Van Spence Van Spence was a member of Litchfield , Minnesota ’ s GAR . That was a little unusual in that Van was black and Litchfield was a very white Scandinavian town . The following account about Van Spence is from Terry R . Shaw ' s book Terry Tales : " Van Spence ' s real name was Allison or Albert Van Spence , but he was known to every one in Litchfield as simply " Van " . He was born to African slaves in Alabama on January 16 , 1837 and was sold away from his parents at the age of seven . By the time he was nineteen , he had been sold two more times . Drafted into the Confederate Army when the American Civil War broke out , Van deserted and “ escaped ” to the north where he enlisted in the Union Army . It was at this time that he met Lt . Frank E . Daggett , who was as short and wide as Van was . They became friends . Van became the personal servant of Major General George Henry Thomas until the war ended . He ended up in Wisconsin where he met and married another freed slave named Missouri Jay Blair . Because of Van ’ s friendship with Daggett , he and his wife came to Litchfield in 1880 . Van became an officer in the GAR ( The Grand Army of the Republic ) , a custodian at the Meeker County courthouse and Litchfield ’ s lamplighter . The city paid him 50¢ a night for his lamp lighting . As the courthouse custodian , he cut wood for its rooms ’ fireplaces and the heaters in the basement . Van proudly marched in every annual Memorial Day parade out to the cemetery . He entertained the veterans at the Hall with his great singing voice , singing such songs as " Old Black Joe " , " Roving Little Darkey " , " I ’ se Gwine Back To Dixie " , and " That Feller What Looked Like Me " while his daughter Ada accompanied him on the organ , which is still on the small stage in Litchfield GAR Hall . Van even dressed up as Santa Claus for the Hall ’ s Christmas celebrations . He roasted ox for the GAR encampments and several times he sent off to places like West Virginia to have opossum sent to him . He must have had it as a child and missed it . Van was known by the kids in town to always have a bag of candy on him , so he was very popular with them . Van and Missouri had a house at 401 Marshall Avenue South in Litchfield and their children attended Litchfield schools . Their son , Van Artis , called “ Tonk ” or “ Art ” , wasn ’ t allowed to participate in sports , but he was the mascot for the Class of 1900 ’ s State championship football team . That team , which included A . W . Robertson , who went on to star for the Gophers , outscored their opponents that season 361 to 6 . I will get some arguments about Art participating in Litchfield High sports , but a picture I found of the championship team clearly shows him sitting on the floor in a different outfit from the team ’ s striped uniform and the rest of the team is either standing or sitting on chairs . Van must have had family in Savannah , Georgia because in November 1883 , twenty - seven years after he had left the south , he took his family there for a visit . When the old lamplighter “ retired ” in 1904 , he moved to Minneapolis where he shined shoes in a barbershop until he died . His body was brought back to Litchfield and , for some reason , was buried in an unmarked grave in a Ripley Cemetery plot that he had bought for his wife , daughters Ory May , Eva Van , Zula Viola , and son Frank Daggett Henry Spence . “ Doc ” J . H . Bacon , a fellow GAR member who had been wounded at the Battle of Bull Run , wrote a poem , which he read at the graveside . It contained a very politically incorrect verse : " Tho born a slave and black his skin , he was always welcome , for he was white within . ” In the winter of 1968 , a group in town petitioned the Army and finally , in April 1969 , Van got a proper marker for his grave . "