In this document, Randolph had written: "I give and bequeath to all my slaves their freedom, heartily regretting that I have ever been the owner of one.
Following the 1845 court decision, Randolph's executor, Judge William Leigh, purchased about 3200 acres in Mercer County, Ohio.
An armed mob of German settlers assembled at New Bremen stopped the Randolph Freedpeople from going to their land and forced them to return down the canal.
Period newspaper accounts and oral history suggest that some of the money was spent on purchasing hundreds of such bonds, which were probably never repaid.
On 18 February 1857, William Rial, one of the Freedpeople, bought a plot from landowner W.W. McFarland, founding Randolph Settlement.
[10] In July 1900, the surviving Freedpeople held a reunion at Midway Park in which they formed the Randolph Ex-Slaves Association.
The Mercer County Common Pleas Court ruled that no compensation could be awarded as the statute of limitations, 21 years, had expired.