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A Blast from the Past: Jordan House
One would not usually associate a civil war battle having been waged hardly 5 miles from downtown Des Moines. This was not a battle between union and confederate soldiers. This was a battle to save lives and give freedom to those who were imprisoned and enslaved by the confederate states.
James Cunningham Jordan is considered the first white settler in West Des Moines and the chief conductor of the underground railroad. Jordan grew up on a farm in what is now West Virgina. It was an area where slavery was the norm for the economy and everyday life.
When he was in his teens, he joined a party hunting for escaped slaves from a nearby plantation. After the slaves were caught, no matter how much the slaves begged for mercy and deliverance, they were dragged, if need be, back to the masters homes and a life of slavery. The sickening experience changed Jordan forever.
Jordan’s 1850 Italian Gothic house in West Des Moines had six rooms. Jordan made the decisions about when it was safe for the slaves to leave his house and move along a safe route to freedom. Escaping slaves on their way to Canada usually stayed in the kitchen or hid in the basement of the six room house. At one time as many as 24 slaves were in the house at the same time.
The famous abolitionist, John Brown also stayed at Jordan’s house on December 17, 1858. Several slaves were traveling through Tabor, Iowa with their masters when Brown helped them to escape. In February 1859, Brown again stayed at the house while he planned a raid on the arsenal at Harpers’s Ferry. Ten months later he would be hanged for leading the raid.
The Jordan House serves both as a museum for West Des Moines and as the office of West Des Moines Historical Society.
Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Blast from the Past
