Paul Jennings was Senator Webster's butler. Webster met Jennings at the White House, where he was brought as a valet for his owner, President James Madison. Years after President Madison died, his widow, Dolley, returned to Washington with Jennings. By 1847, her financial circumstances deteriorated and she sold Jennings to an agent for $200. Senator Webster ended up purchasing Jennigs for $120 and freed him on condition that Jennings would repay him the purchase price at the rate of $8 a month. At the time of Jennings involvement with the Pearl, he still owed Webster a considerable sum. Jennings had traveled with Senator Webster a lot and in one of those travels to Philadelphia, he met Captain Drayton. Jennings thought of escaping on the Pearl and wrote a letter explaining his intentions, which he gave to Senator Webster's housekeeper. He later changed his mind and decided not to escape and stay on as Webster's slave. He asked the housekeeper to return his letter back.

Daniel Drayton was the captain of the Pearl. He was a family man who lived in Philadelphia. He did not have a great reputation as a seaman because he lost four ships to storms by the time he agreed to help the escaping slaves. Daniel Drayton chartered the Pearl for $100 and was in charge of arranging for the "cargo." In his memoir he wrote that he always believed in the nobility of the cause although he was paid for his services.

Edward Sayres was the owner of the Pearl. He was in charge of the ship and his one man crew, a sailor and cook named Chester English. Sayers was paid $100 by Drayton for the ship's use. When the Pearl encountered the storm, Captain Sayres opened the sails to speed to Point Lookout near the mouth of the Potomac. However, when they reached Point Lookout, a powerful storm cut-off access to the bay. Sayres refused to listen to Captain Drayton's advice to take the ship south into the nearby Atlantic, and claimed that his craft was too small and could not handle rough seas. Instead he decided to drop anchor in a small cove called Cornfield Harbor. After they were found, Drayton and Sayres were charged with 77 counts of illegal transportation of slaves. Bond was placed at $77,000, $1,000 for every slave, which they could not meet. In their trial, which was set to July, they were sentenced to life imprisonment for helping slaves escape. They were defended by Horace Mann, who filled the congressional seat of former President John Quincy Adams. Neither men were convicted on theft charges. However, they were convicted of transportation and remained jailed for four and half years, when President Fillmore pardoned them as the nation developed an increasing distaste for slavery.

Chester English was a young inexperienced sailor and cook on the Pearl. When the Salem reached the Pearl, and the boarding party took crew members for interrogation, Chester English wept in fear and argued that he believed that the 77 runaways were on a pleasure cruise. He was later released.

Daniel Bell was a key figure in the Pearl escape plan. He was the free husband of a slave family. He financed the venture in order to bring his wife and children to freedom. Bell was challenging his family's legal status in court and was afraid that he will loose the case or run out of money, which is why he opted to consider this route.

Samuel Edmonson was a "hired-out" slave. His family played a central role in this escape because five of his thirteen brothers and sisters planned to board the Pearl. Him and his brothers and sisters were the children of Paul and Amelia Edmonson. Paul was a free man, while his wife still a slave. According to the law, all their children were slaves. When they reached the right age, their owner hired them out in Washington as servants, laborers, and skilled workers. This was the outcome of the collapse of the labor-intensive tobacco plantation system, which left an excess of available slaves to be hired out. On the day of the ship's departure, Samuel was the one in charge of picking up his younger sisters, Mary and Emily. He went to their employers' houses and picked up both, then continued towards the wharf on Seventh street, where the Pearl was docking. Three brothers were waiting for them when they arrived. Samuel never abandoned his pursuit for freedom. After spending a few years as a slave in New Orleans, he escaped on a ship to Jamaica. From there he went on to Liverpool, and with his wife and child sailed to Australia.

Mary Edmonson was one of the youngest Edmonson siblings. She was older than Emily. She was hired-out to a family that lived on G street between 12th and 13th streets. After the ship was caught and the escapees brought back, Mary and Emily Edmonson walked behind their brothers with heads high and arms around each other's waists. The woman who "hired-out" Mary tried unsuccessfully to buy her from her previous owner. The next day she was sold to a slave trader who took her to New Orleans. Both girls were freed by their unrelenting father, Paul Edmonson, who gathered money and support to buy them out. Mary and Emily attended Oberlin College through the support of Rev. Beecher and Harriet Beecher. Mary died within the year and her grieving sister, Emily, returned to Washington.

Emily Edmonson was the youngest Edmonson sibling. She was hired-out to a family that lived near the corner of 22nd and G streets NW. Judson Diggs, the cab driver who turned the escapees in and who used to come to Emily's married sister--Elizabeth's home, liked Emily. One evening he turned to Emily and offered her a stale cake from his pocket and proposed her marriage and his mortgage free home. Emily refused him, while repressing laughter at the sight of the cake. After the ship was caught and the escapees brought back, Mary and Emily Edmonson walked behind their brothers with heads high and arms around each other's waists. Both girls were freed by their unrelenting father, Paul Edmonson, who gathered money and support to buy them out. Mary and Emily attended Oberlin College through the support of Rev. Beecher and Harriet Beecher. Mary died within the year and her grieving sister, Emily, returned to Washington. She joined the legendary educator, Myrtilla Miner, who opened the Normal School for Colored Girls, a college preparatory school in a city where slavery remained legal.

