The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
Compiled and Edited by Virginia Ross
Registrar for Daniel McMillan Chapter, N.S.D.A.R.1913
Stronghurst Graphic, September 18, 1913
Sept.18, 1913 FREDERICK FORT'S PAPER: J.Marion Fort brought to the Graphic office a relic of ante-bellum days. It was a bill of sale for a slave girl purchased by Mr. Fort's grandfather in the state of Kentucky in the year 1828. The document was just 85 years old on the day Mr. Fort brought it in.
Frederick Fort, the gentleman named in the instrument, afterward freed all of the slaves in his possession and came north, settling in Henderson County. His remains and those of his wife lie buried in the old Kemp Cemetery northwest of Olena. (See Moment in History.)
The paper on which the bill of sale is recorded, besides being yellow with age, has a number of holes burned in it. Mr. Fort states that his father had the instrument in his possession and that one day when the family was away from home, their house was burned to the ground. The bill of sale together with a number of other papers was lying near a package of gunpowder. When this was ignited the explosion threw a number of the papers outside the zone of the fire and in that way this one was saved from destruction. The instrument reads as follows:
"Know all men by these presents that I, James H. Cole of Edmonson County, Kentucky, hath and doth by these presents, for and in consideration of three hundred dollars, good and lawful money of the United States, to me in hand paid, the receipt of which I do hereby acknowledge, sell and convey unto Frederick Fort of the county of Edmonson and state aforesaid, one certain negro girl aged about thirteen years named Juliette, which negro girl the said Cole doth warrant to be sound and healthy in body and mind and a slave for life, her and her future increase, unto the said Frederick Fort hiss heirs and assigns for ever. In testimony whereof I the said James H. Cole hath hereunto set my hand and seal this 12th day of Sept. 1828." Signed James H. Cole Witness: W. Rodes
OQUAWKA OCCURRENCES: Joe Dillon has leased a building on West Schuyler Street and is running a billiard room. The Fall Creek Sunday School, about 50 in number, took the boat here spending the day in Crapo Park. Ed Nolan who had been teaching in Neponset will teach at Orion this year. Raus Cooper and Harry Goempler are working in Bald Bluff where they have painting jobs. The case of the Commissioners of Highways of Lomax against A.M. Milsted of Lomax recently tried before Squire Morgan, to collect poll tax, has been appealed to Circuit Court. (Milsted claimed to be a resident of Hancock County and thereby not liable for poll tax in Henderson County.)
LOMAX LINGERINGS: In Carman workmen have almost completed work on the cement walks to be laid from the church to the cemetery. Mrs. Julia Ita, the trained nurse from the Burlington Hospital who has been caring for Lee Porter through a case of typhus fever for the past six weeks has got her patient to a place where she was able to return to the hospital. Another room has been fitted up in the school building and both upstairs rooms have been provided with outside stairways. Sike's theater has been fitted up as a room for the first three grades; there are now five rooms and five teachers employed in the Lomax schools.