Never Caught Read online

  The beast that slept in every slave’s soul was awakened. Confronting a future with Eliza Law coaxed the hunger for freedom out of the recesses of Judge’s mind, and now she was willing to fight for what she clearly believed was her right. Her decision to run was just the beginning of her liberation.

  The waiting was difficult. For nearly two weeks, Judge had to calm her nerves and suppress her anger, as allies completed the planning for her escape. She could not raise suspicions, so Judge worked in tandem with the rest of the household, as they made the necessary preparations for a lengthy trip back to Mount Vernon. Judge later stated,

  Whilst they were packing up to go to Virginia, I was packing to go, I didn’t know where; for I knew that if I went back to Virginia, I never should get my liberty.

  Judge kept her plans a secret, making certain not to share information with anyone who lived in the Executive Mansion. She knew that fearful or jealous slaves were often responsible for foiled fugitive escapes; she decided to rely only on the assistance of free blacks who resided outside the walls of the president’s home.

  Not only did Ona Judge have to pack her things to leave, she also had to determine when she would escape. Although the Executive Mansion possessed more slaves and servants than did most Northern residences, Judge was the first lady’s preferred house slave and had to be available at all times for whatever reason. There was only one duty from which she was exempt: meal preparation. The famed Hercules and a kitchen staff prepared all the meals served to the president and the first family. Judge sometimes received a bit of free time during the afternoon meal and the evening supper, as other servants or slaves were assigned to serve the Washingtons. The president often entertained dinner guests, extending the festivities into the evening and inviting guests to retire to the parlor to enjoy a bit of wine and additional conversation. This would be the only moment that Judge could use to her advantage.

  And when the moment arrived, she gathered her steely nerves and fled. On Saturday, May 21, 1796, Ona Judge slipped out of the Executive Mansion while the Washingtons ate their supper. She disappeared into the free black community of Philadelphia.

  No one knows exactly when Martha Washington realized that her prized slave was missing. Perhaps dinner ran well into the evening, and Judge’s absence went unnoticed until late that night. Or maybe the president and his wife uncovered her escape just minutes after Judge left the Executive Mansion. The details may never be uncovered. But once the Washingtons realized that Judge was gone, they quickly understood that it was highly unlikely that she possessed any intention of returning. Washington was accustomed to slaves running away from Mount Vernon. On occasion, they would return after several days or weeks, but unlike past attempts made by fugitives, Judge’s starting point was in the North. And the Washingtons knew time wasn’t on their side.

  On May 23, 1796, just two days later, Frederick Kitt, the steward for the Executive Mansion, placed an ad in the Philadelphia Gazette acknowledging the disappearance of Ona Judge. He placed another ad in Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser the next day with additional details about the escape. The language of the runaway ad was similar to others that appeared in eighteenth-century newspapers, describing Ona Judge while simultaneously announcing that she had defied the president:

  Absconded from the household of the President of the United States on Saturday afternoon, ONEY JUDGE, a light Mulatto girl, much freckled, with very black eyes, and bushy black hair—She is of middle stature, but slender, and delicately made, about 20 years of age.

  Judge’s runaway ad went on to describe the possessions that she had packed up. The ad noted that Judge had “many changes of very good clothes of all sorts, but they are not sufficiently recollected to describe.”

  Frederick Kitt’s ads alerted shadowy slave catchers to Judge’s probable escape route: the Delaware River. The advertisement warned all who worked on the docks of Philadelphia’s busy port that the runaway would take to the open seas,

  But as she may attempt to escape by water, all matters of vessels are cautioned against admitting her into them, although it is probable she will attempt to pass for a free woman, and has, it is said, wherewithal to pay her passage.

  A ten-dollar reward (the cost of a barrel of flour) was offered for Judge’s return—a typical amount proposed by slaveholders trying to reclaim their property. However, wanting to ensure a successful outcome, Judge’s owners offered the reward to anyone who turned her in, no matter their race. Kitt’s second and subsequent ads for Judge’s return stated, “Ten dollars will be paid to any person, (white or black) who will bring her home, if taken in the city, or on board any vessel in the harbor.”

  Judge knew that the moment she walked out of the President’s Mansion she would become a hunted woman. She would transform from a trusted house slave for the most powerful American family to a criminal, guilty of stealing her own body away from her owners. Now she had to leave the city of Philadelphia as fast as possible and search for an environment in which she would be safe from the president’s grasp. Although a few scholars suggest that Judge may have spent some time hiding among the free black community of Philadelphia, it is highly unlikely. This was a formidable task, as federal law made every state in the nation a danger zone for fugitives.

  Word spread about the runaway slave woman, and reports of supposed sightings trickled back to the president quickly. On June 28, trusted friend Thomas Lee Jr. wrote to Washington about his female fugitive. Apparently, the president had asked his friend to inquire about Judge in and around New York. Lee obliged him, and after a bit of investigation, discovered that the escapee had indeed made her way to New York. According to Lee, “a free mulattoe Woman” who served as a cook in one of New York’s numerous boardinghouses reported that “she is well acquained [sic] with Oney & that she has been here” and was supposedly headed to Boston. But Lee didn’t trust her claim. The free woman might have been trying to lead Lee down an errant path with false information. Or maybe she was simply mistaken and was confusing Judge for someone else. Thomas Lee may not have been certain about the supposed sighting of Judge, but he took no chances and notified law-enforcement authorities in New York about the possibility of the fugitive’s presence anyway.

  Judge would have been warned against spending any time in New York, the place she once called home and where she was recognizable. Free blacks in Philadelphia would have urged her to flee with the most urgent speed and to make no stops along the way to her final destination. Harboring a fugitive was punishable by a fine and/or imprisonment, and to assist the president’s slave in her escape would have been even more dangerous. Those who aided Judge pushed for an expeditious departure, knowing the president was prepared to use all of his immense power to recapture his property. Judge needed to leave Philadelphia as fast as possible and looked to the wharves of the Delaware River to make her escape.

  In fact, Judge escaped the city by boat. In her 1845 interview, Judge told of her journey to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on a vessel that was commanded by Captain John Bowles. Judge remained secretive about her escape almost her whole life, only announcing the name of the captain more than a decade after his death, in July of 1837: “I never told his name till after he died, a few years since, lest they should punish him for bringing me away.” Ona Judge knew that she owed her life to Bowles.

  Like many other eighteenth-century sailors, John Bowles operated a shipping business with a partner, Thomas Leigh. The two ran their freight business along the eastern coast transporting lumber and fish to the port cities of New York and Philadelphia. They sold their items at market and returned with leather goods such as boots, bridles, and saddles to sell in New Hampshire’s seaport town. Bowles knew the Atlantic well. He most likely began his relationship with the sea as an apprenticed deckhand, quickly moving up the ranks and eventually commanding his own ship, the Nancy. For many years he conducted his business up and down the North Atlantic coast, traveling to the Caribbean and back until the English
navy captured his ship in 1800.

  In 1796 Bowles was still very active, however. The local Portsmouth newspaper Oracle of the Day reported the departures and arrivals of ships and announced the items that would be exported and imported. The Portsmouth Customs House cleared the Nancy’s voyage to Philadelphia in early May of 1796. Bowles most likely left the Portsmouth harbor and sailed directly to Philadelphia, a trip that would have taken four to five days, weather permitting. The Philadelphia Gazette announced Bowles’s arrival in the city on May 10, and while docked in Philadelphia, Bowles advertised his wares for sale as well as reasonably priced freight and passenger rates. The captain lingered in the Philadelphia port, perhaps looking to pick up additional passengers or to sell as much of his cargo as possible. Ona Judge eventually boarded Bowles’s ship, a sloop that carried molasses, coffee, potatoes, leather goods, and candles. The Nancy slipped out of Philadelphia sometime after Saturday, May 21. If Bowles charged her, she would have paid for it either out of the money shared from the “gifts” the Washingtons doled out, a dollar here and a dollar there, or she was assisted by the free black community who most likely steered Judge toward Bowles and may have aided with her fare.

  The commander of the Nancy was not publicly known for his antislavery sentiment, but he must have been a relatively safe bet and not known as hostile to runaways. Judge’s fair skin, her clothing, and perhaps her demeanor may have led Bowles to assume that his passenger was a free woman instead of a hunted slave. But while her appearance may not have alerted Bowles, traveling alone as a young woman would have caused most people to raise an eyebrow. In the 1790s, few women (black or white) traveled unaccompanied, as the social norms mandated that women travel with a chaperone, such as a family member or a friend, especially if their travels took them far from home. Young women who traveled by themselves were most likely running from someone or something.

  Captain Bowles turned a blind eye to the unusual passenger. He was a man who had traveled the Atlantic and had met many people, and while he might not have known that the young traveler was the president’s slave, he could tell that Ona Judge had a reason for wanting to leave the city. Fortunately for Judge, Bowles either didn’t care about the young woman’s past or was perhaps sympathetic to the plight of black slaves. Grateful for the shipmaster’s acceptance, Judge quietly boarded his ship, beginning her life anew, now as a fugitive.

  Nine

  * * *

  Slavery and Freedom in New Hampshire

  The Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser, May 17, 1796. Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

  The crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean hurled saddles and candles from one side of the storage hold to another. The smell of molasses and coffee was thick, nauseating passengers who were unaccustomed to sailing with Bowles on his frequent trips between Philadelphia, New York, and Portsmouth. Transportation in the eighteenth century was never easy, and traveling by sea could be dangerous. Old and poorly inspected ships slipped in and out of cities with torn sails and weathered caulking, hoping to make it to the next port without incident. Ona Judge had never before sailed on such a ship, a single-masted sloop that could carry up to seventy-five people (depending on the size of the cargo). These vessels were designed to haul freight from one coastal town to the next, but ship captains like Bowles earned extra money by allowing passengers to ride along. Any seafaring voyages that Judge might have taken with the Washingtons would have been close to enjoyable. Short river crossings in relatively luxurious vessels were what Judge had come to know, but she had turned her back on all of it. Now on board the Nancy, space was minimal and travelers lodged themselves wherever there was room. Once again, the fugitive found herself sleeping in tight quarters, but this time it was with strangers—some were traveling home to visit with family and friends and others who, like Judge, were leaving behind a difficult past for the possibilities of a new future in Portsmouth.

