Albert Shucks Woods & Family

Albert “Shucks” Woods (1844-1894), PF lot 1396

Albert (Ab.) Woods (1844-1894), a short-statured man, was born enslaved on July 18, 1844 in Arkansas. Known by every man, woman, and child in Lawrence as “Shucks,” “he was a quiet, good-natured fellow and never meddled with other folks’ business,” although some folks considered him to be an “eccentric character.” Sometime during or after the Civil War, he had one arm shot off, but this disability did not interfere with or stop him from working energetically at various jobs around town. “He worked all the time and at anything that was offered him,” such as sawing wood, setting an example for younger generations.¹ Among his many odd jobs, he cared for an old sorrel horse with a game leg that a white tailor gave him and also sold Newfoundland and Dalmatian (“coach”) dogs.²

Tragedy struck one evening in 1869 when the Woods’ “small shanty” at the corner of Vermont and 6th streets (near the jail) was consumed by fire. His wife Lucretia (1847-1930) was out at time, but when she saw the flames from the roof, she rushed into the house and saved their four-year-old child Johnny. The family lost everything in the fire, but merchants and citizens quickly came to the family’s aid by donating money and provisions totaling $101.75 (or $2,229 in 2022 dollars). Within weeks, people raised a new house with a hearthstone for the family on north Kentucky street.³ (One year later, the Vermont street school at 610 Vermont would be built behind their home.)

In 1873, Mr. and Mrs. Woods lost two children: 4-year-old Mary (May) (1869-1873) and 7-year-old Johnny (1866-1873). After Mary’s death from pneumonia on May 28, Johnny drowned in the Kansas (Kaw) River on June 26. While playing along the river with some other boys above the bridge, he got on a log that rolled him into the river and the swift current carried him away. He rose up four times, but there was no one nearby who could rescue him. Mary was buried in potter’s field, but apparently Johnny’s body was never found for a proper burial.⁴

Feeling the sting of his family’s poverty, Edward/Edwin (Ed) (1872-1889), the eldest son, joined the “Steal Drive Gang” at age 11 with other Black boys beginning in 1883. He and another boy stole fifteen new grain sacks from a wagon and then sold most sacks to Star Grocery for 10¢ each and other sacks to a boy to buy a knife and some dice. When Albert could not pay his son’s $31.50 fine ($398 today), Ed was sent to the reform school. But he was arrested for two more thefts (a buffalo robe and four pairs of pants) and spent time in the reform school or the county jail. After serving a two-year term in the state penitentiary for breaking into a house, he was released in 1887 and began working for Carmean and Harbaugh at their livery stable, saving his earnings to support his parents. Then, two years later, his reckless Black friend, Bud Franklin, a one-armed bootlegger, shot him in the stomach through a glass door when Ed tried to retrieve his coat. Ed was carried to the bathhouse on Vermont street, examined by the coroner, and sent to his parents’ home. At the preliminary trial, Albert had to testify that his son died from a fatal pistol shot. After Edwin’s funeral, he was in Section 4 at Oak Hill Cemetery.⁵

Five year later in 1894, Albert “Shucks” Woods died from a physical “strain” that “paralyzed him and injured [his] vital parts.” After “a large number of friends” attended his funeral, he was buried in potter’s field at Oak Hill Cemetery.⁶

In 1901, Lucretia Woods married James Essex (1852-1933), a widowed farmer, and they lived at 1115 Indiana Street. Having joined the First Grand Independent Benevolent Society of Kansas, founded in Leavenworth in 1868, as a charter member, she and husband shared activities in Lawrence’s No. 2 lodge. As one of Lawrence’s earliest residents, Mrs. Essex attended an Old Settlers’ reunion in 1926 and died in 1930 at the age of 82. Her funeral was held at St. Luke AME church.⁷

Before her death, two of her older sons died from heartbreaking deaths: Albert “Little Shucks” Woods (1882-1906) died in a tragic train accident on the Santa Fe tracks, and Oscar A., known as “Hun,” struggled with alcoholism and drowned in the Kansas (Kaw) River when he fell out of a skiff south of the dam.⁸ Daughter Alice (Mrs. Edward Howard) (1884-1936) died at her home (420 Michigan street) from a cerebral embolism (stroke), and Bert Woods (1879-1858) died in Kansas City, Missouri, where he had been working for many years.⁹