Local historian to give talk at John A. Logan

A presentation by Darrel Dexter scheduled at John A. Logan College Library in Carterville, on Sunday, Dec. 13, at 2:30 p.m. will focus on the life of Harry Daugherty, who lived as a slave in Union County in the early 1800s. 

The presentation is sponsored by The Genealogy Society of Southern Illinois and is free and open to the public.

Dexter, a local historian and genealogist, of Jonesboro, has traced the life of Daugherty from his entrance into Illinois as a 5-year-old slave in 1810 to his death as a free man during the Civil War.

Harry’s master, Owen Evans, was a tavern keeper and territorial legislator, who settled in the western part of what is now Union County about 1807. Evans became indebted and began selling his slaves in 1819. 

Harry ran away from the Evans plantation in Tennessee and headed north to find his mother in 1833. 

He was captured in Southern Illinois and turned over to Owen Evans’ brother, George Evans in Union County. 

Harry filed a freedom suit in Johnson County, but a judge in Vienna ordered Harry to be auctioned off to pay the debts that Evans had left when he moved from Illinois.

Harry’s lawyer was John Dougherty, of Jonesboro, later the lieutenant governor of Illinois. 

Dougherty purchased Harry at the auction in front of the courthouse for $33. 

On Christmas Day in 1835 he gave Harry his freedom.

Dexter is a history teacher at Egyptian Community School in Tamms and the author of "Bondage in Egypt: Slavery and the Underground Railroad in Southern Illinois," soon to be released by Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau.