Lear Green (circa 1839-1860) was an enslaved African American woman in Baltimore, Maryland, who had herself shipped in a chest to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to escape slavery. Her story is frequently compared to that of Henry Box Brown (circa 1815-1897), "the man who mailed himself to freedom" in a large box in 1849.
In Green's case, she had the help of her fiancé, a free Black named William Adams, and Adams' mother, also free, who accompanied the chest on its 18-hour trip from Baltimore to Philadelphia circa 1857. Green and the Adams were assisted in her escape by members of the Underground Railroad, a network of safe houses and locations operated by abolitionists running north to Canada, where slavery had been abolished.
After the US Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, runaway slaves could more easily be recaptured by their masters, the master's agents, or professional slave-catchers, and so many continued on through the Underground Railroad network to Canada, where they could not be returned to slavery.
This seems to have been the plan of Lear Green and William Adams, but once she was freed, they settled in Elmira, New York, where they lived for three years until Green's death (cause unknown) in 1860 at the age of 21.
Lear Green & William Still
As with many fugitive slaves who found freedom in the North, Lear Green was helped by William Still (1819-1902), an African American abolitionist and the son of a fugitive slave from Maryland. Still, often referred to as The Father of the Underground Railroad, kept extensive records of all the people he helped find freedom in the North, believing these would someday assist in reuniting families.
In 1872, he published these documents as The Underground Railroad Records, in which he details the escape of Lear Green and how she lived only three years after marrying Adams in Elmira. There is almost no other information on her available. The chest she escaped in is part of a permanent exhibit, Tides of Freedom: African-American Presence on the Delaware River, curated by Professor Tukufu Zuberi, at the Independence Seaport Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Green lived with William Still in Philadelphia until arrangements could be made to send her on to Elmira, New York, where William Adams received her, and they were married. The primary reason for Green attempting the escape was that, as a slave, her children would be born into slavery, and she could not bear that thought. Even so, there is no record of William and Lear Adams of Elmira, New York, ever having children, and, after Lear's death in 1860, nothing is recorded concerning William.
Lear Green & the Underground Railroad
Still records that Lear Green was 18 years old when she escaped in the chest, though he never gives the year. As she is thought to have been born circa 1839, she would have escaped in 1857, although various sources also cite 1850 and 1854. It is unclear how much the escape of Henry Box Brown influenced Green's flight from slavery, but by 1851, Brown's escape was well-known, and so it could have exerted considerable influence on Green's.
Lear Green and Henry Box Brown were not the only former slaves to escape in a box or chest mailed north. When Brown escaped and then publicized his flight in his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself (1851), abolitionist Frederick Douglass (circa 1818-1895) criticized him as this would prevent others from doing the same thing.
It would appear Douglass was wrong, as others were still able to have themselves shipped north. Green is only one example, another is an unnamed pregnant woman, also recorded by Still, who escaped slavery in Baltimore, Maryland, by having herself shipped to freedom in Philadelphia. This woman appears to have had a much harder time traveling by box than Green, as noted by William Still, who records the moment when she was 'unboxed' in Philadelphia in 1857:
"Get up, my child," spake one of the women. With scarcely life enough to move the straw covering, she, nevertheless, did now show signs of life, but to a very faint degree. She could not speak, but being assisted, arose. She was straightaway aided upstairs, not yet uttering a word. After a short while she said, "I feel so deadly weak." She was then asked if she would not have some water or nourishment, which she declined.
Before a great while, however, she was prevailed upon to take a cup of tea. She then went to bed, and there remained all day, speaking but a very little during that time. The second day, she gained strength and was able to talk much better, but not with ease. The third day, she began to come to herself and talk quite freely. She tried to describe her sufferings and fears while in the box, but in vain. In the midst of her severest agonies, her chief fear was that she would be discovered and carried back to slavery.
(357-358)
As Still records no such distress on the part of Green, it is assumed she did not suffer as much as this woman. As with Brown and Green, this woman's box was picked up by a member of the abolitionist Vigilance Committee, brought to a safe house, opened, and the fugitive cared for until they were able to travel further north.
Even before the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, members of the Underground Railroad took an enormous risk in aiding fugitive slaves, and after 1850, these risks rose sharply. Scholar Kate Clifford Larson cites one example of the abolitionist and Underground Railroad member, Thomas Garrett (1789-1871), who helped many fugitive slaves and Underground Railroad 'conductors', including the famous Harriet Tubman (circa 1822-1913):
Once in Wilmington, Tubman and her group stopped at Thomas Garrett's home, where he provided them with food and clothing. Harriet and one of the men "had worn their shoes off their feet" so Garrett gave them $2 to buy new shoes. Garrett, a hardware and iron merchant, used his own income to provide refuge and necessities for the estimated twenty-five hundred runaways who came through his home over a thirty-to forty-year period…Garrett had long been suspected of being an Underground Railroad agent, but in 1848 he was caught aiding a family of slaves escape from their Maryland owners. Found guilty, Garrett was fined $1,500. Defiant as ever, however, he announced to the court at his sentencing that he would never pass up the opportunity to assist a runaway slave.
