Boxley Cabin |
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From The Wilderness...And Now...Into Public View
Boxley was a family man who had deeply loved his life in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. But tensions were growing. After a sabotaged slave rebellion meant to ignite a full-scale revolution, Boxley was immediately jailed, suspected as the ringleader. Most believe he was guilty, although he had a lot to lose-he had been a prosperous merchant and miller. For threatened neighbors, jail was a perfect penalty for their long-suffering of Boxley. They hated his incessant condemnations, his vehement urgings to free those who were long mistreated while hopelessly laboring as servants in households or plowing fields and harvesting crops. Sitting in the Spotsylvania County jail, the restless Boxley, now regarded as a felon, watched as others accused were tried and hung. More were "sent south" as brutal punishment for roles in the uprising, and Boxley knew his coming indictment carried a potential death sentence. While in confinement, Boxley wrote poetic laments-until his wife, Hannah, smuggled a spring saw into his cell. After his escape, he returned to fiery rhetoric against slavery. Most writings were published under alias names, likely written while in the shelter of a growing number of loyal new friends who shared his views. On the lam, bounty hunters chased Boxley throughout the Midwest for 12 years, until he found safety in Indiana on Sheridan's Pioneer Hill. Living in the handcrafted hilltop cabin, Boxley was concealed by wilderness forest and was gradually joined by other settlers and his family in an area eventually named Sheridan. With 11 children to support, he became a farmer and served as a schoolteacher until he died in 1865 at the age of he believed in at a time when contrary opinions were unpopular. He was among the first in an escalating movement to reject slavery-43 years before John Brown was hung for his bold role at Harper's Ferry in 1859. The cabin where Boxley lived and taught school has only been in public hands for a few years. Now the people of Sheridan want to unfold the legacy and tell the story, one of national significance, as funds are raised to preserve and protect this precious landmark. |
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George Boxley was a driven, educated man of English Descent-always known for his independent thinking. Paramount for his life and time, Boxley believed slavery was absolutely wrong, un-American and total hypocrisy. He could never reconcile the precious tenets of liberty claimed in all the documents founding the United States while the nation still embraced the dark practices of human bondage. Slavery, to Boxley, was an intolerable stain on our young nation, and his outrage reached a tipping point in 1816. |
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