Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class The Rendition of Anthony Burns, Part 1 About this episode The story of Anthony Burns is one that resonates in our current times. Part one covers his early enslaved life, his escape from enslavement, and his arrest under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:04 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx, listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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2:17 Holly Frey? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.
2:28 Tracy V. Wilson? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And I'm Holly Frey. Over the past several months, I have seen this quote repeatedly on social media. Quote, "We went to bed one night, old fashioned, conservative, compromise, union wigs, and waked up stark, mad abolitionists."
2:49 Tracy V. Wilson? Some of that's because I follow historians on social media, but it's mostly because this quote has been really resonating with people in the face of what is happening with ICE in the United States. If you're not up to speed on your US government acronyms, ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Other federal agencies are also involved with this, including Border Patrol, and this all rolls up under the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS. This quote is partly in response to the horror of what these federal officers and agencies are doing. Things like pepper spraying people directly in the
3:31 Tracy V. Wilson? face when they are already on the ground, detaining US citizens and legal residents, including pulling them out of their homes into freezing weather, still in their pajamas, detaining preschoolers, deporting US citizens, including at least two children who were in cancer treatment at the time. An ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good and then casually walked away. A Border Patrol agent shot and killed Alex Preddy. They shot him at least 10 times while he was already on the ground. In both of these cases afterward, multiple federal officials told transparently obvious lies about what happened. We are
4:15 Tracy V. Wilson? recording this on January 27, 2026. Then who knows what else might happen before it comes out. So that's been, that, those kinds of things have been the kinds of things that I have seen people talk about alongside this quote. But it's not just about ICE. ICE is only part of it. People are also sharing this quote after seeing neighbors who had never seemed overtly very political, suddenly taking a stand in the face of all of this, or going through that experience themselves, like not being very political themselves, and they're suddenly like, "I have to do something." Or maybe not being local to major ICE operations, but seeing, for example, what feels like the entire state of Minnesota all coming together
5:00 Tracy V. Wilson? to protect each other in this massive effort to do things like stand guard around daycares and schools, delivering food to families who are terrified to leave their homes. So this quote about becoming stark mad abolitionists, that's from a letter written by Amos Adams Lawrence to Giles Richards on June 1st, 1854, during a furor over the fate of Anthony Burns, who had liberated himself from enslavement in Virginia and was captured in Boston and then returned to enslavement. It would be reductive to suggest that what is happening now is identical to what happened in 1854, or that this is like a one-to-one comparison.
5:44 Tracy V. Wilson? Also, we like, we don't have to go all the way back to slavery to find things that have similarities. We don't even have to leave this century to do that. But I do think Anthony Burns's story resonates right now in much the same way that Amos Adams Lawrence quote does. So we are going to talk about this over two episodes.
6:06 Holly Frey? Anthony Burns was born in Stafford County, Virginia on May 31st, 1834. His mother was a cook who was enslaved by John F. Suttall. His father was her third husband and was also enslaved, although there were rumors that he had once been a free man in the North. Their names are not specified in accounts of Anthony Burns's life, at least in no places that Tracy could find them.
6:33 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, I did look and did not find what their names were. Anthony's father was seen as particularly intelligent. He supervised other enslaved people at a quarry that Suttall owned. Anthony didn't know his father very well, though, because he died when Anthony was still very young, apparently as a result of continually breathing in the stone dust at the quarry.
6:56 Holly Frey? Slavery in the United States was hereditary. Since Anthony's mother was enslaved, he was enslaved from birth as well. So were his 12 older siblings and half siblings. And after John Suttle died, his widow, Susanna Suttle, started selling them off to try to cover her expenses. She sold at least five of Anthony's immediate family members when he was still very young.
7:22 Tracy V. Wilson? Susanna Suttle also threatened to sell Anthony's mother, but instead hired her out to work in another city. So Anthony's mother was still considered Suttle's property, but somebody else was paying Suttle for her labor. Anthony's mother begged to take him with her when she was sent away for work, but Suttle refused, and they were separated for two years.
7:45 Holly Frey? Susanna Suttle died when Anthony was about six years old, and her son, Charles F. Suttle, inherited the estate. By that point, Anthony had been put to work on things that were considered light tasks, which included watching his baby niece so that his older sister could work. About a year after inheriting the property, Charles Suttle started hiring Anthony out so that he could bring in more income as well.
