Photo by Thomas Easterly, courtesy of the Missouri History Museum
Lynch's Slave Market, 104 Locust Street. A group of white men stand in front of Lynch's Slave Market at 104 Locust Street. Two men hold books one holds a few wrapped packages.
There's been much talk recently about the importance of preserving history in this city, however shameful the physical reminder. If that's really the case, I've got these to propose:
A Monument to Francis McIntosh, Deputy Sheriff George Hammond, and Deputy Constable William Mull
Many St. Louisans are not familiar with the events surrounding the first documented killing of law-enforcement officers in the city’s history, nor the outcome of the accused in April 1835. As reported in The St. Louis Observer, a free African-American named Francis McIntosh was working on a boat docked on the levee, when he helped fugitives hide on the vessel. When Deputy Constable William Mull took McIntosh into custody for doing so, McIntosh broke free. He assaulted the constable with a knife and fatally stabbed Deputy Sheriff George Hammond, who bled to death. While there's conflicting evidence about the fate of Mull, it seems that he died as well. McIntosh was charged with murder, but before his trial a mob grabbed him from the jail and tied him to a locust tree at the corner of Seventh and Chestnut streets. Alighting a pile of wood under McIntosh, the mob watched as he was burned alive. Judge Luke Lawless ruled that nothing could be done, as it was a mob, and he was not willing to bother sorting out the details. The St. Louis Observer's editor was none other than abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy. The outrage that he expressed over the lynching, among other incidents, led to his decision to move to Alton, Illinois, where he was later murdered by a pro-slavery mob on November 7, 1837.
A Monument to Lynch’s Slave Pens
Bernard M. Lynch was an infamous slave trader who operated in several locations before the Civil War. While many slaves were later sold to rural Missouri, St. Louis played a critical role in the slave trade. Lynch’s “slave pens” were actually houses with bars added to the windows to prevent escapes. His first location was at 104 Locust Street (today located between 4th and Broadway, where the Federal Reserve stands). The last location was at what is now Clark and Broadway, right by Busch Stadium's present-day site. We know much about the slave pens from Galusha Anderson, an abolitionist and minister at Second Baptist Church, who wrote The Story of a Border City During the Civil War. In the book, Anderson detailed how slaves were treated. One 15-year-old girl was stripped naked and forced to shower in freezing water as punishment. Anderson also relates the story of taking out-of-town visitors to the Mercantile Library, which had amassed considerable holdings of art and books. For contrast, they then visted Lynch’s business, where Lynch apologized for having low levels of “stock”—human beings—in his pens at the time. The prison cell was shaped like a parallelogram, with a single window high on the wall to prevent escape and a dirt floor. Seven slaves, both men and women, were being held in the cell. There was no ignorance by either slave nor free person that the most feared destination was “down South,” where the treatment of slaves was even more abominable than in Missouri; in fact, one woman begged the visitors to buy her, as she was so terrified at the prospect of leaving St. Louis. Lynch’s pen at Clark and Broadway specialized in children, and Anderson’s guests grew increasingly agitated after witnessing their first slave pen, not wishing to visit the second one. But the party continued along, and the pastor gave a glimpse in his book of the auctioning of boys and girls. The below excerpt from Anderson’s book recounts a conversation that he had with one of Lynch’s employees:
“A man connected with this pen defended the breaking up of families by the sale of slaves. He said that black mothers and children did not much mind being separated; that they had little, if any, real affection for each other; it was very much like separating a cow and her calf.”
In an ironic twist, Union commanders used Lynch’s slave pens as a prison for Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War. An elderly African-American man related to Anderson his observation of “strange things happening these days.” Instead of African-Americans bringing food to slaves imprisoned in the pens, he was witnessing Confederate families bringing food to their loved ones. Anderson finished the chapter with a strong message, including a Biblical verse from Luke 6:38: “Wrongs were being righted. Justice was being meted out. ‘For with that measure you measure, it will be measured again to you.’”
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via email at naffziger@gmail.com.