(114 & 339)
$1,500.00 in 1848 would be around $60,700.00 in the present day, a significant sum, and yet people like Thomas Garrett, William Still, and Passmore Williamson (1822-1895, the abolitionist who helped Henry Box Brown) ran the risk of fines and imprisonment all the time in an effort to help enslaved people win their freedom.
Text
The following is taken from The Underground Railroad Records by William Still (1872), republished by Modern Library of New York, 2019.
$150 REWARD. Ran away from the subscriber, on Sunday night, 27th inst., my NEGRO GIRL, Lear Green, about 18 years of age, black complexion, round-featured, good-looking and ordinary size; she had on and with her when she left, a tan-colored silk bonnet, a dark plaid silk dress, a light mouslin delaine, also one watered silk cape and one tan-colored cape. I have reason to be confident that she was persuaded off by a negro man named Wm. Adams, black, quick spoken, 5 feet 10 inches high, a large scar on one side of his face, running down to a ridge by the corner of his mouth, about 4 inches long, barber by trade, but works mostly about taverns, opening oysters, etc. He has been missing about a week; he had been heard to say he was going to marry the above girl and ship to New York, where it is said his mother resides. The above reward will be paid if said girl is taken out of the State of Maryland and delivered to me; or fifty dollars if taken in the State of Maryland. JAMES NOBLE, m26-3t. No. 153 Broadway, Baltimore.
Lear Green, so particularly advertised in the "Baltimore Sun" by "James Noble," won for herself a strong claim to a high place among the heroic women of the nineteenth century. In regard to description and age, the advertisement is tolerably accurate, although her master might have added that her countenance was one of peculiar modesty and grace. Instead of being "black", she was of a ‘dark brown color."
Of her bondage, she made the following statement:
She was owned by "James Noble, a Butter Dealer" of Baltimore. He fell heir to Lear by the will of his wife's mother, Mrs. Rachel Howard, by whom she had previously been owned. Lear was but a mere child when she came into the hands of Nobel's family. She, therefore, remembered but little of her old mistress. Her young mistress, however, had made a lasting impression upon her mind; for she was very exacting and oppressive in regard to the tasks she was daily in the habit of laying upon Lear's shoulders, with no disposition whatever to allow any liberties. At least, Lear was never indulged in this respect.
In this situation, a young man by the name of William Adams proposed marriage to her. This offer she was inclined to accept but disliked the idea of being encumbered with the chains of slavery and the duties of a family at the same time.
After a full consultation with her mother and also her intended upon the matter, she decided that she must be free in order to fill the station of wife and mother. For a time, dangers and difficulties in the way of escape seemed utterly to set at defiance all hope of success. Whilst every pulse was beating strong for liberty, only one chance seemed to be left, the trial of which required as much courage as it would to endure the cutting off the right arm or plucking out the right eye.
An old chest of substantial make, such as sailors commonly use, was procured. A quilt, a pillow, and a few articles of raiment, with a small quantity of food and a bottle of water, were put in it, and Lear placed therein; strong ropes were fastened around the chest and she was safely stowed amongst the ordinary freight on one of the Erricson line of steamers.
Her intended's mother, who was a free woman, agreed to come as a passenger on the same boat. How could she refuse? The prescribed rules of the Company assigned colored passengers to the deck. In this instance, it was exactly where this guardian and mother desired to be – as near the chest as possible. Once or twice, during the silent watches of the night, she was drawn irresistibly to the chest and could not refrain from venturing to untie the rope and raise the lid a little, to see if the poor child still lived, and at the same time to give her a breath of fresh air.
Without uttering a whisper, that frightful moment, this office was successfully performed. That the silent prayers of this oppressed young woman, together with her faithful protector's, were momentarily ascending to the ear of the good God above, there can be no question. Nor is it to be doubted for a moment but that some ministering angel aided the mother to unfasten the rope and, at the same time, nerved the heart of poor Lear to endure the trying ordeal of her perilous situation. She declared that she had no fear.
After she had passed eighteen hours in the chest, the steamer arrived at the wharf in Philadelphia and, in due time, the living freight was brought off the boat and at first was delivered at the house in Barley Street, occupied by particular friends of the mother. Subsequently, chest and freight were removed to the residence of the writer, in whose family she remained several days under the protection and care of the Vigilance Committee.
Such hungering and thirsting for liberty, as was evinced by Lear Green, made the efforts of the most ardent friends, who were in the habit of aiding fugitives, seem feeble in the extreme. Of all the heroes in Canada, or out of it, who have purchased their liberty by downright bravery, through perils the most hazardous, none deserve more praise than Lear Green.
She remained for a time in this family and was then forwarded to Elmira. In this place she was married to William Adams, who has been previously alluded to. They never went to Canada, but took up their permanent abode in Elmira. The brief space of about three years was allotted her in which to enjoy freedom, as death came and terminated her career. About the time of this sad occurrence, her mother-in-law died in this city.
The impressions made by both mother and daughter can never be effaced. The chest in which Lear escaped has been preserved by the writer as a rare trophy, and her photograph taken, while in the chest, is an excellent likeness of her and, at the same time, a fitting memorial.
