Oney Judge

Who was Oney Judge?

Oney "Ona" Judge, known as Oney Judge Staines after marriage, was born at Mount Vernon in Virginia as one of the dower slaves of Martha Custis Washington, the wife of the planter and future president George Washington's plantation. A personal servant to Martha, Judge was taken to Washington's presidential households beginning in 1789; she escaped to freedom in 1796 in Philadelphia. With the aid of the free black community, she took a ship to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and lived nearby for the rest of her life.

Washington's representatives contacted her twice to try to persuade her to return but, since the president would not guarantee her freedom after his and his wife's deaths, Judge refused. She married and had three children in New Hampshire. More is known about her than any other of Washington's slaves because in the mid-1840s, she was twice interviewed by abolitionist newspapers.