Editing Marshall, Michigan (section)

=== Stand against slavery ===
In 1843, [[Adam Crosswhite]],<ref name="Smith McDaniel Hardin 2015 p. 128">{{cite book | last1=Smith | first1=G.L. | last2=McDaniel | first2=K.C. | last3=Hardin | first3=J.A. | title=The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia | publisher=University Press of Kentucky | year=2015 | isbn=978-0-8131-6066-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-0AoCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA128 | access-date=25 Jun 2020 | page=128}}</ref> his wife Sarah and their four children ran away from Francis Giltner's plantation in [[Hunter's Bottom Historic District|Hunter's Bottom]], [[Carroll County, Kentucky|Carroll County]], [[Kentucky]] because the Crosswhites learned that one of their four children was to be sold.<ref name="Michigan Radio 2018">{{cite web | title=160 years ago, Marshall residents united to save a family from slave catchers | website=Michigan Radio | date=13 Jun 2018 | url=https://www.michiganradio.org/post/160-years-ago-marshall-residents-united-save-family-slave-catchers | access-date=23 Jun 2020}}</ref> The Crosswhites made the tough journey north through Indiana along the [[Underground Railroad]], beginning in [[Madison, Indiana]]. They finally settled in Marshall, where they were accepted, and Adam worked and built a cabin.<ref name="Smith McDaniel Hardin 2015 p. 128" />

In response to increasing numbers of runaway slaves, [[Kentucky raid in Cass County (1847)|a coalition of slave owners in the north central counties and the Bluegrass region of Kentucky organized]] to recover the runaways. In January 1846, Francis Giltner's son David Giltner and three others went to Marshall to capture the Crosswhite family.<ref name="Smith McDaniel Hardin 2015 p. 128" />

On the morning of January 26, 1847, as the slave catchers and a local deputy sheriff were pounding on Adam's door, his neighbors heard the noise and came running. The cry of "slave catchers!" was yelled through the streets of Marshall. Soon, over 100 people surrounded the Crosswhite home.

Threats were shouted back and forth. One of the slave catchers began to demand that people in the crowd give him their names. They were proud to tell him and even told him the correct spelling.  Each name was written down in a little book.  Finally, the deputy sheriff, swayed by the crowd's opinion, decided he should arrest the men from [[Kentucky]] instead. Marshall townspeople hid the Crosswhites in the attic of George Ingersoll's mill. By the time the slave catchers could post bond and get out of jail, Isaac Jacobs, the hostler at the Marshall House, had hired a covered wagon and driven the Crosswhites to [[Jackson, Michigan|Jackson]] where they boarded a train to [[Detroit]] and then crossed over into [[Canada]].<ref name="Smith McDaniel Hardin 2015 p. 128" />

The Giltners sued some of the people from Marshall for damages in what is known in federal records as the ''Giltner v. Gorham case''. It was tried in the federal court in Detroit. The ''Giltner v Gorham case'' resulted in two trials in federal court in Detroit, the first trial ending in a hung jury. At the conclusion of the second trial, the sole remaining defendant in the case, local banker [[Charles T. Gorham]], was ordered to pay the value of the slaves plus court costs.<ref name="GiltnervGorham">{{cite web | title=GILTNER V. GORHAM ET AL. Case No. 5,453. | website=law.resource.org | url=https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0010.f.cas/0010.f.cas.0424.2.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200625184727/https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0010.f.cas/0010.f.cas.0424.2.pdf |archive-date=2020-06-25 |url-status=live | date=1848 | access-date=23 Jun 2020}}</ref> To curry political favor, Detroit entrepreneur Zachariah Chandler supposedly stepped in to pay these costs on Gorham's behalf.<ref>{{Cite web|last1=Clark|first1=Sandra |author2=Michigan Center|date=June 13, 2018|title=160 years ago, Marshall residents united to save a family from slave catchers|url=https://www.michiganradio.org/post/160-years-ago-marshall-residents-united-save-family-slave-catchers|access-date=2021-03-25|website=www.michiganradio.org|language=en}}</ref>

Because of the [[Crosswhite Affair]] and many others like it, Sen. [[Henry Clay]] from Kentucky pushed a new law through Congress in 1850 known as the [[Fugitive Slave Law]], which made it very risky for anyone to help an escaped slave.<ref>{{cite magazine | last1=Chardavoyne | first1= David G. |title=Michigan and the Fugitive Slave Acts | magazine=The Court Legacy |volume=XII |number=3 |date= November 2004 |publisher= The Historical Society for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan |url=http://www.mied.uscourts.gov/_historical/newspdf/Court%20Legacy%20Nov04.pdf |access-date=2007-06-28 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060923055624/http://www.mied.uscourts.gov/_historical/newspdf/Court%20Legacy%20Nov04.pdf |archive-date=2006-09-23 }}</ref>

Two Marshall citizens [[John Davis Pierce|Rev. John D. Pierce]] and lawyer [[Isaac E. Crary]], innovated the Michigan school system and established it as part of the [[Constitution of Michigan|state constitution]]. Their method and format were later adopted by all the states in the old [[Northwest Territory]] and became the foundation for the [[Morrill Land-Grant Acts|Morrill Land-Grant Act]] in 1862, which established schools like Michigan State University all over the country. Pierce became the country's first state superintendent of public instruction and Crary Michigan's first member of the U.S. House.<ref name="City of Marshall, Michigan"/>