The Trials and Tribulations of Isaac Hensley
Isaac Hensley’s experiences underscore the profound instability that shaped freedom for people of color along the Ohio–Kentucky border. Although legally free on paper, his status remained precarious within a slaveholding society that routinely undermined the rights of free Black individuals. The archival record—court documents, newspaper reports, and accounts of violence directed at him and his family—makes clear how easily his freedom could be challenged or curtailed. Taken together, these sources reveal that his liberty was never secure, but instead subject to sudden reversal and never to be taken for granted.
Isaac Hensley was born ca. 1801 in Virginia. In 1830, he was living in Montgomery County, Kentucky with his enslaver Joseph Hensley who emancipated Isaac in his will in 1830. “In the Name of god Amen I Joseph Hensley of Montgomery county & State of Kentucky being weak in Body but of Sound and perfect mind and memory lessened by Almighty God for the same do make and publish this my last will & Testament Respecting my negro man Named Isaac in manner & form following that is to say it is my wish and desire that my negro man Isaac being about the age of Twenty eight years Shall be Emansapated (sic) or set free at my Death and is not to be held in Bondage against his will neither by my heirs nor by any other person or persons Whatsoever and the county court of the aforesaid County of Montgomery are hereby authorized to give unto the aforesaid negro man named Isaac a Certificate as the law Directs. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand & seal this third day of August in the year of our Lord 1830.” The will went into effect in August 1832, after Joseph Hensley’s death and a certificate was issued to Isaac.
Isaac Hensley remained in Montgomery County and by 1840, he was living with his wife Judy and two sons and four daughters on 40 acres of land he owned on Slate Creek.
In October 1841, Isaac Hensley found himself under arrest in Mason County, Kentucky and charged with kidnapping a woman from Montgomery County, Kentucky, an allegation based on the claim of two witnesses that he carried her from Kentucky into Ohio.
Statements were taken by William Bishop, Jr. and Judy, Isaac Hensley’s wife. Bishop noted that he had a conversation with Hensley who allegedly “stated that he brought from Montgomery County and carried to Ohio a woman and her children. The Woman had no free papers that he knew of the woman was the daughter of the man who owned her that she had been driven from her home by his mistress, and had been paying a hire for herself, that after he master’s death, rumor was afloat that the heirs intended to take her up and sell her that he was more fond [of] her than of his own wife and that he took her and brought her away.”
Judy, “a woman of color,” made the statement that, she had lived with Isaac Hensley, “as a wife for 22 or 23 years; a yellow woman lived in the neighborhood, who it was said was not free, wit has heard the woman say that she was not free but was sent away because her mistress did not like her = Anthony Jones was the husband of the woman that he took away. The woman said she belonged to Valentine Crawford. Wit. understood that she was the daughter of her master, that she she [sic] could or did not stay at home. Wit. heard her say that they talked of taking her up and selling her.”
After hearing Bishop’s and Judy’s testimony, James Artis and Matthew Markland stated, that it was their opinion that Isaac Hensley “ought to be tried in the circuit court for abunation [?] or kidnapping, and that he be committed to Jail unless he procures Bail to the amount of $ 400 himself in $ 400 for one or more securities”
Accordingly, a warrant for Isaac Hensley’s arrest was issued on October 12, 1841.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky
James Lynn Specially appointed
To any constable of Mason county Give
Whereas information hath been given me Matthew Markland a justice of the peace in & for said County that a negro woman & three children the property of the heirs of Valentine Crawford of Estill County Kentucky have been taken clandestinely and came to the state of Ohio by a certain negro man called Isaac Hensly contrary to the peace & dignity of this Commonwealth.
These are therefore in the name of the Commonwealth to command you to arrest the said Isaac Hensly and bring him before me or some other justice of the peace for said county to insure [sic] R … charge and to be further act according to law. And make …
Given under my hand this 12 Oct 1841 M Martland
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| Isaac Hensley, Warrant, Oct. 12, 1841 |
The case was filed on October 14th, 1841, and two days later summonses were issued for the following witnesses – Judy, a woman of color, James Lynn and William Bishop, “to appear before the Judge of our Mason circuit court, at the court - house thereof, in the town of Washington, on the first day of the next November Term, to testify and the truth to say in behalf of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in a certain matter of controversy, in our said Court depending and undetermined between said Commonwealth plaintiff and Isaac Hensly man of color defendant; and shall in no wise omit under the penalty of £ 100. and have then there this writ.” However, Judy, one of the key witnesses, could not be located.
