Leah Anthony (b. circa 1829 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-8020
Fled from slavery, Dorchester County, Maryland, 1857
Biography:
On October 24, 1857, Leah Anthony fled from the Cambridge
District of Dorchester along with twenty-eight slaves from the area. She
belonged to Samuel Pattison, the owner of approximately fifteen to eighteen
slaves. Leah escaped with her husband, Christopher
"Kit" Anthony, and their three children. Pattison placed a runaway
advertisement in local newspapers as soon as two days after the incident.
He described Leah as "about five feet high, dark chestnut color, with THREE
CHILDREN - two boys and one girl." At the time of their flight, Murray
Anthony was only one year old, a fact which may have lent an element of
surprise to the parents' choice to escape.
Kit, Leah, and the children were forced to travel
through constant rain but ultimately made it to William Still's Philadelphia
depot in early November. Here, Aaron
Cornish and Joseph
Viney were among the members of the large group that recounted their
harrowing journey to the abolitionist. In Delaware, some of the party had
even engaged in a violent skirmish with "several Irishmen," who may have
been on the look out for fugitive slaves. While it is unknown whether the
Anthonys were involved in that altercation, they certainly had an arduous
experience, traveling with young children and slave catchers in pursuit.
Still remarked that even with "nothing to appease the gnawings of hunger
but parched corn and a few dry crackers ... not for a moment did they allow
themselves to look back." The journey from Pennsylvania to Canada was also
trying, as the region had some of the harshest winter weather it had seen
in years. However, Leah and her family made it safely to St. Catharine's,
Ontario, where many ex-slaves had been settling throughout the past decade.
The 1861 Census of Canada lists the couple and their five children, two of which had been born since their arrival in the new country. While little else has been documented about Leah Anthony's life as a free woman, her husband Kit was hired by Harriet Tubman as an officer in the Fugitive Aid Society of St. Catharines. Like most of the other black ex-pats, Leah likely became a part of that extensive support network that dealt with the constant stream of former slaves adapting to their new homes.
Return to Leah Anthony's Introductory Page
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