Charles Gilbert, Higee Hotel Resident
1854
With only seconds to think, Charles Gilbert got up on all fours in the dark and began growling and barking like a mad dog. Even he was surprised by the terrifying sounds emanating from his own throat. An intruder had entered the dark confines of the young man’s hiding place beneath the foundation of a stately hotel, and Charles was literally barking to save his life.
In 1854 Charles Gilbert was living in Richmond, Virginia, one of the largest slave-trading centers on the East Coast. His master, Benjamin Davis, was a notorious slave trader always looking to make a profit. Charles had suffered under Davis and was not saddened to learn he was about to be sold. However, after ads had run for months in the newspapers, there had been no takers. Davis had been convinced he could get a good price for Gilbert. His fine build, his intelligent look, and his “ginger-bread color” were all assets that would help him command a handsome sum.
While Davis tried to find a buyer, Charles tried to find out how to run away. A sympathetic schooner captain from Boston was rumored to take fugitives as passengers for a price. After making the necessary inquiries, Charles learned that if he could make it from Richmond to Old Point Comfort on Virginia’s east coast, he could be smuggled aboard for a fee of $30. Charles first needed to make it to the James River, which emptied into the Chesapeake Bay, roughly eighty miles distant.
In late July, Charles Gilbert left. Davis immediately had slave catchers on his trail. He knew that Charles had family in Old Point Comfort, where he lived as a young boy. Slave catchers arrived ahead of Charles and began threatening his family. Word quickly spread around town: Anyone assisting Charles would suffer greatly for it.
Davis put up a $200 reward for Charles’s capture. Only one brave friend in Old Point Comfort, identified only as E. S., defiantly took Charles in for a week, putting his own safety in jeopardy. The slave hunters’ intimidation worked, and Charles had nowhere else to go.
Charles decided to hide out under the Higee Hotel. The hotel’s large frame was supported on wooden piers, creating an expansive crawlspace underneath. The dark, musty place was home to chickens and other animals that scurried about. Left with no other choice, Charles took refuge in the dank filth under the hotel.
Gilbert made his bed next to the cistern that held the hotel’s water supply. For four weeks, in filthy and cramped living quarters, he survived on the hotel’s garbage. He did not dare venture out until the slave hunters had left town. But one evening an unexpected intruder crawled under the hotel with him. Charles lay flat on the ground. In the dark shadows he could make out the form of a small boy innocently searching for chickens. If the boy came much closer to the cistern, Charles would be discovered.
Immediately Charles crouched on his bent arms and legs and barked ferociously. The terrified youngster clambered out as fast as he could. Charles was satisfied with his quick thinking until he overheard the boy’s father say he would come back and kill the mad dog.
Charles left that very night, walking over ten miles to Bay Shore near Virginia Beach, where he hid in the woods. He concealed himself in the thick underbrush, but at daybreak could see that the cover was insufficient. He climbed high up a giant tree and nestled himself securely between the V-shaped branches. Charles sat for an entire day watching people pass below him as he racked his brains trying to figure out where to go next.
He made his way back to a poor washerwoman in Old Point Comfort named Isabella who took in boarders, hoping she might sympathize with the downtrodden. Seeing his desperate situation, she agreed to hide him under the floorboards of her house. Charles’s friend John Thomas was the only other person who knew of the arrangement. Charles stayed in this underground sanctuary for two weeks, waiting for the search to die down. Meanwhile he could hear the voices of Isabella and his friend talking through the floorboards.
At one point six officers arrived, tramping through the house and accusing Isabella of hiding Davis’s runaway. One of the men offered John Thomas $25 for any information, but both Thomas and Isabella claimed to know nothing about the missing slave’s whereabouts.
This close encounter with being recaptured prompted Charles to go back to the Higee Hotel for another week, thus relieving his friends of the danger in which they had put themselves. Afterward he left for the isolated forested area located behind the cottage of a man named Stephen Allen. Charles hoped to find some impenetrable hiding places in the dense thicket. The next day the old man drew close, so Gilbert once again barked ferociously from the underbrush, and the old man hobbled off.
Slave hunters were still actively searching the area around Richmond, Petersburg, and Old Point Comfort. Desperation made Charles take refuge in a marsh near the Great Dismal Swamp. This turned out to be a poor choice due to the stench, the mosquitoes, and the snakes that lived there. After just two hours he returned to the Higee Hotel for a third time.
After a two-day stay under the hotel, Charles appealed to his mother, Margaret Johnson, for help. She had purchased her freedom, but all four of her sons were still enslaved. She finally could no longer stand to see her son in such a dire situation. No matter the risk, she vowed to help him.
Margaret had saved a little bit of money, and she gave it to her son. He now had enough money to pay his way on board a vessel heading for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he’d heard the Anti-slavery Society assisted all runaways.
Charles Gilbert had just one more day and night in Virginia before his ship to freedom left port. He went back to the old washerwoman’s house to clean up and spend his last hours there. He had intended to stay under Isabella’s floorboards, but after three hours the coast seemed clear. It had been so long since he’d had any semblance of comfort, and he was exhausted from the stress of constantly being on the run. He went upstairs to rest in an empty bedroom, which obviously belonged to a female boarder, as it was full of garments and luggage.
Suddenly a pounding came on the front door of the house. Three officers insisted on searching the premises. While questioning Isabella about her boarders, she attempted to stall as best she could. Meanwhile one of the officers tramped upstairs, opening the door to the room Charles had entered.
Charles stepped out from behind a curtained wall that served as a room divider and strolled right past the officer, walking like a girl down the stairs in an old calico dress and bonnet, completely done up in women’s attire. Isabella did not blink an eye.
The officer inquired, “Whose gal are you?” Charles’s entire future, his precious freedom, depended on not just his answer, but on his elevated, evenly pitched, feminine voice. Exuding confidence, Charles nonchalantly replied, “Mr. Cockling’s, sir.” When asked her name, he replied, “Delie, sir.” After what may have seemed like an eternity, the officer offered up the sweetest three words Charles Gilbert had ever heard: “Go on then!” Charles walked right out of the washhouse to begin his new life.
Charles Gilbert paid a $30 fee and boarded the vessel for Philadelphia. Disappointed to learn that it was not a direct route, he was forced to take cover during a four-week layover in Norfolk, Virginia. By that time the reward Davis had posted in the Richmond newspapers for his capture had increased to $550. When the steamer finally pulled into Philadelphia on November 11, 1854, Davis’s men were still searching for him back in Virginia.
Like many travelers on the Underground Railroad, Charles Gilbert’s journey to freedom was impossibly difficult. Yet after three and a half months, his endurance was rewarded as he finally attained freedom.