History of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue

An in-depth and exhaustive account of the actions and legal proceedings surrounding the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Case of 1858, an important event in abolitionist history.

On 13 September 1858, a federal marshal in Oberlin, Ohio detained the runaway slave John Price from Kentucky in accordance with the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Seeking to skirt conflict with Oberlin locals-many of whom were abolitionists-the officer transported Price to Wellington, Ohio. Oberlin residents learned of the officer's actions and met the men in Wellington in an effort to free Price. After first attempting to liberate him peacefully, with the assistance of fellow abolitionists from Wellington, the party ultimately seized him by force-first returning him to Oberlin, and then escorting him to Canada. Tragically, however, Price died shortly after his arrival. In the wake of the rescue, thirty-seven of those involved in rescuing Price were indicted by a federal grand jury-although only two were actually tried in federal court. Ohio authorities, for their part, arrested the federal marshal and those who assisted him in apprehending Price. The conviction of the two rescuers occasioned fervent protests among Ohio abolitionists, and the divisive effect of the case had a significant impact on Ohio politics in the years immediately following.

Boston publisher John P. Jewett (1814-1884) was the original publisher of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) as well as various anti-slavery publications such as Kazlitt Arvin's Our Duty to the Fugitive Slave (1850), Henry Chase's The North and the South : a Statistical View of the Condition of the Free and Slave States (1856), and A North-side View of Slavery: The Refugee (1856).

Scarce in wrappers.

REFERENCES: "Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Case" at Ohio History Central online.