8:11 Tracy V. Wilson? Over the next decade, Anthony learned to read. This started when he was hired out to somebody whose sister, named Miss Horton, ran a school out of her home nearby. Anthony started making friends with some of the students as he went about his work and ran errands that took him over there. And some of them shared their school books with him. Later on, he was hired out to another man, whose wife ran a school from their house, and she seemed like she left books around for him to find on purpose.
8:41 Holly Frey? As Anthony got a little older, he also taught himself how to write. He said he was inspired to do this after being tasked with picking up the mail from the post office and realizing he could learn to write letters of his own. He started out by copying things onto scraps of paper that he found. Eventually, he showed this work to a young woman he had met when they were both children, when she was a student at Miss Horton's school. And then she helped him to improve his handwriting.
9:10 Tracy V. Wilson? When Anthony was 12 or 13, he was hired out to tend a steam engine that belonged to a man named Foot. Foot ran a sawmill. This was one of the more difficult times in Anthony's early life. It wasn't a kind of work he had ever done before. He wasn't used to it. And then the Foot's were also particularly cruel. They beat people, including young children, using a strip of board that had been perforated and roughened with tar and sand. They also did not give them very much to eat.
9:44 Holly Frey? One day, when Anthony had been there for a few months, Foot started the machinery without warning, and Anthony's hand was caught in a wheel and it was mangled. This was a very serious injury, and he went back to live with Subtle for a couple of months until he recovered, and then he was returned to the sawmill. His hand was noticeably scarred after this, with what was described as a visibly protruding piece of bone in his wrist.
10:11 Tracy V. Wilson? While he was recovering from this injury, Anthony had a religious awakening. He asked Subtle's permission to be baptized and to join a church. At first, Subtle refused, which Anthony attributed to his being irritated about the injury to his hand. But eventually, after Anthony had gone back to work for Foot, Subtle gave his permission. Anthony was baptized at a Baptist church in Falmouth.
10:37 Holly Frey? A couple of years later, Anthony started preaching to other enslaved people. And this included sermons and teaching about the Bible, as well as conducting marriage and funeral services. These marriages, of course, were not legally recognized. Even if he had been formally ordained through a church, there was no legal recognition of marriage between enslaved people.
10:59 Tracy V. Wilson? When Charles Subtle started essentially leasing Anthony to other people, Anthony was still a child, so people weren't paying very much for him to do things like run errands or make weekly trips to pick up cornmeal. But the amount Subtle could charge grew over time. Foot had agreed to pay Subtle $75 a year for the work at the sawmill, for example.
11:22 Holly Frey? Eventually, Subtle hired a man named William Brent to manage the placement of the people he was hiring out. Anthony had worked for Brent before, and he was tasked with supervising other enslaved people as they traveled to Richmond for their placements. At first, Anthony worked for Brent's brother-in-law, and after about a year in Richmond, when he was about 20, he was placed with a druggist named Millsba at a rate of $125 a year.
11:49 Tracy V. Wilson? It did not take long for Millsba to realize he didn't have enough work for Anthony Burns to do, and he did not think it would be financially worth it to keep him on. So after about a week, Millsba took Burns aside and proposed a different arrangement. Burns would be allowed to go out and look for work on his own. He would use the money that he earned to repay Millsba the $125 that he was paying for Burns's labor, and then Burns could keep what he earned beyond that, minus a portion that would go to Millsba. Millsba told Burns that this arrangement was illegal and had to be kept secret.
12:28 Holly Frey? By this point, Burns had started forming a plan to liberate himself from enslavement, which had influenced some of the choices that he had made prior to being hired out to Millsba. For example, after his first two years of working for William Brent in Falmouth, Burns had asked to be placed somewhere else, even though he and Brent got along, and Brent's wife was kind to him. Burns thought the longer he stayed in one place, the more people would get to know him, and the harder it would be for him to get away unnoticed. Subtle, who of course did not know Burns's reasoning for this request, had agreed. This wasn't the only time Burns spoke up for himself with Subtle, and whether Subtle was willing
13:10 Holly Frey? to do what he asked seemed to depend on whether he thought it would make Anthony more willing and obedient in the long run.
13:17 Tracy V. Wilson? Burns also negotiated with Millsba over this work arrangement. Millsba wanted him to deliver the money that he earned every day, but Burns thought this would be inconvenient, maybe even impossible. There might be days when he couldn't find work and had no money to turn over, so Burns convinced Millsba to let him hand over his money every two weeks.