  The unsettled sea likely forced Judge’s stomach to turn somersaults, sending her to look for refuge from her nausea above deck. The wind would cool her flushed and sweaty forehead, offering temporary relief from seasickness. Surely other passengers suffered the same way, hanging their bodies over the sides of the sloop, releasing the contents of their stomach into the Atlantic. Every morning when the sun lifted itself above the horizon, Judge would have looked out across the ocean, thankful to have survived another day away from her owners, but still, she was terrified.

  For five days, Judge contained her fear. She could not appear too nervous, as passengers were already throwing quick and curious glances toward the light-skinned black woman who traveled alone. She knew that the Washingtons were looking for her and that by now her name and a bounty probably appeared in many of the Philadelphia newspapers. She wondered how much of a reward was attached to her recapture, a thought that sent her eyes to scan the strangers on board. Surely none of Washington’s agents had made it to Bowles’s ship before it left Dock Street, but she wouldn’t know this for certain until the Nancy reached New Hampshire.

  The beautiful and expensive clothing that she wore to serve the Washingtons was packed away, and instead, Judge would have dressed in inconspicuous clothing, allowing her to hide in plain sight. She was a hunted woman and would try to pass, not for white, but as a free black Northern woman.

  During her five-day journey, Judge reviewed her arrival plans over and over again. Her Philadelphia friends had not shared with her the ship’s destination or any other details about her journey until Judge was about to set sail. This kind of discretion was necessary to protect the fugitive and all those who helped in her escape, but the lack of information and the not knowing must have fueled her anxiety. Before she departed Philadelphia she was likely told who would help her once she arrived in Portsmouth, and given a description of a chaperone who would meet her near the docks and lead her to relative safety. Everything that Judge knew about her future in New Hampshire was conveyed to her in haste.

  Even if Judge had been literate and able to write down her instructions, she would have been warned against doing so. Her Philadelphia friends surely demanded that the escape plan be committed to memory with no existing documentation that could tie her to the free black community. Judge had a lot to think about during her time at sea, most likely worrying about the basics in life such as food, shelter, and safety. How would she take care of herself once she arrived in her new city, and could she remain hidden for the rest of her life? She knew that it was just a matter of time before her owners sent slave catchers to look for her. Judge would have wondered if Portsmouth was far enough away from the Washingtons to ever allow her peace of mind, and perhaps she second-guessed her decision to run away. But there was no turning back.

  Weak from a difficult journey and filled with fear, Judge nevertheless placed one foot in front of another and disembarked. Perhaps she offered her thanks to John Bowles, but more than likely, she quickly left the wharf, just in case there were slave catchers on the prowl. Ona Judge’s friends in Philadelphia must have thought that Portsmouth would be a relatively safe location for her to live in anonymity. Although the black population was small, the hope was that Judge could find a way to secretly integrate into a new community more than three hundred miles away from Philadelphia.

  Portsmouth was unlike any place Ona Judge had ever lived. Different from the bustling environs of a Philadelphia or a New York, Portsmouth was a growing port city with a developing eighteenth-century shipping industry. But compared to Philadelphia, the city was tiny, counting close to five thousand residents. Judge was accustomed to moving, making new friends, and learning the new sights and smells of a city. But this was the first time that Judge moved without the comfort of family or friends. She didn’t have the reliability of her older brother, nor did she have the advice of the enslaved Moll to help direct her. Judge didn’t know a soul in Portsmouth. She was completely alone.

  It wouldn’t take long for Judge to realize the differences between Por
tsmouth and Philadelphia, but one of the most startling contrasts was that her new city counted very few black people. At the time of Judge’s arrival, there were fewer than eight hundred black men and women living in New Hampshire, and fewer than two hundred of them were enslaved. Similar to the rest of New England, three out of every four citizens who lived there at the end of the eighteenth century were of English, Scottish, or Irish ancestry. Judge’s new community of black men and women in Portsmouth never climbed above 2 or 3 percent of the population, and the majority of them lived and worked along the sea and the rivers. It wouldn’t take long for Judge to become acquainted with her new community; there were fewer black people in the entire city of Portsmouth than there were slaves living at Mount Vernon.

  Judge’s first priority was to find a place to live, no easy task for a single black woman with limited resources. Once again, she would have to rely on a network of free blacks, this time in Portsmouth. They undoubtedly were prepared for the fugitive’s arrival, directing Judge to her new temporary home, where she “lodged at a Free-Negroes.” Free blacks in Portsmouth were accustomed to helping fugitive slaves.

  With the question of temporary housing settled, Judge set about to find work. She would need to locate an employment opportunity quickly, one that would allow her to support herself. Grateful for the roof over her head, Judge would have wanted to prove to her hosts that she was ambitious and determined to be independent. If she took too long locating employment, her hosts might tire of her, or worse, feel resentful. Judge was a superior seamstress and was capable of making the most beautiful clothing (as she had done for the Washingtons). But this kind of work would be hard for a fugitive to find. She had no references and no sample work.