Equal Rights: little remains of town settled by blacks

All that remains of the thriving little community of Equal Rights are a few piles of rocks and a remodeled one-room schoolhouse. Its residents were free blacks, who farmed and burned lime. They left about 100 years ago. Their story begins in Galena with two men: Preachers Henry Smith and Walter Baker.

Smith came to Galena around 1842 when the city was growing economically. Smith was just one of many free blacks to take advantage of the robust economy and warm religious climate that the city offered.

Galena's economy began to decline on the eve of the Civil War. Blacks were leaving the town in search of work. That included members of his church, the Colored Union Baptist Church. By 1860, the church had closed its doors. Smith was out of a job. He took his wife and children and went east to start what became known as Equal Rights, a small settlement located few miles south of Warren.

Galena Public Library Historian Scott Wolfe has done extensive research on the black population in Galena during the 1800s. He said two original Baptist preachers were Henry Smith and Walter Baker. They later became major players in the Equal Rights settlement.

"Henry Smith or Preacher Henry, as he was called, was Primitive Baptist." Wolfe explained. "He was born in Kentucky. He was illiterate but quite a prominent speaker. He traveled around preaching. He must have known the Bible by heart because he couldn't read a word of it."

Walter Baker was mining lead west of Dubuque, Iowa before he moved to Galena. The area was still known as "Baker's Diggings," even though he no longer lived there. Baker operated a restaurant in Galena and was also a barber. He pastored the Colored Union Baptist Church with Smith. Wolfe said Baker's house still exists on West Street in Galena.

"Henry Smith had a junk yard down on Spring Street," Wolfe said. "He ended up purchasing a coil of copper wire that had been stolen off a steamboat from a black youth by name of Buckner. He got himself in trouble."

Wolfe feels Smith and Baker left Galena for a combination of reasons: the economy and the ending of the Colored Baptist Church. For Smith the issue of selling stolen property may have been another factor for leaving.

Smith brought his wife Leah and their children Robert, Joseph and Susan to Equal Rights.

He may have chosen the area because it was about half-way between the Little Flock Baptist Church in Scales Mound and the Providence Church in rural Lena. Wolfe said the land was available and very reasonably priced. Their neighbors appeared to be accommodating.

"Quakers possibly," he said. "I remember people visiting the (Galena) library. They were doing research on those families and they were Quakers. If they were Quakers then they would have been anti-slavery prior to the war and accommodating to blacks after the war. So, I think that might have been a factor."

Wolfe continued, "They were farmers, probably no more than sustenance farmers. They just grew enough for their own purposes and not for market. They may have had some animals for milk and eggs and cheese and such. Then they supplemented their farm income with lime-burning. Today there are even remnants of the lime kilns."

Joseph and Robert Smith were the lime burners.

Historian Daryl Watson explained the process, "At this time they would cook the limestone rock and it would leave a white residue. Then they would mix that with sand and that would make a mortar. When they burned the lime they would burn it under lots and lots layers of stone and wood."

Watson said the mortar was an important part of a rock foundation. The mortar would go in between the rocks and it worked quite well. The lime and sand mortar was very soft. Stones would crack and chip over a period of time if the mortar was not soft.

Baker and his wife Elizabeth also moved to Equal Rights.

"In the 1870 Census, Walter Baker is listed as a physician," Wolfe said. "His little plot of ground was located immediately north of the Equal Rights School. He was an herb doctor. He must have known all the roots and various natural medicines."

Wolfe added, "After Walter died, his widow later married a white man named Thomas Davey."

The Equal Rights School

In the 1870s the Equal Rights School opened its doors.

Wolfe said, "As far as I know, both white and black students attended. It was typical of a frame or stone country school that you would see around Jo Daviess County. It had two doors, one for boys and one for girls. It was also called Forest Hill. It has been turned into a residence."

Trash piling up on Osgood Street land; town 'keeping an eye' on home

Hundreds of filled trash bags, some in piles six feet tall, lay on the front lawn of an Osgood Street property. Neighbors would like to see the town take action, but the health director says the piles do not represent a health hazard.

The property is owned by Susan Odle, currently a Manchester, N.H. resident with property in Andover, Methuen and Westford, Mass. In addition to 118 Osgood St., Odle owns an Andover condominium at 38 Michael Way that was recently condemned by the town, according to Tom Carbone, Andover's health director.

Odle couldn't be located or reached for comment and the Townsman could not find a listed phone number for her. A letter left at the Osgood Street property requesting comment generated no response.

Residents who live near the Osgood Street property, say their home values are being harmed by the escalating problem and believe it is time for the town to do something.

"We've lived here for nine years and said nothing," said Maureen Brogan, who lives down the road at 85 Osgood St. During that time, trash collected inside the house, more than a dozen sheds and a barn-like structure on the property. Today, items are stacked in the house high enough that they're visible in the windows from the street. A shed with an open door on the property has items falling out of it.

The piles in the front yard were the final straw, said Brogan.

"I was going home via Bellevue Road, and I saw the bags. And I saw [my husband Bill] and said, 'This is enough,'" said Maureen Brogan. "Her house is her house, and that is her business. But now it is becoming our business."

