Lost and Found

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost In bold defiance of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, which required citizens to aid in the recovery of runaway slaves, Quaker abolitionist Thomas Bon­sall offered sanctuary to escaping slaves on his farm in West Caln Township, Chester County. Bon­sall, a stationmaster on the Underground Railroad for thirty years, secreted southern run­aways in the second-floor granary of his bank barn, a stop...
read more

“In Immortal Splendor”: Wilkes-Barre’s Fugitive Slave Case of 1853

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on “In Immortal Splendor”: Wilkes-Barre’s Fugitive Slave Case of 1853 On Saturday morning, September 3, 1853, U.S. Federal Marshal George Wynkoop of Philadelphia and two deputies, John Jenkins and James Crossen, sat down to breakfast in the dining room of the Phoenix Hotel on River Street in the Luzerne County seat of Wilkes-Barre. At the far end of the room was a handsome, powerfully built mulatto named Bill (or, according to various newspaper accounts, known as...
read more