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It is a sad irony that while many of our “Founding Fathers” would fight for and win freedom from the bonds of England, that they, themselves, were slave owners.
George Washington is undoubtedly considered “The Father or Our Country,” but he, too, engaged in what has been called the “peculiar institution” of slavery.
And according to the book “Hart’s history and directory of three towns — Brownsville, Bridgeport and West Brownsville,” Washington’s ties to what would later be known as Fayette County, were deeper than just his battles at Fort Necessity.
“A most distinguished (though non-resident) holder of bondsmen in Fayette County was George Washington, whose improvements on his large tract of land in the present township of Perry near Perryopolis were principally made by their (meaning slave) labor,” wrote John Percy Hart in his 1904 book.
The support for the claim, wrote Hart, was found in letters written to Washington in 1774 and 1775 from an associate who handled his landholder affairs in the area.
It is here that Hart employed some conjecture to arrive at one, little known, and troubling fact about Washington.
In March of 1780, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.” The new law was explicit. “That all persons, as well as Negros, Mulattos as others, who shall be born within the State from and after the passing of this act shall not be deemed and considered as servants for life or slaves,” it said in part.
That meant that slave owners, many of whom had moved to Pennsylvania from Virginia and Maryland, were witnessing the first steps toward the prohibition of slavery.
That, too, meant that the notable non-resident, Washington, would eventually be affected by the new law.
According to Hart, those people from below the Mason-Dixon Line, found the Pennsylvania legislature’s initiation of the “gradual abolition of slavery” to be “very offensive.” Hart implies that Washington was among them.
“It has been said (but with how much of truth it is not known) that General Washington was very displeased by the enactment, and the story even goes so far as to assert that he regarded it as a personal affront, and that this was the cause of his disposing of his real and personal property in Fayette County,” Hart wrote.
Another notable slave owner, according to Hart’s book was Zachariah Connell, the founder of Connellsville.
Connell moved from Winchester, Va., in the 1770s, and he registered two slaves in 1780.
Moving ahead to the 1950s, Life Magazine published a report in its Aug. 17, 1953 edition about violence that had taken place on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
“Since late July a maniac, coming up in the night on sleeping truck drivers pulled up on the roadside on or near the turnpike, has shot three sleepers through the head. Two have died,” the story said.
The article was accompanied by a number of pictures featuring Pennsylvania state troopers, who were busily awakening sleeping drivers, and alerting them to the possibilities of becoming victims of a madman on a rampage.
Two months later, (on Oct. 19, 1953) Life Magazine reported that a suspect in the shootings was confirmed, and a rather embarrassing connection to Uniontown had been revealed.
John Wesley Wable of Ohiopyle had, according to the story, been in the custody of police in Uniontown on a minor charge in early August, “but when he tried to confess to the Turnpike murders at that time they shooed him away as a ‘screwball.'”
But after Wable tried to pawn a watch that was later traced to one of the victims, he became a prime suspect in the murders.
On Oct. 12, 1953, the Uniontown Evening Standard carried the bold front page headline: “Wable, turnpike suspect, captured in New Mexico,” it said.
Wable, and two confederates had tried to rob a gas station near Albuquerque, and led police on a 100 mile-an-hour chase, before being captured.
Wable was returned to Pennsylvania, and charged with two counts of murder, and put on trial in Greensburg.
He was convicted on March 13, 1954.
And after several failed attempts to have his conviction overturned, he was electrocuted at the Rockview Prison at Bellfonte on Sept. 26, 1955.