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GU I D E to Y E L L OW S P R I NG S | 2O22 – 2O23 5 Though he was born into slavery, Wheeling Gaunt was able to buy his freedom and the freedom of two relatives and build an extensive estate, part of which he would donate to the Village government before he died. Little is known about Gaunt’s life, so it’s unclear why he would give the Village nine acres of farmland and start a tradition — the delivery of flour and sugar to Yellow Springs widows — that contin - ues today. In 1812, Wheeling Gaunt was born into slavery on a tobacco plantation owned by a John F. Gaunt on the Ohio River in Carrollton, Ky. When he was 4, Wheeling Gaunt’s mother was sold to a slave trader who was headed south, and Gaunt never saw her again. Every day he worked in the fields for his enslaver, harvesting the crop, drying the leaves and plant- ing the new tobacco seeds. But he had a vision. It is unclear how long Gaunt had to work or how much he made from “blacking boots and peddling apples,” as local historian Phyllis Lawson wrote in a research file on Gaunt. But somehow, after devot - ing 32 years of his life to a man known as his “master,” he managed to save enough money, $900, to buy himself out of slavery, and on June 20, 1845, Wheeling Gaunt was a free man. Because the monumental task of purchasing his own freedom didn’t mean anything unless he could share it with his family, he remained in Carrollton to work and save money to purchase two other enslaved people. Because he was no longer enslaved, Gaunt was able to move up the labor ladder, and he drove wagons as a teamster and continued to work on others’ farms. In April 1847, Gaunt paid N.D. Smith $200 for a 21-year-old relative named Nick on condition that Smith was “not responsible for the health or soundness of said slave.” Three years later Gaunt bought his wife, Amanda, for $500. When he later realized she was technically his prop- erty, he filed manumission papers for her freedom, Scott Sanders, the Antioch College archivist said. All the while Gaunt was amassing property throughout WHEELING GAUNT’S LASTING LEGACY By LAUREN HEATON From “Two Hundred Years of Yellow Springs,” 2005 Carrollton. In 1847, the same year he purchased Nick, he bought his first property with a home on it. According to Sanders, by the time Gaunt was ready to move on, he had acquired perhaps 10 proper- ties, some in Carrolton’s com - mercial district. Even as a landowner, Gaunt was still considered by some to occupy a lower rung in society. An 1850 national census report on Gaunt’s estate lists two presumably white tenants ahead of the Gaunts themselves. The family came to Yellow Springs some time in the 1860s, and Gaunt built a two- story green revival brick home on a sizable property near the corner of North Walnut and Dayton streets. He then added three to four small cot- ▲ Continuing a Yellow Springs holiday tradition, Village employees Mike Applin, left, and Joel Crandall distributed flour and sugar to more than 100 widows through the village in 1984. The recipient here is Mrs. Harmon Stancliff. Wheeling Gaunt’s tradition persists today.