(gentle music) (soft somber music) - She was born enslaved in St.

Louis, Missouri as the property of her grandfather, a white male, in 1826.

She was an octoroon, so she was an eighth Black.

She was blue-eyed, fair skin, high cheekbones.

But she kept hearing these tales of freedom because the family she was born into was Revolutionary War.

(crickets chirping) (soft suspenseful music) So in 1843, 4th of July comes.

This Revolutionary War family is celebrating freedom and left her home to wash the paints.

Before they left, she asked a question, "You know, I've got a friend that's sick and can I while the family's, I'll go down and visit my friend."

And she went down and told her friend she was leaving, "I'm out of here."

(footsteps swooshing) So she walked to the ferry dock and literally bought a ticket.

(ship bell ringing) And she just kind of melded into what was going on on the ferry boat that would take her to Galena that's further down the river.

It's there that she got off and bought a ticket to the stagecoach to the furthest place that she could figure out that she thought she'd be safe, and it ended up being Milwaukee.

(crowds chattering) When she arrived a couple weeks later, she had a $600 tag on her head.

(footsteps pattering) (alert music) And in about a month's time, here comes all the folks looking for her.

(dogs barking) (crowds clamoring) The city of Milwaukee gathered themselves together and said, "She is not going back."

So when they started knocking door to door, asking people questions, and everybody's like, "Well, I don't know.

I don't know what you're talking about."

Asahel Finch was a well-known attorney around town.

Asahel Finch was an abolitionist.

Mr.

Finch sent someone to go find her and bring her back to him.

(footsteps plodding) And then he hid her in plain sight, as they would say, as the story goes, in a sugar barrel with a lid on it in the middle of July.

(crickets chirping) And she was hidden there because at the end of the night, Mr.

Finch had a plan to take her and get her somewhere safer, which is what he did, put her on a horseback and took her to Samuel Brown.

(hooves clattering) She was hidden overnight by Deacon Brown till it got daylight, and he decided, "Well, she obviously can't stay here."

So he put her on horseback out to the outskirts, Waukesha, the surrounding areas of Burlington.

And they were trying to decide, "Well, what do we do?"

So after deciding that the man who was gonna do it was Lyman Goodnow, they entrusted her to him, and off they road.

They went around south of Chicago, through Indiana, and then into Detroit across the river to Windsor.

And as it turns out, she had finally made it home.

(waterfowl chirping)