University of Kentucky UKnowledge United States History History 5-9-1996 Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad Randolph Paul Runyon Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Runyon, Randolph Paul, "Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad" (1996). United States History. 11. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/11 DELIA WEBSTER AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD DELIA WEBSTER AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD Randolph Paul Runyon Researched in collaboration with William Albert Davis THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Frontispiece: From a painting that belonged to Delia Webster, artist unknown. Jourtesy John Prentiss Copyright © 1996 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Runyon, Randolph, 1947- Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad / Randolph Paul Runyon; researched in collaboration with William Albert Davis. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8131-1966-9 (cloth: alk. paper); ISBN 0-8131-0974-4 (paper: alk. paper) 1. Webster, Delia Ann. 2. Women abolitionists-United States­ Biography. 3. Abolitionists-United States-Biography. 4. Underground railroad. 5. Antislavery movements-United States. 6. Kentucky­ History-1792-1865. 1. Title. E450.R86 1996 973.5'092--<ic20 [B] 95-44094 ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-0974-9 (paper: alk. paper) This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America. ~••• '.; Member of the Association of 'I&! American University Presses For Elizabeth, and for Augusta and Ezekiel -who will one day write their own history or maybe make it -----------1-------------. Lake Erie I, ! ! Ol1erlln - ! I I i i INDIANA I i OHIO i, I i, I i .Blu~ Lick" .Mllle",~ur~ j \ KENTUCKY .~ \ '""t '-.. / / / ,r.. r" o 50 mllee ~'===:::=::::!' () b 80 kllom~re •r-" jmh CONTENTS List of Illustrations Vlll Acknowledgments IX 1. "Deceived in the distance" 1 2. "Perhaps you can decipher its contents" 22 3. "Partner of his guilt" 40 4. "On account of her sex" 56 5. "The error of a woman's heart" 70 6. "Did ... entice and seduce" 87 7. "It might not appear what I shall be" 106 8. "The sincere desire of your fond father" 125 9. "I am afraid they will not always be on as friendly terms" 142 10. "The very madness of the moon" 164 11. "A very bold and defiant kind of woman" 184 12. Aftermath: "This remarkable history" 199 Notes 225 Bibliography 249 Index 255 ILLUSTRATIONS Lexington, Kentucky 2 Maysville, Kentucky 17 Megowan's Hotel 23 The Kentucky Penitentiary 55 Newton Craig 60 Benajah Webster 80 A ticket of admission to one of Delia Webster's lectures 101 Lewis Hayden 112 Dillard Craig 13 7 Laura Haviland 156 Street scene, Madison, Indiana 172 Madison viewed from the Kentucky side 191 Lucy Craig 197 Calvin and Mandana Fairbank 213 "The Webster Girls" 222 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS decade and a half ago, idly perusing the books in the library of my A stepfather, Earle D. Jones, of Maysville, Kentucky, I happened upon the story of Delia Webster and Calvin Fairbank in J. Winston Coleman, Jr.'s Slavery Times in Kentucky. Fascination set in at once, fed by the Maysville connection, as well as a certain coincidence of names (I had labored for years over Dilie, a 1544 book by French poet Maurice Sceve).! Earle later caught mention in the Lexington Herald of an exhibition of Cindy Kelly's paintings of women in Kentucky history, which included some of Delia (of whom at that time no likeness had come to light). Cindy put me in touch with William Albert Davis, who was equally obsessed with the story. Bill and I decided to combine our resources to assemble the material for this book. His skills as a genealogist have been especially helpful, for he it was who tracked down the descendants of the characters in this drama, to whom I am enormously grateful for their willingness to share family documents. These include Mrs. Hazel Young Winter, Mrs. Isabelle Pautz, Mrs. Galey Coleman, Bard and Gina Prentiss, John Prentiss, and Philip Fairbank. The interlibrary loan personnel of the Miami University Library have done their utmost to make materials accessible, and gratitude must be expressed as well to librarians at the Indiana State Archives; the Indiana State Historical Society; Purdue University; the University of Kentucky; Ohio State University; Oberlin College; Columbia University; the Univer­ sity of Cincinnati; the Cincinnati Historical Society; the Addison Public INot to mention a certain chain of coincidences linking such disparate