13:40 Holly Frey? This fortnightly money delivery would also help Burns with his plan to liberate himself from enslavement, which we will get to after we pause for a sponsor break.
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14:23 Tracy V. Wilson? Hey, everybody. It's Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class. That's Alan Goya, a planning engineer at AT&T. He's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, defining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.
14:44 Speaker 06 It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
14:52 Tracy V. Wilson? That includes Field Services Manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.
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15:04 Tracy V. Wilson? And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.
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16:28 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jesay have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter,
17:09 Tracy V. Wilson? and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
17:33 Tracy V. Wilson? Unlike other places Anthony Burns had lived, Richmond, Virginia was a major port. In the words of Charles Emory Stevens, who published a biography of Burns in 1856, quote, "He was in daily sight of those northern keels that seemed to him a part of the very soil of freedom. He was in daily converse with men whose birthright was in a free land and whose language to the slave had no smack of the whip. Kind-hearted sailors, having no vessels to forfeit and no trade to compromise, did not hesitate to urge him on to flight. Plainly, the tide was at hand when, if ever, he was to achieve his freedom."
18:16 Holly Frey? At the same time, Burns had some potential reasons to stay. He had set up a secret school to teach enslaved people how to read. Like his work arrangement with Millsbaugh, this was illegal, but leaving would mean that he was leaving his students.
18:32 Tracy V. Wilson? He had also been preaching for years, and he wrestled with the question of whether it was morally right to escape. Supporters of slavery used passages from the Bible to justify its existence, but beyond that, slavery was fully legal under the law and escaping was not. After thinking about it and studying the Bible, again in the words of Charles Emory Stevens, quote, "He found that the Bible set forth only one God for the black and white races, that he had made of one blood all the nations of the earth, that there was no divine ordinance requiring one part of the human family to be in bondage to another,
19:13 Tracy V. Wilson? and that there was no passage of holy writ by virtue of which Colonel Suttall could claim a right of property in him, any more than he could in Colonel Suttall."
19:24 Holly Frey? According to his biography, Burns had also fallen in love with a woman, and it is possible that he was trying to figure out how he could take her with him. But when he handed over his earnings after his first fortnight of finding his own work, he hit an unexpected snag. As we said earlier, he was supposed to repay the $125 that Millsbaugh was paying for a year of his labor. But if you multiplied that first two weeks of earnings over a whole year, he was on track to earn almost three times that. Millsbaugh realized he could recoup his expenses much faster than he thought, and he again told Burns to bring him the money he had earned every day and to earn that $125 as fast as possible.
20:11 Tracy V. Wilson? Burns did not want to do either of those things. He wanted to be able to keep some of what he earned, as long as he was not jeopardizing being able to pay back that $125. I say payback, he wasn't paying it back. This was money that someone else wanted from him. He had not taken out a loan or something like that. And although he was living in Millsbaugh's house, in a room that he shared with another boarder, it was feasible that he and Millsbaugh might not see each other every day if Burns was leaving early to find work and then getting back late. That meant that his absence might not be noticed right away if he left, and that would not be the case if he was required
20:55 Tracy V. Wilson? to physically meet with Millsbaugh every day to hand him his money. Burns and Millsbaugh negotiated over this for a while, and Burns finally left the room without agreeing to this daily schedule.
21:09 Holly Frey? During his time in Richmond, Burns had met sailors and other workers from around the port. And during the two weeks he had been working on his own, he had mostly worked around the docks, loading and unloading cargo. He had figured out who seemed sympathetic and who did not. So over the next couple of days, he found a ship headed north that was getting ready to set sail and had crew members who were willing to hide him. He did not hand his money over to Millsbaugh, and he used it instead to make arrangements, pay expenses, and provision himself. This did mean, though, that he was not able to take the woman that he had fallen in love with.
21:48 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, there just was not time to make those kinds of arrangements since he had to tighten up his schedule to make his escape. One night in February of 1854, three days or so after his conversation with Millsbaugh, Burns put on four layers of clothing with his work clothes as the outermost layer, and he got into bed. In the very early hours of the morning, he gathered up his possessions in a bundle, and he slipped out of the room and out of the house without waking up the other boarder or Millsbaugh. He got to the dock, and the crew for the ship hid him on board.
22:25 Holly Frey? The ship was delayed leaving port and it did not set sail that day as expected. Burns eventually fell asleep. When he awoke, they were sailing down the James River toward the ocean.
