When they reached Philadelphia, they met several abolitionists, including William Wells Brown, William Lloyd Garrison, William Still and Barclay Ivens. All of these men expected to meet two men, but were shocked to find a man and woman. When the Crafts told them about their daring escape, word about their escape spread like wildfire throughout abolitionist circles in the north and even in the south. After staying a couple of weeks at the Ivens farm, they went to Boston to avoid being taken back into slavery. Following a Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery Society rally at Boston’s Faneuil Hall, they began a tour for the next several months with William Wells Brown. By Spring 1849 they moved into Lewis Hayden’s boarding-house on Beacon Hill to find work. Ellen began sewing as a seamstress and William opened his own shop where he sold used furniture and cabinets that he made.

 

When the newspapers in Georgia carried their escape story, their owners found where they were and sent a slave catcher to bring them back to Macon.  The first attempt to trick the Crafts did not succeed, but with the passing of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law they were no longer safe in Boston. A second and more serious attempt was made to capture the Crafts but the Boston community came to their defense and hid them. During a protest meeting at Faneuil Hall, while “pointing at the Crafts” Frederick Douglass asked, “Will we permit a fugitive slave to be captured in Boston?” “No!” was the crowd’s loud response.

 

 The Crafts were no longer safe in neither the United States nor Canada because their owners wrote to President Fillmore requesting that he enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. A visiting British Abolitionist convinced the Crafts to settle in England where they could find peace. Before leaving Boston in December 1850, they asked Reverend Theodore Parker, head of the Committee of Safety and Vigilance to protect Black Bostonians from slave catchers, and to marry them; although they had a “slave wedding” in Georgia years earlier.

 

The Crafts lived in England for roughly eighteen years where they had their five children, after a period of speaking about slavery in the American South. The Crafts became famous in Great Britain and had wonderful sponsors including Dr. John Estlin, an abolitionist physician, and Lady Noel Byron, widow of Lord Byron. After a few months of speaking in England, Scotland and Wales they settled at Ockham School (twenty miles outside of London). Lady Lovelace, the daughter of Lady Byron, began the Ockham School. 

 

For two years the Crafts continued their studies while William conducted carpentry classes and Ellen ran the girls’ sewing class. In October 1852 Ellen gave birth to their first born, Charles Estlin Phillips Craft, who was named after Dr. Estlin and Wendell Phllips, an abolitionist. Ellen and William had four other children. To assist with the expenses as more children were born, William published Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom In 1860. He also made two trips to Dahomey, which is today’s Benin in West Africa, in 1862 and 1864, to speak about their daring escape.

 

In 1869 Ellen and William Craft moved back to the United States. They had a school in Bryan County, Woodville, Georgia, which was like Ockham for ex-slaves from 1872 to about 1880 when the school closed. They continued to farm Woodville until they retired in 1890 to Charleston, SC, where their son, Charles, and daughter Ellen, lived. The story of the Crafts lives on in the family as descendants share it with the next generation and historians, authors and filmmakers continue to tell their story.

​

Back to Their Story Main