Slave to free: Elizabeth Nance Gordon's story

I've written several times about Lucas County's historic black population, which peaked at perhaps 450 during 1885-95 when coal mining was in its heyday in the boom towns of Lucas, Cleveland and East Cleveland. A majority of these miners and their families began to arrive by train from Virginia in the fall of 1881, recruited by the Whitebreast Coal Co.

But our first black pioneers, a majority of them born into slavery, began to arrive in Chariton during the Civil War and the years immediately after. When the 1870 federal census was taken, 34 men, women and children classified either as black or mulatto were enumerated.

Among them was a 35-year-old washerwoman named Melissa (or Malissa) Nance and her 9-year-old daughter, Eliza J. Mrs. Nance owned her own home, valued at $250 and therefore very modest, and also personal property valued at $100. She could neither read nor write. And almost miraculously --- or so it seems to me --- I'm able to tell you quite a bit of her story, based upon official records and newspaper accounts, concluding with an obituary published in Norfolk, Nebraska, on July 1, 1904.

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Melissa was born a slave in Kentucky about 1835, owned by a young and prosperous farmer named Larken Field. As was the custom, she took his surname. Mrs. Larken Field's given name was Melissa and the infant apparently was named after her. Our Melissa would abandon that name when she left Chariton during the early 1870s and was known thereafter during her new life in Nebraska as Elizabeth, or Lizzie.

Little Melissa would have been about 4 years old when the Fields brought their children and their slaves during 1839 to a farm near Trenton in Grundy County, Missouri, located in the second tier of counties south of the Iowa state line, within what now is easy driving distance from Lucas County along Highway 65.

When Melissa was 23 she married another of the Fields' slaves, Archibald Nance, born about 1819 and therefore some 15 years older. Missouri did not recognize the marriages of black people at the time, so there was no license or official record. Melissa recalled the date, however, as Feb. 15, 1858, and the place as the Larken Field farm. Their only surviving child, Eliza J., was born on Jan. 1, 1861, also on the Field farm near Trenton. Melissa had at least one older daughter at the time.

During the summer of 1863, Archibald, Melissa and the children escaped from slavery --- she recalled the date as July 20 --- and most likely followed the underground railroad to Albia, then a stop on that famous route, and settled there.

On the 15th of August, 1863, Archibald enlisted at Albia as a private in what became Company E, 60th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops, and was mustered into Union service during early October at Keokuk, leaving Melissa and their daughter behind in Albia.

A year later, Archibald became ill with typhoid fever and died on either the 25th or 26th of September, 1864, in the regimental hospital at Helena, Arkansas.

As the widow of a Union veteran, Melissa was entitled to a pension for both herself and her daughter and the extensive paperwork she completed with assistance from attorneys in both Albia and Chariton is the source for most of what we know of her earlier years.

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It's not clear how Melissa came to move from Albia to Chariton, but most likely she accompanied friends. Nor do we know where or how she met George Gordon, whom she married during the early 1870s and accompanied west into Nebraska. He, too, was a U.S. Colored Troops veteran who reportedly had served as a cook.

We do know that the George and Melissa, by now known as Elizabeth, arrived in Norfolk, Nebraska, by stage coach during 1875 as that city's first black residents --- and settled down there for the remainder of their lives. George's occupation was given as gardener when the 1880 census was taken. He seems to have died between 1885 and 1890, but I couldn't come up with a specific date.

Elizabeth continued to live in Norfolk --- with the exception of a year in Sioux Falls, S.D. --- until her death during late June of 1904. The following obituary was published on the front page of the Norfolk Weekly News Journal on July 1, 1904, under the headline, "Bury a Former Slave."

There is a bit of misinformation in the obituary. Larken Field was not an uncle of Marshall Field, for example. Both George and Elizabeth Gordon are buried in the Norfolk Cemetery, Prospect Hill, but their graves are unmarked.

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The funeral of Mrs. Elizabeth Gordon was held from the M.E. church yesterday afternoon at 3 o'clock, the G.A.R. and the W.R.C. having charge. Rev. J.F. Poucher preached the sermon, a touching discourse upon the life of slavery and freedom which Mrs. Gordon had lived.

Elizabeth Gordon has lived a life which few persons in this country today have gone through. A slave during her girlhood days, owned by a southern master of note, married to a man who was killed during the Civil War and later to George Gordon, her early life was a thrilling one to a degree.

She was born in Lexington, Ky., seventy-four years ago. Her master was Larkin Field, an uncle of Marshall Field, the great Chicago merchant. A short time before the war, Mr. Field moved to Grundy county, Mo., taking his slaves with him. At that time Archibald Nance was the husband of the young woman who died in Norfolk. Nance was killed in the war and in 1875 his widow was married to George Gordon at Fremont, Neb.

About a year ago George Coleman, a son-in-law, moved from Norfolk to Sioux Falls, taking the  old lady with him. All winter she has been ill and a week ago she was brought back to Norfolk, where she lingered for a few days, finally dying in the old home that had sheltered her for so many years, on Braasch avenue.

Lizzie Gordon was one of the oldest former slaves in the north. Before the war she was owned in the southland and after the bloody strife was over, she came north with her husband and settled in Norfolk. Among her children here is "Aunt" Jane, a character well known to Norfolk people.

"She was the only friend I had on earth," said Jane, in speaking of her mother. "With her gone, there is nothing left in the world for me to live for. She was a good mother to  us children. When I was little, and we were all owned in the south, I  used to think I was abused. But my mother was the best mother in the world, and she's all I  had to live for. I don't care now when my time shall come --- I hope it will be soon. My mother is dead and she was all in all to me."