Arrest
The freedom seeker was detained after reaching Hamilton.
Direct event site
The jail and the courthouse were not the same place
After the freedom seeker was arrested in Hamilton, he was transported by dray to the Butler County jail. The jail then in service had been erected in 1846 on the lot immediately south of the public square, fronting Basin Street, today's Court Street.
The habeas corpus proceeding that followed belongs to the courthouse and public-square portion of the story. Keeping the jail and courthouse separate matters because the 1854 sequence moved through distinct legal and physical spaces: arrest, detention at the jail, court intervention, release, and then assistance by Hamilton's local network.
Historic geography: Project mapping identifies the 1846 jail parcel as Lot 84. The exact relationship of the photographed building to later alterations and demolition should continue to be documented as part of the project's historic-integrity research.
The 1854 sequence
From detention to release
Transport to jail
He was taken by dray to the Butler County jail.
Habeas corpus
N. C. McFarland and John R. Lewis sought judicial review of the detention.
Release
Judge Thomas H. Wilkins ordered the man discharged.
Local assistance
After release, later testimony places Alfred J. Anderson and other Hamilton contacts in the onward movement.
Photographic source
Preserving the physical landscape
Historic photographs like this one help reconstruct Hamilton's antebellum and nineteenth-century landscape after buildings have been replaced or removed. The image is especially valuable because it lets visitors distinguish the jail from the courthouse and visualize a documented event site in the 1854 case.