Court records offer glimpse into the life of former slave

This photo represents one of the old “summer cars” operated by the Hannibal Railway and Electric Company. Note the open sides, and the step to help passengers climb upon the car. Martha Tyler, an elderly woman and former slave, fell when trying to climb up on Car #20 on Sept. 28, 1903. Photo from the Mainland family collection, contributed by Willie Richmond, a Mainland descendant.

MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

Martha Tyler was frail, elderly woman in 1903, walking with the assistance of a cane.

Her only means of transportation from her home, located on an alley back of Spruce Street, to town, was the street car.

Conductor Irwin Kirby was aboard street car 20 - one of the summer cars - as it traveled eastward at midday on the 28th day of September, 1903. The car stopped at the corner of Hope and Griffith, in front of the Hope Street Methodist Episcopal Church, and near to Fannie C. Whisler’s greenhouse, 300 Hope St.

Martha attempted to step up onto the car, but motorman, Roy Bunch, didn’t see her. He started the car moving before she gained her balance. The car jerked forward, and she fell to the ground, an estimated distance of about two feet, according to a witness. Conductor Kirby gave the motorman a ‘sudden stop’ signal, and went back and helped Mrs. Tyler up, and onto the car.

She rode the car downtown, exiting at Seventh Street.

“She said she was going to the grocery store,” Kirby later said.

Kirby identified two of the passengers aboard the street car at the time of the incident as two of the Dietrich sisters. Four sisters lived at 311 Hope: Lizzie, a clerk for Miller and Worley; Anna, a seamstress; Fannie, a clerk for Williamson and Chan; and Hannah.

When Martha Tyler filed a lawsuit against the Hannibal Railway and Electric Company a year later, she was represented by Hannibal attorney, Allen Dale. The question wasn’t whether she fell, but instead if she was injured by the fall.

Hannibal attorney, Charles E. Rendlen (1878-1957) represented the street car company.

Martha Tyler at the time was on the patient list of Dr. R.J. Heavenridge, city physician, who lived and worked at 115 1/2 Market. “She had been on my list of city charity patients from the beginning of my term,” he said in a hand-written letter recently recovered from Mr. Rendlen’s files. “She had been an invalid long prior to the accident. Her trouble was general debility and old age. Also had rheumatism in the shoulder and back.” At the time of the accident, “She complained of a little soreness.” She had “no broken bones, no internal injuries that I could ascertain. No pronounced or perceptible increase of ill.”

He pronounced, “I know the fall did not aggravate her trouble.”

Soon after the lawsuit was filed, Rendlen asked for a dismissal of the case, which was granted based upon witness testimony.

Tyler and her attorney unsuccessfully attempted to have the case reinstated.

When Martha Tyler died on Dec. 8, 1915, she was a resident of the Country Infirmary in Palmyra. While she was never certain of her own age, having been born into slavery, her death certificate estimates that she was about 90 on Dec. 8, 1915. Under the question of who her parents were, on the certificate, is written: “Unknown.”

Born a slave

At the age of 17, Martha was purchased by Dr. John H. Hampton from “up the Missouri River.” Hampton and his wife, Susan, had lived on a farm referred to in the neighborhood as the Brown or Hornback Place, since 1850. (Ralls County, Mo., Township 56 N., Range 6 W., Section 15.) When Martha arrived, the family and other slaves were in the process of packing for a move to Hydesburg, onto a farm known as the J. Mitchell Place. (Ralls County, Mo., Township 56N., Range 5 W., Section 4.) The house was nearby, a short distance to the north, of the current site of the Hydesburg United Methodist Church on Hydesburg Road.

Martha worked for the Hamptons until slaves were freed. The governor of Missouri signed the proclamation on Jan. 11, 1865, but it would be another seven months before Martha learned the news, from a man named Mr. Fuqua.

At that time, she went to work in the area of the Mount Zion Church, north of Hannibal, working for four or five years for families with surnames of Meyers and Minor. After that, she went to work for the Lear family, at Bay Mills. “I staid there a year,” she said in 1894, (Hampton vs. Hampton) before moving to Oakwood.

In 1870, Benjamin Tyler, 58, (Martha’s husband) Martha Tyler, 40, and Richard Tyler, 13, were living at Hydesburg, Clay Township, Ralls County, Mo. (Source, 1870 Census.)

