Twenty-Seven Years Later, a Georgia Slaveholder Walked Into His Former Slaves' Seattle Office
Two men who had once been Col. Clinton C. Duncan's property built new lives in Seattle — one a preacher, one an employment agent. He came to call, and they didn't recognize him until they did.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A peculiar episode happened a few days ago during the visit here of Col. Clinton C. Duncan, the inspector of Indian affairs. Before the war Col. Duncan was a large slaveholder in Georgia. The war freed them. Two of his former slaves wandered north and west, constantly getting farther away from home until they brought up in Seattle some years ago. Col. Duncan learned of their presence there and on Wednesday evening went over to Seattle to see them. One of them is a preacher and the other an employment agent, and both happened to be in the latter's office when Col. Duncan walked into it. Twenty-seven years had passed since they had met, and neither of the now venerable colored men knew him, as when they last saw Col. Duncan he was a small, spare man. 'When finally they recognized me they were overjoyed,' said the colonel. 'I was lifted upon their shoulders and carried around and around the room. I went to their home and remained all night. They have done well here.'
“I was lifted upon their shoulders and carried around and around the room. I went to their home and remained all night. They have done well here.”
Long before Seattle's twentieth-century Black population boom, Black men and women were already here, running churches and employment offices and making the city their own. The detail that lingers is the colonel's last line — 'They have done well here' — a sentence that measures freedom in a preacher's pulpit and a businessman's desk. The reunion was printed as a curiosity, but it is really a snapshot of how formerly enslaved people rebuilt themselves on the far side of the continent.
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