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| Summons for Judy, "a woman of color" |
Isaac Hensley’s case was continued until the May term of 1842, when once again, on May 12, 1842, summonses were issued for witnesses to “appear before the Judge of our Mason circuit court, in a certain matter of controversy, at the court - house thereof, in the town of Washington, on the 5th day of the present May Term to testify and the truth to say in behalf of Isaac Hensely (a man of color) in a certain matter of controversy” – James Lynn, Jesse Martin and Kenchon Johnson. Again, two of the three witnesses, Martin and Johnson, could not be located.
What is striking is the fact that Valentine Crawford, father and owner of the allegedly kidnapped enslaved woman, was very much alive, but was not called upon to testify.
Valentine Crawford was born in 1777 in Albemarle County, Virginia. His wife was Susannah "Susan" Ray (sometimes spelled Rhey). Valentine was an early settler on Miller’s Creek in Estill County, Kentucky. By 1840, he owned 8 slaves. He died on March 29, 1860.
Valentine Crawford’s absence from the prosecution of this case seems to support the fact that Isaac Hensley told the truth about her being sent away by Crawford’s wife and that the family had no interest in pursuing the matter. In effect, Isaac Hensley’s kidnapping case was dismissed in May of 1842.
Following the dismissal, Isaac Hensley moved to Brown County, Ohio. On June 23, 1842, Isaac Hensley and Milly Rhea applied for a marriage license and were married two days later, on June 25, 1842, by Justice of the Peace William Baird. It is highly likely that Milly was the woman in question who Isaac Hensley was accused of kidnapping. If the testimony of Isaac’s former wife Judy is accurate, the kidnapping was more of an elopement, possibly motivated by the fact that the Crawfords threatened to sell Milly.
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| Brown County, Ohio marriage between Isaac Hensley & Milly Rhea |
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| 1850 Brown County, Ohio Census Daughter Lurane appears to be one of the three children that accompanied Milly during her escape from Kentucky in 1841. There are no records for the other two children. It is also not entirely clear whether Milly or her children were indeed enslaved. According to testimony, Milly’s husband in Kentucky was Anthony Jones. On July 6, 1840, Anderson, the ten-year-old son of Milly Jones, “free Woman of Colour,” was bound to Matthew Kirk in Montgomery County, Kentucky Court. Without any further documentation, there is no way to ascertain that Milly Jones and Isaac’s wife Milly were one and the same person but given the irregularities in this case, it certainly gives one pause about the possibility. In September 1853, the lives of Isaac Hensley and his family were violently upended in an incident that nearly broke the family apart for good. On September 10, 1853, the Maysville Eagle reported that on Thursday night, September 8, 1853, “about ten o'clock, a party of eight men entered, by force, the house of a free black man named Isaac Hensley, living near Sardinia, Brown county, Ohio. The family of Hensley consisted of his wife and four children, two of them girls nearly grown; and two boys somewhat younger.” “They were all in bed, but got up when so rudely awakened. The kidnapping party knocked Hensley's wife in the head, rendering her insensible, picked her up and laid her on the bed; then bound Hensley and his four children, and put them into an old wagon, covered with quilts. The wagon was driven thence through Logan's Gap; and just above the gap Hensley and his children were taken out of the wagon, put into a skiff, and rowed across the Ohio river to the Kentucky shore.” Logan Gap’s is a small natural pass in the hills of southern Brown County, Ohio. The road descending through the gap joined the river road on the bottomlands below while skirting the nearby towns of Ripley, about 3.5 miles to the northwest, and Aberdeen, roughly 4.5 miles to the southeast, making it an ideal route to remain undetected. “The children were concealed during Friday in some bushes, but Hensley was taken up the river to a cabin about a mile and a half below Maysville, to the house of the man who had driven the wagon. Thither, after night, the children were brought; from thence Hensley and the children were conveyed to Maysville, and put in the private jail of James McMillen, about midnight.” McMillen, an agent for the notorious Lexington slave trader Lewis C. Robards, as well as Memphis trader Nathan Bedford Forrest, opened his “private” jail, “for the custody and reception of Negroes” in February of 1852. It was located in the brick row on Second Street in Maysville, just below Wall Street. Kidnapping free Blacks was nothing new for McMillen, a practice that would eventually result in his murder in December 1856. McMillen’s death triggered the famous Bolton-Dickins feud (1856-1870) with a death toll of up to 19 deaths.  Advertisement for McMillan's slave trading business in Maysville, Kentucky Maysville Eagle, August 6, 1850 “On Friday the occurrence became known to some of Hensley's neighbors, and the country around about was aroused. On that evening, Chambers Baird, Esq. of Ripley, Ohio, telegraphed to W. H. Wadsworth, Esq, of this city, enquiring if Hensley and his children were in our jail. They had not yet arrived and of course were not in any jail in this city; but measures were taken to ascertain if they should be brought here; and Mr. McMillen was notified of the fact that Hensley was inquired for.”
