How Jerry’s 1851 Syracuse Rescue Sent “The Sound of an Earthquake Across the Earth”

On a cold autumn evening on October 4, 1850, Syracuse City Hall was full.

Hundreds of people from all over central New York descended on the city for a meeting called by Thomas J. White, of Geddes, to discuss methods in which the citizens of Syracuse could resist the new Fugitive Slave Law.

Passed by Congress and signed by President Millard Fillmore, a Buffalo native, on September 18, 1850, the act expanded slave owners’ ability to recover alleged fugitives by allowing federal marshals to delegate civilians and recruit local law enforcement. It also prevented enslaved people from being tried by jury, because the decision on their status was made by a federal commissioner.

In many northern states, the law was seen as immoral and (some have argued somewhat wrongly) unconstitutional.

Expressing the sentiments of many of his fellow reformers, the Reverend Germaine W. Loughin, a station chief on a loose network of freedom fighters referred to as the Subway Railroad, who escaped enslavement in Tennessee in 1835, was, therefore, a prime target for the strengthened law He gave an effective and true speech.

He began, “I am bound to Syracuse by financial interest, social and familial ties. And do you think I can be taken away from you and from my wife and children, and be a slave in Tennessee?”

The gifted orator and orator continued, “Have I suppose the people of Syracuse to be strong in number and love of liberty–or do I think that their love of liberty was too selfish…houses and effort, or with no spirit to strike a tyrant, to encircle the Marshal of the United States and see me torn from my house and my family? , and return me to slavery? I say, did I think it was so mean of you, that I would never be able to come to live with you.”

He proceeded in the most humane terms to describe the plight of every black person in office who now fears for his life and his family in a new and terrible way.

He did not analyze any words.

“I tell you that the people of Syracuse and the whole North must confront this tyranny and crush it by force or crush it.” Then Loguen brought the assembled crowd to its feet with a thrilling call to action, “It is time to change the tones of surrender to those of defiance…I say if you stand with us in resisting this measure, you will be the savior of your country. Your decision tonight in favor of the resistance will vent the spirit of freedom… and shouts for joy all over the north… Heaven knows this will erupt somewhere–God has given you that Syracuse be the respected place, and from whence shall I send the sound of an earthquake across the earth.”

Before the meeting was adjourned, this group of just spirits formed a biracial vigil committee of 13 men, like those formed elsewhere, which included many of the city’s most prominent citizens, including Charles Wheaton, future Republican Congressman Charles B. Sedgwick, Mayor Former Elias Leavenworth, publisher Vivos Smith, Railroad Baron John Wilkinson, Reverend Samuel May and Reverend Logan.

The group was dedicated to making sure that “no man of Syracuse shall be taken as a slave, and no authority shall impose the law of fugitive slaves upon him.”

A year later, on October 1, 1851, the Loujain earthquake occurred and shock waves were felt throughout the country.

That evening, this righteous decision was carried out when a large group of Syracuses, both black and white, freed William “Jerry” Henry from his prison cell in Clinton Square.

Jerry, as he was known throughout the city, escaped his enslavement in Missouri and settled in Syracuse just about a year before his arrest. He found work in the Morell Collaboration near Hanover Square where he was working on that fateful day. At noon, a Federal Field Marshal, Henry Allen, and a group of the local police co-op entered and, without warning, threw Jerry to the ground and handcuffed him.

First Presbyterian Church, 1852. Members of this vigilance committee rang bells to alert the city of Jerry’s arrest. Courtesy of the Onondaga Historical Society Courtesy of Onondaga Histori

Coincidentally, Charles Wheaton, a member of the vigilance committee and owner of a nearby hardware store, comes across Jerry being detained and off to work. Wheaton ran to the first adjacent church on East Genesee Street, where the Liberty Party was holding its official convention.

Founded in 1840, the Freedom Party was a small radical political party that advocated the immediate abolition of slavery. The conference was chaired by Gerrit Smith, one of its leaders, a wealthy landowner who lived in Peterborough, New York, and an important advocate for the abolitionist cause.

After Wheaton’s arrival, the conference was immediately postponed, and the crowd headed to nearby Townsend Block, where the office of Federal Commissioner Joseph Sabine is located.

News of Jerry’s arrest spread quickly.

As per the previously agreed signal, church bells rang out across the city to alert citizens that someone had been taken into custody.

