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The Parker farmstead, Christiana, PA, circa 1890.
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Exterior and grounds

Credit: Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

On the morning of September 11, 1851, slave catchers entered the farmyard of William Parker to capture and return four fugitive slaves to Edward Gorsuch's plantation in Baltimore County, Maryland. In the resulting melee Gorsuch was killed and his son badly wounded. In the aftermath, juries in Philadelphia refused to convict the local residents. Meanwhile, Parker and his family fled to Canada with the assistance of abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

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