22:37 Tracy V. Wilson? This voyage was miserable. The ship's captain and officers did not know he was aboard and it needed to stay that way. That meant that he could not leave his hiding spot. Bad weather and unfavorable winds meant that the journey was a lot longer and rougher than normal. He felt seasick a lot of the time. He had to rely on the crew to sneak food to him and when they managed to do that, it did not always line up with whether he was feeling well enough to actually eat it because of how seasick he was.
23:09 Holly Frey? But at the end of February or the start of March 1854, Burns arrived in Boston. He found a room in a boarding house and he recovered from the journey and that recovery took about a week. Then he found work as a cook on a mudscow. That was a barge and the term was used both for barges that could travel over mud flats and barges that carried the mud that was hauled up by dredgers. This job did not last long, though. He didn't really have any experience as a cook and for whatever reason, he could not get the bread to rise. Listen, I feel you. Even people that cook a lot can't always get their bread to rise. So he was fired, though, after about a week.
23:50 Tracy V. Wilson? As we've talked about in a number of previous episodes now, Boston had about 2,000 Black residents in the 1850s. Some had been born free to Black parents and some had been legally manumitted. But those who had liberated themselves from slavery, like Burns, were all considered to be fugitives. After he was fired from his position on the mudscow, Burns was hired by a Black merchant named Coffin Pitts who had a shop on Brattle Street. This street is not there anymore, but at the time, it was home to a number of Black-owned businesses. It was also home to Brattle Street Church, which had been struck
24:31 Tracy V. Wilson? by cannon fire in the Siege of Boston during the Revolutionary War, and it still had a cannonball lodged in the facade.
24:39 Holly Frey? In addition to owning this shop, Pitts was an abolitionist and he was a deacon at 12th Baptist Church. This church was nicknamed the Fugitive Slaves Church, both because of the number of self emancipated people among its membership and because of its organizing against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which we are going to talk more about in a bit. Burns attended this church as well.
25:05 Tracy V. Wilson? Over the next couple of months, Burns started building a life for himself in Boston. He wrote a letter to his brother back in Virginia, telling him where he was and about his job. He did not mail this letter directly to his brother, though. He sent it to somebody in Canada, so it could be postmarked from there. But when the letter arrived in Virginia, the postmaster saw the Canadian postmark and the fact that it was addressed to a slave, so he delivered it to Burns's brother's enslaver, who read it and then informed either Charles Sutton or William Brent of its contents. Sutton started the legal process for having his property returned to him.
25:47 Holly Frey? We'll get to that after a sponsor break.
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26:21 Holly Frey? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A. have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life.
26:40 Tracy V. Wilson? Love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So, listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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29:32 Tracy V. Wilson? Article four, section two, clause three of the U.S. Constitution reads, quote, "No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." Although that doesn't have the word slavery in it, that is known as the fugitive slave clause. Today, this has been superseded by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, except in punishment for a crime, but the text itself is still part of the document.
30:16 Holly Frey? The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which was signed into law by George Washington, was written to legally enforce this clause of the Constitution. Under this law, the process of reclaiming a fugitive started with an indictment or an affidavit made before a magistrate. Authorities were then required to capture and return people who had escaped from slavery, including if they had escaped to other states or territories. Anyone who harbored someone who had escaped or obstructed this process, or rescued people as they were being transported, could be fined up to $500 or imprisoned for a year.
30:55 Tracy V. Wilson? The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 revised the 1793 Act and was signed into law by President Millard Fillmore.
31:04 Tracy V. Wilson? This is part of a series of bills that are collectively described as the Compromise of 1850. We've talked about this a number of times on the podcast before, including fairly recently in our Charles Sumner episodes, but it is a central part of what happened to Anthony Burns, so we're going to go through it again.
31:23 Holly Frey? When the US Constitution was ratified in 1789, it left the question of whether to allow slavery up to the states. By the start of the 19th century, slavery had been abolished in most of the northern states and territories, but not in the southern states. The slave states outnumbered the free states, which meant slave states had slightly more power in the Senate, where each state gets two senators regardless of the size of that state's population.
31:52 Tracy V. Wilson? As new states were admitted, the United States took steps to maintain a balance between the slave states and the free states. States were generally admitted in pairs, one slave and one free. In 1820, the question of whether Missouri should be admitted as a slave state led to the Missouri Compromise, in which Missouri was admitted as a slave state, Maine was created as a free state from what had been part of Massachusetts. And the Missouri Compromise also drew a boundary line through Louisiana territory, with slavery outlawed in territories and newly created states north of that line, but legal south of it.
