The Case of Basil Dorsey, 1837¹

I come now to an important case which Robert Purvis was closely identified, several details of which I head at different times from John S. Brown and Henry M. Twining and others. Feeling the importance of having these details properly connected, that I might present a clear statement of the whole case, I have had two very satisfactory interviews with Robert Purvis at his home in Philadelphia during the past three weeks. He is now past eighty-five years of age, and quite feeble, his memory of recent events (not those of his earlier life) showing the effect of age. He received me most cordially, with all the grace and dignified courtesy for which he was so notably distinguished in early life, and at the close of each interview of more than [an] hour, he dismissed me with the same dignified and gracious manner, begging me to call at any time he could render me the least service upon any subject. In this account of the case that especially called me to his house, he fully confirmed all that my other friends had said, and added some important points. The case as he gave it to me is substantially as follows:

He said that he was living in Bensalem about the year 1837. He had then living with him a most excellent and faithful colored man named Basil Dorsey, who had been with him about two years.² At this time Dorsey was visited by a brother-in-law of his wife, from the state of Maryland, whence he came. This brother-in-law, for some reason, became jealous of Dorsey in his happy home, and betrayed Dorsey and his three brothers to his master, from whom he had escaped in 1836. The master (their reputed father), aided by a notorious slave-catcher, came to Philadelphia and arrested Thomas, one of the brothers, and hurried him away to slavery, from which he was soon redeemed by his friends by the payment of $1000. Some after the arrest of Thomas these men secured the aid of a constable from Bristol, and obtained warrants from Judge Fox, of Doylestown, for the arrest of the remaining three brothers. Two escaped them, and were taken by night to Robert Purvis’s brother, Joseph, to a friend’s house forty miles distant, in New Jersey, whence they were forwarded to Canada. Basil alone remained, and the slave-hunters came upon him toward evening, as he was plowing at a distant point on Robert Purvis’s farm.

Word came quickly to Mr. Purvis, brought by the son of a neighboring farmer, of the attempt to capture and handcuff Dorsey, and he hastened to the spot, where he learned that they had already started to Bristol with their prey. Robert immediately had his fleetest horse harnessed and made pursuit, reaching Bristol as they were locking up Dorsey in a cell where criminals were confined. He remonstrated, and addressed a crowd who assembled, telling them of the outrage and warmly enlisting their sympathy. The master informed him that they would go to Doylestown the next morning, and bring the case before Judge Fox. In the morning, taking Dorsey’s wife and two young children, Mr. Purvis drove to Doylestown, and employed as counsel Thomas Ross, one of the ablest lawyers then at this Bar. When the case came up the judge was deeply moved—for, said Purvis recently, as he told me the story, “He was a man with human feelings, if he was a judge” – and the forlorn condition of the hand-cuffed, dejected prisoner, and the tears of his young wife and their two children, moved every heart to pity; and to gain time, and make provision for the best possible defense, and for other reasons which appeared later, (but not before the court); -- the lawyer for the defense succeeded in putting the case off for two weeks, and the hand-cuffed prisoner was remanded to a cell. These two weeks were well used by Purvis and his friends. The colored people were thoroughly aroused, and preparations were made for a forcible rescue if the case went against Dorsey.

As the time for trial approached, Purvis drove to Philadelphia, and called on the best criminal lawyer at the bar in those days, David Paul Brown. He stated the case in a few words, and offered Brown a fee of $50 if he would come to Doylestown and defend Dorsey. To this Mr. Brown replied, almost indignantly, that he had never charged a dollar for defending a slave, and never would, but that he would gladly come to Doylestown and take the case as requested. At the end of two weeks the case came on here before Judge Fox, and a young and rising lawyer of this bar as the claimant’s counsel. Mr. Brown was promptly on hand for the defendant. Although it was against the principle of the Abolitionists to pay for a slave, the great sympathy felt for Dorsey, and the fear of losing the case, had caused two attempts to be made to purchase him. The master asked $500; when the sum was offered by his friends he raised the price to $800; and that being also offered, he demanded $1000. “No,” said Dorsey, when consulted, “Do not pay it. I am prepared to take my life in court, if the case goes against me, for I will never go back to slavery.” Mr. Purvis said to me last week that he could not but commend the man for his brave resolution—and the case came on. The prosecuting attorney made a clear statement of the claim, presenting the bill of sale, and the necessary evidences of the legality of the demand of the master. Robert Purvis felt, as he listened to his plea, and considered the interpretation of the law was then almost invariably favorable to the slave holder, that Dorsey’s fate was practically sealed, unless the forcible rescue, contemplated and prepared for, was resorted to, upon which hundreds of well-prepared colored men were resolved, but which they wished to use only as a last resort.

