We need young people

Updated on July 1, 2025 by Elizabeth

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Delia Ann Webster (1827-1905) popped up randomly as I was cruising some history sites. I was intrigued, because my mother is a Webster, and the Websters have owned this farm since 1832. Delia Ann never married nor had children, but still, perhaps we were distantly related?

And it turns out, Delia Ann and I are

seventh cousins, five generations removed, through Rachel Louise Rotthouse (my mother’s mother), Emma Talley Baker (Rachel’s grandmother), James Dillworth Baker (Emma’s father). Distant relative!

Delia Ann was a strong character (fits well with the women in my family), from Vermont, where she began teaching at her school at age 12; went to college at Oberlin (first college to accept women and Black students), where she met the Rev. Calvin Fairbanks. This minister was already active in helping enslaved people escape, and Delia Ann was eager to join him in this work.

She co-established an academy for girls in Lexington, Kentucky, and taught for several years. She also helped Rev. Fairbanks move entire families north. She first helped a slave family escape in 1844, when she was 27 years old. The family they rescued was Lewis and Rebecca Hayden and their children. Lewis went on to become the first Black elected representative of Massachusetts. The Hayden estate was donated to Harvard University and established a scholarship to Harvard medical school for a black student, which scholarship still exists today. The Haydens served also as a stop on the underground railroad and helped hundreds of people escape as well.

Delia Ann helped over 100 to 200 enslaved people escape. We do not know the end results of their lives, but we can look at the Haydens to see how the potential was given back to these people.

Neighbors in Lexington suspected Delia Ann of being complicit in the enslaved people disappearing, but had no proof. Finally, they imprisoned her anyway, making her the first woman to be jailed for helping people to freedom. The sheriff admitted to making the conditions as bad as he possibly could. Delia Ann was imprisoned for several months and then released. Her neighbors threatened her numerous times and promised to imprison her again. She finally fled the area shortly before the Civil War.

She lost her property and money after the Civil War, and lived with a niece who became a medical doctor. She died in Iowa in 1904. There are a few markers and articles about Delia Ann Webster, but she is not a famous character, even though she made an enormous difference in the lives of over 100 people, and those people helped others. The total number is exponentially larger.

Thoughts:

Delia Ann was very young to be doing such adventuresome and dangerous work—in her 20s. The energy and fearlessness of young people needs to be valued. As we deal with our own moral turbulence today, we need to support those who are stepping forward, standing up for the rights of others, fighting for liberty, and providing today’s equivalent of the Underground Railroad.

I encourage each of us to stand up for liberty and justice for all, to be on the right side of history, to help our neighbors stay safe, to be that person who helps justice prevail.