Sojourner Truth, born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree, was Hurley's most famous native. One of 13 children, she first spoke only the Dutch of her owners until she was sold at age eleven, then learned English in the household of her next master and retained a Dutch accent throughout her life. Her fourth master, John Dumont, forced her to marry an older slave named Thomas, with whom she had five children, and after Dumont broke a promise to free her, she ran away in late 1826 with her infant daughter. In 1828, when New York ended slavery, she won a landmark suit to recover her son Peter after he had been illegally sold into slavery in Alabama. She later settled in New York City and worked as a domestic for several religious communities. In 1843, at age 46, a spiritual revelation led her to take the name Sojourner Truth, and she began preaching God's truth and plan for salvation while traveling through Long Island and Connecticut. After months of travel, she joined the Northampton Association for Education and Industry in Massachusetts, where she met and worked with abolitionists including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Olive Gilbert. Her dictated memoir, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: Northern Slave, was published in 1850, and she expanded her speaking to include abolitionism and women's suffrage, drawing on her own experience in slavery. In 1851, at a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio, she delivered the historic speech Ain't I a Woman? In 1864 she visited President Lincoln at the White House, and in 1865 she rode Washington, D.C., streetcars to force their desegregation. After the Civil War, she worked tirelessly to aid newly freed southern slaves and petitioned Congress to grant former slaves land in the new West. She continued preaching and lecturing until poor health forced her to retire, and she died in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1883. Although the boundaries of Hurley changed after her birth and her birthplace now lies within Rifton, Hurley still claims her as one of its own.

Photo: Steve Stoessel

Photo: Steve Stoessel

Hillside, New York · USA