1855 Loudon County VA Stampede

In the span of about two weeks in early September, around 15 to 20 enslaved people escaped from Loudon county, Virginia, in what a local paper called a "wholesale stampede." The names of the freedom seekers were not recorded, but four individuals escaped from slaveholder John M. Harrison, three from a man named Skinner, three from a slaveholder named Stevenson, two from Joseph Lodge, and one from Cornelius Vandoventer, one from Joseph Meade, one from C. R. Dowell, one from Dr. F. Grady, one to an enslaver named Mr. Butcher. Reports suggested the freedom seekers had "made good" their escapes.