From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)
Colored Apprentice from Maysville, KY [George Trumbo]
(start date: 1876)An unnamed colored apprentice was at the center of the lawsuit between Maysville undertaker, William S. Beauchamp (1828-1879), and businessman, Edward Lowe Martin (1842-1912). There were several newspaper reports in April of 1876 when the Circuit Court in Maysville, KY, awarded W. S. Beauchamp the sum of $325 for two and a half years of service that was not received when Edward L. Martin removed the apprenticed child from Beauchamp's guardianship.
The apprentice system for children was established after the U.S. Civil War. Through the local courts, children would be taken from their parents and reprimanded to a family until the child became an adult. For African American children it was the continuation of enslavement beyond the ratification of the 13th Amendment that abolish slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States.
There was no explanation as to the relationship between the apprenticed child in Maysville, KY, and Edward L. Martin who had moved from Maysville in 1868. Martin prospered in Missouri, including having served as the 15th Mayor of Kansas City, MO, from 1873 to 1874; a judge with the Jackson County Courts (MO); and president of the Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Gulf Railroad. While in Missouri, Edward L. Martin challenged Beauchamp's lawsuit in Kentucky. The case went before the Kentucky Court of Appeals at least once prior to the final settlement granted by the Maysville Circuit Court in 1876.
William S. Beauchamp died on April 15, 1879. Edward L. Martin and his family remained in Missouri. Enumerated in the Martin household in 1870 was George Trumbo, a 14-year-old African American who was employed as a stable boy. Trumbo was born in Kentucky around 1855. He was still with the Edward L. Martin family when enumerated in the 1880 U.S. Census. His last name is spelled many different ways in the census schedules: Trimbo, Trumbull, Trumbo.
In 1910, George Trumbo was enumerated in the U.S. Census as a Mulatto who was head of the household with his wife, Maria, and a son named Frank. The family lived in Kansas City, MO, and George was employed as a laborer doing odd jobs.
Sources: Slavery after Slavery by Mary Frances Berry; The Work of Freedom: African American Child Exploitation in Reconstruction Kentucky by Ashlea Hope Fishburn-Moore (Thesis, Wright State University, 2021) online; "Damages." The Weekly Maysville Eagle, 26 April 1876, p.3; "W. S. Beauchamp was awarded ..." The Maysville Bulletin, 27 April 1876, p.3; "W. S. Beauchamp was awarded ..." The Paris True Kentuckian, 26 April 1876, p.2; "Judge E. L. Martin is dead." St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat, 16 December 1912, p.11; Ancestry.com; William S. Beauchamp at Find a Grave.