Descendants of six freedom seekers with ties to the Illinois Underground Railroad share their connections to American history.
Chicago’s Finest Marina exists in the back, the sole Black-owned marina in the city. Ronald Gaines Sr. bought the farm in 2005 after enjoying the marina as a boater in the 1980s, and now plans to offer event space to those wanting to make memories in a historic place.
We start with six descendants of freedom seekers with ties to Illinois. Their stories chronicle their knowledge and pride of being connected to American history.Ronald Gaines Jr., left, and his dad, Ronald Gaines Sr., stand at the Chicago's Finest Marina, owned by the elder Gaines, on Aug. 2, 2023, in Chicago. The family's genealogical hunt uncovered they are descendants of a freedom seeker who settled in Michigan.
Pitt Gaines freed his son when he reached adulthood, and Washington Gaines then bought the freedom of his wife, Mary. After Washington Gaines was injured working in the copper mines of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, the couple settled in Marquette. “I think we have been put off from trying to discover who we are,” he said. “We can’t be fearful where the path takes us. … You’ve got to take the good, the bad and the bittersweet.”
He’s also excited to share the Chicago’s Finest Marina space with tour groups and community members. He envisions a business plan that melds the history of the land with momentous life events, such as weddings and family reunions. Gaines Sr. is currently seeking funding to expand programming and offer boat rentals for those who want to explore theYour genealogy “makes you want to grasp” the details and try “finding out what they actually did in their lives,” Gaines Sr. said.
She has always been a history buff. In high school, the Springfield native volunteered as a guide for historical reenactments at the Old State Capitol. Nowadays, she and her mother go on research trips to Kentucky — where Donnegan Knox was born free in Hopkinsville in 1794 — to pore over court records, where Donnegans pop up in a variety of spellings.
The family came to Springfield from Hopkinsville, where Donnegan Knox had owned property, birthed 10 children and married a man after she bought his freedom from his enslaver. She was the biracial child of a Black father and a white woman, whom Leanna McGee said she believes was an Irish woman in indentured servitude.
Donnegan Knox had 21 white men sign a court statement verifying she was free, an extensive process required to travel safely at the time, Leanna McGee said. Those papers still exist, 176 years later. “When my father saw that I was the one that cared about this stuff, he gave me the bag,” said Purnell, a psychologist based in Washington, D.C.John Jones was born free in 1816 in North Carolina, and became a tailor’s apprentice in Memphis, Tennessee, which is where he met Mary Richardson.
“In this duffel bag, I had the pictures of John Jones and Mary, letters from Frederick Douglass and how he felt about John Brown’s raid,” Purnell said. “Looking at this is like knowing you’re now responsible for the legacy.”Purnell is the founder of the Love More Movement, a nonprofit that offers training for life coaches and community leaders focused on mental health and healing for those with trauma.
“Once you connect the dots, you look for more dots, and more dots may change the story,” Gerald McWorter said. “That’s how history continues to be rewritten.” “They want to learn Black history because white people are realizing that Black history is American history,” Williams said. “And Black people want to know their history more and more. It’s a standing-up moment.”A painting of New Philadelphia by Thelma McWorter Kirkpatrick Wheaton shows the first community legally founded by a Black person. The integrated town in rural Illinois grew to 160 people by 1865, but was ultimately abandoned.
Her armload of white binders detail a family tree that stretches back 145 years in the state capital, and she can chart seven generations of Woodsons even further, to 1840. She rattles off the names and the marriages as easily and as fast as her own. “When I get into discussions on race relations, I tell them that I don’t have to move South to know about relationships with people who don’t care for my hue,” Woodson-Wilson said.
She also recently gathered with her family to talk about her will, going over which possessions loved ones would want to inherit. Multiple grandchildren expressed a desire for her genealogy set — those stacks of white binders and piles of black-and-white photos she has assembled over four decades. “That day I looked at her, I could see my grandmother, my mother, little me,” Simmons said. “I started calling around to relatives and no one knew anything, and then I found pictures tied to her in Milwaukee.”
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