In 2008, a commemorative sign was installed to honor the life and pursuit of freedom that an escaped slave from Tennessee had fought for before the onset of the Civil War in 1861.

The historical marker tells the story of how Alexander McClure was found inside a shipping box while being transferred at the Seymour railroad depot, where the Jackson County Visitor Center sits now.

After a mowing accident in the summer of 2020 left the sign broken, it disappeared for more than two and a half years. Some of the locals noticed its disappearance over the next couple of years, curious if it had been moved to a different location or was missing for some other reason.

During the last week of February, the marker was finally returned to the same spot where it had stood since 2008 in front of the visitor center.

While many were pleased to see the marker returned, the curiosity of its long disappearance never went away.

“When the zero-turn mower accidentally hit the pole of the sign, the sheer weight of it broke and caused it to fall over,” said Jordan Richart, public relations manager for the visitor center.

When the city took the sign to get it fixed, it had to be shipped to a specialized facility for repair. That company had a backlog of projects that were filed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s a very important art piece, and it’s a shame that it took so long, but there wasn’t a whole lot we could do about the situation,” Richart said.

According to the Indiana Historical Bureau, McClure’s story began on April 14, 1860, when he was a slave living in Nashville, Tennessee, and arranged for friends to place him in a small box and ship him to Hannah M. Johnson in care of Levi Coffin in Cincinnati, Ohio.

As the train stopped at the Seymour railroad depot, McClure’s box needed to be transferred to the southeast-bound train. A rushed transfer of cargo caused the box to be broken, leading to his discovery.

McClure was then arrested and held at a jail in Louisville, Kentucky, before being extradited to Tennessee.

McClure implicated three men in his attempt of escape.

Nathan James, a free Black man at the time, was arrested for his involvement and found to be an escaped slave himself. Afterwards, it was unclear what happened to James, but he appeared to have been sold into slavery after the incident.

Alfred Savage, the slave who allegedly introduced McClure to the third conspirator, a white man, whose identity was never revealed, received 15 lashes without his shirt for his involvement.

Coffin, who was a Quaker, an abolitionist and an active leader in the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Ohio, was questioned about his role in the escape but denied any knowledge of the incident.

Many accused Coffin of knowing what was in the box and lying about his knowledge of the situation. In response, Coffin wrote a letter to the Cincinnati Commercial, which was then reprinted in the Nashville newspapers.

In the letter, he again stated no knowledge that an individual was shipped, he did not know Hannah Johnson, nor would be encourage someone to travel in such a manner. The papers responded again calling him a liar.

Despite the failed escape, McClure was found living and working in Nashville at the time after the Civil War.

The box that McClure was hid in was a 3-by-2-foot pine box and was to be shipped from Nashville to Cincinnati. By the time McClure was discovered, he had already been cramped inside the box for 15 hours.

According to a newspaper article, it noted the reward for the return of McClure was around $1,500 to $2,000.

The visitor center currently has a replica of the box McClure would have hidden in during his ride to freedom.

“The sign is an important part of our history and serves as a reminder for how far someone was willing to go for a chance at freedom,” Richart said.

The historical marker can be found in front of the visitor center near the railroad tracks at 100 N. Broadway St., Seymour.

This is a replica of the box Alexander McClure was cramped in for 15 hours before being discovered by depot workers on April 14, 1860.

Submitted photo | Jackson County Visitor Center