Sally Roane Wickliffe

This is an article as it was transcribed from the Paintsville Herald from March 1939.

    The death in Washington last week, of Sally Roane Wickliffe, marked the end of a chapter in Kentucky history that would scarcely be credible were it not so well documented.

    It involves the sale on the auction block, the sale of a little baby girl, in one of the most noted families of the commonwealth. It includes in it the love of brother that led to the kidnapping during the war between the states and it portrays the most unparallel devotion of a Negro woman for her white charge. 

    Shortly before the war the finances for the Roane family become involved. The slaves of that family highly prized as the most educated and highly trained had to be sold. The first slave on the block was the nurse of Sally, the most trusted of the lot, to be sold to satisfy the mortgage

    As she mounted the steps she carried the baby on the block. She refused to be sold stating that she was the property of the baby that she carried.

    The auctioneer had proceeded on with the sale. It was not until after the sale that someone shouted, "Don't you realize that you have sold your own child into slavery?" The law had stipulated that any child on the block with a slave went with the slave.

    Thus Sally Roane, great granddaughter of Patrick Henry and a long line of Virginian and Kentuckians who made American history was sold into slavery.

    But the effects on the family were avoided by the family as a friend had hastily gathered the resources to outbid all and return Sally to her family. The story needless to say attracted national attention and was told repeatedly by those who were against slavery. But Sally's adventures were just beginning as the clouds of war gathered. Sally was idolized by her brother Pat who had joined the confederate Army. He took every opportunity to slip thru the lines to see his baby sister. In collusion with the nurse he dressed as the Negro nurse and took Sally over the lines to the home of a friend in New Orleans. The nurse speedily followed. The family was reunited four years later.

    When she grew up, Sally met and married John Curd Wickliffe, a West Point cadet who neared graduation. After marriage the remained in New Orleans.

Sally died at the age of 85.