PEKIN — A Black woman who was born a slave, Nance Legins-Costley and her extraordinary story didn’t make it into the history books.
The longtime Pekin resident’s freedom was the subject of a pivotal court case that resulted in the abolition of indentured servitude — another name for slavery — in Illinois in 1841. Nance Legins-Costley and her three oldest children were freed, along with all other indentured servants in Illinois, as a result of Bailey v. Cromwell, a case brought before the Illinois Supreme Court.
The watershed case has added significance because Legins-Costley was represented by a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. In effect, Legins-Costley and her children were the first slaves freed by Lincoln, more than 20 years before he, as president of the United States, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing slavery in the secessionist Confederate states.
It’s an important story in U.S. history, but it was only kept alive because a few facts about Legins-Costley were repeated locally for many years. Amateur historian Carl Adams was floored when he came across a single sentence about Legins-Costley in 1994.
“It was published in the Tazewell Express, which was a free shopper mailed out once a month,” said Adams. “I came across a thumbnail sketch of Tazewell County history, and it said, ‘This was the home of a slave girl named Nance, first slave freed by Abraham Lincoln in 1841,’ and I’m going, ‘What? I am a Lincoln fan and I’ve never heard of it before.’ And I read it over and over."
That sentence launched an epic research project. In 2021, the Journal Star learned of the effort and published an article on Nance Legins-Costley that gained local and national attention. This year, Pekin and Peoria have erected memorials in her honor.
Adams compiled his research into a self-published book aimed at youthful readers, an effort to educate generations to come. This year, with the help of Adams' book, teens at Pekin Community High School spent many hours learning about Pekin’s forgotten founder and her incredible legacy. The resulting student work displayed on a website created by the school recounts not only historical facts, but also expresses profound emotion about the injustices Legins-Costley endured during her lifetime.
“I was so pleased when I heard that Pekin High School did immersion education into this. The graduating seniors from Pekin Community High School now know all about Nance," said Adams. “For me, it was like hitting the bull's-eye – I got through to teenage kids.”
Tracking down key facts
Adams' search for information about Legins-Costley was greatly aided by the fact that her family was owned by a wealthy and influential man named Col. Thomas Cox. The resulting paper trail provided clues about Legins-Costley's early life.
“The hardest thing to do was nail down her last name — nobody knew her last name. Everybody knew her as the slave girl named Nance,” said Adams
His first breakthrough came when he discovered a receipt for the sale of Legins-Costley's parents.
“A young man, a high school history teacher named Darrel Dexter, wrote a book called 'House Divided: Union County, Illinois,' and I opened the book and there was a handwritten receipt with the name of Thomas Cox published in this book. The receipt said ‘for my Negro man Randall and one Negro woman and one baby, Ruben.’ That was where Thomas Cox purchased the Legins family.”
Adams surmised that Nance Legins-Costley's mother, Anachy, was pregnant at the time because Cox paid $70 above the appraisal price of $700. Adams was later able to determine that Legins-Costley was born in Kaskaskia about five months later, in December 1813.
A thwarted rebellion
At that time, Illinois was not a state. It was part of the Northwest Territory, where slavery was forbidden as per the federal Northwest Ordinance. The ordinance was not enforced, however, and a system of indentured servitude reinforced the cruel institution. According to law, servitude could extend as long as 99 years — a lifetime.
Though Legins-Costley is believed to have been unable to read and write, she still knew enough to fight for her rights. Adams surmised that, having grown up listening to the conversations of men who stayed in a hotel owned by Cox, she learned the politics of the day. When Nance was just 13 or 14 years old, she fought against being sold into another household. Cox was in debt and forced by the courts to sell off some of his property, including his indentured servants. While other members of the Legins family went quietly, Legins-Costley did not, but her rebellion ended when she was locked in a windowless salt house for a week.
Finally: Freedom
In 1829, Legins-Costley moved with her new owners, Nathan and Ann Eliza Cromwell, to Tazewell County, where they helped found Pekin. Though the teenager kept working for the family, she continued to fight for her freedom. As Cox contested the ruling against him and tried to regain his possessions, Legins-Costley testified that she had not consented to being sold.
In 1836, Cromwell, by then a widower, decided to move to Texas. Legins-Costley was 23, the mother of one with another child on the way. Cromwell asked a merchant named David Bailey if she could stay behind and work in his store. Bailey, an abolitionist whose father-in-law had been a conductor on the Underground Railroad, struck a deal where a $400 debt he owed Cromwell would be canceled if he took Legins-Costley in. Part of the deal was that Cromwell had to produce documentation of her indentured servitude. But Cromwell didn’t provide the paperwork before he left Pekin, and then died on his journey.
Though Legins-Costley immediately claimed her independence, she was not free in the eyes of the law. A few years later, a relative of Cromwell went to court in an effort to get the $400 from Bailey, who defended himself by saying Cromwell didn’t keep his end of the bargain when he failed to provide the required paperwork. During the course of the legal wrangling, a judge deemed Legins-Costley a possession, prompting Bailey to take the case to the Illinois Supreme Court.
