On Saturday night, June 4, 1859, three enslaved men, 21-year-old Washington, his 18-year-old brother Jim, and another enslaved man named Ned, escaped from St. Louis. Washington had escaped five years earlier from slaveholder D.M. Frost's father-in-law, Richard Graham, only to be arrested in Indiana for grand larceny and reclaimed by Frost. This time, Frost advertised $1,500 for the recapture of Washington and Jim. Frost took the additional step of hiring St. Louis policemen to track the freedom seekers to Chicago. There he managed to recapture Washington, Jim, and Henry Scott, who had fled with Washington originally back in 1854.
St. Louis (MO) Republican, June 12, 1859 (HMO); "The Late Recovery of Slaves in Chicago--Statement of their Owner," St. Louis (MO) Republican, August 6, 1859
