excitement in the community. Rachel was born of free parents and that
she had been carried away into possible slavery was too much for the
sturdy abolitionists of that day.

A party of eight was organized to go in pursuit. They were Joseph
Miller, William Morris, Samuel Pollock, Lewis Melrath, Jesse B. Kirk,
Abner B. Richardson, Benjamin Furniss, H. G. Coates.

These men went to Perryville and that night took a train for
Baltimore. They went to a house of detention or slave pen in that city
where runaway slaves were kept. While they were there McCrery appeared
with Rachel Parker in a wagon.

The Pennsylvanians protested that the girl was not a slave, but was
free, and the authorities ordered that she be held and given a trial.

The Pennsylvanians met an acquaintance named Francis Cochran, who
resided in Baltimore. When he learned their errand he told them they
were in mortal danger, and advised them to get at once on a train and
not leave it until they arrived at Perryville.

Joseph Miller left the car, or the train, and was not seen again by
his friends, although search was made for him. His body was found some
hours afterwards, hanging in a woods near Stemmer's Run. Just how he
met his death is a mystery that never was made clear. It was claimed
at the time that investigation proved that Miller was dead before his
body was hanged to the tree, and that he had been poisoned.

Rachel Parker was gone more than 14 months, most of that time locked
up in Baltimore. Her trial was postponed from time to time.

It was claimed in Baltimore that Rachel Parker was a member of a
family named Crocus, and that they were runaway slaves. In an effort
to prove this, people were sent to this neighborhood to try to
identify other members of the Parker family as in reality belonging to
the Crocus family. The attorney who ably defended Rachel Parker was
Lloyd Norris. She was acquitted, and she is said to have been the only
person so freed in a slave State.

For more than 40 years Rachel lived with the Coates family, near
Glenroy. To Granville Coates, Sr., _The Press_ is indebted for the
details of the affair, which are from records which he has faithfully
preserved.

On the 28th of February, 1918 the _Oxford Press_ carried the
following:

The account of the death in Oxford of Rachel Parker Wesley, an aged
colored woman, in last week's _Oxford Press_, has been closely read.
Some older citizens, in town and country, recall the cir