Parker Kidnapping, Nottingham

In eighteen fifty-one, emboldened by the federal Fugitive Slave Act passed the year before, Maryland slave catchers crossed into Chester County and kidnapped two young women, Rachel and Elizabeth Parker, from the Nottingham area. Both were free Black women, not escaped slaves, but the law gave kidnappers wide latitude and almost no accountability.

Rachel's employer Joseph Miller was murdered when he tried to rescue her from Baltimore. Public outrage in Pennsylvania pushed state officials to pursue the case in a Maryland civil court, an unusual move that ultimately won the sisters' freedom in eighteen fifty-three. The case became a rallying point for abolitionists across the state, demonstrating that the Fugitive Slave Act endangered not just freedom-seekers but any free Black person living in the North, vulnerable to kidnap at any moment. The graves of those who bore witness rest at Fremont Cemetery nearby.