Sara Lucy Bagby Explained

Sara Lucy Bagby
Birth Date:c. 1843
Death Place:Cleveland, Ohio
Burial Place:Woodland Cemetery
Spouse:F. George Johnson

Sara Lucy Bagby (c. 1843 – July 14, 1906) was the last person in the United States forced to return to slavery in the South under the Fugitive Slave Act.[1]

Born in the early 1840s in Virginia, she was of African American heritage. She eventually escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad and made her way to Cleveland, Ohio, in a free state.[2] [3] In January 1861, she was pursued by her owners, William Goshorn and his son, and arrested by a U.S. Marshal.

Despite the attempts of both the Ohio state government and citizens of Cleveland to intervene—including a purported dramatic armed standoff in a courtroom—she was transported back to Goshorn's property in Wheeling, then still part of Virginia. This episode forms the subject of a poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, titled "To the Cleveland Union-Savers" (1861):[4] [5] [6]

After the Emancipation Proclamation, Bagby walked to Pittsburgh to leave the South. She eventually resettled in Cleveland, where she died and was buried in 1906.

Notes and References

  1. Book: Barrett, Faith, 1965- Miller, Cristanne.. "Words for the hour" : a new anthology of American Civil War poetry. 2005. University of Massachusetts Press. 1-55849-509-6. 60796177.
  2. Web site: Biography: Sara Lucy Bagby > Research Ohio County Public Library Ohio County WV Wheeling WV History Ohio County West Virginia Public Library. www.ohiocountylibrary.org. 2020-03-02.
  3. Web site: The Arrest and Trial of Lucy Bagby. Day. Michelle A.. Wickens. Joseph. Cleveland Historical. en. 2020-03-02.
  4. Book: David Dirck Van Tassel. John Vacha. "Behind Bayonets": The Civil War in Northern Ohio. 2006. Kent State University Press. 978-0-87338-850-4. 28–.
  5. Book: United States. Work Projects Administration. Ohio. Annals of Cleveland--1818–1935 .... 1937. 513–.
  6. Book: R. J. M. Blackett. The Captive's Quest for Freedom. 25 January 2018. Cambridge University Press. 978-1-108-41871-3. 441–.