1. Polly Berry was born into slavery in Kentucky, first held by the Beatty family.
39 Facts About Polly Berry
1. 2.
Polly Berry was separated from her mother when she was seven or eight years of age, when she was sold to Joseph Crockett.
3.
Polly Berry was with different owners over a five-year period, and then sold to Major Taylor Berry.
4.
Polly Berry was with the Berry and Wash families for 12 or 13 years.
5.
Polly Berry sued for her own freedom based on having been held illegally as a child slave in the free state of Illinois.
6.
In 1842, Polly sued for the freedom of her daughter Lucy Ann Berry, as the girl had legally been born to a free woman.
7.
Polly Berry's life is known through the records of her freedom suit and her daughter Lucy Delaney's memoir, From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or, Struggles for Freedom, which give different accounts of Polly Berry's life before Lucy was born.
8.
Polly Berry Wash was born a slave of the Beatty family of Wayne County, Kentucky around 1803 or 1805.
9.
Polly Berry was with her mother until she was seven or eight, when she was sold to Joseph Crockett of the same county.
10.
Concerned that Polly Berry might be entitled to her freedom, Crockett's son, William, pressed him to continue on his journey to Missouri.
11.
Polly Berry was taken up the Missouri River and lived there, within the slave state of Missouri, from 1818 to around 1823.
12.
Polly Berry worked as a domestic servant, laundress, seamstress, and nursemaid.
13.
In 1824, Polly Berry was tried and acquitted for charges of forgery and perjury by Abiel Leonard, the prosecuting attorney for the First Judicial District of Missouri in Howard County.
14.
On September 1,1824, Polly Berry was shot in the lung and three weeks later died of pneumonia.
15.
Polly was enslaved by the Berry and Wash families for 12 or 13 years.
16.
Mary Polly Berry was married to Henry Sidney Coxe on March 21,1837, and Nancy was taken with them on their honeymoon trip, with a stop in Niagara Falls, New York.
17.
Nancy, instructed by Polly Berry to escape into Canada, received guidance from a servant at their hotel and made it safely across the border and into Canada.
18.
Polly Berry worked on the riverboat The Banner along the Mississippi River, during which there were stops in Illinois and Missouri.
19.
Polly Berry was said to have worked as a chambermaid on a steamboat that traveled along the Illinois River.
20.
Polly Berry was sold to Joseph Magehan, a carpenter and lumberman from St Louis.
21.
Polly Berry claimed that Magehan assaulted her on September 30,1839, after which she filed her freedom suit.
22.
Lucy went to Mary's younger sister, Martha, around the time that Polly Berry filed her freedom suit.
23.
Polly Berry was believed to have been a wedding present when Martha married David D Mitchell, who was a regional Superintendent for Indian Affairs.
24.
Polly Berry used water from the Missouri River, which was muddy and often ruined the clothing.
25.
Polly Berry sued Magehan for freedom and $500 in damages to pay for her time as a slave in the free state of Illinois.
26.
Polly Berry was hired out to Elijah Haydon, a schoolmaster and reformer from Alton, Illinois who had settled in St Louis.
27.
Haydon allowed her freedom to move throughout St Louis, and in April 1840 to Illinois, where Polly Berry communicated with possible witnesses while the case languished in the Missouri courts.
28.
Four years after filing the suit, in the St Louis Circuit Court, Polly Berry Wash won her liberty and a single dollar in damages.
29.
On June 6,1843, Polly Berry Wash was declared a free woman by an all-white jury, on the basis of witnesses who testified she had been held as a slave in Illinois for months.
30.
Polly Berry was issued a freedom bond on September 26,1843.
31.
Polly Berry did not have sufficient clothing for the conditions.
32.
Polly Berry was highly involved in freedom suits in St Louis.
33.
Polly Berry was later appointed as the US Attorney General under President Abraham Lincoln.
34.
Polly Berry left the jail the day the verdict was made.
35.
Polly Berry lived with her daughter Lucy Ann for the rest of her life.
36.
Polly Berry visited her daughter Nancy and grandchildren in Toronto in 1845, and the younger woman offered to settle her there.
37.
Polly Berry chose to return to Lucy Ann and her familiar St Louis roots.
38.
Polly Berry then was married in St Louis to Zachariah Delaney.
39.
Polly Berry died after the Civil War, without seeing her husband again.