CHAPTER NINE- LITTLE BLACK RIDING HOOD

  “Keep on the outskirts of town until the dark curtains of the night appears, and let that pistol which I have loaded burst his brain, and let that knife with one stroke finish the work, and send that cursed infernal villain to his long Home, where trouble and cares will pierce his mind no more.”- Austin Reed, The Life and Adventures of a Haunted Convict

      In my great….grandfather Gideon Jennings’ bible, ancient four leaf clovers are pressed like fairy wings in between the pages of the book of Amos. I have no idea which Jennings put them there. The prophet Amos predicted the demise of the Kingdom of Israel and advocated social justice for the poor. Was this the underlying, theological/political reason for the placement of the lucky Irish clovers in the family bible? Or was it that Amos sits about dead center in the heavy book, the best spot for pressing clovers? According to Seward’s autobiography, Henry believed his grandmother, Gideon’s mother, Mary Margaret Jennings was of Irish descent, although having a “strong antipathy towards the Roman Catholic religion.” This may very well be. Both the Jennings and Osterhouts have married plenty of Irish Catholics. The most recent “lassie” is my niece Beth’s daughter, Hannah Reilly O’Brian. Even the Catholics in the family are antipathetic in public.

     Unlike most of my relatively well heeled, law abiding, white (Catholic or not) blood kin, the documents bearing witness to Hodges, Reed or Freeman’s existence are not birth certificates, land deeds, military records, or wills. The trail of bread crumbs that these men leave is almost entirely made up of trial transcripts and prison records. Courts and prisons, like the military, are very good at keeping concise records. From the moment Jack Hodges is taken into custody by Charles Durland on New Years Eve 1818, until his release from Auburn prison in 1828, we know exactly where he is at all times. For the most part, this was also true of Austin Reed, and William Freeman. 

    The notable exception to the dry meta-data of prison records, or the second hand cautionary tales of men like Rev. Ansel Eddy’s Black Jacob, or Rev. Ezra Fisk’s gallows’ epistle, Sin Finds Out the Criminal, is Austin Reed’s moving, first person prison narrative The Life and Adventures of a Haunted Convict. Under the pen name Rob Reed, he gives us an account, not only of his “adventures in crime” and time in Auburn Prison, but a detailed sketch of New York City Mayor Cadwallader D. Colden’s, Rev. John Stanford’s and Thomas Eddy’s partnership in a new venture in juvenile justice- The New York House of Refuge.

    Jack Hodges was the old guard, contained, subdued and harmless. His voice was that of a ventriloquist’s wooden dummy, dutifully seated on the parson’s knee.  A new narrator, and breed of “criminal” was being incarcerated and exploited- the youthful offender. Reed’s memoir shines a light on a lifetime in brutish state custody, and heartbreaking (although futile) resistance. It all began at The House of Refuge. Austin Reed is the only African American to share his experiences at The Refuge.  When given the opportunity, always align with the dangerous youth. These rough boys had never known a time before steam.

     Austin Reed, although not nearly as poor as William Hannibal Freeman, shared a similar experience of abandonment, and unwarranted servitude, when he was very young. But these weren’t Reed’s earliest memories. The Reed family of Austin’s childhood were well-to-do, upper register black Rochester society, and not surprisingly affiliated with Rev. Austin Steward’s Rochester AME church. Quoting from the editor’s introduction to The Life and Adventures of a Haunted Criminal, referring to the Reed family’s connection to Rev. Steward’s church: 

“Burrell Reed pledged twenty-five dollars, one of the largest commitments from a single patron. Austin Reed and his siblings probably attended Steward’s Sabbath School for Children of Color. It is possible Burrell and Maria Reed named their son in honor of this friend and patron.”    

      

   In 1833, ten year old Austin Reed, and a couple of friends, were caught chopping down some of the neighbor’s apple trees. Instead of being proportionally punished for this childish hi jinx (whose only consequence was the loss of a few fruit trees), he was arrested by the county sheriff. Given the choice of jail or servitude, Maria Reed sent her youngest son away to live with a white stranger. Like Phoebe Teed’s exclusion of her youngest son James in her will, this would have disastrous consequences, not only for young Austin, but others in the community at large.  

   Maria Reed was overwhelmed after the death of her husband Burrell in 1828, suddenly plunged from a life of relative comfort and ease, into one of extreme struggle. When the debt collecting constables were done settling up, there was little left to her and her children. Unskilled, and unable to control her youngest  son, and his “sprightly spirit,” she agreed to relinquish her parental rights to the sheriff. 

    With the guidance of what appears to be a corrupt County Sheriff, Maria Reed sent her youngest son Austin, off to indentured servitude with a rich white farmer in East Avon Springs, New York, by the name of Herman Ladd. This was one of the ways farmers, mill owners, and ships captains were supplied with cheap child labor, for a small finders fee, kicked back to the arresting officer. The sheriff told her it was the Ladd farm or jail for the boy. It wasn’t much of a choice. The distraught mother hoped and prayed, like Rev. Steward had preached, life on the farm, away from bad influences would be good for the boy. Fresh air and hard work. Ladd came to town and picked up his new charge. 

    At first, Austin was comforted and soothed by the farmer’s young daughters, who treated the frightened boy with patience and kindness, sympathetic to his banishment. They babied him like a new puppy, and even the gruff farmer waited a day or two before insisting on the labor that was promised by the sheriff. But when farmer Ladd’s patience wore thin, and there was work to be done, Austin was called upon to go to the fields. He was a city kid, not used to physical labor, or being ordered around by a stranger.  Defiantly refusing to cooperate, homesick, and scared senseless, Austin Reed was taken to the barn, lashed to a post, and horse whipped by Herman Ladd. That whipping, on top of his banishment from the family unit, combined to send Austin Reed down his “hell-desert,” path to a lifetime of incarceration…… and many more whippings. 

      Years later, in Auburn Prison, under the pen name Rob Reed, Austin would recount his life story in vivid prose. Described in 1859 prison records as “5’ plus 5 1/2 inches in height. Mulatto. Breasts covered with scars…” Reed had much to recount. So began Austin Reed’s life as the first African American, literary witness to modern reformative incarceration, and corporal punishment. Malcolm X, George Jackson, Leonard Peltier, Eldridge Cleaver, Mumia Abu Jamal, and many other lesser known literary “prisoners of war” would follow. Unlike these authors, Reed has had no measurable artistic impact on society; until recently. His work would remain unseen until being stumbled upon by an astute picker rummaging through that Rochester estate sale—finally finding its way to The Beinecke Library in 2009.