Escaping Oxmoor
Several people enslaved by the Bullitt family fled from the Oxmoor plantation, with mixed results. A few, including Peter, Caroline, Daniel, and Simon escaped for a brief time but were caught and brought back to the plantation.
Peter, who was enslaved by Henry and Helen Massie, was described in a letter from 1816 to have been “behaving oddly well after his runaway trip.” Peter was enslaved at Ridgeway Farm, the Massie's home in St. Matthews, Kentucky. And in 1844, Mildred Ann Bullitt writes that "Caroline has absconded." She does not appear in the collection after this letter, suggesting that her escape was successful. In 1859, Daniel and Simon had planned to kill a mule and run from the plantation, but were caught sometime thereafter.
Hope
Hope escaped Oxmoor in 1822, and notices for his recapture were posted in several broadsides and newspaper advertisements in the Republican out of Madison, Indiana, and the Spy out of Cincinnati, Ohio. William Christian Bullitt hired Joshua Bernard, a slavecatcher, in 1825 to find Hope. Bullitt’s fellow enslavers also hired Bernard to find the men they enslaved as well: Phil and Len. Hope is not mentioned after these contracts were made, suggesting that his self-emancipation was successful.
Other Kentucky Plantations
This collection is not just crucial to learning about the people who were enslaved at Oxmoor, but for researching people enslaved in all of Jefferson County and the Bluegrass area.
For example, after leaving his employment as overseer at Oxmoor, Oldham Bright "bought" an enslaved girl who then ran from captivity.
In 1865, the people enslaved by John Jacob—a neighbor to the Bullitts—escaped enslavement at the same time. In this letter to her son, Mildred Bullitt states that “[all of them] went off in a body the other day.” Mildred also mentions an abolitionist meeting that was held in Frankfort, Kentucky in the same letter.