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were far different.
In Pennsylvania, Finne gan was found guilty and sentenced to five years ol solitary confinement at hard labor.
The Star and Republican Banner, in a detailed account, quoted the prosecutor’s argument: “The moment they placed foot upon our soil, the shackles fell from their limbs, and under the operation of this great and glorious law which swept slavery from our borders, these poor victims of a miserable institution emerged from slavery and degredation and stood erect—free—freemen and freewomen as long as life should last.”
The newspaper concluded: “The issue of the trial may prove a salutary lesson to those who would needlessly trample upon the laws of the land, and seek to drag down free men into slavish degredation.”
The paper also reported that during the trial, Samual Maddox stood up in open court and renounced title to the former slaves. He did not do the same in Rappahannock. After hearing from the 12 jurors, five of them slave holders, the judge reduced the charges against Maddox to trespass and assault and battery and then found him innocent. The judge also advised Kitty that she’d brought her case to the wrong court and if she would present it in a civil court instead of a court of law, she would probably secure her freedom.
There is no record in the court house that she did so. But it might not have been necessary. Mary Maddox Cordder was never called upon to testify at the trial but on September 14, 1846, two weeks after the proceedings ended, she posted $500 bond and qualified as executrix for her late husband’s estate.
The names of Kitty Payne, her children and James Green, the man who went with her to Pennsylvania, do not appear on the lists of free blacks in the court house records.
Maybe Mary Maddox, Cordder carried through her intentions and set them free—this time for good. Maybe she rejoined Green in Pennsylvania if he was, as Mahlbacker believes, the father of her three children. The last chapter of the Kitty Payne tale remains a mystery. Bob Mahlbacker is still looking for an ending for his novel. __
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