Draft:Joyce Salter Johnson Author

I put people of African descent into history where they belong. I place people of African descent in that time and place, in that space where they should have been automatically put.” -Author Joyce Salter Johnson of Madison. She's loved history her entire life. But as a descendant of people who were enslaved, the Madison author’s family history — like the history of many Black families across the country — was largely struck from the historical record. Johnson had to take it upon herself to uncover her family’s roots. Hear her story on @wisconsinpublicradio (📸 @angela_major) 🔉📻Link to story in bio📕🖋 . .Harriett Gustason: Freeport Journal Standard Freeport Illinois When Joyce Salter Johnson decides to do something, she gets it done. Her presentation at a public meeting this past week at Freeport Public Library was living proof. Salter Johnson shared with the standing-room only audience her findings from years of research on the part the black population played in the history of Stephenson County. The Power Point presentation she narrated encompassed dozens of candid photos of black settlers here in their various walks of life from the 1830s through the first half of the 20th century. Salter Johnson spent endless hours researching and has relayed her findings through two volumes on what she has believed was an omission in local history. She believes that “in the past a substantial portion of the history of the Negro in Stephenson County has been omitted.” She wished to fill that void. In 2010 Salter Johnson published two books containing her findings, “The Early Black Settlers of Stephenson County, Illinois: 1830 to 1930,” and an accompanying volume titled “A Pictorial History of the Early Black Settlers of Stephenson County, Illinois 1830-1930.” They include hundreds of photos right out of the daily lives of generations of the black population who arrived here during that era. Salter Johnson’s quest was to “present candid images of African Americans in a proper and historical perspective.” Her goal was “to document their role in the history of Stephenson County.” Her books are the result of years of work. A brief review of her work follows. The First Black Here Salter Johnson learned that “an unnamed woman” who had been freed from slavery arrived in Stephenson County with the family of Richard Parriott Sr. of Tyler County, Va. The woman had come as a stowaway in the caravan and when her presence became known it was too far out to take her back. Parriott had left Virginia where he was “unpopular” since he had freed his slaves. Salter Johnson learned the woman had died en route to Green Bay, Wis., and, according to legend, had been buried in an unmarked grave near Cedarville in Stephenson County. There were no photographs at that time; photography was only a gleam in the eyes of some European scientists in the early 1830s. The Second Black Arrives Abram Follock was the second black settler, Salter Johnson found. Follock came from New York in 1837 at the age of 10 with John K. and Oliver Brewster to what became the Village of Oneco. Known as “Black Abe,” he worked in the village’s first drugstore which was opened in 1837 by the Brewster brothers. In 1838, the Brewsters moved to Waddams Grove in Stephenson County taking Abe with them. By 1840 they had moved to Freeport where Abe is believed to have become a barber. The migration was apparently gradual until after the Civil War when the emancipated black men and women began coming north to Stephenson County. Numbers remained small at first, according to Salter Johnson. ” Many of the migrants found jobs in the homes of Freeport’s prominent bankers, lawyers and factory owners,” she said. Some were employed as tradesmen such as house painters, seamstresses, masons, barbers. “Laundresses,” gardeners and domestic servants. H.E. Henry actually came prior to the war, but left to serve in the war, returning afterward to work on the farm of Amos Davis in Erin Township. Salter Johnson learned that in 1890 the J.E. Tuckett family came to Freeport to establish the Tuckett Tobacco plant. They brought with them John and Alice Lipscomb, a black family with three children, Dorothy, George Dewey, and David. The Lipscombs lived in Freeport until the early 1920s, wrote Salter Johnson. The Lipscomb children attended Freeport schools and in 1917, George Dewey Lipscomb became the first black to graduate from Freeport High School. Other histories have said George Dewey went on to a brilliant career in education and became a published author.

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