Randolph Freedpeople

John Randolph was an American politician who owned 383 slaves to manage his 6000-acre plantation. He wrote three separate wills in 1819, 1821, and 1832. The first two wills directed his executor to free the people he enslaved and purchase land to resettle them outside Virginia (as Virginia law required). The third will freed none of Randolph's slaves and directed his executor to sell most of them. Randolph rejected the third will on his deathbed.[1] When Randolph died in 1833, his family contested the wills.[2] Twelve years later, the court ruled that Randolph’s 1821 will was valid. In this document, Randolph had written:

“I give and bequeath to all my slaves their freedom, heartily regretting that I have ever been the owner of one.”[3]

He also had set aside $8,000 to buy land for the freed slaves to live on. Following the 1845 court decision, Randolph's executor, Judge William Leigh, purchased about 3200 acres in Mercer County, Ohio.[4]

The Randolph Freedpeople left for Ohio in June 1846. Accompanied by a 16-wagon convoy, they walked to Kanawha, West Virginia.[5] They camped along the side of the road in tents. From Kanawha, the group took a steamboat to Cincinnati,[6] arriving about a month after they began their journey. In Cincinnati, they boarded three canal boats to ascend the Miami-Erie Canal toward New Bremen in Mercer County.[5]

An armed mob of German settlers assembled at New Bremen stopped the Randolph Freedpeople from going to their land and forced them to return back down the canal. Mercer County settlers also published resolutions against the settlement of Black people in the county. One of these read:

“Resolved. That we will not live among Negroes, as we have settled here first, we have fully determined that we will resist the settlement of blacks and mulattoes in this country to the full extent of our means, the bayonet not excepted.”[7]

The Randolph Freedpeople ultimately dispersed and set up communities throughout Miami and Shelby counties.[8] One of these communities was in Rossville. On 18 February 1857, William Rial, one of the Freedpeople, bought a plot from landowner W.W. McFarland, founding Randolph Settlement. Randolph Settlement eventually became the site of African Jackson Cemetery.[9]

In July 1900, the surviving Freedpeople held a reunion at Midway Park in which they formed the Randolph Ex-Slaves Association. 62 of the original Virginian slaves attended, known as “Old Dominions”, as well as the “Buckeyes”, those from Ohio.[10] Reunions of the Old Dominions were then held annually from 1900 to 1906; anywhere from 100-300 people attended.

In 1907, 170 Freedpeople filed lawsuits to obtain compensation for the land in Mercer County that had been purchased for them. The Mercer County Common Pleas Court ruled that no compensation could be awarded as the statute of limitations, 21 years, had expired. The case lasted ten years and went all the way to the Supreme Court of Ohio, which affirmed the decision of the lower court.[11]