Lucy Delaney - Trial and Freedom

Trial and Freedom

By 1842, Lucy Ann was working for Martha Berry Mitchell, another of the Berry daughters. They had conflict in part because of the slave girl's inexperience at heavy domestic tasks, including laundry. Martha decided to sell her, and her husband David D. Mitchell arranged the sale. The day before she was to leave, Lucy Ann escaped and hid at the house of a friend of her mother’s.

That week, Polly Wash filed suit in Circuit Court in St. Louis for Lucy Ann Berry's freedom, as a "next friend" to the minor girl. Since her own case had not been settled, Wash was still considered a slave with no legal standing, but under the slave law, she could bring suit on behalf of a minor. The law provided a slave with the status of a "poor person", with court-appointed counsel when the court determined the case had grounds. Delaney's memoir suggests that her mother's attorneys suggested her strategy of filing separate suits for her and her daughter, to prevent a jury's worrying about taking too much property from one slaveholder.

The case was prepared primarily by Francis Butter Murdoch, who litigated nearly one third of the freedom suits filed in St. Louis from 1840-1847. Francis B. Murdoch had served as the Alton, Illinois district attorney, and prosecuted the murder of the printer Elijah Lovejoy by anti-abolitionists. Wash also attracted the support of Edward Bates; a prominent Whig politician and judge, he argued Lucy Ann's case in court. Bates later served as the US Attorney General under President Abraham Lincoln.

While waiting for trial, Lucy Ann Berry was remanded to the jail, where she was held for more than 17 months without being hired out, which was customary to offset expenses and earn money for slaves' masters. In February 1844 the case went to trial. By then her mother's case had been settled, and Polly Wash was declared free. In addition, Wash had affidavits from people who knew her and her daughter. Judge Robert Wash (Fanny Berry Wash's widower and Polly's previous master) testified that Lucy Ann was definitely Polly Berry Wash's child. The jury believed the case for freedom had been proved, and the judge announced Lucy Ann Berry was free. She was approximately 14 years old.

Lucy Ann and Polly Berry lived in St. Louis after gaining her freedom. They had to get certificates as free blacks and deal with other restrictions of the time. They worked together as seamstresses.