Sarah Angleton, the author of several books of historical fiction, including one featuring a founder of the former MacMurray College, will appear at the Jacksonville Area Museum on Saturday, April 30 at 10 a.m. for a presentation and book signing. The event is free and open to the public, and no advance reservations are required.
Angleton’s White Man’s Graveyard is about the issue of removing freed slaves from the United States to Liberia in the mid-1800s. The book’s two main characters, siblings Annie and Sylvanus, were real people and Angleton’s ancestors. Sylvanus was a missionary physician with the Methodist Episcopal Church who went to Liberia to serve the freed Blacks who were establishing a colony there. But it was his sister Annie who had the Jacksonville connections.
“Annie married Reverend Peter Akers, the circuit rider who prophesied in 1837 at a camp meeting that slavery would soon end and that one who was in the crowd that day may have an important role to play,” Angleton said. “A young Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln was there that day and was listening.”
Akers was a founder of the Illinois Conference Female Academy, established in 1846, that was the forerunner of MacMurray College. Angleton did key research at MacMurray College for Akers’ role in her book. The material that Angleton used for her research is now part of the MacMurray College Foundation and Alumni Association collection at the Jacksonville Area Museum.
Angleton’s other books include Gentleman of Misfortune, a tale of scoundrels, mummies, and the Joseph Smith Papyri; Smoke Rose to Heaven, a tale of fanaticism, treachery, and the Spalding Enigma; and Launching Sheep & Other Stories from the Intersection of History and Nonsense, a humorous look at history from the perspective of modern-day family life. Visit www.sarah-angleton.com for more information.