32:34 Holly Frey? Thirty years later, the Compromise of 1850 came after California requested to join the Union as a free state, and there was no slave state ready to be admitted to keep the balance in the Senate. Slave states were also losing power in the House of Representatives as more people moved to northern cities. This set of five laws included one that admitted California as a free state, one that abolished the slave trade in Washington DC, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, more formally titled "An Act Respecting Fugitives from Justice and Persons Escaping from the Service of Their Masters."
33:13 Tracy V. Wilson? This law was meant to help appease the slave states that were losing power in the Senate through the admission of California to the Union. It did not include the word slavery in the actual text. It said if someone “held to service or labor” escaped to another state or territory, “the person or persons to whom such service or labor may be due, or his/her or their agent or attorney duly authorized, could pursue and reclaim such fugitive person.”
33:47 Holly Frey? Doing so required them to procure a warrant from the courts, judges, or commissioners of the state or territory the person fled to. If a commissioner was overseeing these proceedings, he would be paid for his services. If the commissioner found that the proof provided was sufficient to issue the warrant, he would be paid $10. If he found that the proof was not sufficient to provide the warrant, he would be paid $5. In other words, it was in the financial interests of the commissioners to find in favor of the person who was claiming that another person was their property. The people who were empowered to arrest the fugitives were also paid $5 for each person they arrested.
34:31 Tracy V. Wilson? This law also increased the monetary penalties that had been established under the previous fugitive slave law, and it established new ones. Marshals, or deputy marshals, who refused to execute these warrants could be fined $1,000. Anyone who obstructed the process, or harbored someone who had escaped, or rescued them, or aided them in any way, directly or indirectly, could be fined up to $1,000 and imprisoned for up to six months. They could also have to pay civil damages to “the party injured by such illegal conduct,” up to $1,000 for each fugitive.
35:11 Holly Frey? This was a stronger law with harsher penalties than the 1793 version. The proceedings involved were basically administrative hearings, not trials. It was explicitly illegal for the testimony of a so-called fugitive to be entered into evidence.
35:30 Tracy V. Wilson? This law put all Black people in the United States at risk regardless of whether they were or ever had been enslaved. After it was passed, black people in the northern states started immigrating from the United States, primarily to Canada, to try to protect themselves. An estimated 5,000 black people fled from the free states to Canada after this law was passed.
35:54 Holly Frey? We have already talked about several things Anthony Burns had done or been involved with during his lifetime that were considered illegal. It was illegal for white people in Virginia to teach black people to read and write. Also, in the words of the 1849 Legal Code of Virginia, quote, "Every assemblage of Negroes for the purpose of religious worship, when such worship is conducted by a Negro, and every assemblage of Negroes for the purposes of instruction in reading or writing, or in the nighttime for any purpose, shall be an unlawful assembly." So Burns's work as a preacher and the secret school he established were both illegal.
36:35 Holly Frey? As we said earlier, his arrangement with Mills Spa to earn his own money, also illegal.
36:40 Tracy V. Wilson? It was also illegal for Anthony Burns to leave Virginia without his enslaver's knowledge or approval. It was illegal for him to escape to Massachusetts. It was illegal for the sailors aboard the ship to hide him there and to bring him food. It was illegal for the ship's captain and officers to transport him, even though they did not know he was aboard. It was illegal for the boarding house owner in Boston to rent him a room. It was illegal for the mudscow captain to hire him as a cook. It was illegal for Coffin Pits to give him a job and a place to live. It was illegal for the congregation of 12th Baptist Church to welcome him into their number and to offer him aid and comfort.
37:21 Holly Frey? After learning about the letter Burns had written to his brother that revealed that he had gone to Boston, Charles Suttall went to the authorities in the State Circuit Court for Alexandria County, Virginia. On May 16th, 1854, the court determined that he had provided satisfactory proof that Burns owed Suttall his service. Suttall and William Brent both traveled to Boston to pursue him.
37:45 Tracy V. Wilson? On May 24th, in Boston, United States Commissioner Edward G. Loring issued a warrant for Burns's arrest. Watson Freeman, United States Marshal of Massachusetts, was empowered with arresting Burns, but the actual arrest was carried out by slave catcher Asa O. Butman, who had been deputized. Butman arrested Burns that evening. Butman had been in Coffin Pits's store that day, but he hadn't aroused their suspicions. Burns and Pits usually walked to and from work together, but that night Burns decided to take a brief walk first. Once the two men had separated, Butman confronted Burns.
38:29 Tracy V. Wilson? At first, Burns thought he was being mugged, but then Butman said he was being charged with robbing a jewelry store. Burns knew that he had not robbed anyone, and he thought this was just some kind of mistake, so he willingly went with Butman. He didn't even call out to Pits, who was still within earshot about what was happening. Even though Burns was not trying to resist arrest, six or seven other men who had been waiting nearby rushed out and they grabbed him, lifting him up off of his feet and carrying him to the courthouse.
39:02 Holly Frey? Once they arrived, they were met by Marshall Freeman. Freeman told Burns he was being taken upstairs to the jury room to meet his accuser, and Burns again went willingly, only to find that there was no accuser in that room because there was no such person. It was at that point that he realized what had to be happening, that he had been captured as a fugitive slave.
39:26 Tracy V. Wilson? In the words of his biographer, Charles Emory Stevens, quote, "As in a dissolving view, the land of freedom faded out and the dark land of slavery usurped its place. He saw himself again a slave, far worse than that, a slave disgraced, pointed at as a runaway, punished, perhaps punished unto death. Overpowered by the prospect, he in his own simple but expressive phrase, gave all up."
39:55 Holly Frey? We are going to talk about what happened next, next time. But right now, Tracy, do you have listener mail for us?
40:04 Tracy V. Wilson? I do have listener mail for us.
40:09 Tracy V. Wilson? This listener mail is actually from an old friend of the podcast who we have not seen in many years. Jess, who works for the National Park Service and who we worked with when we did a live show at Adams National Historic Park some years ago, Jess wrote and said, "Hi Holly and Tracy. Your friendly Massachusetts park ranger here, one of two. One of my colleagues was able to brag to me that you read her letter on the show. I've made it up to September 2024 in the podcast. The 43 government shutdown put me behind, but I will catch up. And just listened to the episode on Etienne Cabaye and Ikaria. Boy, I was not expecting Nauvoo, Illinois to make an appearance. Your episode talks
40:54 Tracy V. Wilson? about Nauvoo being the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There is an Adams National Historic Park connection. In 1844, Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy Adams, visited Nauvoo. He and his cousin were traveling and wanted to check it out. They met with Joseph Smith and were given a tour of the city by Smith. Before he left, Smith gifted Charles Francis Adams a signed copy of the Book of Mormon. Just six weeks later, Smith and his brother were murdered. Rangers would casually mention this on a tour, and news of the book made its way back to a historian of Latter-day Saints history. Turns out, this book was Emma Smith's personal copy, which had been
41:39 Tracy V. Wilson? listed as missing. Not only that, it's one of, if I recall correctly, from a few years ago, only three known existing signatures of Joseph Smith that still survives until today. This ended up being one of my favorite objects in the collection at Adams National Historic Park. It's amazing how far and wide the interests and reach of this family was. Again, thanks for all you do in making my 90-minute commute feel shorter, Jess. P.S. Pet tax." Attempting to get Miss Summer Rae to look at the camera for a Christmas photo. We have a kind of shaggy-ish brown puppy dog, looking very, very cute in front of a Christmas tree
42:19 Tracy V. Wilson? with the trees all lit up. Thank you so much, Jess. Jess has written us a few times since we did that live show. Did we do two live shows at Adams National Historic Park, or did the second one get canceled because of COVID? I don't remember. All blurred together. Yeah. Um, but we did for sure do a live show there that we really enjoyed and we enjoyed meeting all the folks who worked there and working with them. And I always love hearing from folks at the National Park Service, especially folks who have been able to weather everything that has gone on with the National Park Service. And honestly, folks who didn't.
43:01 Tracy V. Wilson? We have also heard from some folks who lost their jobs and the various waves of reductions in force with the Park Service and other government agencies. So, thank you so much for this email. It was such a cute picture. And about this copy of the Book of Mormon. I had not heard that story at all, and it is super interesting. So, if you would like to send us a note, we're at [email protected] . Also, we publish source lists for all of our episodes. You can find them on our website at missedinhistory.com. And you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you like to get your podcasts.
43:49 Tracy V. Wilson? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
44:04 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Previous SYMHC Classics: Samuel Pepys Next The Rendition of Anthony Burns, Part 2 Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated