DELAWARE HISTORY
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
MARCH 2019
Benjamin Johnstone began
life in Sussex County Delaware several years before the American
Revolution born a slave and shuttled owner to owner over time. As
an infant he belonged to Dr. John Skidmore, then when the doctor
died he became property of Skidmores nephew who sold
Benjamin to John Grey,
blacksmith, Grey sold him to Edward Callahhan who in turn sold
him to James Craig, also a blacksmith. Craig appreciated
Benjamin's blacksmith skills and attention to the masters
business. Once Graig was attacked by a man with a knife and
Benjamin grabed the attacker and subdued him for which Creig was
thankful and offered to let the slave buy his freedom. Being free
Benjamin was allowed to travel to Baltimore where he was arrested
as a runaway and Greig
had to secure his release.
Then Creig died unexpectedly and the executors of the estate
leased the
slave to John Clemmens,
merchant , at Mifflins Crossroads near Dover, from where two
Georgia men kidnapped Benjamin who was able to escape and made
his way to Dover and took up with
Warner Mifflin an
abolitionist and got his manumission papers, moved to New Jersey,
took another
first name, Abraham. Even
now, a free man he still had trouble being accused of crimes in
Woodbury, one being the killing of another black man, found guilty
and sentenced to death. Before his execution
he wrote a final letter to
his wife that he married sometime back. In the letter he encouraged
her to
remarry a man who will
love and protect you and left her his white hat she was fond of
to wear
as her own. He signed the
letter of farwell, “not the farewell of a day or month, but
an eternal
farewell”.
July 8, 1797, the slave,
Abraham Benjamin Johnstone, sold master to master, jailed,
kidnapped, risen to be a freeman, was executed for murder.
Abstract: Wednesday,
February 3, 2016, Delaware Coast Press, Michael Morgan's
Delaware Diary.
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