William H. Wadsworth was one of the most prominent young lawyers in Maysville. After graduating from Augusta College in 1841, he read law and was admitted to the bar in 1844. Wadsworth established a practice in downtown Maysville that quickly gained regional recognition. In 1853 he had just begun his term in the Kentucky State Senate. Politically he was pro Union but cautious on the subject of slavery. “Accordingly, early on Saturday morning Mr. McMillen called on Mr. Wadsworth and apprised him of the fact that Hensley and his children had been brought to him the night before, and were then in his possession. He promised to keep them safe, even from the persons who delivered them to him, until the affair could be investigated. Mr. Baird was notified by letter and by telegraph, and on Sunday arrived in the city with some of Hensley's friends who brought with them his certificate of freedom under the hand and seal of the Clerk of the Montgomery, Co., Court of Kentucky. It appears that Hensley was enfranchised by Joseph Hensley in 1832, by last will and testament, duly proven and recorded in the aforesaid County Court. The description of Hensley in the certificate of freedom was so individual and precise, that Mr. McMillen at once delivered Hensley and his children over to his friends, who returned with them to Ohio.” Unfortunately, the Maysville Eagle never revealed the identity of the kidnappers. The Louisville Courier Journal noted, “The Maysville Eagle very justly condemns the conduct of parties to the outrage particularized below. But why does the editor refrain from publishing the names of the guilty persons and the owner of the cabin just below Maysville where the negroes were concealed? We opine that Mr. McMillen would not have admitted them into his slave pen, without some knowledge of the persons by whom they were brought to him.” The editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal raised some valid questions which, by all appearances, were never answered since none of the perpetrators were ever brought to justice. Isaac and Milly seemed to have
lived a rather quiet and uneventful life until the kidnapping incident in 1853.
From the account, we know that Milly was
injured during the attack but to what extent is unknown. She passed away
sometime between 1858 after giving birth to her son John and 1860, when census
records list Isaac with a new wife, Elmira. He was living in Eagle Township,
Brown County, Ohio on a 28 ½ acre parcel of land that he purchased from
Chambers Baird and his wife on February 4, 1860, for one dollar. The land was
originally part of several surveys (1417 acres) for Cadwallader Wallace who set the land
aside "for colored people" who were originally enslaved by Samuel Gist in Virginia which he emancipated in 1818. His executors bought the land from Wallace and settled 350 of them on the land in 1820.  Cadwallader Wallace Surveys Nos. 9579, 9646, 9666 Location of Isaac Hensley residence in 1860 Brown County, Ohio Atlas Links of Interest Commonwealth v Isaac Hensley, Mason County, Kentucky Court Case No. 14048 Digitized at Family Search More details on James McMillen's death which triggered the Bolton-Dickinson Feud (1856-1870) Researched, transcribed and written by Marlitta H. Perkins, February 2026. Copyright © 2026, All Rights Reserved. |
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