Award winning author, and International speaker. President of the Archer Alexander Memorial Foundation. Member of the Missouri Speakers Bureau and the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. President of the Boone’s Lick Road Association. Executive Director of the Missouri Germans Consortium. She has been writing for over 35 years and published several books on local history, German immigration, and other topics. Currently working on To Tell a True Story – Archer Alexander.
A Memorial Service for Archer Alexander, and for his Day of Freedom will be held on Sunday, September 21st, 2025, at 1:00 pm in the St. Peter’s United Church of Christ Cemetery at 2101 Lucas and Hunt, in Normandy (St. Louis) Missouri.
This event will include a one-act play called “Louisa” performed by actress Peggy Neely Harris which recognizes Archer Alexander’s life and accomplishments. Other speakers will include Ibn Ali, the great great-great-grandson of Archer Alexander and nephew of Muhammad Ali, and historian Dorris Keeven-Franke. A presentation by sculptor Abraham Mohler will share the new memorial and monument being planned at St. Peters U.C.C. Cemetery. Archer Alexander is recognized as a site on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, one of more than 800 sites in this country. He is the icon for Emancipation as he is the enslaved man rising with Lincoln on the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Park. Everyone is welcome, and the public is encouraged to bring lawn chairs. September is National Underground Railroad Month.
Archer Alexander was the last fugitive slave captured in Missouri, and received his freedom on September 24, 1863, for his important services to the United States Military (Union) after informing them of a plot to destroy a local railroad bridge. He saved hundreds of lives, and a vital link conveying troops, funds and supplies for the Union Army in 1863. After risking his life he took sixteen men from Dardenne Prairie and crossed the river at Howell’s Ferry on a dark February night, using the Underground Railroad. His story is one of over 800 sites that honors, preserves and promotes the history of resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, which continues to inspire people worldwide, run by the National Park Service.
On Sunday, February 28, 1864, thirty-one-year-old Smith Ball had made his way from one end of St. Charles County to the other, a distance of about 25 miles, to reach freedom. His enslaver was John Ball who had passed away in 1850, leaving fifteen enslaved people living in three small cabins on his widow, Ann Hitch Ball’s large tobacco plantation.[ii] The Ball Plantation was located at Flint Hill,near the Boyd plantation, also in Cuivre Township, a community just over seven miles east of Snow Hill.
Smith Ball had been born May 26, 1833[iii], in Virginia, and had been brought to Missouri during the 1830s. According to his enlistment papers, he was a light-colored black [man], 5 foot 10 inches tall, with brown eyes and black hair. He left behind a wife Minerva Pringle, and four children, William, Lucy, John H., and Ada. When mustered in at Benton Barracks, he was examined by John Bruere, MD. of Benton Barracks in St. Louis like hundreds of other troops. He served in Company B of the 68th US. Colored Troops. [iv] The remarks on the Descriptive list stated “Recruit presented himself” meaning that he had fled his enslaver, Ann Hitch Ball(1804-1870), the widow of John P. Ball (1805-1858)[v].
The 68th U.S. Colored Troops were Infantry, and Ball would advance to Sergeant before mustering out. He had fought at Fort Blakely in Alabama, The Battle of Blakeley was the final major battle of the Civil War, with surrender just hours after Grant had accepted the surrender of Lee at Appomatox in the afternoon of April 9, 1865. Mobile, Alabama, was the last major Confederate port to be captured by Union forces, on April 12, 1865.
He and Minerva would raise a large family, William, Lou, John, Lina, Ada, Julia, Minnie, Birdie, and Mary. By 1900, she had passed away and was buried at Smith Chapel but her father Austin Pringle, who had been born in 1811 in Kentucky was still living with his son in law and grandchildren. When he died in 1912, at age 78, he was living alone at Foristell. He was buried at Smith Chapel Cemetery, where he had served as one of the nine original Trustees in 1871
Notes
[ii] 1850 U.S. Federal Census – Slave Schedules Record, United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Seventh Census of the United States, 1850/i. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1850. M432
[iii] MO Secretary of State, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Death Certificate of Smith Ball, Sept. 13, 1912.
