40 Facts About Bethany Veney

Bethany Veney was sold away from her and she later married Frank Veney, a free black man.

Bethany Veney was sold on an auction block to her enslaver, George J Adams, who brought her to Providence, Rhode Island, and later to Worcester, Massachusetts.

Around 1815, Bethany Veney Johnson was born into slavery on the Pass Run farm, near Luray, in what is Page County, Virginia.

Bethany Veney was enslaved by James Fletcher, who owned Pass Run.

Occasionally, Fletcher called on Bethany Veney to sing and dance for his visitors.

Bethany Veney's mother died when she was about nine years of age, and she did not know her father.

Lucy Fletcher, who Bethany Veney considered to be kindhearted, received her and her sister Matilda.

For some time, Bethany Veney was hired out to a woman who fed and clothed her in exchange for her labor.

Bethany Veney considered her kind because she had been given enough food to survive and was not whipped.

Bethany Veney remarked that white children not born into slavery would have a different definition of kindness.

Bethany Veney was once whipped with a nail rod that made her lame, and then was whipped again after her mistress inquired about the cause of her injury and asked Kibbler about it.

Once he heard her story, he and Bethany Veney visited Kibbler, who was told by his father not to whip her.

Bethany Veney returned to Kibbler's house and was not beaten.

Bethany Veney began to pray for her freedom, believing that if she were a good Christian, she would be freed from slavery.

Bethany Veney wished to earn her own money and save it until she could afford a house with a lovely garden.

Bethany Veney relied on her faith to endure difficult times.

Bethany Veney continued to attend church when she was hired out to Mr Levers and after she got before Kibbler and begged to be allowed to attend church.

Around the late 1830s, Bethany Veney Johnson married Jerry Fickland, an enslaved man who lived seven miles from her on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Bethany Veney traveled more than a day to meet up with Fickland's mother, and they went together to the slave pen where Fickland and the rest of Mannyfield's slaves were held.

Bethany Veney was ultimately captured by slave trader David McCoy.

Bethany Veney worked for his family until the early 1850s when she was sold to McCoy and his partner John O'Neile.

Bethany Veney was brought to the slave auction in Richmond, Virginia, and she pretended to be sick by putting baking soda in her mouth before bidding began.

Bethany Veney foamed at the mouth, and no sale was made.

Bethany Veney worked in the McCoy household and was hired out, in which case she paid McCoy $20 a year and kept the rest of her earnings.

Bethany Veney married a free black man, Frank Veney, becoming Bethany Veney.

Bethany Veney met Frank when she was a cook for the road construction crew.

Bethany Veney made arrangements with David McCoy and John Printz that allowed her to rent a house from Pritz on Stony Man Mountain, a mountain spur south of Luray.

Bethany Veney supported herself and her son by keeping wages early by being hired out and paying a $30 annual fee to McCoy for his share of her earnings.

Bethany Veney supported herself by taking in laundry and selling bluing door-to-door.

Frank Bethany Veney went on to marry another woman after three years had passed.

Frank claimed that Bethany Veney was his ninth of twenty-five wives in an article published by The Page News and Courier in 1915.

Bethany Veney worked for the Adams family in Providence and then moved with them to Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1860.

Bethany Veney continued to sell bluing and take in washing in Massachusetts.

Bethany Veney joined the Park Street Methodist Church, a white church, and was a founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Bethel Church in 1867, and was a prominent member of the church.

Bethany Veney started with her daughter, son-in-law Aaron Jackson, and grandchild, who lived adjacent to her, and then made three more trips to move 16 more relatives north.

Bethany Veney was grateful to be on the other side of the suffering that she endured for years and to be reunited with her family.

Bethany Veney describes her religious conversion and religion's role in her life.

Bethany Veney describes her life in the North after attaining her freedom.

Bethany Veney shared her story of humanity, focusing on her heartache and the morals that she lived by rather than documenting how slavery was horrible.

Bethany Veney died at her daughter's house in Worcester on November 16,1915, and was buried at Hope Cemetery in the same city.