The Kidnapping of Catherine Payne
Near the Bloody Angle, the apex of fighting on Gettysburg’s third day, stands a small white farmhouse. A National Park Service placard tells the story of Abraham Brian, a black man who owned the farm and fled ahead of the battle. What the placard does not mention is the story of his first wife, Catherine Payne (also known as “Kitty”). Years before, Catherine had been enslaved in Virginia. Her master’s wife manumitted her and her children in both Virginia and Pennsylvania, but after her manumission, her master’s nephew kidnapped her and her children and returned them to the South, which touched off a Constitutional legal battle. The following posts detail this harrowing experience and the resolution of the legal battle. Tragically, Catherine lived only a short time with Abraham before dying young. Yet the long tail of slavery’s trauma haunted the extended family for years, possibly even resulting in a murder.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 ensured that Southern slaveholders could reclaim their “property” if the enslaved had reached freedom in the North. This set the stage for the kidnapping of Catherine Payne and her children. But the Payne family was unique in that it had legal support and backing to contest their case.
Almost immediately after the Payne family was forced back to Virginia, sympathetic neighbors and family members intervened to separate Catherine and her children from Samuel. Doing so would allow legal challenges to take place.
Catherine Payne and her supporters filed suit against Samuel Maddox for false imprisonment, while Samuel sought to have his uncle’s will nullified. Meanwhile, slave catcher Tom Finnegan was arrested in Pennsylvania for kidnapping.
Catherine Payne’s Husband, Abraham Brian
Abraham Brian’s marriage to Catherine Payne lasted only a few years because of her death from tuberculosis. The unsung deeds of Brian, his resilience in the face of death and devastation, live on.
Jim Green is believed to be the uncle or brother of Catherine Payne. As such, he had suffered through slavery and seen Catherine and her children kidnapped. The legacy of slavery may have had to do with his killing of Samuel Mars, another black man he suspected of an inappropriate relationship with his stepdaughter.