In 1806, six-year-old Peter Still and his eight-year-old brother were sold away from their enslaved mother at Edmondson's Reserve and sent south. Peter then endured 44 years of enslavement in Kentucky and Alabama under extremely difficult conditions. He had a wife and three children who were enslaved on another plantation in harsh conditions, and his brother died. After decades of saving money from extra work for White townspeople, Peter bought his freedom at age 49. He went north and found his family, beginning with a remarkable reunion with his brother William Still in Philadelphia in 1850. After a White abolitionist died trying to rescue Peter's enslaved wife and children in Alabama, Peter undertook a three-year effort to purchase and free them, and with help from Harriet Beecher Stowe he succeeded in 1854. Peter also received proceeds from a book about his life by Kate Picard, who had known him in both the North and Alabama. Published in 1856, The Kidnapped and the Ransomed was republished three times in the 20th century and is considered one of the greatest American slave narratives.