A SOUTHERN VISITOR.
COL. ALEXANDER MORRISON, FRIEND AND KINSMAN OF THE GORSUCHES, WHO KEPT UP FRIENDLY
RELATIONS WITH THE POWNALL FAMILY.
At the “Riot House” the Pownalls found both Pinckney’s and Parker’s loaded guns; and they prudently burned a lot of letters found there, which would have incriminated some of their neighbors in violation of the Fugitive Slave Law. The Pownalls later received anonymous information that Parker had reached Canada. Gorsuch himself is said to have expressed kindly feeling for Parker, which bears out the theory that Parker tried to stem the riot after it attained a deadly stage.
Even they who were guiltless of their neighbor’s blood were not unmindful of the responsibility imposed upon their community by the violent killing of Gorsuch and the escape of his slayers. His dead body was taken to Christiana and lay at Fred Zercher’s hotel, where Harrar’s store now is and nearly opposite the Commemoration Monument. There a coroner’s inquest was held before noon. The main facts of the riot were related by Kline, “Harvey” Scott (who later recanted), and others. John Bodley and Jake Woods testified that Elijah Lewis passed them in the early morning, when they were working at James Cooper’s, and that Lewis said “William Parker’s house was surrounded by kidnappers and it was no time to take out potatoes.”
The coroner’s jury, summoned by Joseph D. Pownall, Esq., consisted of George Whitson, John Rowland, E. Osborne Dare, Hiram Kinnard, Samuel Miller, Lewis Cooper, George Firth, William Knott, John Hillis, William H. Millhouse, Joseph Richwine and Miller Knott. Their finding was:
“That on the morning of the 11th inst., the neighborhood was thrown into an excitement by the above deceased, and some five or six persons in company with him, making an attack upon a family of colored persons, living in said Township, near the Brick Mill, about 4 o’clock in the morning, for the purpose of arresting some fugitive slaves as they alleged, many of the colored people of the neighborhood collected, and there was considerable firing of guns and other fire-arms by both parties, upon the arrival of some of the neighbors at the place, after the riot had subsided, found the above deceased, lying upon his back or right side dead. Upon a post mortem examination upon the body of the said deceased, made by Drs. Patterson and Martin, in our presence, we believe he came to his death by gun shot wounds that he received in the above mentioned riot, caused by some person or persons to us unknown.”
Dr. John Martin and Dr. A. P. Patterson reported officially that Gorsuch came to his death by a gun shot wound made by slug or heavy shot, occupying the upper part of the right breast, and that there was an incision found near the frontal bone, produced by a light sharp instrument, and a fracture of the left humerus by some blunt weapon.
It must be conceded, even at this distance in time, the jury’s thermometer of popular indignation at the crime scarcely registered above the mark of “cold neutrality.”
Scharf’s history of Baltimore County states that on September 13th and 15th meetings of citizens of Baltimore County were held to take action in the premises. Wm. H. Freeman, John Wethered, Samuel Worthington, Wm. Matthews, Wm. Taggart, John B. Pearce, Samuel H. Taggart, Wm. Fell Johnson, Wm. H. Hoffman, Edward S. Myers, John Merryman, and Henry Carroll were appointed a committee to collect all the facts in the case and transmit them to Governor Lowe, in order that he might lay them before the President of the United States. Another committee, consisting of John B. Holmes, Levi K. Bowen, Dr. Nicholas Hutchins, J. M. McComas, and E. Parsons, was appointed to confer with the gentlemen who had accompanied Mr. Gorsuch into Pennsylvania. A meeting at Slader’s tavern, on September 15th, passed resolutions calling upon the people of each district of the county to elect delegates to meet at Cockeysville on October 4th for the purpose of forming a county association, and recommending the formation of district associations “for the protection of the people in their slave and other property.” An indignation meeting of six thousand persons was held at Monument Square, Baltimore City, on September 15th, at which Hon. John H. T. Jerome presided, and addresses were made by Z. Collins Lee, Coleman Yellott, Francis Gallagher, Samuel H. Taggart, and Col. George W. Hughes.