[iv]Compiled Military Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served the United States Colored Troops: 56th-138th USCT Infantry, 1864-1866; NARA; 300398; Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Volunteer Organizations During the American Civil War, compiled 1890 – 1912, documenting the period 1861 – 1866
[v] The 1860 U.S. Federal Slave Schedule for Ann Ball, Cuivre Township, St. Charles County.
On October 31, 1864, freedom seeker Martin Boyd, born in 1826, left the 300-acre plantation of Alexander Boyd and tried to make his way to George Senden’s store on Main Street in St. Charles, only to make it as far as Peruque Creek Fort at the Missouri Railroad Bridge. There Capt. L.D. Jay would enlist the 5’9” black man into the U.S. Colored Troops. Later, Alexander Boyd tried to show proof that he had inherited Martin from his mother Ruth Carr Boyd, widow of William Boyd, and that Martin Boyd was his property, and was seeking compensation for Martin’s Services and that as such he was entitled to a $300 bounty. Alexander did not receive it. Freedom seeker Martin Boyd would serve in Company B of the 49th United States Colored Troops, until March 22, 1866. That December 31st, 1866, he would marry Mandy (this is Amanda) Logan, as Black Marriages were now legal. Over 8,000 African-American men would serve in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War.
Fort Peruque was manned by Union Troops, that were Missouri’s Home Guards, assigned to guard the North Missouri Railroad Bridge (in the background), where it crossed the Peruque Creek (located at 1052 Peruque Creek Crossing today). The fort was constructed in 1862 and manned until the war ended.
In 1827, Missouri was a new state filled with opportunity, at least for some people. Those living in Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee saw the opportunity and seized upon it. The land was selling for $1.25 an acre or if it already had “improvements” a man could get at least $2 per acre. And Dardenne and Cuivre Townships of St. Charles County were huge prairies where the crops of tobacco and hemp could make a man richer than his wildest dreams. William Boyd from Shelby County Kentucky had such a dream when he investigated it, but would die in 1830, before he could fulfill it, leaving behind his wife of 32 years, Ruth Carr, mother of his 11 children. Then, when Ruth’s father died in 1832, she brought her children and joined her brother James and his wife Susanna, who had already settled in Flint Hill. With Ruth was her 10-year-old son Alexander Thomas Boyd and at least eleven enslaved individuals.
Photo from St. Charles County Parks website – Towne Park is loacated 100 Town Park Dr. (off of Hwy 61) in Foristell.
In 1840, Mrs. Boyd, now living in Cuivre Township, had 14 enslaved individuals living here and working on her plantation. By 1850, the number of these enslaved individuals had grown even larger to 17 African Americans living on the Boyd plantation. The youngest is now an 11-month-old boy, and the oldest is now a 44-year-old woman, among the 8 females and 9 males on the tobacco farm. Unfortunately, the 1850 Census taker did not take the number of buildings there were to house these individuals, and their names were never given. The accounting of this is all based on an honor system, for tax purposes only.
By 1860, Ruth Boyd 78-year-old mother of Alexander Boyd, is living with her son, next to her son Thomas, on the Boyd family plantation. Ruth is the enslaver of 7 people living in two cabins, Alexander has 8 people living in one cabin, and Thomas has 7 people as well living in two cabins. In all, this Flint Hill tobacco plantation has 22 enslaved people living in 4 cabins, which range from a pair of 5-month-old twin girls to a couple of women who are estimated to be 30 years old. No, the 1860 Federal Census, never gives us names of all of these people. But according to records, St. Charles County Park historian Ben Gall shares the names of 14 of these 22 people. They are Martin, Amanda, Henry, Lucy, Thomas, Emeline, Ella, David, Maria, her daughter Maria, Rose, Joshua, George and Ruth. The Boyd Plantation is now Towne Park, part of the St. Charles County Park System.
In 1870, the United States Census revealed so much. Forty-eight-year-old Alexander T. Boyd, and his wife Ann Medora (McRoberts), are still living on the Boyd plantation, with their three children, Fannie aged 13, William aged 12, and 2-year-old Fenton. With them live white 26-year-old Henry Minor and his 30-year-old wife Mary, who works as a farmhand for Alexander. Martin lives on the plantation with his wife Mandy, and their 1-year-old son Samuel. In 1912, 86-year-old Martin Boyd passed away and was buried in the Smith Chapel Cemetery. (For more see https://smithchapelcemetery.com/)
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