Ona Judge was born around 1773. Many decades later, when all of her family members had died, Ona gave two interviews about her life and escape to freedom. Ona Judge was afforded more comforts than most slaves, however, she risked it all to escape the nation’s capital and reach freedom. Ona died on February 25, 1848, in Greenland, New Hampshire as a free woman.32. Such interactions undoubtedly fueled her thinking about slavery, the changing laws regarding the institution and the possibilities of freedom. Governor John Langdon’s Home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Ona Judge Staines lived with her husband and their three children until Jack’s death in 1803. Ona Judge became Ona Staines and understood that her husband’s long absences at sea meant that she would have to defend herself if slave catchers … After fulfilling his four-year work contract at Mount Vernon, Andrew Judge moved off the plantation to start his own farm. The couple went on to have three children: Eliza, Will, and Nancy. Washington had given him “orders to take her by force, and carry her back” if necessary and he shared these plans with Langdon.24 Langdon’s family had a long history of slave ownership, so Bassett assumed the senator would support his mission. Jack Staines was at sea at the time, but Ona managed to escape to the neighboring town of Greenland, where she and her infant daughter hid with a free black family, the Jacks, until Bassett left Portsmouth, empty-handed. The History and Traditions of a Classic Dessert, Lindsay M. Chervinsky Staines was a sailor and although the pay was decent, it was sporadic and seasonal. In September 1798, he sent his nephew, Burwell Bassett, to bring Ona Judge Staines back. After Judge passed by without acknowledging her, Betsy likely told her father of the sighting, and her father felt obligated to notify Washington of his fugitive slave’s whereabouts. Philadelphia's father is unknown, but in 1807 she was freed from slavery and married William Costin, an abolitionist and free man, who was the son of an enslaved woman, Ann Dandridge, and whose father was possibly John Parke Custis, Martha Washington's son. By the 1780s, Washington’s feelings about slavery had changed, and he expressed his uneasiness with the institution to close friends, including his Revolutionary War comrade the Marquis de Lafayette. First, while still in office, he sent a letter through Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Jr. to Joseph Whipple, Portsmouth’s collector of customs. Ona Judge was owned by the first In the 1700s and 1800s, many white people, including George Washington, believed that enslaved people were better off in slavery than free. She has written several books, including the award-winning middle grade novel Drizzle. It was common practice for slave owners to give their enslaved workers nicknames that ended in”y” to subtly infantilize adult men and women. Ona probably lived with Betty in a small cabin near the mansion house, completing simple chores, helping her mother with easy tasks in their cabin, or playing unsupervised with other enslaved children.2 When Ona was twelve, Martha brought her into the mansion house to begin her official training as a housemaid. Paul Jennings was born in 1799 at Montpelier, the Virginia estate of James and Dolley Madison. They believed they had treated her like a daughter and felt betrayed by her departure. Ona also knew her siblings. So, when the opportunity presented itself, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Salas was reportedly in the basement at the time of the shooting and was not injured. 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