Another Obsession: Delia Webster
- Phyllis Codling McLaughlin
- May 15
- 7 min read
Several years ago, I read a biography of Miss Delia Ann Webster, an amazingly strong woman who was born and raised in Vermont, but moved south to become involved in anti-slavery activities from the 1840s through Emancipation. Recently, I read the only other biography about Webster that I could find.
I was disappointed, because over the past year, I have done research about Webster and realized that neither of these works focused on her life and activities in Madison, Indiana, where she lived, off and on, for nearly two decades. I've spent the better part of the past year trying to rectify what I see as a miscarriage of historical justice.
Since I moved to this part of Kentucky in 2002, I have slowly become acquainted with the legend of Delia Webster, mostly because she once owned a farm (once known as Mount Orison) on the hilltop above the rivertown of Milton, Ky. It is only about two miles from our house on the Ohio River just east of Milton's city limits. It's so close, I feel like I can see the treetops of that property from our deck. (Pardon my sounding a bit like Tina Fey as Sarah Palin stating she could "see Russia from my house" in Alaska; but yes, the farm is that close.)
Webster's time in Trimble County is mentioned very briefly on a Kentucky Historic Marker on Peck Pike, just up the hill from Milton off of U.S. 421. Erected in 1967, it is titled "Petticoat Abolitionist," and gives just a tiny taste of the trials and tribulations she experienced in the years when she was in Kentucky, and the time she owned the farm here.
Many of her contemporaries wrote of her beauty, and some men seemed to have fallen for what must have been some excellent "feminine wiles," which I believe Webster always knew when and how to use when needed.
Unfortunately, the only known photo of Delia is one taken with three of her sisters, and it does not depict the beauty she must have been in her younger years. Stress from the work she was doing, and occasional bouts of poor health, likely took their toll; her checks appear sunken and her eyes tired. Unlike her sisters, however, she does appear to have just a hint of a "Mona Lisa" smile.
Regardless, this woman was far more than a "pretty face" and a petticoat. Indeed, she was a force to be reckoned with: Highly intelligent, she was able to move within the wealthiest circles while caring about the plight of the impoverished and enslaved. She bent the ears of the most famous and influential men and women in the American Anti-Slavery Society and the Underground Railroad. She raised money from these groups and their members to secure the purchase of the 600-acre farm in Trimble County, and then to proceed to build barns and small dwellings intended for the workers she would hire (and pay) to provide labor for the vegetable farm, as well as a shoe factory and a flour mill she planned to establish there. The proceeds from these ventures would not only pay her workers' wages, but also were to fund her long-term goal of establishing an Oberlin-like college there on the property that would be open to all students, regardless of gender, color, or means. There, she dreamed of providing a top-notch education that would help her students excel in life––especially the lives of children of the free-born, manumitted, or self-emancipated black families she hoped would attend the school. She was driven to provide that education so that they could lead prosperous, self-sufficient lives for themselves and their families.
From the time she was first arrested and jailed on charges of slave-stealing in 1844 until she left the City of Madison, sometime between 1870 and 1880, her life's work and experiences––imprisonment , along with years of fighting against Trimble County-area plantation owners who despised her very existence and the fact she owned a neighboring farm––could be the basis for an action-packed dramatic streaming series on Netflix or any other platform.
She also was a prolific writer, which makes my work a bit easier. The following is an excerpt from a letter she wrote that was published in an 1855 issue of The Independent, which includes an introduction and conclusionary paragraph signed by, and probably written by, H.B. Stowe. Yes, that would be Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin and a friend and supporter of Webster's.
This version was reprinted in the December 7, 1855, issue of Frederick Douglass Paper, published in Rochester, New York. (Ever the editor, I have added punctuation as needed for clarification.) As it is more than 4,000 words, I will run the entire article in subsequent posts.
from The Independent
AUSTRIAN DESPOTISM IN AMERICA
We are so accustomed to speak of ourselves as the only free nation on the face of the earth, that it may be well occasionally to have our eyes opened to a class of facts which are constantly and increasingly transpiring in our own country. We therefore beg leave to call the attention of our readers to a most extraordinary narrative, detailed in the following letter addressed by Miss Delia Webster to the Rev. Dr. Cheever:
WORCESTER, Friday, Oct. 19, 1855.
