ESCAPE TO FREEDOM
For more than 30 years, Lewis and Harriet Hayden were held in slavery in and around Lexington. Lewis’s first wife, Esther and their child had been sold” down the river” to a slaveholder in the Deep South and Lewis never saw them again. To prevent a reoccurrence of such a horrific situation, Lewis chose to escape from the bonds of slavery with his second wife, Harriet Bell, and their son, Joseph. The family was aided by Delia Webster, a Lexington school teacher, and Calvin Fairbanks, a minister from Ohio. Webster and Fairbanks transported the Hayden family to Maysville and across the Ohio River to a station on the Underground Railroad. As they departed Lexington, the group passed the home where Lewis had been enslaved by Rev. Adam Rankin. The home exists today within sight of the proposed monument on Limestone Street.
After a stop in Detroit, the family reached Boston, where Lewis and Harriet became leaders in the anti-slavery movement. More than 100 escaped slaves found shelter in their home that served as a station on the Underground Railroad. In 1863, Lewis persuaded his friend, Massachusetts Governor John Andrew, to push for inclusion of black men in the Union army. Eventually three regiments of black soldiers, many recruited by Lewis Hayden, represented the State of Massachusetts in the war that would end slavery. After the war, Lewis became the first black man elected to the Massachusetts legislature.
Unfortunately, the story of Lewis and Harriet Hayden and others who endeavored to eliminate slavery in our area has been all but lost to history. Lexington’s monument to the struggle for freedom will testify to the courage of those persons, both black and white, who risked their lives as they strove to free themselves and others.
Lexington buildings and homes during Lewis and Harriet Hayden’s tenure 1811-1844
East Main Street
140 - Phoenix Hotel, 1820. Corner North Limestone Street, now the Central Public Library/Phoenix Park.
Hayden was hired to serve as a waiter during the racing season at the Hotel in 1844. He started from here on his route to escape.
North Limestone Street
216 - Matthew Kennedy House, 1813-1814. Matthew Kennedy, an early architect of buildings at Transylvania, the
Masonic Lodge in Lexington and the second Kentucky State House, Frankfort.
312 - James Weir House. Corner of Third Street. Construction began in 1832; completed in 1850.
Hemp bagging and rope manufacturer. Now the Carrick House.
343 - Rankin House, 1808-1809. Home of Lewis Hayden’s enslaver.
461 - Brand House/Rose Hill, 1812. Corner of Fourth Street. A slave home still stands in the side yard.
530 - William Morton House, 1810. Corner of Fifth Street.
Cassius M. Clay home, 1838-1850. Clay published the True American, an anti-slavery newspaper 1845 to 1847.
North Mill Street
125 - Mathurin Giron Bakery, 1815 (now Silks Lounge). Giron was a baker, countryman of General LaFayette.
Corner of N. Mill at 307 West Short - Early post office under postmaster Joseph Ficklin. Now a restaurant.
160 - William Dailey Hotel, 1797. Dailey was a free man of color who drove the stagecoach to Olympian Springs.
176 - Henry Clay’s Law Office, 1803-1804. Law office of Henry Clay until 1810. Now there is a Gift Shop and Gallery.
Gratz Park – original campus of Transylvania University founded 1785 in Danville; relocated to Lexington in 1789.
North Upper Street
251 - St. Paul AME Church, founded1820, church built 1826. Oral history connects it to the Underground Railroad
Lewis Hayden was a Methodist. He may have been a member of this church or perhaps the Branch Methodist Church, established in 1830. It stood on Branch Alley behind the Phoenix Hotel.
The Town Branch Water Walk on East Vine Street, across from the Transit Center, has an archive panel
with an image and details about the Church.
Saunier Avenue –
Livery Stable - Behind the Lexington Opera House. Example of what the Parker and Harbin Livery Stable may have looked like. Rev. Calvin Fairbank leased a hack and driver, Israel, from Craig Parker whose livery was located at 11 Short Street.
Accounts of Their Escape
“Hayden was the joint property of Thomas Grant and Lewis Baxter. Grant, as Hayden later wrote, was ‘engaged as tallow chandler and oil manufacturer and dealer’ while Baxter ‘was a Clerk in an Insurance Office in Lexington’. They in turn hired him out to work in John Brennan’s Phoenix Hotel, Lexington’s most prestigious inn.”[1]
“Rain began on Friday evening, September 27, and continued through Saturday. On Saturday evening, Hayden was probably busy at the Phoenix Hotel, waiting on diners as they celebrated the last day of Lexington’s fall race meet. About seven o’clock in the evening, Hayden slipped out of the restaurant and started for the home of Patterson Bain where Harriet and Joseph waited. Walking through the rain, Hayden crossed a muddy street and approached the Bain house. After assuring himself that no witnesses were in sight, he went to the rear of the house and knocked on a window.”[2] The Bain House, according to the 1838-39 City Directory, was located on North Upper Street, corner of Third Street. Would Hayden have crossed Main, to North Upper and then cross Short and Second streets to reach the Bain House? Or did he follow a different path to avoid notice?
“Shortly before five o’clock that Saturday, they (Webster and Fairbank) left the house on West Second Street (Glass boarding house) but despite their declared intention of making a country excursion, they did not immediately leave the city. Instead, Fairbank instructed the driver- Israel, a slave he had rented with the carriage - to proceed to the Dudley House Hotel, where two trunks he had left there four days before were loaded into the vehicle. They must have made one more stop before leaving Lexington. -------- Fairbank later recalled that it was ‘near the residence of Cassius M. Clay (Morton House) that he and Miss Webster had waited in the hack for the Haydens.”[3]
Did Lewis, Harriet and Joseph walk from the Bain House on Third Street to the Morton/Clay House on the corner of Fifth and North Limestone streets? OR
Did the carriage pick them up at or near the Bain residence? “Almost on cue, a carriage drawn by two horses emerged from the dusk and rattled to a halt in front of the Haydens. Calvin Fairbank and Delia Webster were inside. The Haydens climbed in and the driver turned the horses to the north.[4]
They left Lexington about 8 o’clock along North Mulberry, now Limestone Street.[5]
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
[1] Runyon, Randolph Paul. Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad. 11.
Cited Sydney Howard Gay Papers. Columbia University Library
[2]Strangis, Joel. Lewis Hayden and the War Against Slavery. 17.
[3] Runyon, Randolph Paul. Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad. 16
[4] Strangis, Joel. Lewis Hayden and the War Against Slavery. 17
[5] Runyon, Randolph Paul. Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad. 16