Woodson (former slave)

The first slave case to be tried in Pittsburgh, PA, under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was that of an escaped slave named Woodson who had taken the name Richard Gardner. The trial took place on March 13, 1851, before Judge Thomas Irwin of the U.S. Circuit Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Woodson was previously owned by Miss Rhoda B. Byers in Louisville, KY. He had been living as a free man for about four years in Beaver, PA, where he was a mechanic and a preacher. Woodson was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church; he had joined the church in 1847. He had a wife, who was also from Louisville, and the couple had two children.

Woodson was described in a letter from Miss Byers, he was about 30 years old, 5'10" or 5'11", and of a very light caste. Byers' letter was to serve as the power of attorney giving her agent Benjamin S. Rust to act on her behalf. Woodson was given to Miss Byers as part of an estate inheritance when she was a child. Her guardians had always managed Woodson as property and in leasing him out to generate income.

Miss Byers did not want Woodson. She had instructed Benjamin S. Rust to sell Woodson as soon as he was captured. If he could not be sold on site, then Woodson was to be brought back to Kentucky and sold.

During the trial in Pittsburgh, the Pennsylvania courts decided in favor of Miss Rhoda B. Byers. Woodson was placed aboard the steamship Washington and returned to Louisville, KY. The captain of the steamer, who was named Hazlet, took possession of Woodson, per Miss Byers, with orders to dispose of him.  

It was felt that Woodson could not be sold down South because he would surely put the idea of escape in the minds of others who were enslaved; and he could not be kept in Kentucky because he now knew how to escape from the state and would try to escape again. There was no mention of the fact that Miss Byers was a young and single white woman who may have feared having to take on an enslaved Black man who wanted to be free.  

In less than six months, Woodson's wife and citizens of Pittsburgh and Beaver raised subscriptions ($600) and purchased Woodson from Captain Hazlet. Woodson returned to Pennsylvania. On August 1, 1851, Woodson was the guest speaker at the West Indies Emancipation Day Celebration in Oakland, PA; it was the 17th anniversary in recognition of the end of slavery in the British Empire, including the British West Indies.

For more see I. E. Williams, "The Operation of the Fugitive Slave Law in Western Pennsylvania, from 1850-1860," The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, vol. 4, issue 3 (July 1921), pp. 150-160 [available full-text at Google Books]; "Fugitive slave case," The Liberator [Boston, MA], 04/04/1851, p.4; "Home Matters," The Daily Pittsburgh Gazette, 03/15/1851, p.3; "Fugitive slave case in Pittsburgh," Louisville Journal, 03/18/1851, p.2; "Miscellaneous News: Woodson, the fugitive, liberated," National Anti-Slavery Standard, 04/24/1851, p.3.