Mr. Musgrave, I mentioned in a comment "why don't they just burn the place down" instead of state taxpayers footing the bill and use this money for something more useful. Now my comment has been turned around into a" threat" from another list member! I Have been personally attacked for voicing my opinion and this is not allowed on any other mailing list that I belong to. I guess I should have said.."tear it down or close it up" etc. ( I can assure you, I have no intention of coming to Ill. with a gas can to torch this old "historical" place!) It was also said that "I wasn't much of a geneologist if I wanted a 150 yr.old site destroyed." As terrible as I can only imagine this place to have been (and I have seen pictures of the inside) why would we want to be constantly reminded of such atrocities! I joined this site because I thought it was for research and Geneology and not to be engaged in a verbal War over a subject to which I voiced my opinion. Since it seems I do not have the right to do this , please remove my name from this list. This is my 2nd request. Please UNSUBSCRIBE me or tell me how to do this. May I say though, I have enjoyed your articles on Illinois history very much. Thank you Sue ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Musgrave" <jonm@midamer.net> To: <ILGALLAT-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 10:28 PM Subject: Old Slave House Update > Hello, > > The status of the Old Slave House is that the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency purchased the house for the State of Illinois about 15 months ago. The state didn't buy the antiques inside of the house. The Sisks wanted to stay in the house for six months in order to take care of the antiques (and hopefully get the state to purchase them). IHPA had no problem with that because they knew they needed to have a round the clock presence at the house anyway. Plus, six months ended in June which was the end of the fiscal year. > > At the time of the site's acquisition, IHPA was going to ask for funding to staff and operate the house. They did, but the Bureau of the Budget didn't add the money to the budget. Neither did the General Assembly when they passed the budget at the end of the spring 2001 session. All of a sudden, IHPA had a site, but no funding to operate or staff it, so they wrote up a new agreement with the Sisks. They could continue to live there rent-free, but they had to maintain the grounds and keep up the house much as they were doing before. Also, the state could come in and move them out whenever they needed. > > It's budget time again in Illinois, and with the budget woes the state's going through, no one know what will happen, but no one is expecting much. IHPA has another site with a new $2.5 million interpretive center at the state's Lewis and Clark site and they have no money to staff it as well, so it's not just the Old Slave House. > > As to the comments about arson... that's why the state needs someone at the site around the clock. Since the Sisks closed it to tourists, they've had three people break in one afternoon, (two of them had just been released from an Indiana mental institution). Also, the historic Green House stage coach inn over towards New Haven was burnt by a bunch of teens. That 1830s/40s era structure went up in flames the weekend after it had been nominated for the National Register of Historic Places. > > The state is doing something with the Old Slave House. They hired a researcher from the Illinois Historical Survey to review the research myself, Ron Nelson and Gary DeNeal had already done. In a surprise move, IHPA even hired the three of us to act as consultants to the researcher which saved him lots of time. He was actually supposed to have the final report completed last fall, but there's so much info out there, he's still working on it. > > Every week it seems that something new pops up in our research. (It's still ongoing). Amazingly, although the Internet has a lot of worthless info on it, the World Wide Web has proven a boon to this research as universities upload online rare books, and genealogy lists and forums allow quick access to genealogists who often hold that missing piece of the puzzle. A few weeks ago Maureen Michelene who commented earlier today, informed me that Charles McKernan was John Forrester's son-in-law. By chance when we first started this research I saw a notice in an old Shawneetown newspaper that mentioned a ball being held by McKernan. I mentioned it in the first main research article I ever wrote on the house. At the time, I didn't know that Charles was the son-in-law of one of Crenshaw's co-defendants in a kidnapping case. I mentioned it solely for the wording and style of the party notice since it would probably be similar to the parties the Crenshaws held on the second floor at Hi! > ckory Hill in the ballroom. > > In the past month we've uncovered the story of Andrew Jackson, a runaway slave who was probably sitting in the jailhouse at Equality in September 1840 at the same time Abraham Lincoln was in town campaigning for William Henry Harrison for president. We've also made some terrific strides into the story of John Duff the counterfeiter, an earlier outlaw in the area, whose possible partner's son is remembered by his family as a slave catcher who worked for Crenshaw. Duff's a perfect example of why more research is needed into the area. For the most part he's remembered almost solely in legends and lore. Most historians have not even been able to determine if Duff the counterfeiter associated with Cave-in-Rock and the salines is even the same John Duff who shows up in Illinois with George Rogers Clark. It turns out the two are probably the same afterall. Not only have researchers discovered a number of references to the historical John Duff in the Kaskaskia area, but also in west! > ern Kentucky where legend remembers he settled. Even his son-in-law is found nearby adding to the likelihood that we're on to the right person. > > There are a number of stories concerning the Old Slave House. After five years of research I can tell you that most of them are mostly true, and all of them have some basis in history. Even the ghost stories apparently date back to the 1850s. > > Like an earlier writer noted, this list is supposed to be for genealogy, but as list owner I've allowed discussions on just about anything referring to Gallatin County history and folklore. However, to move this back on a genealogical track, how about if one of the Crenshaw descendents on this list tell the status of the Robert Crenshaw family Bible which supposedly tells of William Crenshaw's trek to New Madrid, or whether the diary supposedly written by Bob Wilson's daughter is real and where its whereabouts might be. > > Sincerely, > > Jon Musgrave > www.IllinoisHistory.com > > P.S. To the person who tried to visit Hickory Hill Cemetery... you shouldn't have had any problems. I haven't been there for nearly a year, but the road leading back to it is still a township road. The entrance to it does look like a driveway and has a white picket fence on both sides of road where it turns south from Old Rt. 13. > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >