Solomon Northup - Life As A Free Man Again

Life As A Free Man Again

Northup rejoined his wife and children. He became active in the abolitionist movement and lectured on slavery throughout the northeastern United States, on nearly two dozen occasions in the years before and during the American Civil War.

In 1855 Northup appears, along with family members, in the New York State Census listing for Glens Falls (part of Queensbury). His occupation is given as "carpenter." He was not listed in the 1860 Federal U.S. census at the following address (though members of his family were):

Town: Queensbury,

County: Warren,

State: NY,

P.O. Glens Falls. "1860 U.S. Census abstract". https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MC41-G9S.

He last appeared in records referring to events in 1863, when he reportedly visited Rev. John L. Smith, a Methodist minister in Vermont, with whom Northup had worked aiding fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad. Note: John R. Smith, the son of a Methodist minister named John L. Smith, wrote letters years later recalling that Northup and Tabbs Gross (another black man) had assisted his father and fugitive slaves with the Underground Railroad in Vermont. The letters have been preserved among the papers of Wilbur Siebert at Harvard's Houghton Library. Note: The younger Smith wrote that Northup had visited his father sometime after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863.

The date, location, and circumstances of his death are unknown. He was not listed in the 1865 New York state census, but his wife Anne Northup was reported as still living in nearby Moreau in Saratoga County, with their daughter and son-in-law, Margaret and Philip Stanton. Northup's wife, Anne, died in 1876. Some newspaper notices of her death said she was a widow. The 1875 New York State census listing for her (living in Kingsbury/Sandy Hill in Washington County, New York) indicates that she was a widow.

Northup probably died between 1863 and 1875, but details of his death have not come to light. The contemporary historians Clifford Brown and Carol Wilson believe it is likely that he died of natural causes. In 1876 a local historian speculated that Northup was kidnapped or killed by persons unknown while in Boston, but contemporary historians think the kidnapping unlikely, as he was too old to be of interest to slave catchers.