Publication Title

Crossings

Cold Spring's Slave Connection: Woman Uses Profits from Slave Trade to Develop Central Minnesota City

Authors

Christopher P. Lehman, St. Cloud State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2021

Abstract

In 1857 Sarah Felton-Jodon became one of the cofounders of the town Cold Spring in Stearns County, Minnesota. She and her husband's family had moved to Minnesota years earlier from western Virginia, where her husband Benjamin Jodon had enslaved African Americans. They arrived during Minnesota's territorial years, and the US Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision in 1857 legalized slavery there. In that historical context, the Jodons chose to practice slavery in Minnesota and use their wealth from slavery to invest in the territory. Felton-Jodon's investment in Cold Spring's development irreversibly tied the Stearns County town to the national institution of African American slavery.

Comments

This article was published in Crossings, a magazine produced by the Stearns History Museum in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Recommended Citation

Lehman, Christopher P., "Cold Spring's Slave Connection: Woman Uses Profits from Slave Trade to Develop Central Minnesota City" (2021). Ethnic and Women's Studies Faculty Publications. 8.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/ews_facpubs/8

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.