Ona Judge, the Woman Who Said No

The short answer: Ona Judge was enslaved at Mount Vernon and served as Martha Washington's personal maid. In May 1796, having learned she was to be given away as a wedding gift, she walked out of the President's House in Philadelphia and escaped to New Hampshire. George Washington tried for years to get her back. She refused every offer, including one that would have freed her eventually, because eventually was not the same as now. She lived free, and unfree in the eyes of the law, until her death in 1848.

Mount Vernon

Ona Judge was born at Mount Vernon around 1773. Her mother, Betty, was an enslaved seamstress on the estate, and Ona learned that trade young. She was good at it. By her teens she had been brought into the household as Martha Washington's personal maid, which meant she dressed her, traveled with her, and was rarely more than a room away.

It was a position that came with better clothes and worse odds. Proximity to the family made her more valuable, and more valuable meant less likely to ever be let go.

Philadelphia, and the six month clock

When Washington became president, the household moved to Philadelphia, and Philadelphia had a law. Pennsylvania's Gradual Abolition Act freed any enslaved person held continuously in the state for six months. The Washingtons handled this by rotating the enslaved members of their household out of Pennsylvania before the clock ran out, then bringing them back in, resetting the count each time.

Ona Judge spent years in a free city, walking free streets, in a household running a schedule designed specifically to keep her from becoming free. Philadelphia had a large and organized free Black community. She would have known people in it. She would have known exactly what she was being kept from.

The wedding gift

In 1796 she learned that Martha Washington intended to give her to her granddaughter, Elizabeth Parke Custis Law, as a wedding present. That would have meant leaving Philadelphia permanently and being passed into a new household, with a new owner, for the rest of her life.

Years later she described the decision plainly. She was not willing to be given away.

On May 21, 1796, while the Washingtons sat down to dinner, she walked out of the President's House. Friends in Philadelphia's free Black community hid her while arrangements were made, and she boarded a ship north to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She was about twenty-two years old, and she left with almost nothing.

The pursuit

She was recognized in Portsmouth by someone who knew the family, and word traveled back. Washington did not let it go. He worked through a customs official, Joseph Whipple, and later sent his own nephew, Burwell Bassett Jr., to bring her home.

Whipple actually spoke with her. She told him she would return voluntarily on one condition: a guarantee that she would be freed after the Washingtons' deaths. The offer was refused. Washington's position was that agreeing to terms with her would reward the act of leaving.

So she stayed gone. Bassett's later attempt to retrieve her failed too, reportedly after a New Hampshire senator warned her that he was coming.

The rest of her life

In 1797 she married Jack Staines, a free Black sailor, and they had three children. She learned to read. She joined a church. She worked as a domestic servant, and after Staines died she raised the children in difficult circumstances, sometimes very poor ones.

She was never legally freed. Under the law of her lifetime she remained a fugitive for fifty-two years, and her children, born to an enslaved mother, were legally considered property as well. She died in Greenland, New Hampshire, in 1848.

In the 1840s, near the end of her life, she gave interviews to abolitionist newspapers. They are the reason we have her story in her own words rather than only in Washington's letters about her. Asked whether she regretted leaving, given how hard her free life had been, she said she was free, and had learned to read, and that was worth it.

The scent

The Ona Judge candle is cool, clean, and deliberately unsentimental. Citrus and bergamot open it. Lavender, camphor, and eucalyptus sit at the center, herbal and clarifying rather than soft. Powder and cedar settle underneath.

We did not want a warm, cozy scent for this one. Her story is not cozy. It is about clear air and a decision made without hesitation, and that is what we reached for.

Best in: bedrooms, bathrooms, and workspaces, anywhere you want the air to feel clean and the head to feel clear.

Three ways to bring it home

• Ona Judge Signature Candle, $24. Clear glass, the easiest introduction.
• Ona Judge Heirloom Candle, $56. Eighteen ounces in our blue and white bowl, made to be kept long after the wax is gone.
• Ona Judge Hearth Candle, $44. Three wicks in a wood dough bowl, for wide, even fragrance across a room.

Frequently asked questions

Was Ona Judge ever legally free? No. She lived free in New Hampshire for more than fifty years, but she was never emancipated and remained legally a fugitive until her death in 1848.

Why did she leave in 1796? She learned she was to be given to Martha Washington's granddaughter as a wedding gift, which would have permanently separated her from Philadelphia and passed her to a new owner.

How do we know her account? She gave interviews to abolitionist newspapers in the 1840s, which preserved her version of events in her own words.

What does the Ona Judge candle smell like? Citrus, bergamot, lavender, camphor, eucalyptus, powder, and cedar. Cool and herbal rather than warm or sweet.

Keep reading

More stories from the same body of history: Chef Hercules, the Cook Who Chose Freedom, who walked away from Mount Vernon the year after she did, and Wheatley, the Poet Behind Our Bestseller. For the vessel itself, see The Blue and White Bowl.