Wentt-PA-Misc Records-1875

Pittsburgh, PA, FRANK WENTT & The Underground Railroad

 [Valencia, Clint, Alva: the web site mentioned <http://users.inna.net/~redden> has outstanding information about the GA Auction and a bunch of names. With the permission of Paul it ought to be copied to the Afrigeneas Data Base. Susan] 

Synposis of Underground Railroad 

This may help explain the following excerpt from an 1875 Pittsburgh newspaper regarding a 112 year old colored man who had been a slave in the Updegraff and Hussey household for generations. As DR. C. G. Hussey and others in the Hussey and Updegraff families had been active in the abolition movement this slave ownership was kind of an enigma to me. I also have transcribed a lengthy tract I believe was written by Dr. C. G. Hussey in 1858 describing a slave auction in GA and have it linked from my family history page. 

http://users.inna.net/~redden

VERITABLE CENTENARIAN.

Colored Man 112 Years Old - One Who really Knows His Age. 

At the Tea Party Matinee, Saturday afternoon, there was present a veritable cantenarian - a colored man who had reached the age of 112 years. He was escorted by Mrs. C.G. Hussey, and attracted no small share of attention.

The old man was agile to a remarkable degree for one of his age. His name is Frank Wentt. He was born on Col. Isaac Zane's plantation, sixteen miles from Winchester, in Shenandoah county, Va., January 16, 1763. After he grew up he was sold to Col. David Lupton, who had a plantation four miles west of Winchester. The Colonel gave Frank, who was then a slave, to his daughter Ann, who afterward married
Nathan Updegraff, Mrs. Hussey's grandfather, through whose family he descended down to Dr. Hussey, whose ward the old man is at present.

Frank has lived to see Gen. George Washington and nearly all the great men since that time, and had the pleasure of seeing his race freed from the thraldom of slavery. Beside him on the stage where he sat on Saturday stood a descendant in the sixth generation of his former master, Updegraff, in a little son of Mr. C.C. Hussey. Uncle Frank has a wife ninety-four years old, and he is furnished a house in the city during the winter by his kind benefactor, and one in the country (at Sewickley) in summer. The old man said In regard to his country home: "I've soon gwine out dar." In answer to a question whether he remembered
anything of former years the old man said:

(The rest of the article is missing.)

This is also interesting in the fact that shortly after Nathan Updegraff and Ann Lupton married they moved to Ohio where Nathan helped found several monthly meetings. " Uncle Frank" as he was called was evidently more a member of the family than a slave in the common sense of the word.

Contributed by: spice3@juno.com (Susan S. Buckley)
By way of: Paul  redden@inna.net