In the late summer of 1847 when Professor John McClintock was tried before the Quarter Sessions Court of Cumberland County, the only white man among 34 other Carlisle Pennsylvanians, all black, charged with inciting a riot, he seems to have reached a turning point in his career. His first book had just been published by Harper Brothers in the fall of 1846;1 he had been offered and had declined a munificent post as professor of modern languages at the University of Pennsylvania; his satisfactions with teaching at Dickinson College were great; and his almost accidental part in the stark drama of the slave riot set in the new courthouse in Carlisle climaxed a quickening of conscience against slavery on his own part.
John McClintock spent twelve long, difficult, though happy years in Carlisle, laboring at Dickinson. This all doubtless gave him a sense of belonging which was quickly dispelled in the riot on the square. In approaching our subject, we might ask then, "Can a college professor in a Pennsylvania town near the southern border in the 1840s, continue to find happiness and academic fulfillment, while writing and acting like an abolitionist in the eyes of most of his townsmen?"
It all started on a warm June Wednesday in 1847, when two Hagerstown slave owners, James Kennedy and his brother-in-law, Howard Hollingsworth, came North to Carlisle to retrieve three fugitive slaves. Lloyd Brown and his daughter Ann, a child of about ten, allegedly belonged to Hollingsworth's father, Colonel Jacob Hollingsworth. Kennedy was in Carlisle to claim the third slave, Hester, who was known to have been married to a Carlisle man. Two early June issues of the Hagerstown Herald of Freedom report that ten or twelve slaves of that place "have taken to their heels for Pennsylvania."2 Their several owners were named, among them Kennedy and Hollingsworth, who captured their three fugitives near Shippensburg, from whence they were taken to Carlisle, where the riot then ensued.
On the morning of June 2 in Carlisle the owners appeared before the justice of the peace with the captured fugitives, made claims of ownership with what was considered sufficient proof, and then received a certificate delivering the Negroes into their custody. They found the local constabulary to be obliging allies who agreed to keep the three slaves in jail to serve the owners' convenience until their return to Maryland.
When the deputies were taking the prisoners into jail, George Norman, a Negro and the husband of the slave Hester, tried to snatch her away. At this point, Robert McCartney, the sheriff's assistant, knocked Norman back against the jail wall, and a group of blacks, mostly women, now milled around the jail in an angry mood while the prisoners were taken inside.
At about noon a writ of habeas corpus was obtained by Samuel Adair, a local Whig lawyer, acting for agents never named, and a hearing was set at 4:00 PM. by Judge Samuel Hepburn. A crowd of blacks hung around the jail until its doors were opened and trouble seemed so imminent that a posse of five men was deputized to come to the aid of the sheriff. At the hearing, the judge quickly decided that the local justice had illegally given the fugitives into the custody of the sheriff, but he ruled at the same time that the slave owners could rightfully keep the certificate from the justice of the peace remanding the slaves to them. However, Kennedy and Hollingsworth had been arrested on a warrant from the justice of the peace for forcibly entering the house in which the slaves were found, possibly somewhere near Shippensburg;3 as they had left the court room to give bail they asked Sheriff Jacob Hoffer and McCartney to rake charge of the fugitives in their absence. The willing officers stationed themselves close to the prisoners' box. The blacks in the crowd, becoming increasingly agitated and incensed, rushed the prisoners' box and attempted to rescue Hester. The sheriff's assistant McCartney, who had threatened the woman's husband earlier, drew his pistol and threatened to shoot anyone who attempted a rescue. The judge, fearing a riot before his eyes as he sat on the bench, ordered the room cleared, and the crowd was forced down the stairs outside, except for the slaves and their captors. So at this point two rescue attempts had been aborted, one at the jail and one at the courthouse.
Several notable paintings and portraits decorate the walls of the President's House of Dickinson College. Two favorites are the portraits hanging in the living room, of John McClintock and his first wife, Caroline Augusta. The portraits were given to the College by the Longacre family of Philadelphia, descendants of Caroline Augusta. Caroline's portrait was painted by Theodore Pine in 1850, when Caroline was thirty-six.
In 1805, Thomas Carothers purchased the large stone house on the north west corner of Carlisle’s Square and opened the “Sign of Columbus” tavern.1 The house had belonged to merchant John Montgomery, and it was there that President George Washington hosted a dinner for Governor Thomas M
This transcript includes portions of the tape that relate to the migration of African-American families to Cumberland County or the Underground Railroad. Donald Owens stated that he heard many of these stories from his grandmother, who raised him. Other portions of the tape contain his memories of events in the 1930s, visits to his uncle’s farm where he helped with butchering, going to school, and jobs that he had.