Earlier this year, another important part of the life of Nance Legins-Costley was uncovered by Susan Rynerson of the Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society. As was announced in the May 2022 issue of the TCGHS Monthly (pages 348-349), Nance became the owner of her own home during the approximately five decades that she lived in Pekin.
Rynerson made this discovery on Saturday, 19 March 2022, while engaged in research in early Tazewell County land deeds. There she found a deed of sale dated 19 July 1849, by which “Nancy Costley” purchased the land that her home occupied, Lot 6, Block 26 in the City of Pekin, from William and Caroline Cromwell for the price of $10.
This deed of sale is significant not only for the new light it sheds on Nance’s life, but also for the early history of Pekin and Tazewell County – for it means that Nance had achieved the status of homeowner a mere eight years after the landmark case of Bailey v. Cromwell which had confirmed Nance’s freedom and that of her three oldest children. It also means Nance was one of the earliest African-American landowners in the county.
It’s also interesting and significant that the deed of sale was made out to Nance rather than to her husband Benjamin. Illinois coverture law at that time, however, considered that the land became Benjamin’s by virtue of his being the head of the Costley household. That law was changed in 1861 such that wives would retain title to their land rather than it passing to their husbands.
It is also noteworthy that Nance bought her home from William Cromwell and his wife Caroline, because Nance had lived and worked in the Cromwell household from 1828 until 1836, when her purported master Nathan Cromwell (one of Pekin’s co-founders and father of William) attempted to sell Nance to David Bailey for $376.48. It was Bailey’s refusal to pay that amount (because Nance had again asserted her freedom) that led to the legal process that culminated in the Bailey v. Cromwell ruling of 23 July 1841.
The Pekin city directories for the years 1861, 1871, and 1876 show the Costley family living at the location of Lot 6, Block 26 in Pekin, which is the southwest corner of Somerset and Amanda streets. Rynerson noted, however, that it appears from the map of Pekin in the 1891 Tazewell County atlas that Lot 6 had been covered by the widening of Somerset Street by that time.
Nance and her family left Pekin and moved to Peoria in the late 1870s, but Rynerson found that in 1868 the Costleys lost possession of their home lot due to delinquent property taxes.
Although William Cromwell sold the lot to Nance for only $10, the county decided to assess the value of the land at $200 – no small amount for that period, which would mean an annual tax assessment that Nance and Ben were too poor to be able to pay. The 14 July 1859 issue of The Tazewell Register newspaper listed “Benj Costly” as owner of Lot 6, Block 26, and owing $6.44 in back taxes for the years 1856 and 1857. The taxes were listed as delinquent again in 1860.
Eventually the county auctioned of the Costleys’ home lot to pay off the delinquent taxes. On 10 Oct. 1868, the Tazewell County Sheriff deeded dozens of parcels of land – including Lot 6, Block 26 – to Benjamin Bourland of Peoria. Bourland acquired title to the lot for the price of $9.
In 1875, Bourland quit claimed the land to someone named Eggleston, and then in 1883 (by which time the Costleys had been living in Peoria for at least three years) the Tazewell County Clerk transferred this lot to Joseph Dietz.
Despite their land being sold out from underneath the Costleys, there is no evidence that the Costleys were evicted from their home. It seems rather that as long as the county received its property tax revenue, the Costleys were left unmolested. It is known from William H. Bates’ 1870 history of Pekin that Nance herself was esteemed in the community: “For more than forty years she has been known here as a ‘negro’ upon whom there was no discount, and her presence and services have been indispensible on many a select occasion,” Bates wrote.
During the course of the 1870s, some of the Costley children (by then adults) moved to Peoria, and toward the end of that decade their parents joined them there also. Benjamin Costley first appears in the Peoria city directories in 1880, and he died in Peoria in 1883. Nance followed him in death almost 10 years later, in 1892. She, Ben, and their son Leander were buried in Moffatt Cemetery in Peoria.
