Judge was born about 1773 at Mount Vernon, the estate of George Washington and his family. Life of George Washington: The Farmer by Junius Brutus Stearnes ( c. Though she was never freed, the Washington family did not want to risk public backlash in forcing her to return to Virginia and after years of failing to persuade her to return, the family stopped pressing her to go back. She fled to New Hampshire, where she married, had children, and converted to Christianity. In her early twenties, she absconded, becoming a fugitive slave, after learning that Martha Washington had intended to transfer ownership of her to her granddaughter, known to have a horrible temper.
"A crisp and compulsively readable feat of research and storytelling" (USA TODAY), historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked everything to gain freedom from the famous founding father.Ona " Oney" Judge Staines ( c. 1773 – February 25, 1848) was an enslaved woman of mixed races who was owned by the Washington family, first at the family's plantation at Mount Vernon and later, after George Washington became president, at the President's House in Philadelphia, then the nation's capital city. At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property. Yet freedom would not come without its costs. So, when the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, she was denied freedom. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire.
Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law.
As the President grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn't abide: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. In setting up his household he brought along nine slaves, including Ona Judge. When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation's capital. Abstract:"Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction A startling and eye-opening look into America's First Family, Never Caught is the powerful story about a daring woman of "extraordinary grit" (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
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