Free Frank McWorter

Free Frank McWorter (c. 1777 – September 7, 1854) was an American born into slavery who bought his freedom in Kentucky and in 1836 founded the town of New Philadelphia in Illinois; he was the first African American to plat and register a town, and establish a planned community in the United States. The New Philadelphia town site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2009 and made a National Park Service site in 2022.

Frank McWorter was born enslaved on a Southern plantation to an enslaved African-American mother. His and his mother's white enslaver was also his biological father. As an adult, in his spare time, after completing work for his enslaver (and father), Frank was allowed to use a cave to gather and prepare for sale saltpeter, a natural ingredient for gunpowder. In this way, Frank saved sufficient funds first to buy his wife's freedom, and Frank then bought his own (thus, he became "Free" Frank). He eventually gave up his saltpeter operation in exchange for the freedom of some of his children and moved to Illinois. Over several decades, McWorter and his estate spent about $500,000 (in 2021 dollars) to buy the freedom of some 15 to 22 enslaved family members in Kentucky. Several of these freedom purchases were financed by selling his New Philadelphia lots.

In the late 20th century, a local history group recruited archaeologists to explore the long-abandoned Illinois town site. Teams from the University of Maryland, College Park, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and De Paul University have worked for years on research and excavations, collected data about residents from census and land records, and turned up thousands of artifacts. In addition, they have trained students at summer field schools and published reports, articles, and books on the history of McWorter, his family, and his town.

McWorter's descendants donated the collected 11 volumes of documentation to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in February 2008. In addition, the family donated a bronze bust of Frank McWorter by his great-great-granddaughter Shirley McWorter Moss.

Move to Illinois In 1830, Frank, Lucy, and their four free children moved to Pike County, Illinois. By the second year, they started farming. In 1836, Frank filed a plat to create the village of New Philadelphia on that he had purchased from the federal government for $100 (~$ in ). The town site, divided into 144 lots, was registered with government authorities in 1836. McWorter established residence in New Philadelphia with his family and sold other lots to new residents. Both blacks and whites settled there and supported an integrated school. It was the crossroads of an agricultural community and, when founded, proposed as being on the route of a planned Illinois-Michigan canal (which was never built.)

In 1837, Free Frank petitioned the Illinois legislature (as was required) to officially take the surname McWorter. In that same year, the legislation was passed to "make 'Frank McWorter' his legal name." This technicality gave him certain rights normally reserved for white men in Illinois. He could bring lawsuits to court and legally marry his wife of more than 40 years. But, he still could not vote."

McWorter was the first black man in the United States to incorporate a municipality. He served as mayor of New Philadelphia, which was soon settled by African and European Americans, for years.

McWorter lived most of the rest of his life in western Illinois, with intervals in Kentucky before the American Civil War to buy freedom for his three grown children and grandchildren left in Kentucky. For instance, in 1835, he returned and purchased the freedom of his son Solomon. On each trip, he risked capture by unscrupulous slave traders despite his legally free status. McWorter died on September 7, 1854; by then, he had bought the freedom of eight more of his relatives. Through his work, he gained freedom for 16 members of his family. His heirs used his inheritance to free seven more relatives.

Town's decline In 1869, the first railroad was built through Pike County, bypassing New Philadelphia to the north for Baylis, which had a train station. Businesses moved there for better access. The population of New Philadelphia rapidly declined. By the end of the nineteenth century, some townsites had reverted to farmland for cultivation, but other areas were inhabited through the 1920s.