{"id":629,"date":"2011-02-04T11:41:14","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T18:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cumberlandcivilwar.com\/?p=629"},"modified":"2011-02-04T11:41:14","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T18:41:14","slug":"kauffman-trials-1847","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/cumberland150\/kauffman-trials-1847\/","title":{"rendered":"Kauffman Trials (1848)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> In 1848 Maryland slaveowner Mary M. Oliver filed a lawsuit in Cumberland County<\/a>, Pennsylvania against Daniel Kauffman<\/a> and two associates for helping thirteen fugitive slaves escape. Early in October 1847 two families of slaves \u2013 four adults and nine children \u2013 left Williamsport, Maryland and headed north into Pennsylvania. As \u201ctheir master had died and their mistress was going to sell them,\u201d Joseph Whitcomb explained at Kauffman’s trial\u00a0that \u201cthey thought it was best to run off while they had a chance.\u201d Eventually the fugitive slaves arrived in Chambersburg<\/a> and found George Cole, a free black resident. On October 18 Cole helped the two families get to Kauffman\u2019s farmhouse. Kauffman, who lived in\u00a0Boiling Springs<\/a> with his family, had started helping fugitives in 1837 when he was nineteen.\u00a0Apparently the families hid in a wagon and later that night Kauffman took them to Stephen Weakley, who helped them continue on their \u00a0trip north. While Mary Oliver\u2019s cousin John Stake determined that the fugitives had stopped at Kauffman\u2019s house, he could not track their movement after that point. As he later testified, Stake told Kauffman\u2019s wife Catharine that \u201c[he] intended to bring suit against Mr. Kaufman for harboring and aiding those colored persons.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November 1848 Judge Samuel Hepburn<\/a> presided as the trial started at the Cumberland County Courthouse<\/a> in Carlisle<\/a>. \u201cA great number of witnesses were produced by [Oliver\u2019s] counsel, who proved that the slaves were brought\u2026to the barn of Kauffman, and after remaining there a part of the night, were taken in his wagon across the Susquehanna River,\u201d as the (Bellows Falls) Vermont Chronicle<\/em> reported<\/a>. Yet some witnesses had to be coerced to testify against Kauffman. Some of the \u201cimmediate neighbors of Kauffman\u201d had \u201cobstinately refused to answer any questions or inquiries,\u201d but the\u00a0Chronicle<\/em> explained that \u201cafter remaining [in jail] a short time, they concluded it was better to come forward and give evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later that month Judge Hepburn pronounced<\/a> the defendants guilty and fined Kauffman $2,000. Kauffman, however, hired Thaddeus Stevens<\/a> and appealed the decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In 1849 the Boston (MA) Courier<\/em> reported <\/a>that Judge Hepburn\u2019s ruling had been reversed because \u201cstate courts have no jurisdiction\u201d and \u201cthat the action should have been brought in the Federal courts.\u201d While the slaveowners filed a lawsuit later that year in federal court, a jury was unable to reach a decision. Another trial took place in federal court in 1852, but this time Kauffman lost and Judge Robert Grier<\/a> fined him $4000. Newspapers around the country had been following the case and published reports about the outcome. The Rochester (NY) Frederick Douglass\u2019 Paper<\/em> described<\/a> Judge Grier as a \u201cjudicial tyrant\u201d and noted that \u201cno slave case in the United States has been disposed off more infamously than this.\u201d In addition, abolitionist groups raised money to assist Kauffman and other defendants pay the fine. Joseph Barker, who lived in Salem, Ohio, called<\/a> on \u201cAnti-Slavery friends\u201d to donate money to ensure that \u201cthe pro-slavery monsters [did not] have the pleasure of thinking that they have either ruined a man for harboring a fugitive, or frightened others from imitating his example.\u201d Kauffman lived in Boiling Springs until he died in July 1902, but after the trial he apparently stopped working on the Underground Railroad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1848 Maryland slaveowner Mary M. Oliver filed a lawsuit in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania against Daniel Kauffman and two associates for helping thirteen fugitive slaves escape. Early in October 1847 two families of slaves \u2013 four adults and nine children …<\/p>\n

Kauffman Trials (1848)<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[77,5039],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antebellum-1840-1861","category-our-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/cumberland150\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/cumberland150\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/cumberland150\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/cumberland150\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/cumberland150\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/cumberland150\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/cumberland150\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/cumberland150\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/cumberland150\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}