The beginnings of Shady Grove

By Denise Lincoln

Among U.S. Colored Troop soldiers organized in Michigan were 14 men who at enlistment indicated birth in Southeast Missouri. From regional counties, they were: Cape Girardeau -- Washington and Lewis Giboney (brothers), Whalen Gray, Andrew Farr[ar], Jacob, John, and Henderson Russell; Bollinger -- George Dillon (Johnson); New Madrid -- James Waters Dorsey; Mississippi -- Joseph Ramsey; Scott -- George Godfrey, Thomas Jefferson (an alias); Ste. Genevieve -- Henry Torrick (Toreque); and St. Francois -- Michael Wesley. How and when each man escaped enslavement to take residence in Michigan can fill a book, but the Giboney brothers' odyssey is summarized here.

Washington married Maria[h], "in the custom of slaves," in the fall of 1859, near Cape Girardeau. The couple, and his brother, Lewis, "left" their owner, Andrew Giboney, shortly thereafter. Headed north for freedom, their route was likely aided by a network of safe-houses and "conductors" along the Freedom Trail through Illinois. County tax records indicate Giboney's slave inventory declined by 10 persons between 1859 and 1863. The trio found refuge among Hicksite Quaker farmers in southwestern Michigan, secured jobs as timber workers, and set up housekeeping near Laketon, in Berrien County. The dates and place of birth for Washington and Mariah's children -- Delia, Thomas, and Mary -- provide further proof of the family's residency in Michigan.

Washington and Lewis volunteered for the 102nd U.S. Colored Infantry, Michigan's only black regiment, organized in Detroit in 1864. The regiment was deployed to South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, engaging in disruption of Confederate Army supply lines, destroying railroads, and battling at Devaux's Neck and Honey Hill, in Georgia. The regiment served a year, then returned to Detroit for discharge in late September 1865. Perhaps it was the harsh Michigan winters (harder after a year in the southeastern states), or homesickness for extended family, or simply, the freedom to determine their own life choices, but in 1867, Washington, with his family, and brother, Lewis, returned to Cape Girardeau. In short order, they re-established an old relationship on somewhat different terms.

The 1870 Federal Census lists Washington Giboney (with wife and five children) as the household immediately adjacent to his former owner, Andrew Giboney. Washington returned to Elmwood plantation as a waged farm-hand. Washington had no real estate or personal property of his own. In contrast, Andrew Giboney's real estate value was listed on the census at $100,000 and his personal property at $50,000 -- a wealth built on decades of uncompensated slave labor.

By 1880, Washington and Lewis moved their respective families to the Shady Grove settlement, west of the Elmwood plantation. Inhabited by several families of first-generation freedmen, the community built a school, a church and a cemetery. This community of subsistence farmers was documented in the book "Dark Woods and Periwinkle: A Glance Back at Shady Grove" (1998), self-published by Diana Steele-Bryant and Sharon K. Sanders. It is available at the Cape Girardeau Public Library and for purchase from the Cape Girardeau County Genealogical Society, capegenealogy.org (publications tab).

Local folks, Louise Duncan, Frank Nickell, and Elroy Kinder, have endeavored through the years to preserve the last vestige of the community -- the cemetery. Annual commitment of volunteers, to beat back woods and weeds, is necessary to keep this historic treasure.