John Fairfield’s Fury
Mid-1850s
John Fairfield was a man possessed. He angrily pulled on his boots, grabbed his whip, and stormed out of his cabin. News that one of his two slaves had escaped was bad enough, but hearing that his boat was also missing infuriated him. He stomped down to the saltworks along West Virginia’s Kanawha River, demanding that his remaining slave be summoned. In front of a gathering crowd, Fairfield accused the frightened man of being involved in the disappearance. He cracked his whip near the slave’s head, ignoring the man’s repeated denials of wrongdoing.
Fairfield had recently learned that the water along the Kanawha River was saturated with salt. Since the early 1800s more than 1,250 pounds of salt had been extracted every day. The wealthy businessman viewed the salt trade as a lucrative investment. He took his two best slaves and went to investigate, hoping to haul the salt downriver and sell it for a sizable profit.
Fairfield arrived in Charleston, West Virginia, and came to know the local slaveholders along the Kanawha River. He contracted the building of two boats to transport his salt and gleaned what he could about the business. While waiting for the construction to be completed, Fairfield commiserated with fellow slaveholders on the difficulties of managing their slaves.
On a Saturday night after the first boat was completed, one of Fairfield’s slaves joined up with a local slave who had knowledge of boating. They crept down to the river under a dark moonless sky. The men slowly untied the rope on Fairfield’s boat and listened intently for any sounds. When the coast seemed clear, the men pushed off and headed downriver, letting the swift spring current carry them along. After some distance they steered the boat to the bank and threw a line to the men who appeared out of the brush.
Quickly the boat was filled to capacity with fugitive slaves. Not a sound was uttered by any of the men, women, and children who crouched down to hide their heads from view. The boat drifted along the Kanawha River, beginning its sixty-mile journey to the Ohio River and freedom.
The next day the slave owners noticed the missing slaves. They initiated a thorough frantic search, but it proved fruitless. On Monday morning Fairfield’s boat was also discovered missing. The slaveholders assumed that their slaves had stolen his boat in order to escape, and took off on their horses in hot pursuit. When the horsemen reached the mouth of the Ohio River, they found Fairfield’s boat beached on the opposite side. The slaves were long gone.
When John Fairfield heard about his boat being stolen, he put fear in the men in camp. He demanded retribution. Not only was he out a considerable amount of money, but he was livid that his slave had most likely run off with the others. As his second boat neared completion, Fairfield vowed to watch his remaining slave, whom he greatly distrusted, like a hawk.
The following Saturday night, Fairfield’s other slave absconded with his second boat, taking an additional ten or twelve slaves with him. How they managed to slip away under Fairfield’s watchful eye remained a mystery to the slaveholders in Charleston.
When Fairfield was informed that his second boat and slave were missing, his fury knew no bounds. He exploded in a burst of uncontrollable anger, ranting and raving that he was now ruined. This time Fairfield joined the other men on horseback and set off, determined to capture the slaves. They rode sixty miles in hot pursuit, only to be disappointed. There on the other side of the Ohio River was Fairfield’s second boat, empty of slaves. The unspoken fear was that the fugitive slaves had been forwarded along the circuitous path of Ohio’s well-established Underground Railroad.
The men crossed the Ohio River and followed Fairfield’s suggestion to split up in order to widen their search. When the pursuers later met at the designated rendezvous point to confer on their findings, Fairfield was not present. He had disappeared. It was probably some time before the slaveholders realized they had been outwitted.
Fairfield was not the pro-slavery Virginian he claimed to be. What the Kanawha-area slaveholders didn’t realize was that Fairfield, the self-important businessman, was not from Louisville, Kentucky, at all, nor was he using his real name of John Fairfield. He had given the Kanawha slaveholders an alias. And the “slave” whom Fairfield had berated and frightened with his whip was all an act. The two slaves Fairfield had brought with him were actually free men from Ohio—relatives of those they had come to rescue.
John Fairfield was born into a slave-owning family from Virginia, but eventually came to disagree with his family’s position on slavery. As an adult he helped a childhood friend, Bill, escape bondage from his uncle’s farm. From that point on, Fairfield realized that liberating slaves was possible if one possessed a sense of adventure, a willingness to take risks, and a cunning mind.
By the 1850s, word of Fairfield’s daring exploits in assisting fugitive slaves had spread up North, and the demand for his services grew accordingly. He was especially passionate about reuniting families separated by slavery. The methods Fairfield used to rescue slaves were viewed as controversial by fellow abolitionists. Fairfield’s response to such criticism was, “Slaveholders are all devils, and it is no harm to kill the devil. I do not intend to hurt people if they keep out of the way, but if they step in between me and liberty, they must take the consequences. When I undertake to conduct slaves out of bondage I feel that it is my duty to defend them, even to the last drop of my blood.”
John Fairfield had been approached several times by the freed slaves in Ohio to rescue their loved ones left behind, who toiled at the saltworks along the Kanawha River, near present-day Malden. When he finally agreed to help, he knew he would need an elaborate plan to move such a large number of people. It had taken Fairfield a long time to ingratiate himself with the Kanawha slaveholders and gain the confidence of the influential salt proprietors. While his boats were being built, the “slaves” Fairfield had brought with him were secretly seeking out their relatives to inform them of the escape plan.
Sometimes it would take John Fairfield six months to assume a new role, establish himself in a community, and gain people’s confidence. He was so convincing in the roles he assumed and the false pretenses he arranged that he was rarely implicated. Fairfield masterminded countless schemes, posing as a slave trader, a slaveholder, or a businessman using different aliases every time. Once he donned the attire of an undertaker and led twenty-eight slaves to freedom in a staged funeral procession as they carried an empty coffin right out of town.
The peace-loving Quaker abolitionist Levi Coffin shared these words about John Fairfield: “With all his faults and misguided impulses, and wicked ways, he was a brave man; he never betrayed a trust that was reposed in him, and he was a true friend to the oppressed and suffering slave.”
Though fellow abolitionists did not always condone Fairfield’s methods of arming his fugitives and using violence if necessary, they did admire his determination. Over a twelve-year period, Fairfield reunited families with their loved ones from Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia. In all he helped to free several thousand slaves, forwarding most of them to Canada via the Underground Railroad. John Fairfield accepted whatever pay was offered to cover his expenses, but his true reward was witnessing the joyful reunion of family members.
Although his final fate is uncertain, it is likely that Fairfield died tragically during a slave insurrection in Tennessee. He fit the description of an unknown white male, new to an area on the Cumberland River, who was killed in a failed escape attempt of a large number of slaves. After 1861 he was never heard from again.