Tag: Gettysburg Black History
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Catherine Payne and Her Family’s Escape from Samuel Maddox
In the predawn hours of July 24, 1845, a group of slave catchers composed of six white men and a black man burst into the room where Catherine “Kitty” Payne and her three children were sleeping. At gunpoint, the men violently loaded Catherine and children into a wagon and made for the Mason-Dixon line about…
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The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and the 1845 Kidnapping of Catherine Payne
In the predawn hours of July 24, 1845, and under the guise of protections guaranteed by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, a group of slave catchers composed of six white men and a black man burst into the room where Catherine Payne and her three children were sleeping. At gunpoint, the men violently loaded…
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The Underground Railroad and William and Phebe Wright
When Catherine “Kitty” Payne first arrived in northern Adams County, she was almost certainly assisted by William and Phebe Wright, prominent members of the Quaker faith and agents on the Underground Railroad. Later, after Catherine’s death, her daughter Mary would live with the Wrights for a decade or more. The Wrights were some of the…
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1840s: Mary Maddox, a Whole Estate, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
In the 1830s and 1840s, tensions in Gettysburg ran high because of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. In 1837, the death in Virginia of a moderately wealthy planter, Samuel Maddox, would touch off a constitutional crisis that involved kidnapping, imprisonments in both Virginia and Pennsylvania, and three different complex court cases. While simple on…