Piles

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."

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 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.