Bailey asked attorney Abraham Lincoln to take the case. In 1841, Lincoln won the case by pointing out that anti-slavery language was used repeatedly in legislation describing the territory, and then the state, of Illinois. "It is a presumption of law, in the State of Illinois, that every person is free, without regard to color. ... The sale of a free person is illegal.”
When the jury found in favor of Bailey, not only were Legins-Costley and her three children freed, but so was every other indentured servant in the state of Illinois.
Details from a life well lived
Legins-Costley, who had married Benjamin Costley in 1840, had five more children after being freed. She lived in Pekin for most of her life, though she may have lived in Alton for a few years and moved to Peoria toward the end of her life.
Details about the family’s life in Pekin have been found in newspaper clippings and a variety of county records. Jared Olar, a historian at the Pekin Public Library, and several amateur researchers have added detail to the narrative of Nance Legins-Costley’s life.
“Susan Rynearson found the title deed dated 1849 for Nance Costley — she became the owner of the land she lived on in 1849. She is the first African-American woman to own land in Pekin,” said Olar. The land was purchased from members of the Cromwell family. Census records show Legins-Costley and her family living on the land for many years.
While it’s presumed that Legins-Costley was unable to read or write, her children are believed to have been formally educated.
“Leander (Legins-Costley's son) was able to read and write — the census even said so,” said Olar.
In 1866, Leander Costley, a railroad porter, wrote a letter published in the Peoria Transcript and the Peoria National Democrat. He defended himself after a derogatory article was written about an unnamed Black man, a railroad employee, who supposedly had a flirtation with a white woman. The article was written by the Democratic Party, which was the party of slavery at that time, said Olar. Leander wrote:
“… The whole article ... is a square lie from beginning to end in detail and in aggregate, and the principal difference between the author of it and myself is that God put my black on the outside and his inside.”
There is evidence that Legins-Costley continued to be a formidable force when it came to defending her rights. An 1862 newspaper article noted that a “Mrs. Costley, colored, whipped a Marshal and was fined in police court today, $2.” Just a week before, another article detailed a fight between a Black family and a German immigrant family in Pekin. Olar surmises that the two incidents could have been related.
Fiery nature aside, there is evidence that Legins-Costley was well respected. A paragraph in the 1870 city directory mentioned her as a notable citizen:
“With the arrival of Major Cromwell ... came a slave. That slave still lives in Pekin and is known ... (as) ‘Black Nancy.’ She came here a chattel. ... But she has outlived the age of barbarism, and now, in her still vigorous old age, she sees her race disenthralled; the chains that bound them forever broken, their equality before the law everywhere recognized and her children enjoying the elective franchise.”
Nance's most famous son
Nance Legins-Costley’s oldest son, William Costley, was 23 years old when he joined the 29th Illinois Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops, the only Black regiment from Illinois and the largest of the state’s regiments. It fought many battles during the Civil War, and was sent to Texas in 1865 to free 250,000 Black Americans who had not been informed of the Emancipation Proclamation signed two years prior. William Costley was present at the ensuing celebration — the first Juneteenth — which today is a national holiday.
William Costley was also well known in Pekin for shooting a man who was assaulting his wife in the streets in 1870. Costley was charged with murder, but was acquitted by an all-white jury that said his actions were “justifiable homicide for protecting a woman in need.”
The importance of telling untold stories
William Costley’s grave is in Minnesota, where he relocated in the 1880s, but for many years no one knew where Legins-Costley and her husband were buried. It was only when amateur genealogist Bob Hoffer began researching the whereabouts of his wife’s relatives that Moffatt Cemetery was rediscovered. The site of about 2,600 graves, the cemetery was rezoned and developed commercially in the 1950s.
Hoffer’s search led him to old coroner’s records, which detailed where many residents were buried. Nance Legins-Costley's name was among those buried in Moffatt Cemetery.
While it’s not known if her body is still there beneath the asphalt and buildings, an adjacent plot of land has become Freedom & Remembrance Memorial Park, where a monument detailing Legins-Costley’s legacy has been erected along with other monuments detailing others buried in Moffatt Cemetery. The park was dedicated on Wednesday.
In Pekin, another set of monuments honoring Legins-Costley and her oldest son, William Costley, was recently erected in a pocket park in the 400 block of Court Street in downtown Pekin. The dedication ceremony was June 17 as part of Tazewell County’s Juneteenth celebration.
While Nance Legins-Costley’s story is no longer untold, there are still many more stories that need to be brought to light, said the Rev. Marvin Hightower, president of the Peoria NAACP. Speaking at the dedication for Moffatt Cemetery on Wednesday, Hightower said we must continue to find and tell forgotten stories from the past.
“I believe, as the Bible says, that the truth will make us free. And that’s why I believe that history is important.”