Project Featured in News-Gazette

Trial & Tribulations is featured on-line and in the News Gazette Newspaper today. See article by clicking here.

Volunteers Needed to Help the Project

Volunteers Needed to Direct the Following Areas:

• 1847 Meal - Contact caterer, Designate servers, Table Décor and Prep, Ticket Punch, Clean up…
• Gift Shop – Nova & Rebecca Coon Oversee setup, consignment where needed, sale of items, information…
• Costumes - Contact area resources to oversee costumes needed in all areas of event, both performance andadditional sites.
• Technical Director: Assist Dr. Jorns in the technical issues regarding preparation of performance…stage construction, lighting, adaptations of Columbian Building, etc…
• Assistant Director - Assist Dr. Jorns with note taking, props, auditions, possess love of theatre
• Lighting – Tom Hawk & Mike Rowley - Run lighting board with dimmers, work with Dr. Jorns concerning all lighting materials needed.
• Housing and meals for actors - Need to accommodate approximately 4 folks from Freetown Village (Wednesday evening through perhaps Sunday morning.)
• Town beautification - Includes signage, area business window displays etc…
• Tour guide/Hostess - Guide tour buses and school groups to proper locations, inform guests of restroom locations, show times etc…, must be friendly and enjoy working with public.
• Ticket Sales/Ushers - Handling advance orders, bus tours and seating audience for performances.
• Publicity -Work with Program Director to distribute publicity. Develop a database of area organizations, committees, school, churches etc… to promote the event.
• Musicians – Susan Humphries - Contacted to play period music intermittently and as performance requires.
• Rutherford House – Renee & Landmarks, Inc. - Recruiting volunteers for site preparation, and house tours. Includes working with Ashmore and Rutherford interpreters.
• Pioneer Village – Rev. Bob & Rob Lee - Recruiting volunteers for site preparation, and guides. Includes working with actors from Freetown Village and maybe guest lecturer.
• Museum Display- Renee & Oakland Historical Foundation - Historical Foundation museum display, set up/show documentary film, train hostess/film operators.
• Facility Maintenance - Tents, Tables, Chairs, Portable restrooms where needed, make sure facility on square is presentable and available.
• Performance Director – Dr. David Jorns - Writes script, directs theatre in the round, conducts auditions, works with lighting director etc…
• Photographer - Oversees photo shoot of entire event recruiting help as needed.

We’ve scheduled a Meeting for Volunteers on Monday, March 9^th, 6 pm in the Columbian Building to set up committees, get a visual effect of the performance, review event schedule and share the vision for the overall outcome intended for the event. Please mark your calendar today and plan to join this community endeavor.

The Historic Town of Oakland, Illinois

You might not expect a community nestled in the corn fields of Central Illinois to be rich in historical significance. Welcome to Oakland, where you're sure to experience the unexpected! Here, past and present converge in a delightful environment. Visit our historical landmarks, then take a leisurely stroll down the brick streets of our tree-lined square where you will find unique architecture and a potpourri of local businesses.

Oakland also offers a variety of recreational opportunities such as swimming, camping, fishing, sporting clays, and golfing. Walnut Point State Park, just three miles north of town, has a lake, trails and campgrounds.

Oakland Wikipedia

Google Maps-Oakland

Oakland is centrally located about an hour from Champaign/Urbana, Decatur, Danville, Effingham Illinois and Terre Haute, Indiana. The community is three and a half hours from Chicago and St. Louis and about two and a half hours from Indianapolis and Springfield. Interstates 70 and 57 have exits within thirty miles of Oakland.
Hotels are available in Arcola, Charleston, Paris, and Tuscola Illinois.

Abraham Lincoln was a familiar site in this region of Illinois. His father's home was south of Charleston Illinois and is now a state park, Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site. Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln's graves are nearby. Charleston also is the home of the Lincoln-Douglas Debate Museum that recounts the 1858 debates between Lincoln and Stephan A. Douglas. In Danville you can visit the Vermilion County Museum, designed to replicate the courthouse that was there when Lincoln practiced law, and the adjacent Fithian Home, a Lincoln site on the National Register of Historic Places.

Nearby Arcola and Arthur are at the heart of the Illinois Amish community.

Oakland Landmarks, Inc.

