The Extraordinary Escape of Ona Judge
In the spring of 1796, as President George Washington and his wife, Martha, prepared to return from Philadelphia to their Virginia plantation, one of their most trusted household servants vanished. Ona “Oney” Judge, Martha Washington’s personal maid and body servant, slipped out of the President’s House while the first family dined. She boarded a ship bound for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and never returned to enslavement. Her daring flight — and the furious, multi-year pursuit that followed — exposed the contradictions at the heart of America’s founding: a president who spoke of liberty while relentlessly hunting the woman who claimed it for herself.
Ona Judge’s story, preserved in her own words through two rare 1840s interviews, reveals not only the human cost of slavery but also the quiet networks of free Black Philadelphians who made her escape possible. It is a tale of courage, betrayal, and the limits of even the most powerful man in the young republic.
Born into Bondage at Mount Vernon
Ona Maria Judge was born around 1773–1774 on George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Fairfax County, Virginia. Her mother, Betty, was an enslaved seamstress who worked in the mansion house. Her father was almost certainly Andrew Judge, a white English indentured tailor hired by Washington between 1772 and 1784. As the daughter of an enslaved woman, Ona inherited her mother’s legal status: she was the property of the Custis estate (from Martha Washington’s first marriage). She would pass to Martha’s heirs upon her death.
By age ten, Ona had been brought into the mansion as Martha’s personal attendant. She learned to sew expertly, mend clothing, dress her mistress, and manage her personal affairs. Washington’s papers describe her as “a light mulatto girl, much freckled,” with “very black eyes and bushy black hair.” She and her younger sister Delphy were dower slaves — legally Martha’s until her death — a status that would prove crucial later.
Life in the Presidential Household
When Washington became president in 1789, fifteen-year-old Ona traveled north with the family, first to New York City and then to Philadelphia, the temporary capital. She waited on Martha daily: helping her bathe and dress for social events, organizing her wardrobe, and accompanying her on errands. Washington’s account books record purchases of fine gowns, shoes, and bonnets for her — perks of her visible role in the household.
Philadelphia offered glimpses of a different world. The city had a growing free Black community and active Quaker abolitionists. Enslaved people from Mount Vernon, including Ona, received small amounts of cash to attend plays, circuses, and other entertainments. Yet Washington was acutely aware of Pennsylvania’s 1780 gradual abolition law, which would free any enslaved person who resided in the state for six continuous months. To circumvent it, he secretly rotated his enslaved servants back to Virginia every few months “under the pretext that may deceive both them and the Public.”
The Spark: A Gift to the Granddaughter
In March 1796, Martha Washington’s granddaughter Elizabeth (“Eliza”) Parke Custis married Thomas Law. Ona learned she was to be given to the couple — possibly as a wedding present or upon Martha’s death. Eliza had a reputation for a fierce temper. The news crystallized Ona’s resolve. “I was determined never to be her slave,” she later recalled. She knew returning to Virginia meant permanent bondage with no hope of freedom.
On the afternoon of Saturday, May 21, 1796, while the Washingtons ate dinner, Ona gathered her belongings (pre-packed with help from free Black friends in Philadelphia) and walked out a side door. She made her way to the Delaware River waterfront and boarded the sloop Nancy, commanded by Captain John Bowles (sometimes spelled Bolles), bound for Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She kept the captain’s name secret for years “lest they should punish him.” After a five-day voyage, she stepped into freedom in a city with roughly 360 free Black residents and virtually no enslaved people.
The President’s Manhunt
Two days later, Washington’s steward Frederick Kitt placed advertisements in Philadelphia newspapers offering a $10 reward (roughly the cost of a barrel of flour) for “Oney Judge,” describing her clothing and appearance in detail. Washington was furious. He believed she had been “seduced and enticed away” by a Frenchman and expressed outrage at her “ingratitude” after being treated “more like a child than a Servant.”
He enlisted federal officials to track her. In summer 1796, Elizabeth Langdon — daughter of New Hampshire Senator John Langdon and a friend of the Washington grandchildren — recognized Ona on the streets of Portsmouth and alerted the president. Washington directed Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott Jr. to have the local customs collector, Joseph Whipple, apprehend her.
Whipple located Ona by advertising for a domestic servant. When he interviewed her, she stated plainly that “a thirst for complete freedom” had been her only motive. She offered to return voluntarily — but only if the Washingtons promised to free her upon their deaths. Washington rejected the compromise in a blistering letter:
“To enter into such a compromise with her, as she suggested to you, is totally inadmissible… it would neither be politic nor just to reward unfaithfulness with a premature preference.”
He insisted on her return without conditions, even as he privately acknowledged his discomfort with slavery to friends like the Marquis de Lafayette.
In August 1799, Washington made one final attempt. He instructed his nephew, Burwell Bassett Jr. (Martha’s nephew), to seize Ona and any children she might have during a business trip to New Hampshire. Bassett dined with Senator Langdon and revealed his plan. Langdon — a quiet abolitionist sympathizer — secretly warned Ona. With her husband at sea and infant daughter in her arms, she fled eight miles to Greenland, New Hampshire, hiding with a free Black family until Bassett left empty-handed.
Washington died on December 14, 1799. As Ona later said, “they never troubled me anymore after he was gone.” Yet under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 — which Washington himself had signed — she and her descendants remained legally fugitives for the rest of their lives.
Freedom in New Hampshire: Marriage, Motherhood, and Poverty
In January 1797, Ona married John “Jack” Staines, a free Black sailor. They had three children: daughters Eliza and Nancy, and a son named Will. Jack died in 1803, leaving the family in poverty. Ona briefly worked as a live-in domestic, then moved with her children into the Jacks’ family home in Greenland. Her daughters were later indentured out as servants; her son became a sailor. All three children predeceased her.
Ona supported herself as a seamstress and laundress. She taught herself to read and, after hearing preacher Elias Smith, converted to Christianity and joined a church in Portsmouth. She lived as a pauper, receiving county support in her final years, but repeatedly affirmed her choice: “No, I am free, and have, I trust, been made a child of God by the means.”
Her Own Words: The 1845 and 1847 Interviews
In her seventies, Ona gave two interviews to abolitionist newspapers. The first, published in the Granite Freeman (May 22, 1845) and reprinted in William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator, was conducted by Reverend Thomas H. Archibald. The second appeared in the Liberator on January 1, 1847, via Reverend Benjamin Chase.
She described her escape matter-of-factly: “Whilst they were packing up to go to Virginia, I was packing to go, I didn’t know where.” She rejected any notion of regret: “When asked if she was not sorry she left Washington, as she has labored so much harder since than before, her reply is, ‘No, I am free…’” She also offered a pointed critique of the Washingtons’ piety: “I never heard Washington pray… Mrs. Washington used to read prayers, but I don’t call that praying.”
Legacy: A Symbol of Resistance
Ona Judge Staines died on February 25, 1848, in Greenland, New Hampshire, at about age 75. She outlived her pursuer by nearly 50 years. Her story was largely forgotten until historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar’s 2017 National Book Award finalist, Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge, brought it to wide attention.
Today, her escape is commemorated at Mount Vernon, the President’s House site in Philadelphia, and in New Hampshire historical markers. She stands as a powerful reminder that the American Revolution’s ideals of liberty were not granted from above — they were seized, often at great personal risk, by those the founders had enslaved.
Ona Judge did not merely “get away.” She outwitted the most celebrated man of her era, exposed the hypocrisy of a slaveholding republic, and chose freedom on her own terms. In her own words, she was never sorry.