincoln, on display in Community Room 1 during library hours through Nov. 30.