It is believed that nobody is living in the Osgood Street home currently, according to Carbone.

The situation there is not the first incident of Andoverites speaking out against a so-called blight property in their neighborhood. In the last half decade, Kirkland Drive residents upset with the condition of a home on their street have twice gone to Town Meeting seeking to add controls that would force residents to kee their property up to some kind of standard. Another property on Elm Street owned by a self-described hoarder also received attention in 2008 after its condition made responding to a fire inside the home difficult.

Following the condemnation of Odle's Michael Way condo, the trash being discarded by cleaners was collected by Odle, according to Carbone. Using U-Haul moving vans, Odle brought the bags to her Osgood Street property, where they are now, he said.

At first, Apple Blossom Road resident Tara Summers thought the bags piling up on the property was an indication that Odle was cleaning out her home.

But the situation was the complete opposite, according to Summers.

"What she did is she took all of the trash bags, all the trash from there and dropped it on the front lawn of Osgood Street," said Summers. "The whole lot is full of trash bags."

Bill Brogan, who also lives at Osgood Street, said he was surprised when they learned where the bags were coming from.

"No one was aware that that was trash from another property," said Bill Brogan. "We would just wake up, and there would be massive piles."

It isn't exactly known what is in the bags. Carbone believes it is just items from the Michael Way condo in general.

Regardless of what is in the bags, it isn't technically a health hazard to the town until there is evidence that vermin or wild animals are living off them, according to Carbone.

"If we were to see that those bags were being broken into by animals, that would tell us that there is something more than paper in there," said Carbone. "If we see an increase in rodent activity, that may be something we can then take. We've been talking to town council and keeping an eye on what's going on to figure out what our options are."

Part of what is complicating the matter for Andover officials is a recent filing for bankruptcy protection by Odle, according to Carbone.

"It has kind of tied our hands. As soon as somebody files for bankruptcy protection, it kicks in a lot of legal stuff," said Carbone. "It basically freezes all legal action concerning a property or assets."

For the time being, the weather is cold. As the months pass and spring becomes summer, Summers and the Brogans are concerned about what will happen when the piles of bags sit in the sun day after day.

"It would be nice if action can be made with the trash bags before we see evidence with animals," said Maureen Brogan. "The trash bags should be taken off the property."

Teachers union president piles on objections to turnaround plan

Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew is lodging a formal complaint about the city’s plans to overhaul 33 struggling schools, a day after the head of the city’s principals union did the same thing.

When Mayor Bloomberg announced last month that the schools would undergo a federally prescribed process known as “turnaround,” which requires half of teachers to be removed, Mulgrew was immediately dismissive.

In a letter sent today to State Education Commissioner John King, Mulgrew fleshes out those objections, arguing that the plan as the city has explained it would violate state and federal regulations and the city’s contract with the UFT.

The city has leaned on that contract when touting the plan, saying that a clause known as 18-D represents union sign-off on the turnaround bid and allows for rehiring at schools that are closed and reopened, as would be the case under turnaround. But Mulgrew contends in his letter that 18-D applies only when schools are truly closed.

“What the DOE proposes is a classic sleight of hand,” he writes. “While it tells the public and the UFT it will technically ‘close’ these schools and ‘reopen’ them as new schools, what it really intends and seeks your permission for is a turnaround where the same students continue to be served in the same school with a portion of the same staff. … This is not a closure and does not trigger application of 18-D.”

The distinction between closure and turnaround has confounded even Department of Education officials in the weeks since the city unveiled the turnaround plan.

Mulgrew also argues that the plan represents “regulatory chicanery” to allow the city to sidestep negotiating with the UFT over new teacher evaluations, a requirement of the overhaul processes the schools were previously undergoing and a top priority of state officials. Gov. Cuomo has set a deadline for districts and their unions to agree on new evaluations that is just weeks away.

Before talks fell apart in late December, the city and union were separated by only issue, the appeals process for teachers who receive low ratings. If King intervenes and state labor relations board forces the city back to the bargaining table, an agreement could be reached quickly, Mulgrew said.

“This would be a considerably superior approach than that for which the DOE seeks your approval, particularly since, as explained above, all roads lead to bargaining,” he said.

Mulgrew’s letter comes shortly after the head of the city’s principals union sent his own letter urging King not to approve the city’s turnaround plan.

The city has not yet submitted formal applications for the schools to undergo turnaround. Those applications, which must detail the costs and benefits for each school, are due Feb. 10. King has said that it would take several weeks for the state to review the applications but that the city’s plan is “approvable.”

But at the same time, the state has been turning up the screws on districts to finalize new evaluations. Cuomo even said he would push changes to the state’s 2010 evaluation law if districts do not adopt new evaluations by mid-month. City officials are lobbying legislators to take that route, even though a statewide teachers union, NYSUT, has said it is on the verge of agreement for nearly all districts other than New York City.

BLM continues to burn slash piles

Residents of Sturgis might have noticed a few intermittent smoke clouds hovering over the Fort Meade Recreation Area last week as the BLM South Dakota Field Office burned slash piles left over from earlier fuels reduction projects.