John and Elizabeth Edmonson Brent - Elizabeth was an Edmonson sister and John Brent, her husband, was their brother in law. The couples home was the meeting place of the Edmonsons who lived in Washington and a gathering place for a small religious group that had broken away from a congregation dominated by the white-controlled Foundry Methodist Church. They were also considered founders of the John Wesley A.M.E Zion Church, which is now located at 14th and Corcoran streets NW. John bought his own freedom first and then secured his wife's. They bought land and built their home on the southwest corner of 18th and L streets NW. In the evening of the Pearl's departure, an Edmonson family gathering took place at the Brent's home, which included the Edmonson parents--Paul and Amelia Edmonson, who came to visit their kids from their home in Maryland, and Samuel Edmonson. Samuel told them about his plan to board the Pearl and take his siblings with him. The parents were very concerned because a few years back their oldest son Hamilton was caught in an escape attempt and was sold south to New Orleans.

Paul and Amelia Edmonson

Judson Diggs was a free black who owned a horse-drawn hack. He was a cab driver, who at the night of the Pearl's departure brought a few escapee passengers to the ship. To his disappointment, the escapees had no money to pay him for the drive and promised to pay him later. Diggs was well known to the Edmonson family because he used to come to the Brent's house as a religious brother and sometimes joined the family at tea.  In one of these instances, he offered marriage to Emily Edmonson, who refused him and even laughed at his gesture to give her a stale cake he had in his pocket before proposing. From his acquaintance with the Edmonsons, he knew that the girls will be on the Pearl.

The Dodge Family were wealthy tobacco traders from Georgetown. They owned the steamship Salem. They also had slaves who escaped on the Pearl. The Dodge family allowed a pursuing party of constables and civilians to use the Salem to pursue the escapees on sea, after Judson Diggs told them that the escapees ran away on a schooner.

Gamaliel Bailey was the editor of the new era, a moderate abolitionist newspaper, which recently relocated to Washington to a building across from the U.S. Patent Office. After the escapees were caught, a reporter wrote that the crowd implicated the abolitionists and the abolition paper of the district--The New Era, of which Gamaliel Bailey was editor. Drayton's denial that any abolitionists were involved in the escape scheme did not help to change the crowd's pre-judgment that the abolitionists had something to do with the escape, particularly because rumors were floating that William L. Chaplin, a member of the Anti-Slavery Society and owner of abolitionist newspapers in Rochester and Albany, also was involved in planning the escape and procuring the ship. These rumors led a crowd of 1000 people in front of the  New Era newspaper building, demanding that it be closed immediately and contemplating to lynch Bailey by hurling rocks and brickbats. This was the beginning of a three day standoff, named the Washington Riots of 1848. The crowd decided to give Bailey until 10 A.M. next day to remove his printing press from the city or have it destroyed. Bailey reported in his paper, that he refused the crowd's demands and while standing on his office steps, he declared that he refused "the surrender of a great constitutional right--a right which I have used, but not abused--in the preservation of which you are as deeply interested as I am." In addition, he published a denial of  complicity in the escape, in the Daily National Intelligencer, a newspaper owned by Washington Mayor William Seaton. As the crowd continued to threaten Bailey, a justice of the peace, six auxiliary guards, several police and a few citizens deputized as constables, stationed themselves between the National Era building anbd the tense crowd. As threats started flowing about the editor's home and family, mayor Seaton, who was Bailey's neighbor, helped move Bailey's children to safety. The deadline for removing the press passed and the crowd started losing steam and thinned, but returned the next day. This course of events, concerned the postmaster general and the director of the Washington Monument Society, who told President Polk that a riotous crowd was planning to pull down the National Era newspaper. Protection at the National Era increased and it was reported that 75 to 100 guards were stationed next to it. The President also stationed a great number of government clerks, who were there as conservators of law and order. As a result, the crowd was dispersed that night for good.

Rep. Joshua Reed Giddings was an American statesman, who represented Ohio in the House of Representative between the years 1838 - 1859. He was a prominent opponent of slavery. Following the events of the escape on the Pearl, its repercussions continued in Congress, where Rep. Joshua Reed Giddings of Ohio introduced a resolution that asked why in the light of freedom movements in Europe, the Pearl fugitives  were being jailed for attempting to enjoy freedom for which America's forefathers had died.

Rep. Isaac E. Holmes was an American statesman from South Carolina, between the years 1839 - 1851.  In response to Giddings' resolution responded that if the house considered such a resolution, he would move to add an amendment inquiring why the "scoundrels who caused the slaves to be there ought not to be hung."

The Anti Slavery Society (1833 -1870) was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. By 1838, the society had 1,350 chapters with around 250,000 members. The society's headquarters was in New York city. From 1840 to 1870 it published a weekly newspaper, The National Anti-Slavery Standard. The society played several roles in the Pearl's escape. It was mentioned as a possible collaborator in planning the Pearl's escape, when William L. Chaplin, a member of the Anti-Slavery Society and owner of abolitionist newspapers in Rochester and Albany, also was involved in planning the escape and procuring the ship. Later, Paul and Amelia Edmonson, whose children from the Pearl were sold by slave traders in New Orleans, decided to make every effort to free their children, they turned to the New York offices of the Anti-Slavery Society. They sent them to Henry Ward Beecher, whose church members raised the necessary funds to free Mary and Emily Edmonson.



Attending an 1850 anti-slavery convention in Cazenovia, N.Y., are Emily Edmonson (from left); Theodosia Gilbert (the finance of William Chaplin, who had helped organize the Pearl escape); Gerrit Smith, the wealthy abolitionist who likely financed the Pearl escape; Frederick Douglass, the leading anti-slavery orator of his day and chairman of the Fugitive Slave Law Convention; and Mary Edmonson.