Harriet Jacobs in New York State
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The year 2022 marks the 180th anniversary when Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, left enslavement and her precarious attic hide-out in Edenton, North Carolina, for New York. She spent much of the next 20 years in the city of New York, Rochester, and Cornwall in Orange County (along with time in Boston and in England).
She re-united with her children, earned a living, made friends—in the first decade (through 1852) also worrying about re-capture and a return to enslavement. The stress and decision making must have been excruciating.
Her residencies in this period were roughly divided as follows:
1842 to 1844: Astor House, city of New York, working as nursemaid for Nathanial Parker and Mary Stace Willis (later depicted as the British-born “Mrs. Bruce” in Incidents)
1844 to 1845: Boston, living with her children and near her brother, earning a living as a seamstress
1845 to 1846: Steventon, England, after the death of Mary Stace, accompanying his widower and surviving child to stay with the Stace family
1846 to 1849: Boston
1849 to 1850: Rochester
1850 to 1852: Washington Square, New York, returning to work for Willis and family, now remarried to Cornelia Grinnell Willis
1852 to 1862: Cornwall, Orange County, continuing to work for the Willises while also writing and trying to publish Incidents.
Breaking the period into two pieces, I wrote two articles for the New York Almanack that ran this past week. (Click on the titles to read online or “download a PDF” for a PDF version.)
Or download a PDF of the first part of “Harriet Jacobs in New York State”
Harriet Jacobs in Orange County (Conclusion)
Or download a PDF of this one
Thanks to New York Almanack editor John Warren for including these articles in a daily summary of articles and on the website.