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Adam Crosswhite

Slavery survivor (1799–1878)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 10, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Adam Crosswhite (1799–1878) was a former slave who fled slavery along the Underground Railroad and settled in Marshall, Michigan. In 1847, slavers from Kentucky came to Michigan to kidnap African Americans and return them to slavery in Kentucky. Citizens of the town surrounded the Crosswhites' house and prevented them from being abducted. The Crosswhites fled to Canada, and their former owner, Francis Giltner, filed a suit, Giltner vs. Gorham et al., against residents of Marshall. Giltner won the case and was compensated for the loss of the Crosswhite family. After the Civil War, Crosswhite returned to Marshall, where he lived the rest of his life.

Editorial summary

“Adam Crosswhite” enters the record as slavery survivor (1799–1878). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Adam, Crosswhite and Slavery can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1799, 1878, 1847—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Adam, Crosswhite and Slavery.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Adam Crosswhite” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Adam, Crosswhite and Slavery provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1799, 1878 and 1847.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Adam Crosswhite”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Adam Crosswhite primary sources, Adam Crosswhite archive and Adam research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Adam Crosswhite” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.