September 13, 1858 – Kentucky slavecatchers foiled

September 13, 1858
A group of the residents

 in Oberlin, Ohio, 

stopped Kentucky 

slave catchers 

from kidnapping 

John Price, 

a Black man. 

Shakespeare Boynton, 

son of a wealthy landowner 

had lured Price 

with the promise of work. 

Oberlinians, 

Black and white, 

from town and from 

the local College, 

pursued the kidnappers 

to nearby Wellington 

at word of his abduction.

The group, 

led by 

Charles Langston, 

James M. Fitch, bookseller 

and superintendent 

of the 

Oberlin Sunday School, 

and 

John Watson, a grocer, 

wanted to proceed nonviolently, 

but when the 

Kentuckians refused 

to surrender Price, 

the response was 

“we will have him anyhow.” 

They rushed the door guards 

of the Inn and 

theology student 

Richard Winsor 

took Price to safety, 

hidden for a time 

in the home of 

Oberlin 

College President 

James Fairchild, 

and later helped across 

the Canadian border 

to freedom.

The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue 

and subsequent trial caught the 

eye of the nation as 

escalating tensions over slavery 

raised the prospect of civil war.

The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue