The Lost German Slave Girl

by John Bailey

  It was Grymes’s turn. He had listened carefully to Madame Hemm’s evidence and concluded that she had made only one substantial point—that she could recognize Sally Miller after a gap of twenty-five years. His cross-examination concentrated on the improbability of this. There had been hundreds of German children in Helder, hadn’t there? How many were there? Two hundred families? Nine hundred people? How could she remember one little girl? Madame Hemm insisted that she could.

  Really?

  He asked Madame Hemm her age—forty-six next fall—so she would have been eighteen or nineteen when she last saw Sally Miller? Yes. And how old was Sally? About three or four. Madame Hemm’s family wasn’t from Alsace, but from Württemberg? Now, that was miles away across the Rhine. And the first time she had met Sally was on board the Rudolph in Helder? And she hadn’t seen the plaintiff since they left Amsterdam? They hadn’t come over on the same boat, and she hadn’t seen her in New Orleans? All this, Madame Hemm conceded, but stressed that Grymes couldn’t possibly realize what things were like at Helder. They were there for five months, worried sick about what would happen after they lost their money. Everyone helped one another. They looked after one another’s children, they nursed the sick, they shared what little food they had. Everyone knew everyone else, and she knew Salomé Müller.

  By the time Grymes had finished with Madame Hemm, it was mid-morning on the second day. Upton announced that his next witness would be Eva Schuber, the godmother to the plaintiff.

  Eva had convinced herself that Sally Miller’s freedom depended on her evidence and as she took the oath her voice trembled with anxiety. Upton asked her what year she had arrived in America. It was the sixth day of March 1818, she responded with singsong certainty. She couldn’t remember the name of the ship, but she remembered the name of the captain, all right. He was Captain Krahnstover.99

  She seemed a little calmer now. Did she know the plaintiff? Yes, she did. Upton let her tell the story in her own way. The words tumbled out. Yes, she knew her. She had cared for her after the girl’s mother died. She was her godmother. Eva patiently went through the tangled relationships by marriage and blood of the families who had left Langensoultzbach. She was fifteen years old and Salomé Müller was two years and three months. Eva told of the heartbreak of being cheated out of their fares, of how they had begged in the streets of Amsterdam, then of the voyage across the seas—all recounted in a flat, quiet voice, not so much remembering, but reliving events that would remain with her for the rest of her life—a teenager watching silently as around her people died, day after day, week after week, on that doomed voyage. She told of the death of Salomé’s mother, and how she had then nursed Dorothea and Salomé when they were ill and comforted them when they were frightened. She had put them to bed and slept with them at night, and had dressed them in the morning. She had seen marks on Salomé’s body. Moles, brown moles, on the inside of each thigh. She had seen them often. And she had seen them again when Madame Carl brought Sally Miller to her house a year ago, and they were the same.

  Upton asked her about her first sighting of Sally Miller after all those years. She said that she had seen a woman standing behind Madame Carl when she came to her house, and had asked, Is that a German woman? Madame Carl had said, Yes, and she had said, My God, the long lost Salomé Müller! She had instantly recognized her. She needed nothing more to convince her that it was Sally Miller. She would recognized her among a hundred thousand persons.

  And did you attempt to have her owner free her?

  I spoke to Mr. Belmonti about Sally Miller.

  What did he say? inquired Upton.

  He blamed Mr. Miller. He said he wanted to set her free, but Mr. Miller had told him that if he did that, she would have to leave the country. That it was the law. Mr. Belmonti then told me that Mr. Miller had said to him that he didn’t sell her as a slave. Miller had said she was a white woman, as white as anyone, and neither of them could hold her if she chose to go away.

  Grymes opened his cross-examination by asking her about the last time she had seen Daniel Müller and his three children. She hadn’t seen them leave New Orleans, had she? No. She hadn’t seen them on board any keelboat, either? No. Nor did Daniel tell her who their new master was? No, he hadn’t. It could have been anyone, couldn’t it? Reluctantly she agreed.

  He asked her how old she was when she arrived in New Orleans. Fifteen, going on sixteen. She was now forty-three.

  And you say Sally Miller was about three?

  Yes.

  And she spoke German plainly?

  Yes.

  And no other language?

  No.

  The other little girl, Sally Miller’s sister, how old was she?

  She was four years and two months.

  Is she alive?

  I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything.

  So, you can’t say if she is dead or alive?

  No.

  You didn’t see Sally Miller again until last year?

  That’s right.

  And you say you recognized her after all those years because she looked like some of your relatives.

  I recognized her.

  But you have no other reason to believe that this woman was the daughter of Daniel Müller than the supposed resemblance she bore to the family and the marks you mentioned. That is it, isn’t it?

  Eva agreed.

  So it went on for the rest of the morning. Grymes hounded her, ridiculing her claim to see the likeness of Sally Miller in her faded recollection of a three-year-old child. She suffered his attacks with a tired resolve. He scoffed at her answers, he rolled his eyes, he sighed in exasperation, but she wouldn’t be moved. Stubbornly, she maintained that she could recognize Sally Miller. She had found the moles on her legs. She was sure she was her goddaughter.

  If you believed that Sally Miller had gone to Attakapas, why didn’t you search for her there?

  How could I? I was bound to work for Madame Borgnette. I was tied to her. How could I go anywhere?

  What year did you leave Madame Borgnette?

  I can’t remember.

  You can’t remember?

  No.

  Well, did you search for Dorothea or Sally after you left Madame Borgnette?

  No, I was married. I mentioned about Daniel Müller to my husband. I asked him to make enquiries.

  But he didn’t?

  He told me that he had heard that when a keelboat returned from Attakapas, Daniel Müller and the boy had fallen out of the boat and were drowned. We asked the other Germans who came out on the same ships if they had heard of Daniel Müller’s children, but they hadn’t heard anything either.

  And how long have you been married?

  Twenty-four years.

  Yet, for most of this time Sally Miller was at Mr. Miller’s mill, in this very city?

  I didn’t ever go to Miller’s mill. I had never gone that far downriver, until about ten months ago.

  Thank you, Mrs. Schuber, said Grymes. And with that Eva Schuber’s evidence ended.

  Upton’s next witness was a thin man with a face made craggy from the sun and drink. Sally Miller had found him that morning in the Bayou Hotel in St. John’s and had shepherded him through the streets and up the stairs to the courtroom. He had been diffident about coming, but once there he seemed to delight in the attention. He was an old soldier, he told the court, come from the North with Jackson’s army and had fought in the Battle of New Orleans. That was nearly thirty years ago and he had stayed in the South ever since. He gave his name as Mr. A. M. Wood and he was a carpenter. He knew Sally Miller from over twenty years ago. He had first met her when he was employed by Mr. Miller to work at his mill.

  When was that? asked Upton.

  Would have been in 1821 and 1822. She was a domestic, serving at the table and the like.

  Upton then asked the vital question: Did you ever hear her speak?

  He screwed up his face. Yes, I did. She talked German.

  That mu
st have made you curious?

  It sure did, replied Wood. So, I asked.

  Who?

  The lady who owned her.

  Mrs. Canby?

  That was her name. I asked where she had come from, and she told me the girl’s mother was dead and she was an orphan, and she had taken her on as charity.

  I see, said Upton. Have you seen her since then?

  I have, off and on around New Orleans.

  And is she the same person you saw?

  I know her. I know her to be the same girl.

  How old was she, when you first met her? Grymes asked Wood in cross-examination.

  She looked to be five, perhaps older, seven.

  That was in 1821 or 1822, you say?

  Yes.

  And then you left Miller’s employment and went working over the lake?

  Yes, that’s right.

  But you came back to New Orleans in about 1824? You were no longer working for Miller by then?

  No.

  But you went to his mill from time to time?

  Wood agreed. Why wouldn’t I go to Miller’s to buy timber? I’m a carpenter.

  But you went there for more than that, didn’t you?

  Wood didn’t answer. He began to look uncomfortable—he could see where this was heading.

  You remember being told that they didn’t want you to come to the sawmill anymore?

  Again Wood didn’t answer.

  Go on, tell the court why they didn’t want you there anymore.

  Wood looked around helplessly.

  Yes, Mr. Wood? insisted Grymes.

  They said it was because I was overfamiliar with the girl.

  Ah-huh. Grymes stood with a slight smile on his face, his hands tucked out of sight behind his coat, his shoulders slightly stooped.

  And who told you that?

  It was Mr. Struve, the sawyer at the mill.

  And what did he say?

  He told me I was getting too familiar with that Dutch girl and had better keep away.

  Grymes was too wily to ask what “too familiar” meant. He pretended to examine his notes while everyone wondered. Then, after waiting a few moments and without raising his head from his notes, he asked Wood what work this “Dutch” girl performed.

  She waited in the house, sometimes she nursed visitors’ children, sweeping, looking after Mrs. Canby … things like that.

  How old was she then?

  She might have been nine.

  Nine. Or perhaps five or seven, mused Grymes. That’s what you said earlier. Wood squirmed.

  The first time you met this girl, she was waiting at the tables?

  Yes, that’s right.

  Although you never had your meals with Mrs. Canby and Mr. Miller? There was a second table, wasn’t there?

  Yes. I ate at the second table.

  With the blacks?

  Yes.

  And with this little girl you were overfamiliar with who might have been five or seven or nine?

  She ate with us sometimes.

  And the cook and the butler?

  Yes, and some of the other white tradesmen.

  And what was this girl called?

  I think they called her Sally.

  She was Mary, wasn’t she?

  I knew her as Mary. They called her Sally, as well.

  When did Mr. Struve say you were too familiar with this girl?

  It might have been in 1825.

  It was 1824 a moment ago.

  It was the latter part of 1826 or 1827.

  You’re not sure, are you?

  Wood didn’t answer.

  Grymes turned to Upton, challenging him to examine the witness further. Upton thought for a moment. Asking more questions would probably only make matters worse. No, he replied, he had nothing more for Mr. Wood.

  The irony is that if Wood’s last recollection was correct, and he was warned off by Struve for being over-familiar with Sally Miller in 1827 or 1828, a little over a year later Struve himself got her pregnant. However, both Upton and Grymes avoided this topic. Grymes understood that the code of the South forbade asking questions about the identity of the white father of a slave child, and it couldn’t have helped Sally Miller’s cause for Upton to have raised side issues that reflected on the morality of his client.

  Upton’s next witness was married to John Fitz Miller’s sister, and Miller was outraged that family should testify against him. “It is Nathan W. Wheeler to whom I have the misfortune, I may almost say, the disgrace, of standing in the relation of brother-in-law,” Miller was later to write. This “perjured villain … had been the recipient of my bounty for years. He and his family had long lived on my charity, and when it was no longer in my power, owing to my loss of fortune, to contribute to their support as liberally as in former days, he basely deserted his wife and child, who are thus thrown on me for their daily bread.”100

  Miller might not have been so furious if Wheeler’s evidence had been inconsequential. However, it wasn’t. After telling the court that he had been living in New Orleans off and on since the spring of 1813, Wheeler then said that he had seen Sally in Miller’s possession in 1819 or 1820. This was quite contrary to Miller’s contention that he had never laid eyes on Bridget Wilson until Anthony Williams walked into his sawmill with her in August 1822.

  Wheeler said his first sight of the plaintiff had been in Miller’s yard. He had asked Miller if she was white and Miller had told him she wasn’t. She had been left with other Negroes for him to sell. Although he had sold the others, Miller had said she was too white to be sold.

  Did you see her after that? Upton asked.

  Oh, yes. She was raised in the family.

  Did Mr. Miller say who had left her with him?

  I never meddle in family matters, so I don’t know anything else about her. I concluded from what Miller said that she was a quadroon.

  But even now you think of her as white?

  I may have expressed myself on the subject of her being white, when I heard of this affair. Her color rather surprised me at the time.

  Did you ever hear her speak?

  Wheeler shook his head. He hadn’t. He never paid much attention to that sort of thing.

  Grymes began by asking how old this slave girl was when Wheeler first saw her. Wheeler though she was about seven or eight. What work did she do? The same as the others, replied Wheeler, common work, cleaning knives and forks, waiting on the table. She was called Mary, wasn’t she? Yes, he hadn’t heard her called anything else.

  And Mary had a child who is now dead, didn’t she?

  Wheeler agreed that she did.

  He was named Lafayette?

  Wheeler agreed with that as well.

  You took this child to work on your property in Cincinnati?

  I did. Mr. Miller lent him to us for a while.

  Quite so. And how old was the child when you took him to Cincinnati?

  Wheeler thought for a moment. About five or six. Yes, that would be correct. The child was named after General Lafayette, so he must have been born soon after the celebrations when Lafayette visited New Orleans in 1825.

  Quite so, said Grymes again. He had no further questions.

  Upton glanced across at his opponent. He wondered why Grymes had gone out of his way to establish Lafayette’s age. What relevance had that to the case? Upton couldn’t work it out and it worried him. He doubted if Grymes ever asked needless questions.

  Upton had one more witness to round off the day. Mrs. Fleikener took the Bible and swore that she knew the infant Sally Miller. She was positive the plaintiff was the same person and she should know— she was family. Her first husband’s mother and the plaintiff’s father were brother and sister. She had lived about three miles from the Müller family, and when they began the journey to Amsterdam, they had all started together. In Holland she had seen Salomé every day for six months.

  Grymes took her back to their time in Holland. Sally Miller was two years and two months, she
said. They had traveled on different ships to America, and she had not seen Sally Miller when they arrived. Although she had lived in New Orleans for two decades, she had never heard of her. Yet, when she saw her at Eva Schuber’s house a year ago, she had instantly recognized her. Grymes smiled his encouragement at her powers of recall. It was because of her resemblance to her mother, she firmly declared. Sally had the chin of her mother.

  With that the proceedings ended for the day. It was a Friday. Judge Buchanan’s court took a leisurely pace. He normally sat on only three, occasionally four, days a week. He announced that the case would resume the following Tuesday.

  Back in their office the Upton brothers unpacked their bags and closed the door behind them. It had been an arduous two days. With any other judge they might have felt more confident. Buchanan hadn’t said much, but they both worried about what he might be thinking. They only had a few more witnesses to present. Three or four, and then finally Francis Schuber. That was it. Would it be enough? They weren’t sure.

  There was some good news from Mobile. Mr. Breden had written to say that despite a conscientious search of records in the city, he had found no trace of an Anthony Williams. Nor had his name appeared in any census. Breden had also taken the trouble of speaking to a Mr. Davis, known around Mobile as “the original George Davis,” who was one of the oldest citizens in Mobile and knew everyone and whom everyone knew, and Davis was quite sure that no such person as Anthony Williams had ever lived in Mobile.

  On Tuesday morning, Upton introduced yet another middle-aged German woman who recognized Sally Miller from twenty-five-year-old memories. She was Mistress Schultzeheimer, who explained that she was Salomé’s aunt by her first marriage. In Germany she had known the plaintiff’s mother, Dorothea, because they had attended the same school. She also knew about the moles on Salomé Müller’s legs. Once when they lived in Alsace, Dorothea had shown her the marks on her baby’s thighs. Mistress Schultzeheimer was a midwife and able to assure her that they were nothing to worry about.

  How old was the child when you saw the moles on her legs? asked Upton.

  About six months. Just a baby.

  Have you seen those marks again recently?