At this moment David Paul Brown arose, and his erect and stalwart form, and dignified and earnest manner, at once arrested the attention of the crowded court. He began by admitting the force of the arguments which the claimant’s counsel had adduced, saying, “Unfortunately, by the law of this boasted land of freedom, the right of one man to claim another as his chattel slave in many of our states is unquestioned: and even in the States called free the slave owner from another State is permitted by the laws to seek his flying fugitive wherever he can be found; thus practically making these Northern States a free hunting ground for the master seeking his fleeing bondmen.” At this point he paused, and the anxiety of the friends of the fugitive on hearing this admission may be imagined. When Mr. Brown suddenly drew himself up to his full height, raised his forefinger, pointing most earnestly to the opposing counsel, and continued, in his most impressive and deliberate manner: “Thus far I admit the force of the argument of the claimant’s counsel, but there is one fatal flaw in the indictment and upon that I take my stand. This is a land of law; this is a court of law; and nothing can be decided in this court but under the strict sanction of law. Am I not right? The judge, apparently moved by the manner of Mr. Brown, bowed assent. Mr. Brown proceeded: “The opposing counsel has made a clear case for his client, except in one important point: he has not shown by proper evidence that, under the laws of Maryland, a man may be held as a slave, and now showing this his case goes by default.” “But,: exclaimed the young prosecuting attorney, “Maryland is a slave State. Everybody knows that Maryland is a slave State.” “Everybody is nobody,” thundered Mr. Brown; “common report does not pass before a court of justice. You must prove it by the proper documents. The right to hold a fellowman a slave is too important a right to rest on any but the most direct and substantial evidence.” Here the young attorney stepped out and quickly brought a copy of the laws of Maryland, which Mr. Brown, after a glance at the title page, returned, saying that it was not a properly certified copy. The young attorney then begged for a brief delay that the proof demanded could be secured. But Mr. Brown was unrelenting, and demanded the dismissal of the case for want of proper proof on this point. The Judge, who had been deeply moved by the plea of Mr. Brown and his earnest manner, grew more and more uneasy in his seat, and the whole feeling of the court and of the assembly was now evidently on the side of mercy. At this juncture the Judge arose and said suddenly: “The case is dismissed!” Instantly Robert Purvis was at the elbow of Dorsey, leading him toward the door. A crowd of sympathizers rushed out with them and were just in time to see Purvis and Dorsey in a light carriage, behind a fleet horse, disappear down Academy Lane. So far as it appears that was Basil Dorsey’s last visit to Doylestown. They drove rapidly to Philadelphia where Robert Purvis left Dorsey at his mother’s, telling her to ask no questions and keep him well concealed. Soon after he took him on to New York, where he was taken care of by good friends of the slave, and later was joined by his wife and children in New England.

Twenty-five years after, during the war that ended slavery, the door bell of Robert Purvis in Philadelphia was rung, and a young colored man, of refined appearances and bearing, was ushered into his parlor. When Mr. Purvis came in he rose and said: “Is this Robert Purvis?” When told that it was, he said: “My name is Robert Purvis Dorsey. You saved my father twenty-five years ago, and he has always told me that I must find your house first whenever I came to Philadelphia.”

When Mr. Purvis first told me this story, about three weeks ago, he was deeply affected, and seemed to dwell on some parts of it, repeating them over and over before he would let me go. He also added that a few years after the war he visited Basil Dorsey and his family, and found Mr. Dorsey a well-to-do citizen, with an interesting wife and number of children, all of whom had received or were receiving a good education. “The whole case of Basil Dorsey,” said Mr. Purvis, “I have always considered the most interesting case of my long and eventful life.”

