Sara Lucy Bagby

Sara Lucy Bagby (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 eventually able to escape slavery via the Underground Railroad and made her way to Cleveland, Ohio.[2][3] In January of 1861, she was pursued by her owners, William Goshorn and his son, and arrested by a U.S. Marshall. Despite the state government's and citizens of Cleveland's attempts to intervene--including a purported dramatic armed standoff in a courtroom--she was returned to Wheeling, Virginia.[2] This episode forms the subject of a poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, titled "To the Cleveland Union-Savers".[1][4][5][6]

Sara Lucy Bagby
Born1843
DiedJuly 14, 1906
Burial placeWoodland Cemetery
Spouse(s)F. George Johnson

After the Emancipation Proclamation, she walked to Pittsburgh, and eventually resettled in Cleveland, where she died and was buried.[2][3]

References
  1. Barrett, Faith, 1965- Miller, Cristanne. (2005). "Words for the hour" : a new anthology of American Civil War poetry. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1-55849-509-6. OCLC 60796177.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. "Biography: Sara Lucy Bagby > Research | Ohio County Public Library | Ohio County WV | Wheeling WV History | Ohio County West Virginia Public Library". www.ohiocountylibrary.org. Retrieved 2020-03-02.
  3. Day, Michelle A.; Wickens, Joseph. "The Arrest and Trial of Lucy Bagby". Cleveland Historical. Retrieved 2020-03-02.
  4. David Dirck Van Tassel; John Vacha (2006). "Behind Bayonets": The Civil War in Northern Ohio. Kent State University Press. pp. 28–. ISBN 978-0-87338-850-4.
  5. United States. Work Projects Administration. Ohio (1937). Annals of Cleveland--1818-1935 ... pp. 513–.
  6. R. J. M. Blackett (25 January 2018). The Captive's Quest for Freedom. Cambridge University Press. pp. 441–. ISBN 978-1-108-41871-3.
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