Mary Eliza Walker, born in 1818, was enslaved by Duncan Cameron at Stagville, a plantation in Durham, North Carolina. Walker was required to join Cameron on several of his trips to Philadelphia, and, in 1848, she escaped while they were there. She was protected under Pennsylvania’s 1847 Personal Liberty Law, which granted freedom to enslaved individuals who were brought to the state by an enslaver. However, claiming her freedom meant leaving her mother and three children behind.
Helped by her new employers, Rev. Peter Lesley and Susan Lyman Lesley of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Walker spent years trying to recover her children. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Law changed everything for Walker – if found, she would’ve been re-enslaved. Although Walker was literate, the Lesleys wrote on her behalf to keep her location a secret. This, too, was dangerous, since the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law made assisting a person escaping slavery illegal. The Lesleys helped make three attempts to reunite Walker with her children, writing to her former enslavers to suggest that they allow Walker to purchase her children’s freedom. Walker’s oldest son, Frank, escaped on his own in 1852. The Lesleys called on their vast network, including famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass, to search for Frank, but he was never located. In 1865, Walker was reunited with 2 of her children, Agnes and Bryant, in Raleigh.