Stampede of Slaves; The Margaret Garner Family Tragedy Near Covington, KY
Posted by: 
kbarhow
N 39° 05.449 W 084° 30.593
16S E 715361 N 4329806
The drama of a slave family's escape to freedom ends in tragedy with the mother taking the life of her child rather then let her live a life of slavery. The family made their crossing to freedom over the frozen Ohio River in the winter of 1856.
Waymark Code: WM2F7K
Location: Kentucky, United States
Date Posted: 10/23/2007
Views: 142
Margaret Garner and members of her family fled her master’s farm south of here in Boone County, Kentucky in January of 1856. This was one of the coldest winters in years, so cold the Ohio River froze over from shore to shore. They hid out in the home of a freeman down river from Cincinnati. Slave catchers and local lawmen broke in to recapture the group. Margaret grabbed a knife and cut the throat of her youngest child, and was prepared to harm the others and herself to avoid being returned to slavery. The group was recaptured, and was eventually returned to their owners.
This event served as a basis for Toni Morrison’s 1987 Pulitzer Prize novel “Beloved.”
The photos are from the nearby Roebling Murals depicting their crossing of the Ohio River from Kentucky, a slave state, into Ohio, a free state. The coordinates are for the location of the mural. The caption for this waymark was taken from the January 29, 1856 article in The Cincinnati Enquirer. See the website listed below for the full story.