Dunbar History Moment: Ex-slave Remembers Abe Lincoln

This history moment comes from a 1938 news article provided by Victoria Leonelli, author of Images of Uniontown. After speaking one evening at a Dunbar Historical Society meeting, she donated a copy of this news article about Dunbar resident and ex-slave John Craig to the Society. The following excerpts are from the February 12, 1938 edition of the Morning Herald. Born into human bondage in 1845, Craig’s family lived on a large plantation near Odessa, Maryland. The plantation owner was “inclined to be considerate of the slaves” and helped Craig to gain an early education. Gaining his freedom after the Civil War, Craig continued to obtain an education by attending a night school at the plantation. The news article reports that he paid 10 cents per week for supplies of books, pencils and paper. After leaving the plantation, he went to the nation’s capital hoping to talk to Lincoln, but he had to settle with seeing him! Craig regarded Lincoln as the “greatest President of the United States!”