Susan "Aunt Sukey" Richardson gravestone
Dublin Core
Title
Susan "Aunt Sukey" Richardson gravestone
Subject
African American agents in the Underground Railroad
Description
In 1842, indentured servant Susan “Sukey” Richardson, her three children, and another woman, Hannah Morrison, fled north from Sparta, Illinois, assisted by William Hayes, a neighbor of Richardson’s master, Andrew Borders. Borders had brought Richardson as a slave from Virginia. Hayes was inspired by opposition to slavery of his church, the Covenanters. He, Hannah, and the Richardsons traveled by foot and steamboat to Farmington, but were caught and jailed in Galesburg, before its antislavery committee freed them. Sukey and Hannah remained free, but Borders kidnapped Sukey's children and returned to his farm; the family never reunited. Subsequently, Sukey married a free black man named Henry Van Allen. They had three children together, but in the early 1850s he disappeared, leaving her with their three children. Sukey then married Thomas Richardson, a widower who had also escaped on the Underground Railroad. She operated an Underground Railroad safe house, and helped found the Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church, the oldest African American Church in Knox County. She died in 1904 and is buried in Galesburg's Hope Cemetery.
Creator
Friends of Hope Cemetery
Date
Gravestone added to the Richardson gravesite in 2004
Type
image
Identifier
WIUGRR #19
Coverage
Illinois, United States
Still Image Item Type Metadata
Original Format
stone monument
Files
Citation
Friends of Hope Cemetery, “Susan "Aunt Sukey" Richardson gravestone,” Traces of Western Illinois' Underground Railroad, accessed May 16, 2024, https://timroberts.org/wiugrr/items/show/19.