Voorhis, Robert

By: Penny Anne Welbourne

Source:

 Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass

Voorhis, Robert

(b. c. 1769, d. 1 April 1832),
fugitive slave whose narrative caused some controversy for its publisher.

The life of Robert Voorhis is the subject of a fugitive narrative titled Life and Adventures of Robert, the Hermit of Massachusetts, Who has Lived 14 Years in a Cave, Secluded from Human Society: Comprising, an Account of his Birth, Parentage, Sufferings, and Providential Escape from Unjust and Cruel Bondage in Early Life, and His Reasons for Becoming a Recluse. Taken from his own mouth and published for his benefit, which was published in 1829 by Henry Trumbull. The thirty-six-page narrative opens with the text of an article that appeared in the June 1826 edition of the Literary Cadet, from which Trumbull first learned of the hermit's existence. The article describes in detail Robert's life in a hut (a term used interchangeably with cave and cell) in Providence, Rhode Island, and his unwillingness to provide any details about his past life. After reading the article, Trumbull visited Robert and begged the hermit to describe the circumstances behind his voluntary seclusion from society. Despite his past refusals to do so, Robert agreed to tell his story to Trumbull because, he said, “you speak as if you could feel sympathy for distress.”

According to Robert, he had been born in Princeton, New Jersey, around 1769 to a slave mother and a father who was “not only a pure white blooded Englishman, but a gentleman of considerable eminence.” When he was still a child, he was taken from his mother to live in Georgetown, District of Columbia, with the daughter of his former master and her husband, John Voorhis. At the age of nineteen he met Alley Pennington, who promised to marry him if he first attained his freedom, which he did by borrowing from James Bevens the fifty dollars his master required. Robert married Alley, and the couple had two children. Although Robert had nearly completed repaying his debt to Bevens, he had failed to secure proof of having done so. As a result, Bevens falsely accused Robert of owing him money. Late one night, while Robert was with his family, Bevens went to his home and dragged him away to be sold at a public auction in Charleston, South Carolina.

Not long after he was purchased, Robert escaped on a ship bound for Philadelphia. In that city he made the acquaintance of a Quaker who promised to free him from “the shackles of slavery” the next day, after conferring with several of his brethren. However, on returning that evening to the home in which he was staying, Robert learned that his housemates had reported him as a runaway slave; as a result, he was imprisoned for nine days. Once again he was sold at public auction, this time to Dr. Peter Fersue, who used him as a house servant. After eighteen months in servitude, Robert escaped again, this time hiding on a ship bound for Boston. After securing work as a ship's common hand, he spent the next nine years venturing to different ports in Europe and India.

Between these trips, Robert boarded with a woman and her three daughters in Boston. Eventually, having given up hope of ever seeing his first wife and children again, he married one of the daughters from the boardinghouse. Robert bought a house, where his wife could live with her mother and two sisters, and he made arrangements for them to receive money from his wages while he was at sea. He continued this pattern of being away on voyages and returning to Boston between trips until, during one of his return visits, he found that his new family had grown tired of his extended absences and refused to have anything further to do with him.

With no reason to stay in Boston, Robert returned to Georgetown to search in earnest for his first wife and children. But when he learned that they were probably dead, “it was at that moment that I formed the determination to retire from [the world] to become a recluse.” He went to Rhode Island, selected an area of uninhabited land where he built himself a hut, and lived there until his death on 1 April 1832.

The popularity of Life and Adventures of Robert can be explained in part by its adherence to the conventions that historians have identified as common elements used in the majority of slave narratives written in the early nineteenth century: It includes a picture of Robert (intended to “authenticate” his existence), begins with the statement “I was born” (another device used for authentication), and contains an episodic narrative describing Robert's experiences under the institution of slavery. His escape from the South (Maryland and Georgetown) to the North (Massachusetts and Rhode Island), where he was no longer a slave, includes a sufficient number of sensational, horrific descriptions to make a reader see and feel what life was like for a slave. As was often the case with slave narratives, Trumbull intended Robert's story to be read by both northern and southern audiences and therefore published two editions. Both editions contained descriptions of the evils of slavery, but only the version intended for readers in the North included references to the need for the system to be abolished.

At the time the narrative was copyrighted, Trumbull was registered as its author. But an article by Sylvester S. Southworth that appeared in the 6 October 1866 edition of the Providence Daily Journal disputed Trumbull's claim. Southworth identified himself as the author of the 1826 Literary Cadet article included in Life and Adventures of Robert and stated that as soon as his sketch of Robert had appeared in the Cadet, a “pamphleteer and ballad publisher” had asked him to write a biography of Robert. The pamphleteer proposed a scheme to increase the sales of the story: The purported biography would be printed and ready for sale, but before its release Robert's hut would be set on fire. This would raise the sympathies of those who read of the hermit's loss, and they would then purchase the biography to learn more about the hermit. The proceeds of the sales could be used to build Robert a “comfortable cottage.”

Southworth consented to write the book on the condition that the fire scheme be abandoned. However, his biographical sketch, which was made up of “facts and fancies,” was so completely altered by subsequent editing “that when it came out of the press I could not recognize it.” Before the pamphlet was ready for sale, Robert's hut was destroyed by fire, which created great excitement, and the sale of Life and Adventures of Robert was unprecedented. “The book publisher [i.e., Trumbull] who practiced the ‘pious fraud’ I have referred to realized a smug little fortune from it.”

Southworth's claim was substantiated by Joseph J. Felcone, an antiquarian bookseller who devoted a significant part of his time to collecting, studying, and writing about early New Jersey books. In his New Jersey Books, Felcone includes an entry on Life and Adventures of Robert, documenting that nothing in the narrative was based on facts other than that a slave named Robert Voorhis lived in a hut in East Providence, Rhode Island, and died on 1 April 1832. The entry also cites portions of Southworth's article of 1866. Several scholarly research articles written in the twentieth century cite contemporaries of Trumbull's who referred to his notoriety for publishing (and writing) biographies and autobiographies that would include one or two historically accurate facts in a basically fabricated story. Contemporaries of the publisher also reference the large sums of money that Trumbull received for these enterprises. The conclusion is that a factual biography of Robert Voorhis has yet to be written.

See also Autobiography; Fugitive Slaves; Kidnapping; and Slave Narratives.

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