Prospecting for Gems of Bloomington's Past #16

Black people in Bloomington before the Civil War: Part I: Aaron Wallace, William Cooley, Big Maria, Little Maria, Richard Morland, and Notley Baker

Jul 21, 2022

This week, we will add a couple of black residents from the 1820’s that have not been discussed before and will review others in order to get more of an overall picture of what life was like for freed slaves in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Since Indiana was a free state, slaves brought to the state were required to be freed after one year’s residence. Many continued to work for their masters as servants, at least, for a while….The handful of black residents in town were conspicuous to the white majority by their color, their speech, and the low wages they could be paid, as most had not attended school, could not read or write, nor had they been trained in more lucrative occupations. Black housekeepers, farmers, day laborers and tradespeople were in demand as they were hard-working and could be paid less than a white person for equivalent work.

The first instance of a "colored person” was at the auction of town lots in November of 1818, when Aaron Wallace and William Cooley each bought lots. 1 We have already determined that Aaron Wallace paid $175 for lot #266 in Bloomington Township, but it was for David H Maxwell, rather than for himself, as David had not yet arrived with his family. Wallace was only 18 years old as he recalled years later, putting his birthdate at around 1801 in Kentucky. A deed for lot #266 in 1820 recorded the transaction two years after Aaron paid for it. 2 Wallace did not stay in town, leaving in order to help David Maxwell’s brother, John, get established in Indianapolis as one of its first non-Indian residents. Wallace later became a popular preacher at camp meetings in Bloomington but lived further south in Jennings County, Indiana by1830. More details about Wallace can be found in Prospecting #10 and #11.

Caricature of Aaron Wallace preaching in “The New Purchase” by Hall

Below are the two Monroe County properties purchased by “colored” people in 1818:

William Cooley (colored) bought lot #254 for $34 in 1818. The First Presbyterian Church sits today on that lot and several adjacent lots. Hired by the county commissioners as Fire and Water Bailiff, Cooley was paid several times during the 1820’s for this type of work, according to the Commissioner’s Record Books. One entry is as follows:

Ordered by the board that William Cooley (fire and water Bailiff). He is thereby allowed the sum of $8, for six days services at the term of the Circuit Court and that County treasurer pay him said sum. 3

Cooley cannot be found in either the 1820 or 1830 census for Monroe County, Indiana, although he obviously was living here, so we do not know his age or birthplace. Why Cooley came to Bloomington and what happened to him after 1830, we do not know. He is the only black resident I have found from the 1820’s who was not associated with an early white resident in town.

“Big Maria” and Dick Morland, former slaves of David H Maxwell’s father

An excerpt from Louise Maxwell’s Sketch of David Maxwell refers to former slaves as follows:

The young wife of David Maxwell, brought up in a Kentucky home surrounded by slaves, knew nothing of the hardships of life until she came to this outpost of civilization. True, she brought with her a colored man and woman, Dick and “Big Maria….”

Below is an excerpt from Sketches of early Bloomington by Martha Maxwell Howard:

She (Mary Dunn Maxwell) was fortunate in having for help a colored woman whom she had brought from her Kentucky home. But the laws of Indiana made Maria a free woman after she had been in the state a year and, although she remained with my mother several years, she finally decided to go south where she would be among colored people. Then it was that my mother faced all the hardships of the situation…

(Howard also referred to “Little Maria” who had been brought to town from Maryland by Daniel Rawlins (Rawlings). One could speculate about the possibility that Little Maria could have married Notley Baker around 1829 (their first child was born in 1830), although it could have been another Maria. Baker’s first name was Murriah (Maria, Moreah). There will be more about the Baker family next time. Of course, since black people did not read or write, there was a range of spellings of their names by white people. More can be learned about Daniel Rawlings in Prospecting #14.)

…..Dick (Richard Morland), as they called the boy, was remarkably bright and smart, so much so that Dr. Maxwell taught him to read and write. As he was an office boy, whenever he could get any of my father's writing he would copy and recopy it until it was such a perfect imitation it took the closest scrutiny to tell the copy from the original writing. After he became a man, he corresponded with several of the noted abolitionists of that day -- William Loid (Lloyd) Garrison, Thadeus Stevenson (Thaddeus Stevens) and Wendal (Wendall) Phillips.

William Lloyd Garrison, newspaper publisher and abolitionist

More details about Richard Morland can be found in Prospecting #10, as he worked with Aaron Wallace for John Maxwell, David’s older brother and one of the first residents of Indianapolis, arriving in February of 1820. Morland and Wallace aided in clearing land, planting corn, and building a cabin on the banks of Fall Creek. As they were leaving Indianapolis (temporarily), the whole party encountered the first Commissioners empowered to choose the location of the capital. Having left a corn crop to be harvested later, John Maxwell, John Cowan, and their families packed up their belongings in Hanover and moved to Indianapolis in the fall of that year with the help, again, of Aaron Wallace and Richard Morland. While living and working there, both black men were offered land in exchange for building fencing for Presbyterian physician, Issac Coe. They refused his offer, not realizing their potential value. since the lots were under three feet of water at the time. The land they refused later became the site of the Union Railroad Station.

As Morland and Wallace were leaving Indianapolis for the second time in 1821, they encountered another group of Commissioners who were headed for an auction of lots. The white men wanted to arrest them for being runaway slaves, but the black servants were declared free by Maxwell and Cowan. More details can be found in Prospecting #12.

Notley Baker, the only barber in town early in the 1820’s, obtained licenses from the Commissioners to sell liquor and serve food in his shop, He also bought and sold land as early as 1825. He advertised his services in the local newspaper. Baynard R Hall, first Principal and Professor of the Indiana Seminary, wrote in his book, The New Purchase. about a character called “Wooley Ben”, a black barber, who was hired to serve food for a party in 1829. This fictional character was later was identified as“Noble Baker” (Notley) by James Woodburn in his annotated edition of the book, called, The New Purchase. 4 Baker was also, in my opinion, the most likely inspiration for “Frank Freeman” in Hall’s other book, Frank Freeman’s Barbershop”.5 More details about Notley Baker can be found in Prospecting #2, #4 and # 9.

Next week when we look primarily a black peoplet the years 1850-1860, during the pre-Civil War period as the number of black residents in town slowly grew and the Underground Railroad developed

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