Storm Blocks the Route to Freedom

In April 1848, stormy weather on the Chesapeake Bay doomed an attempt by 77 slaves from Washington D.C. to escape by sea to New York aboard the schooner Pearl, a journey arranged by anti-slavery activist William L. Chapin. When Captain Daniel Drayton was forced to seek shelter in Point Lookout Creek and Cornfield Harbor, the fugitives had no choice but to surrender. Among the unlucky passengers were sisters Mary and Emily Edmonson, who were taken to the D. C. jail and sold with their siblings to a slave trader for $4,500. The renowned preacher Henry Ward Beecher later raised enough money to gain their liberty and entrusted them to his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, who sent them to an Ohio preparatory school and recounted the Pearl story in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Mary died of tuberculosis, but Emily later returned to D. C. and helped develop the curriculum of the Normal School, later the University of the District of Columbia.

Maryland · United States