August 19, 2013

Mary McCoy, The “Beauty and the Glory of Bayou Boeuf”

Solomon Northup described Mary McCoy in Twelve Years a Slave as the “beauty and the glory of Bayou Boeuf”. Her estate stands near the banks of Bayou Boeuf to this day (see photo in the Extras & More section), having survived for 160 years, and I feel it’s for a very good reason. She was [...]

JOHN PAMPLIN WADILL, THE LOUISIANA LAWYER WHO HELPED GAIN SOLOMON’S FREEDOM

I am the descendant of John Pamplin Waddill, the attorney from Marksville, Louisiana, who helped gain Solomon Northup’s freedom. Waddill was born in October 8, 1813, and grew up on a farm in rural Tennessee. He had little formal education before the age of fifteen and both of his parents died by the time he [...]

August 18, 2013

SOLOMON NORTHUP: MY 3RD GREAT GRANDFATHER

My name is Clayton Jamie Adams. I am the great-great-great grandson of Solomon Northup on my mother’s side of the family. My first experience of Solomon was during the later years of my high schooling while growing up in Syracuse, NY. My mother, Carol Adams-Sally (maiden name Linzy), was an avid reader. One day while [...]

May 24, 2013

Mom’s Life, by Dr. Sara Kuhn

Myrtle Sue Lyles Eakin was reared in the Bayou Bouef region of Central Louisiana, where Solomon Northup found himself enslaved in 1841. The oldest child of nine surviving children, she arrived December 7, 1918. Her father, Sam, was a planter in Rapides Parish, though he didn’t own his land. Her mother, Myrtle, besides raising children, [...]

January 28, 2013

My Forty-year Love of Solomon’s Story, by Fran Holbert

Almost forty years ago, Dr. Sue Eakin opened for me the portal to the world of Solomon Northup, an educated free man of color kidnapped and forced into slavery for twelve years in the fields that I had seen growing up in central Louisiana. Her life’s mission was to nurture and preserve his true story, [...]