St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-08-02
FULL OF GRIT.
An Ex-SIave in Missouri Who
MOrtgaEed His Wife and Child.

MOrtgaged His Wife and Child.
Washington Star.
Some queer things used to happen
in the old slave days in Missouri said
Representative John Tarsney to a Star
writer just before he started for Eu-
rope. The condition of the slave was
never a very burdensome one in Mis-
souri,. The farm country and the near
ness of the Iowa line prevented any
thing like those plantation cruelties of
which We sometimes read. In fact, 1
should judge that some Of the Missouri
slaves had as good a time as their
masters.
In illustration, I might tell a queer
story, which had its scene in Indepen-
dence, Mo. Old Banker Sawyer, of In
dependence, carried on the same Saw
yer bank which exists today away back
in the fifties, when INDEPENDENCE as
the eastern end Of the Santa Fe trail,
was the great Quitting point for those
daring and misguided people who medi-
tated a, flight across the plains Among
other chattels of Banker Sawyer was a
big black negro named DUSTIN. Dus-
tun was a great mechanic, and had vas.
fame all over the Western country as
known as the prairie schooner Saw
yer had besides his bank a wagon shop
at independence. And his negro. Dus-
tun, ran the wagon shop. The wagon
shop did a good trade, and Sawyer said
to DUSTIN one day:
You make lot of money working
overtime, DUSTIN. Why don't you buy
and own yourself? Why do you con
in Slo
$500 down in my bank now
And it was quite true Dustun had
laid up quite a little sum of money, and
the fact of a slave with money on
deposit in the bank Of his master is of
Of the institution in Missouri.
:" 'What'H you take for me?' asked
DUSTIN.
:" Seeing it's you said Sawyer, TIL
sell out cheap. If you want to buy
yourself I'll take $500, while you're
easy worth $1,000
DUSTIN bought himself, paid $500
down and took the rest of himself on
credit. Sawyer made out his freedom
papers, and DUSTIN made a mortgage
on himself to Sawyer for the 81 600
Then he went to work. In year he
had paid himself free. In two years
more, he bought his wife and little girl.
Then he began to make money. But he
hadn't proceeded far nor laid I'D much
ahead when one night a fire started
and the next morning found Dustun s
wagon shop in ashes. Shop, tools, stock
and everything was burned up as clean
as whistle, and with the forethought
Of his race DUSTIN had no insurance.
at was a plain, hard, bitter case of
begin again with DUSTIN. He thought
the situation over, and then went to
his old master. Sawyer. After ten
minutes talk Sawyer lent DUSTIN s, 900
took mortgage on his wife and young
one. DUSTIN rebuilt his shop and
opened up anew. He kept his old trade
and added to it. 1t finally became very
questionable to start across the plains
in anything but one of Dustun's prairie
schooners. Within year DUSTIN again
had clear title to his wife and family
Life went easy after that with the
old black wagon maker. He died about
ten years ago at independence, worth
fairly $4,000. The daughter whom he
bought from Sawyer and then mort
| gagged and cleared the title to again.
was for a long time, and is, 1 believe
| now, a teacher in the colored public
schools at Kansas City. Old Dustun' s
memory in Independence is to this
| day highly respected