elements as the numerical structure of Sd:ve's poem, the Library of Congress cataloging system, and a crucial date in Delia Webster's life, together with some uncanny events in my own. Some of this was anticipated, before I encountered Delia Webster, in my first book, Fowles/Irving/ Barthes: Canonical Variations on an Apocryphal Theme (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1981)-for example, in the penultimate endnote's allusion to Karl Jung's Good Fri­ day/April Fool's Day's synchronicities (FII/B, 116n20). x / DELIA WEBSTER AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD Library in Vergennes, Vermont; the Madison-Jefferson County Public Li­ brary in Madison, Indiana; and the Boston Public Library. The comments of readers for the University Press of Kentucky have improved this book in many ways. For the energy and conscientiousness with which they performed their task I am most grateful. Most of all, thanks to my wife Elizabeth, who created the home environment that made it all possible. 1 "DECEIVED IN THE DISTANCE" hortly before five o'clock on the afternoon of Saturday, September 28, S1844, Delia Ann Webster left her lodgings at the home of Mr. and Mrs. David Glass, on West Second Street in Lexington, Kentucky, and stepped into a hackney coach that the Reverend Calvin Fairbank had rented from Parker Craig. The fall racing season was at its height, and farmers and gentry alike from all over the state had converged on the city to see the best of breed in action. Webster and Fairbank, however, were not headed for the track. For what they had in mind to do with the carriage, however, the crowds of out-of-town visitors and vehicles on the streets would provide a useful cover.! Around the first of September, Fairbank had arrived in Lexington from Oberlin College, that hotbed of antislavery activity in the North. He had knocked on the door of the boarding house and asked the proprietress if a Miss Webster lived there. Her boarder had stepped out but was expected back soon, Mrs. Glass replied. Fairbank said he very much wanted to see her, that while they were not personally acquainted they did have friends in com­ mon. He would wait. While they chatted, Mrs. Glass may well have been favorably impressed by this handsome man of the cloth, a Methodist who did not overburden her with the depth of his piety, nor, indeed, reveal his abolitionist inclinations. Fairbank, well seasoned in the business of rescuing slaves, knew how to dissimulate.2 When Webster returned, Fairbank introduced himself, and immedi­ ately asked if they could speak alone. They retired to the parlor and re­ mained there together and alone for some time. When they returned, Webster asked Mrs. Glass if Fairbank could stay on as a boarder. Permission was granted, and during the month of September, Mrs. Glass later recalled, they would often hold long conversations together, though they seemed to want to avoid being seen doing SO.3 What Fairbank told Webster was that Gilson Berry, a slave who had escaped to Oberlin, had persuaded him to go into Kentucky to bring out his 1 2 / DELIA WEBSTER AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD Lexington, Kentucky, from an 1851 lithograph. wife and children. Fairbank was counting on Miss Webster's assistance, which she was quick to promise. Twenty-six years old and a native of Vergennes, Vermont, Delia Webster had first come to Kentucky in 1842 in the company of an Oberlin clergyman and his wife by the name of Spencer. Webster her­ self had studied at Oberlin, though only briefly in 1842. Together Webster and the Spencers gave painting classes in various towns in north-central Ken­ tucky (including Flemingsburg, Georgetown, and Cynthiana) before estab­ lishing themselves in Lexington in July of 1843.4 Such was their success that they were "repeatedly and urgently solicited by clergymen and other promi­ nent men in the city to establish a permanent school for young ladies."5 Stricken with an illness intensified by the summer heat, the Spencers de­ parted Lexington, leaving Webster in charge. The Lexington Academy "soon became one of the most interesting and flourishing institutions in the State," Webster wrote, "bringing me an income of about $800 per year. "6 This was significantly more than a public school teacher could make in Webster's na­ tive Vermont, where a schoolmistress could count on earning an average of but $4.80 a month above room and board.? Kentucky in the 1840s was only just beginning to establish a system of public education that would not really be in place until the next decade.