Through the Bookshelf

I like learning about people who once walked these streets. Recently I read a snippet about a woman journalist and abolitionist who in 1857 used her newspaper platform to denounce slavery. Right here in St. Cloud, Minnesota. I had to learn more.

The campus library was my first stop. I pulled the lever and the metal stack slid out revealing an entire row of Minnesota’s early history. Midway down I found Jane Grey Swisshelm’s memoir, Half A Century.   I opened the book and immediately I felt an electric shock; I reached out to steady myself. When I opened my eyes, I was in the middle of a room swirling with activity. It was noisy. A petite woman, her dark hair parted in the middle and pulled in a bun seemed to be everywhere giving directions. Where was I? I could hear clicking and clacking of a press; a man wearing suspenders over a linen shirt set metal type by hand; another hunched over a desk writing rapidly; an errand boy bundled newspapers.

“We need to make the evening run,” the woman said. “Help Jonathon.”  In a trance I moved to the long table. Jonathon whispered “That’s Jane Grey Swisshelm. She’s the publisher and editor of our town’s paper. She’s against slaveowners”

He handed me last week’s newspaper. I scanned the paper amazed at the hard-hitting editorial denouncing not only slavery, but also Sylvanus B. Lowry and his accomplices Dr. Horton and Henry Pickens

Under cover of night, Sylvanus B. Lowry and his thugs broke into my newspaper office and destroyed my press, throwing valuable type into the Mississippi river. This is a free territory. We will not condone slavery, or the actions of Kentuckian Sylvanus B. Lowry who installed slaves in his mansion.

Jane Grey Swisshelm moved to the middle of the newsroom. “Good citizens, hear me out. Join me at the Sterns House tonight. I will condemn my adversaries who plotted and planned to bring me to financial ruin.”

Jonathon motioned me to follow the procession.  “Mrs. Swisshelm hired Chester Talbot, a noted sharp shooter, to be her bodyguard. He has been ordered to shoot her between the eyes if she falls into the hands of the mob,” said Jonathon.

Outside, a mob carrying torches threatened to block our entry until horse-riding constables cleared a path. Inside, Jane Grey Swisshelm walked solemnly to the podium. “The treacherous Lowry and his henchmen have sued me for libel. I cannot raise the ungodly sum, so I have no choice but to disband the St. Cloud Visiter.” With great ceremony, Jane Grey Swisshelm ripped the newspaper in half. “But tonight is born the St. Cloud Democrat. The truth will rein”

I along with her supporters cheered her fortitude and courage as she launched another antislavery newspaper. I returned to the newspaper office to fetch my library book. Eager to learn her outcome, I opened her memoir and awoke at the checkout counter.