HE SWALLOWED A STONE

    “Monday, Aug. 30, 1779- At the request of Maj. Piatt, sent out a small party to look for some of the dead Indians….Toward noon they found them and skinned two of them from their hips down for boot legs; one pair for the Major the other for myself.”- journal of Lt. William Barton, Sullivan Expedition member

     If there is a consistency in all these skinned corpses- black, white and Indian, that I’ve uncovered, it is their flawed complexities. How do I square W.H. Seward’s blindness to Indigenous issues, family slaves and servants, with his obvious positive impact on the plight of poor down-renters, indentured children or enslaved African Americans? The other amazing thing in all this grave robbing is how little I still know. Examples of extreme injustice visited upon blacks and Indians alike by my ancestors, either by design, ignorance or the consequence of their seemingly well meaning actions, are overwhelming. Why was I (and all my other relatives) unaware of any of this? The divorce of my great grandparents can only be a partial excuse. Is it that convenient mantra that many of the family still employ that “we aren’t related” that lets us off the hook? Fish and family…….

       

    The boy, William Freeman, hiding in the bushes as the sheriff’s posse rode by, was scared senseless and deaf in one ear. It’s unclear whether he got an ear infection or was injured as a child, but he carried the hearing issue into adulthood. It didn’t bother him too much, except in a small room, when everybody’s voice went to thick gibberish and a sustained echo blocked his complete understanding. He’d been seeing to white people’s needs since he was seven years old and managed fine only hearing half the things that were being barked at him. Bill didn’t imagine he was missing too much.

    When he wasn’t boarding with an employer, William Freeman stayed with his mother or his sister Debora and her husband John DePuy. His mother hired out every day to another old military man on the north side of town and most times the boy was on his own. As Bill got older he got a job with Mr. Ten Ecyk at the Auburn seminary. This is the same seminary Jack Hodges would work and reside after his release. It’s very possible Jack Hodges and the boy William Freeman crossed paths; working at The Auburn Theological Seminary at the very same time.

     Facing his own life and death dilemma weeks later, the horse thief Jack Furman stuck by his story. He pointed his finger directly at young Bill Freeman. So, while not releasing Furman, they re-arrested William Freeman. The jailers calmly told the agitated William Freeman to relax; the Judge would decide in court, in September. This was in June. The next day Bill escaped.

     With Bill now on the loose Jack Furman saw his chance. He pointed out that the boy’s escape was proof of his [Furman's] innocence. As police and prosecutor’s have repeated throughout the ages—an innocent man would never flee, but wait for the wheels of justice to reach a fair conclusion. We all know this to be bullshit. Not really caring who stole the horse at this point, the sheriff now had to chase down an escaped fugitive; or look the fool. Bill was guilty of escape, but that’s all. This would not help his case regarding the widow’s horse.

    It only took a couple of days for the deputies to locate Bill Freeman hiding in the woods and bring him back to jail in irons. But the brazen escape infuriated and embarrassed the Auburn Sheriff. When Bill’s case finally came before the judge in September, the Sheriff made sure the charge of jail break was added to the original one of stealing the horse. Jack Furman was released and the sixteen year old William Hannibal Freeman was remanded for trial, convicted and went off to Auburn State Prison in irons. The scared, half-deaf boy stood, puzzled and confused, before the judge as he pronounced sentence—“Five years hard labor. Take the prisoner away.”

  The ultimate effects of the criminalized and traumatized youth will be felt later in Auburn. Unjustified confinement increases trauma in the young, growing like a cancer, until unforeseen consequences burst forth. As a society we have learned nothing in 200 years, as families are currently separated at the southern border; immigrant children confined in conditions that are hidden as a matter of policy in state captivity. If these innocents were being well cared for in the country where they were seeking asylum, there would be no need for the secrecy.