Wishing to know something of the later life of this hunted fugitive, I made inquiry in different directions, but seemed to find no clue, when a few days ago I happened to speak of the case to Elizabeth Powell Bond, Dean of Swarthmore College. “Why, “she exclaimed, “I was present and spoke at the funeral of Basil Dorsey in 1872!” After a brief search she found among her papers the printed report of her discourse on the occasion, and in it I found printed the bill of sale of Basil Dorsey, executed in 1851, soon after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. He was then in business at Florence, Mass., and often called to business in Boston and elsewhere, and his numerous friends feared that under the new law his liberty, even in Massachusetts, might again be imperiled. So they made up the sum of $150, rather than incur the risk of his recapture in those troubled years, and received from the master this bill of slave. I have it carefully copied and deposited among your mementoes of those dark days now happily passed, as I would deposit a slave driver’s whip, manacles, iron collars, or any other relic of the barbarous system of slavery, for, in the language of Mrs. Bond: “It is of historic value; as really a relic of barbarism as the instruments of torture by which the slave drivers maintained their authority.” ³

Among the hundreds of cases of fugitive slaves who have passed through Bucks county, according to the testimony of eye witnesses, and especially by the careful records of Richard Moore, many more might be verified through investigation, before the last of those engaged in the Underground work have passed on to higher life. But these few may suffice as type cases, illustrative of the sufferings endured and the dangers bravely dared by this oppressed and long suffering race. Let us rejoice that, in the wise ordering of Divine Providence, this dark stain upon our National escutcheon is at last removed, and that our beloved country may now proudly take her place in the vanguard of the world’s onward march.

THE BILL OF SALE FOR BASIL DORSEY.⁴

Know all many by these presents, That I, Thomas E. Sollers, of Frederick County and State of Maryland, for an in consideration of the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars lawful money of the United States, in hand paid by George Griscom, of the city of Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania, attorney at law, at or before the sealing and delivery of these presents, the receipt whereof is acknowledged: Have granted, bargained, and sold, and by these presents do grant, bargain, and sell, unto the said George Griscom, his executors, administrators, and assigns, one mulatto man, named Ephraim Costly, otherwise and now called Basil Dorsey, aged about forty-three years, a slave for life. [The said Ephraim Costly, otherwise and now called Basil Dorsey, as aforesaid, having been born a slave for life of Sabrick Sollers, late of said Frederick County, in the State of Maryland, and raised by the said Sabrick Sollers, and owned by him as such slave for life until the decease of said Sabrick Sollers, after which he became the property of, as such slave for life, of the said Thomas E. Sollers, (who is a son and one of the heirs at law of said Sabrick Sollers, deceased,) and is now a fugitive from service from said State of Maryland.]

To have and to hold the said described Mulatto man named Ephraim Costly, otherwise and now called Basil Dorsey, a slave for life as aforesaid to the said George Griscom, his executors, administrators, and assigns forever, and he the said Thomas E. Sollers, for himself, his heirs, executors, and administrators, the said Mulatto man Ephraim Costly, otherwise Basil Dorsey, unto the said George Griscom, his executors, administrators, and assigns, and against him the said Thomas E. Sollers, his executors and administrators, and against all and every other person or persons whatsoever, shall and will warrant and forever defend by these presents.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this fourteenth day of May, eight hundred and fifty-one. Signed, sealed, and delivered.

Thomas E. Sollers, [seal]

In the presence of

16. Gorsuch.

State of Maryland,}

City of Baltimore.} S.S.

Be it remembered, That on this fourteenth day of May, 1851, before the subscriber, a Justice of the Peace for said, appears Thos. E. Sollers and acknowledges the above instrument of writing to be his act and deed, according to the true intent and meaning thereof, and also at the same time personally appeared George Griscom and made oath upon the Holy Evangels of Almighty God that the consideration set forth therein is true and bona fide as set forth. P. Gorsuch.

1 The text of the Magill speech dates the incident as 1838. This date is in error and here amended to 1837. The details of the Dorsey trial, as related by Purvis to Magill, largely conform to contemporary accounts by “W.H.J.” published as letters in the National Enquirer in July and August 1837.

2 For another version of the Dorsey Case, see R.C. Smeadly, History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania (Lancaster, PA: The Journal, 1883): 356-61.

3 Elizabeth Powell Bond (1841-1926), sister of Aaron M. Powell. In 1872, she in Northampton, Massachusetts and one of the leaders of the Free Congregational Society. See Emily Cooper Johnson, Dean Bond of Swarthmore A Quaker Humanist (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, nd), and the Elizabeth Powell Bond Papers at Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College). No copy of the “printed report of her discourse” has been located.

4 Friends Intelligencer 55 (4 Mo. 2, 1898): 245.