In the mid 1840’s, Adam Crosswhite, his wife and four children fled Kentucky in attempt to escape from the bonds of slavery and came to Michigan. The family succeeded and settled in Marshall, where they thought their owner could never locate them.
But in 1846, 180 years ago, slave catchers tried to capture the family and return them to their owner in Kentucky. The citizens of Marshall, however, would not allow that to happen as they instead arrested the slave catchers and smuggled the Crosswhite family into Canada.
The information which follows comes from the late Marshall historian Harold Brooks as he wrote about the Crosswhite case in 1947. Brooks’ research on the case appeared in the book “A History of Marshall” by Richard Carver…