Art Loux - He was everywhere!

[Rsmyth]

I was reading about the Underground Railroad (Wikepedia) and came across a station you would not have wanted to get off at if you were Black and heading North. In fact if you were Black and in the vicinity or even tan from a recent vacation you would want to avoid John Hart Crenshaw’s Crenshaw house in the free state of Illinois. He not only owned slaves (he was the only one in the state allowed to), he was a slave hunter and dealer, capturing Blacks and ferrying them South to be sold. On the top floor of his home were little cubicles that historians believe were used as slave pens. There were also two sets of whipping posts up there.

In 1840 as a state representative, Abraham Lincoln attended a ball in the house and spent the night on the second floor, one floor below the slave pens.

Crenshaw finally died in 1871. I looked up his grave at Find A Grave and although the web site usually deletes less than flattering tributes to the deceased, they have not in this man’s case.

I followed the links of his daughter’s burial and found she had married a Union General named Michael Kelly Lawler. Checking out his listing at Find A Grave the picture of his marker was taken by Art Loux. Art in addition to all his other hobbies travelled the country taking pics of the graves of Civil War Generals. Yes, the man, Art Loux, really got around!