THE SWAMP OF UNCONSCIOUS DESIRES

“A dog, a woman. an’ a walnut tree,

The more yeh beat ‘em, th’ better they be!”- Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

     We aliens have been beating dogs, women, trees and each other, spilling and having our blood spilled on American soil since soon after Columbus pulled ashore. I’m exhausted by this “groveling race” of assholes and their bloody narratives. My instinct is to give up, gloss over, or basically ignore them. Why pay any more attention? But, these issues are too important to be ignored and impossible to dismiss. William Henry Seward and Jack Hodges will again be neighbors, living completely different lives, just down the road from each other. The stage was moving and freshly painted scenery placed just so. Joining the cast are Austin Reed and William Freeman. We need new blood. Take a bow fellas.     

     

    The same year Henry proposed and Hannah Teed’s body washed up on the banks of the North River, two baby boys were born in upstate New York. William Hannibal Freeman was born to James and Sally Freeman, across from Judge Elijah Miller’s estate, in what was then known as the “negro settlement” of New Guinea. William’s father, James Freeman, was born a slave, but was able to purchase his freedom in New York in 1815. His mother, Sally Freeman, was one of the last remnants of the displaced Stockbridge Narraganset tribe. According to court records, their child, William was a small, “sprightly” and full of life. He loved to play and by all accounts was a handful for his mother. His father James died from a brain injury in 1827, when William Hannibal Freeman was only four years old; leaving his already poor and grieving family destitute.

       Not far away, in Rochester, Austin Reed came into this world that same year. Records are sketchy as to the exact  birth dates of either boy. His father, Burrell Reed, was a successful African American barber and his mother, unlike almost any other black woman of the time, had the luxury of not working. This financially secure, black family, owned a two-story house on Hunter St. on the outskirts of Rochester; an unheard of accomplishment for anyone of color in the early 19^th century. Austin Reed was referred to in prison records as “mulatto,” and like William Freeman, “of sprightly spirit.” 

    The Reeds were members of Rev. Austin Steward’s Rochester congregation, and their son Austin, very likely was his namesake. A family of “means,” educated and well thought of in the community, the Reeds would not remain so. Dying with no prepared will in 1828, Burrell Reed left his wife Maria and children, in considerable debt, suddenly plunging Maria Reed into extreme poverty. These two, now single mothers, Maria Reed and Sally Freeman, would lose their youngest sons, Austin and William, to state custody. These boys will join Jack Hodges, and Henry Seward, guiding us into the modern, fast paced, 1840’s.

     Austin Reed, under his pseudonym “Rob Reed,” wrote The Life and Adventures of a Haunted Convict, as the editors described, “a mystery out of the deeper American past.” Detailing a life of incarceration since the age ten, the manuscript appeared out of the blue at a Rochester estate sale. After much scholarly dissection, it was determined to have been written by Reed in Auburn Prison, and finished around 1858. “In a bound journal and two hand-sewn gatherings of loose paper, it gave a first-person account of a young black man’s life as an indentured servant, a juvenile delinquent, and a prisoner in New York State.” So stated the published copy. Like Jack Hodges, Reed left home at ten and only survived through his wits and good luck. The manuscript would end up at Yale Rare Books Division, to be published in 2016 by Random House.

      

     In the 1990’s I worked for a rich couple on the upper east side of Manhattan; Rick and Candace Beineke. I had no idea just how rich, or well connected, the Beinekes were. I worked for the high end firm of Strasser and Assocs. as a restoration carpenter. Our crew was turning their old Stanford White apartment back into the original 1890’s showplace White envisioned. Yale’s Rare Books division of the Library, which bears the Beineke name ended up purchasing Austin Reed’s manuscript and Random House bought the publishing rights from Yale. A bunch of white people were making money off of Austin Reed’s work. The memoir serves as one of the most intriguing, poetically heartbreaking, first person, prison narratives of any era. I contacted the Beinecke Library about using some of Reed’s writing alongside my own and received this response: 

   “Dear Mr. Osterhout, Thank you for your email…..I have copied below my signature our standard response to requests for permission to publish. To summarize, we do not require you to seek our permission to publish items to which we do not own the copyright. We do ask that you credit us as the source of the text, however.” 

   I thank and credit the Beinecke Library, Rare Books Division, and credit them as the source of the Reed text. Permission has yet to be granted by Random House. I haven’t asked. Maybe I should call Rick and Candace Beinecke first. Oh yeah, how about Geronimo’s skull stashed somewhere in New Haven? By reading any further you may be breaking the law. I know a few good lawyers. Thus ends the negotiation.