{"id":29359,"date":"2018-02-21T10:27:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T15:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=29359"},"modified":"2018-02-21T10:29:16","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T15:29:16","slug":"former-slaves-story-i-bought-my-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/former-slaves-story-i-bought-my-freedom.html","title":{"rendered":"Former Slave\u2019s Story: \u2018I Bought My Freedom\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you know me?<\/p>\n<p>My name is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familysearch.org\/tree\/person\/details\/LYYC-TYL\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lewis Hathaway (1824-1897)<\/a>, I was born 194 years ago in Kentucky, on 5 January 1824. I was born into slavery and was sold to Judge J.R. Peters. I worked out an agreement to buy my freedom from the Judge \u2013 and even though President Lincoln gave us our freedom, I \u201cconsidered it a just debt and paid the balance due\u201d on behalf of my family. I married <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familysearch.org\/tree\/person\/details\/LYYZ-9LV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ann (1819-)<\/a> who was also born into slavery in Kentucky.<\/p>\n<p>Our son <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familysearch.org\/tree\/person\/details\/LYYC-GWW\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">James Shelton Hathaway (1859-1930)<\/a> married a Clay County, Missouri, girl named <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familysearch.org\/tree\/person\/details\/LYYC-RDS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cecelia Anderson (1863-1931)<\/a>. They gave their son my name as his middle name, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familysearch.org\/tree\/person\/details\/LYYZ-9HM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">James Lewis Hathaway (1888-1956)<\/a>. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_29363\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29363\" style=\"width: 428px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/doc\/newspapers\/image\/v2:1156D7F7D713A378@GB3NEWS-1162AFF28287F300@2414194-1162AFF373169530@11-1162AFF6965FF378\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29363\" src=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/duluth-news-tribune-newspaper-0926-1897-lewis-hathaway-obituary.png\" alt=\"An obituary for Lewis Hathaway, Duluth News-Tribune newspaper article 26 September 1897\" width=\"428\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/duluth-news-tribune-newspaper-0926-1897-lewis-hathaway-obituary.png 428w, https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/duluth-news-tribune-newspaper-0926-1897-lewis-hathaway-obituary-300x252.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 428px) 100vw, 428px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-29363\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: GenealogyBank, Duluth News-Tribune (Duluth, Minnesota), 26 September 1897, page 12<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Take a moment and read my story in GenealogyBank.<\/p>\n<p>GenealogyBank has preserved over 2 billion stories by digitizing America\u2019s newspapers from 1690 to today.<\/p>\n<p>Find, document and pass down your family\u2019s stories.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related Articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/african-american-slave-trade-ships-records-for-genealogy.html\">African American Slave Trade: Ships &amp; Records for Genealogy (Infographic)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/president-lincoln-issues-the-emancipation-proclamation.html\">President Lincoln Issues the Emancipation Proclamation<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/slavery-abolished-with-ratification-of-the-13th-amendment.html\">Slavery Abolished with Ratification of the 13<sup>th<\/sup> Amendment<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An article by Thomas Jay Kemp about researching the life of Lewis Hathaway, a former slave born in Kentucky in 1824 who bought his own freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12323],"tags":[20527,2020,33],"class_list":["post-29359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-african-american-history-genealogy","tag-african-american-history-and-genealogy","tag-newspaper-archives","tag-slavery"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/illustration-0221-2018-featured-graphic-slaves.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}