SOJOURNER TRUTH: Isaac D. Van Wagenen was born 10/11/1796 and died 10/15/1867. He married Maria Schoonmaker, born 10/20/1800, the daughter of Johannis S. Schoonmaker and Maria Markle. They are buried in the Van Wagenen Cemetery at St. Remy, New York (near Kingston). About 1797 Sojourner Truth was born a slave named Isabelle Hardenburgh at the home of Col. Johannis Hardenburgh in Swartkill, near Rifton, in what is now the Town of Esopus. She was freed in 1827 and became an ardent abolitionist, a preacher, a temperance leader and woman’s rights advocate.

She died on November 16, 1883 at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan and she is buried there. Sojourner claimed to have been born in Africa, but it is more likely that her parents were born there, and that she was born in Hurley. She and her parents were later bequeathed to Col. Hardenburgh’s son, Charles, and when he died a few years later her parents were freed but she was sold at auction. Isabelle, or Belle, as she was called, was about 9 or 10 years old at the time and she was included with a flock of sheep and sold to John Neely for $100 for the lot. She was later sold to Martin Schryver, a fisherman, tavern keeper and farmer. About a year after that, about 1810, Belle was purchased by John Dumond, a wealthy landowner from New Paltz for over $300 and he married her off to his elderly slave Tom. Belle was Tom’s third wife, his others having been sold to other masters, and Belle bore him five children who then became the property of Dumond, not of Tom or Belle. It was one of these children, a boy named Peter, who was sold away at age 5 to the Gedney family of New Paltz. Gedney in turn sold the child to his brother-in-law, who then gave the boy to his daughter in Alabama. Taking Peter out of New York State was a violation of the law. Belle ran away from the Dumonds in 1826, one year prior to the time when all slaves would be emancipated in New York. She had been promised her freedom one year earlier, but Dumond reneged on his promise “because the birth of her child had deprived him of her services for awhile”. Belle escaped with her infant daughter Sophia and went to the home of Isaac and Maria Van Wagenen, who were members of the Dutch Reformed Church but were well known in the area for their “Quaker like” anti-slavery sympathies. Dumont came to retreive his property but Van Wagenen refused to turn her over to him, and instead paid him $20 for Belle and the $5 for the child. The Van Wagenen’s urged Belle to go to the courts and try to get her son back from Alabama. Belle subsequently swore out a complaint against Gedney before the Grand Jury, and as Gedney was subject to both a prison term and a fine, he had the boy returned to the Ulster County and the court then awarded custody to Belle.

You can find much more information about Sojourner at the following link:

 http://www.sojournertruth.org/Library/Archive/LegacyOfFaith.htm