Good snow cover and weather conditions have cooperated to allow BLM firefighters to continue to ignite the heaps of slash.

The piles are a byproduct of fuels reduction projects intended to reduce the threat of wildfire spreading from BLM-administered lands onto adjacent private lands and to improve forest and range health, and wildlife habitat for a variety of local species, such as wild turkey.

This February, the National Wild Turkey Federation will accord special recognition to several staff members from the South Dakota Field Office at the federation's annual convention in Nashville, Tenn., highlighting the BLM's work to improve wild turkey habitat at this popular local destination.

The NWTF has, and continues to partner with the BLM providing ideas and funding for this and other habitat projects in South Dakota. There has been approximately $465,000 expended on the mechanical thinning and biomass reduction for this area; a local contractor and a local mill processed the marketable timber.

The BLM will be burning remaining piles at the Fort Meade Recreation Area near Sturgis by Englewood, Wilderness Estates and along the Jaybird Subdivision Yellow Creek Road near Lead when conditions permit. About 600 piles of slash will have been burned over a combined total of 475 acres of BLM-administered land once the work is completed.

Pikas like it cold and make hay

Pikas are one of the cutest of our mountain animals. How do they survive life in the high talus slopes, in steep piles of jumbled rock and beneath cliffs in the high mountains in the winter? These bare rocks seem like very inhospitable habitats, yet it is their home, pantry and shelter.

The talus fields which pika colonies inhabit are generally fringed by suitable vegetation. Pikas usually have their den and nest sites below rocks, but often sit on larger and more prominent rocks. They generally reside in scree near or above the tree line.

American pikas live at very high altitudes because they cannot tolerate heat. They avoid hot weather by seeking out the cool crevices under boulders, and by remaining inactive during warm periods. During the cold, snowy winters at high elevations, they are protected by their dense coat of fur. The dorsal fur of the pika ranges from grayish to cinnamon-brown, with tawny hues during the summer. During winter, the fur becomes grayer and longer. The dense under-fur is usually slate-gray or lead colored.

The closest relative to the Pika, is the rabbit, and they run a little like rabbits, but they have small, round ears and no tail. While their marmot neighbors are hibernating, these little creatures remain active beneath the snow in the talus slope. A deep layer of snow protects pikas from high winds, and temperatures below –20 F, but if the snow is shallow, pikas may die of exposure. I hope this winter was not too harsh on our local pikas.

In preparing for winter, pikas dig tunnels in the snow from their den areas to the hay piles. On bright sunny days when the weather is bitterly cold and other animals are either hibernating or hiding in dens, pikas can be found sunning themselves on exposed rocks.

Summer, spring and fall are only a few months long in the high-alpine environment. In that time pikas are furiously busy cutting grass and flowers and adding them to their hay stacks. To survive seven months of winter, pikas cache summer vegetation in a hay pile sheltered beneath a large rock within their territory.

A pika makes an estimated 14,000 collecting trips during the short mountain summer to accumulate the hay pile. When the hay pile is gone, a pika will gnaw lichens from the rocks.

Some pika hay piles can be spotted easily, others are hard to find. Pikas often tuck their loads under large overhanging rocks or sometimes make huge bushel piles of hay right on the talus surface. Other pikas wedge their hay between rocks, so very little of even a large hay pile is visible on the surface.

Pikas save their winter larder in a very methodical way in a stack that often measures several feet thick and contains some 60 pounds of vegetation. Pikas first gather fresh vegetation and lay it in stacks to dry. Once the plants and grasses dry out, the pikas take this hay back to the burrows for storage. They must literally make hay while the sun shines, storing vegetation for winter feeding.

After cutting a columbine stalk with its teeth, a pika grips the plant between its jaws and runs to add it to a hay pile. Earlier in the season pikas eat the columbine's flowers but ignore the rest of the plant which is toxic. Pikas choose some plants for their anti-bacterial properties which keeps the hay pile from rotting.

Pikas can literally mow down plants, turning their heads to the side to bite off stems as close to the ground as possible. They have been observed harvesting and carrying off 4-foot-tall stalks of mountain bluebells, only to have their scampering retreat across the talus abruptly halted as the long stems wedge between rocks.

The hay piles also form the basis of interesting social interactions with the rest of the colony. For much of the year pikas are very territorial, and their territories are centered on their hay piles. There is an endless turf battle. Pikas throughout the colony are constantly running others off from their territory. Frequently pikas must cross other pika's home areas to get to spots where plants grow, so it is a never ending skirmish.

The protection of territory continues into the winter when pikas guard their hay stacks. In the spring there seems to be a truce and pikas are suddenly open to sharing their hay stacks. Coincidentally, it is about the same time that pikas are starting to look for mates. This hospitality ends at about the time that mates are selected.

Pikas are in a constant race with winter. Babies are born in spring, weaned in three weeks, and then immediately kicked out of mom's territory. In order to survive they must then hurry to establish their own territories and accumulate a hay pile for the impending winter.