REV. DR. CHEEVER: DEAR SIR:––Agreeably to your request I send you the following summary of facts: In the year 1842, by the advice of physicians, I first went to Kentucky for the improvement of my health, in company with a clergyman and his wife from Oberlin, Ohio, and visited different portions of the State, and at length went to Lexington. Being short of funds I opened a painting class in that city to defray current expenses. It was not my purpose to remain there many weeks, but being repeatedly and urgently solicited by clergymen and other prominent men in the city to establish a permanent school for young ladies, I at length founded the Lexington Academy, which soon became one of the most interesting and flourishing institutions in the State bringing me an income of about $800 per year.
The climate being adapted to my constitution, my health had very speedily improved; and in 1844 my school numbered from 80 to 100 pupils, and I had the entire confidence of the people, notwithstanding it had been understood from the beginning that I was thoroughly Anti-Slavery.
No suspicions were entertained against me until after the arrest of Mr. Fairbank [Methodist minister the Rev. Calvin Fairbank) in September 1834, when an anonymous letter was found upon his person addressed, it would seem to some friend at a distance, and commencing "Dear Brother," and singed "Frater."
In this letter an allusion was made to a Miss W. This use of the initials of my name was entirely without my consent or knowledge, nor did I know aught of the existence of any such letter. Yet it resulted in my immediate apprehension at the midnight hour without any form or warrant of law, and I was committed to a close jail. Some time afterward I was secretly charged with being accessory to the escape of the Hayden family.
In December following, this indictment was thrown away, and a new set of indictments was got up, a separate one for each member of the family and the fourth for another man who escaped some time previous. In these last I was charged as principal instead of accomplice. I was tried only on one indictment, for the escape of the man Lewis.
Such were the excitement and prejudice which prevailed in the community, that a whole day was consumed impaneling a jury. The trial continued five days, during which time the Jury were at large mingling and talking ad libitum with the excited populace.
On the fourth day of the trial, the letter above referred to, contrary to all law, was introduced against me. The Court had repeatedly ruled it out as illegal testimony; but at last the Commonwealth openly declaring that they could make out no case without it, the Court admitted it to the Jury, and they retired to consult of their verdict, taking the said letter with them. But failing to agree, they adjourned till the next day, when they compromised, and the foreman drew up a strong petition to the Governor [William Owlsey] praying for my immediate release, which petition was singed by every member of the Jury, and presented me by the foreman as they returned with the verdict. But before it was presented to the Governor he received a strong remonstrance signed by 120 of the most respectable citizens.
Several gentlemen then came forward and made strong affidavits in my behalf, upon which I asked a new trial, but the life of the Court being threatened if he granted it, the motion was overruled, and I was sentenced to two years confinement in the Penitentiary.
Upon this, the Hon. Henry Clay, Gen. Leslie Coombs and others of my counsel visited the Governor, laid before him the facts, and asked a respite of the sentence, that I might be tried upon the other three indictments. The Governor was very willing to grant the respite, but before the papers were completed, my enemies succeeded in secretly smuggling me into the Penitentiary under the cover of darkness.
"Under the cover of darkness." That seemed to happen a lot back in those days. In fact, when she and Fairbank were first stopped by an angry mob after arriving in Lexington upon their return from Ohio, where they had transported a fugitive couple and their young son to freedom on the Underground Railroad, Webster had been allowed to return to her boarding house on her own recognizance. That was short-lived; a few hours later, around midnight, a group of men pounded on the boarding house door and, without violence, forced her to the jail (which actually was part of a hotel) where Fairbank had been taken.
We'll pick up here in the next installment!
In the meantime, Happy Researching!
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