A large crowd gathered outside Sabine’s office, including May, Freedom Party member Logan, and later Samuel Ringgold Ward, a well-known black orator and publisher of “Neutral Observer”.

Logan and May join Smith in Sabine’s rooms. As the room and staircase filled with people, the actions against Jerry moved forward. Sabine postponed the lawsuit to the evening.

Driven by the crowd, Jerry cut a recess for the door, still bound by his hands and feet. He drove half a mile down the side of the Erie Canal before he was caught, beaten, and brought back into custody. Sabine resumed work around 5:30 p.m., but at the larger police office at Raynor Block on Clinton Street.

For security, Federal Field Marshal Allen demanded that the militia be recalled, which infuriated the masses even more.

According to the account in Loguen’s novel published in 1859, a crowd of about 3,000 people gathered outside the police station, many carrying stones, batons and axes (some were placed in front of the Wheaton hardware store) as they screamed for Jerry’s release. The hearing continued inside the police station as stones began to seep through the windows. After someone narrowly missed Sabine’s head, he decided to hold off until 8 AM, hoping the crowd would disperse. The officials left and Jerry was moved to a back room.

Later that evening, around eight in the morning, several members of the vigilance committee returned to the scene, having spent the past few hours preparing a plan to free Jerry once and for all.

At the direction of one of them, the crowd proceeded to smash windows and remove bricks to get into the building, which they did. They started smashing the walls. Eventually, two African American men, Peter Hollenbeck and William Gray, entered the room, took Jerry and carried him to the street.

The editors removed Jerry’s shackles just outside the Syracuse house on the corner of East Genesee and Salina Streets and put him in a wagon. He was in hiding for several days before finally making his way to Kingston, Canada. He lived there, a free man, until his death two years later in October 1853.

Jerry Rescue Monument in Clinton Square, Syracuse. It depicts Jerry being rescued alongside Reverend Logan and Reverend May. Artist: Sharon Bowman. Courtesy of the Onondaga Historical Society Courtesy of Onondaga Histori

Confirming Logan’s prophetic rhetoric, saving Jerry was indeed “the sound of an earthquake across the earth.”

The trauma forced Logan to live in exile in Canada, away from his wife and children, for about six months.

At the national level, it spurred both sides of the nation’s growing division. It became a defining moment in the struggle against slavery and in the growing sectoral conflict that ended in the Civil War.

From 1852 until the outbreak of war in April 1861, a celebration was held annually in Syracuse, attended by many leaders of the abolitionist and anti-slavery movement, including William Lloyd Garrison, Samuel May. Lucy Stone, Gerrit Smith, Logan and Frederick Douglass.

For critics, such as those Syracuses who called the “Agreement of Law and Order” in the days that followed, it was a direct attack on the rule of law, the constitution, and the union. For those who participated in or supported the rescue, it was a sublime manifestation of what William Henry Seward called adherence to the “higher law,” which dictated the immorality inherent in slavery.

Just a few weeks before the first celebration of saving Jerry, the Freedom Party held a state convention in Kanastuta. Among the delegates was Jermaine Logan, who had returned from his Canadian exile only a few months earlier.

At the end of the conference, Frederick Douglass presented this resolution which beautifully summarizes the significance of the event in the minds of those loyal to the cause. “I have decided to save Jerry” from the hands of pirates to Marshall Allen…from a life of torture and slavery, as the most significant event which has occurred to date in connection with the progress of the fight against slavery, being a practical confirmation and a triumph of execution of the great idea that property in man is unbelievable, We are pleased to know that the event will be celebrated in Syracuse on its first anniversary.”

As it turns out, the Syracuse Joint Council denied the celebration officials’ request to use City Hall, which was in full view of the Third National Women’s Rights Convention just a few weeks before.

A shot of the great Onondaga salt industry, c. 1868. Wilkinson’s Round House is shown in the background. Courtesy of the Onondaga Historical Society Courtesy of Onondaga Histori

As far as the Joint Council was concerned, the “mobs” involved in saving Jerry “trampled on our county government”. As such, the event would be “notorious in our city and dangerous in its direction”.

The nearly 3,000 people in attendance were not discouraged anyway.

John Wilkinson, the man who called Syracuse Village in 1825, let the crowd gather at his new motor home.

This was very convenient because after this celebration, the Syracuse Underground Railroad will operate in the open air.

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