Mar 30, 2017 - Sale 2441

Sale 2441 - Lot 95

Price Realized: $ 15,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
WILLIAM & ELLEN CRAFT (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) BOSTON VIGILANCE COMMITTEE. TO THE RESCUE!! Three Fugitives about to be Arrested!! Wm. Crafts Supposed to be One. BE ON THE ALERT. No Time To Be Lost. Letterpress broadside, 12 x 9-1/2 inches; diagonal stain to the upper right corner; right and left margins with some wrinkling and discoloration. Boston, 25 October 1850

Additional Details

an exceedingly rare broadside issued by the boston vigilance committee to help protect william and ellen craft. After months of planning, William and Ellen Craft decided to put their plan of escape into practice. Having gotten access to a set of man's clothing, including a stylish top hat, the light-skinned Ellen was to play the part of a sickly slave-owner and William his faithful slave. The couple obtained permission from their respective masters to travel to a neighboring town to visit with family for the Christmas holiday. Instead, they were able to buy tickets to Savannah with money William had saved from an apprenticeship. After a long, nerve-wracking journey of a thousand miles, the Crafts arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas Day 1848. After a few weeks stay with a Quaker family, they pushed on, arriving in Boston in January of 1849. There, both William and Ellen found work and stayed at Lewis Hayden's boarding house. When the Fugitive Slave Act was passed, the Crafts and all other fugitives who had thought themselves safe on free soil, were now in immanent danger as slave catchers arrived in Boston to capture and take them back to their respective masters. The Vigilance Committee, however, with the general cooperation of Boston's citizenry succeeded in keeping them safe--Lewis Hayden threatened to blow his house up rather than give up a single fugitive slave. we could find no locations for copies of this broadside in oclc, or any of the standard references.