Later, Martha and her husband, Benjamin, were living at the Samuel Singleton place in Oakwood at the time that Mr. Singleton purchased the Hannibal stockyards. (Singleton was the owner of the stockyards in 1878. Source: 1878 Ralls County Atlas)

Martha’s husband died when they were living in Tom Bowling’s house in Oakwood, located near the railroad. (Court transcript: Hampton vs Hampton 1894)

Martha moved to Macon, Mo., for about two years, then returned to Hannibal, settling in the neighborhood surrounding the old gas company on Fourth Street.

Martha worked three years for Elizabeth Morris (Mrs. Warren) Drescher at 212 Sixth Street. Prior to Mrs. Drescher’s marriage in 1886, Martha worked for Mrs. Drescher’s mother, Margaret Elizabeth Waller Morris.

Hannibal city directory entries for Martha Tyler:

1879 - Benjamin Tyler, laborer, res west end Market

1885 - Martha Tyler, colored, widow, res Elm near Section

1888 - Martha Tyler, domestic, res 212 N. Sixth.

1894 - Martha Tyler, widow Benjamin, beds 512 N. Third

1895 - Martha Tyler, 120 Section

1897 - Martha Tyler, widow Benjamin, 113 Settles

1901- Martha Tyler, widow of Benjamin, 911 Elm

1903 - Martha Tyler, widow of Ben, res rear 211 Spruce

1905 - Martha Tyler, widow Ben, res 1216 Broadway

1909 - Martha Tyler, widow of Benjamin, 115 Girard

1911 - Martha Tyler, 115 Girard

1914 - Martha Tyler, widow of Benjamin, 115 Girard

1910 Census

Martha Tyler, 63, born 1847, Black, female, widowed, wash woman.

Celia Jenkins 80, head (She died in 1912)

Kathrine Bundy, 80, roomer

Wm. Bundy, 40, roomer

Raymond Bundy, 11

1911

City directory entries:

William Bundy, col. laborer, 115 Girard

Catherine (col wid Alfred) 115 Girard

Henry Henderson, col. laborer, 115 Girard

Celia Jenkins, colored, 115 Girard. (According to her death notice, she previously worked for Mrs. Morris Anderson; and at the time of this record, was working for the Will H. Hall family.)

John W. Crutcher, laborer, 115 Girard

Note: Girard was one block south of Center Street. Both Center and Girard intersected with North Maple Avenue to the west.

Editor’s Note: A Hannibal negro, Martha Tyler, participated in court testimony at least twice during her lifetime, telling her own story on the public record. The first case was in 1894, when Martha testified on behalf of Dorcas Hampton in a civil suit over the will of Dr. John H. Hampton. (The Notorious Madam Shaw)

The second case centered around Martha Tyler’s fall while stepping onto a Hannibal streetcar in 1903, for which she sought compensation the following year. These records were among the papers kept by C.E. Rendlen, 1878—1957.

Her testimony allows Martha Tyler, who died in 1915, to tell her own life story.

This story references the time when Martha Tyler lived with the Dr. John H. Hampton family at Hydesburg, in Ralls County, Mo. She was living there on Jan. 11, 1865, when the governor of Missouri signed the proclamation to free the slaves. It would be another seven months before Martha learned the news, from a man named Mr. Fuqua. The farm where the Hamptons lived was just to the north of what is now the Hydesburg United Methodist Church. The land was historically known as the J. Mitchell place. Illustration, based upon an 1878 map, drawn by Mary Lou Montgomery

The 1906 Sanborn Map, Hannibal, Mo., shows the location of Girard Street, where Martha Tyler lived until moving to the Marion County Infirmary. Girard is one block to the south of Center Street, and intersects with North Maple Avenue. The the large house circled at right is the 2-story brick house still standing at 109-111 N. Maple. The house where Martha Tyler lived, now demolished, is the smaller frame house at left. It was located on what now is the property of Parker and Associates, 105 N. Maple.

Mary Lou Montgomery retired as editor of the Hannibal (Mo.) Courier-Post in 2014. She researches and writes narrative-style stories about the people who served as building blocks for this region’s foundation. Books available on Amazon.com by this author include but are not limited to: "The Notorious Madam Shaw," "Pioneers in Medicine from Northeast Missouri,” “Hannibal’s ‘West End,’” “Oakwood: West of Hannibal,”  and “St. Mary’s Avenue District.” Montgomery can be reached at Montgomery.editor@yahoo.com Her collective works ca