In 1851, a 16 year old free-born black woman was kidnapped by slave catchers in West Nottingham, Pennsylvania and taken to a slave pen in Baltimore. Joseph Miller, Rachel Parker’s employer, along with a number of neighbors gave chase and were able to have Rachel moved from the slave pen into a jail, where she could ‘safely’ await trial to determine her status. As Miller and friends began to head back home to West Nottingham, he was seized by slave catchers bent on revenge. Two days later Miller’s body was found hanging from a tree outside Baltimore. While a Maryland court determined that he committed suicide, an autopsy conducted in Pennsylvania ruled his death to have been caused by cyanide poisoning.<\/p>\n

A year later Rachel, and her younger sister Elizabeth who had earlier been kidnapped by slave catchers, finally had their day in court. Sixty neighbors made the brief journey to Baltimore to testify in her behalf. The Judge stopped the trial before all the witnesses could testify, setting both sisters free.<\/p>\n

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In 1851, a 16 year old free-born black woman was kidnapped by slave catchers in West Nottingham, Pennsylvania and taken to a slave pen in Baltimore. Joseph Miller, Rachel Parker’s employer, along with a number of neighbors gave chase and were able to have Rachel moved from the slave pen into a jail, where she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddoonan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddoonan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddoonan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddoonan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddoonan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddoonan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110,"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddoonan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85\/revisions\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddoonan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}