The Dr. Hiram Rutherford House is at the heart of the complex of historic buildings preserved by Landmarks, Inc. This historical organization was formed in 1969 to save the material culture of Oakland and the surrounding vicinity. The Rutherford House is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The buildings on the property are full of historical treasures and fully furnished as they would have been in Rutherford's day, including many items from the Rutherford family.

Dr. Rutherford, along with Gideon Ashmore, were the two men who stepped forward to give refuge to the Bryant family and funded their legal defense. At the time of the trial, 1847, Rutherford was a widowed father of a young boy who was in the process of building the house in the picture. The house was completed a couple of months after the conclusion of the trial. Because of his association with the trial, the home is part of the National Park Service's Network to Freedom and the Illinois' Looking For Lincoln Heritage Coalition.

Dr. Rutherford built his office across the street from the house in 1855. It is the oldest free standing doctor's office in Illinois.

Visit the Landmarks, Inc. website at www.drhiramrutherford.com.

Independence Pioneer Village

The pioneer village was started in 1988 by Robert & Melba Lee. Each log structure in the village is an original hand hewn log building, all dating back over 100 years. They gathered seven houses, a church/school, a general store, blacksmith’s shop, post office, carriage house, and a jail from Tennessee and Illinois into 22 acres of woodland on their property just outside Oakland, Illinois. Over the years, the site has sponsored various living history programs from Christmas events to Civil War reenactments.
This is the Bartholomew Cabin built in 1828 in by John Bartholomew in Henderson County, Middleburge District, Tennessee. The family and his descendants lived in this cabin continuously for 157 years, ending in 1985. After the Lee's purchased the cabin, each log was marked with a special number, then loaded on a truck to be brought to Illinois. Upon arrival at the village each log was unloaded into category by number. The cabins were then reconstructed according to these numbers.

The Barksdale Cabin was located in Alma Township, Marion County, Illinois about ten miles northeast of Salem. It was one of the oldest, if not the oldest, occupied home in Alma Township representing 154 years of continuous living. The land entry book show that John Christerson entered this forty acres on October 24, 1837. When Mr. Van C. Mundwiler's grandparents moved into the home in 1879 they believed it to have been built in 1837. The Barksdale Family were the last to live in the house, which they did until 1981


This building was originally built in the woods about two miles southeast of Dardin, Tennessee. The cabin was puchased by Mr. and Mrs. Ray Myracle who lived in it in the early 1930s after they were first married. They moved the cabin up to the Smith Chapel Road and lived there until the family out grew it. They built a new house and used the cabin for storage and a barn. When it was purchased for the Village, the bottom logs were rotted away. They were replaced with logs obtained from a barn owned by Roy Chumney. There is no history available on the original date and use of the cabin, however, because of the way it is built, with three windows on a side, one door, and no fireplace it is believed to have been orginally built for a school and/or church.

The name Independence Pioneer Village is a tribute to the origins of Oakland, Illinois. The town was platted under the name Independence in May 1835. Later it was found that another town had that name in Illinois and the town adopted the name Oakland after another extinct post office in the vicinity.

Trial & Tribulations Project:The Story of the 1847 Matson Slave Trial

Trial & Tribulations is a historical program scheduled for Sept 18 and 19, 2009 in Oakland, Illinois that will tell the story of the 1847 Matson Slave Trial in which Abraham Lincoln represented the master enslaver and that resulted in the freeing of the Bryant family. The program is presented by Independence Pioneer Village, Oakland Historical Foundation, and Oakland Landmarks, Inc.

It is a story of bittersweet daring and historical mystery, involving one of the most divisive issues of our country’s early history, slavery. It reveals hidden parts of our local history, affirms our faith in our legal system, raises questions about our moral bearing and actions, and reflects how we remember or mythologize our heroes.

The Matson Slave Trial is:

• one of the top five trials in Coles County,
• one of the ten most important cases in which Abraham Lincoln participated, and
  
• a turning point for the local free black community at Brushy Fork.
  

Participants will:

• Meet the people involved,
• Watch a performance about the trial,
• Enjoy an 1847 meal, and
• Challenge your preconceived notions of history.

Those wanting more information may contact the project at 217-508-9113 or through e-mail at trial.tribulations1847@gmail.com. Stay tuned for more information.