TEACHER NOTEBOOK SOJOURNER TRUTH TIMELINE
c. 1797 Isabella born into slavery on the Hardenbergh estate, Swartekill, Ulster
County, New York
c. 1806 bought at auction for $100 by John Neely, near Kingston, NY
c. 1808 bought for $105 by Martinus Schryver of Kingston, NY, staying there about 18
months
1810 bought for 70 pounds (c.$175) by John Dumont, New Paltz, NY, --she bore five
children, Diana, Peter, Elizabeth, Sophia and a child who died in infancy
late 1826 Isabella walks to freedom with infant daughter,Sophia -- she had to leave
the other children behind because they were not legally freed in the emancipation order
July 4, 1827 New York state emancipates slaves born after 1799
1827-28 wins landmark law suit to recover son Peter who had been illegally sold
into slavery in Alabama
1829 moves to New York City with her son Peter
1832-35 meets Robert Matthews, known as the Prophet Matthias, joins the Matthias
Kingdom communal colony in New York City -- Kingdom dissolved after Prophet
Matthias is arrested and tried for murder -- Isabella wins slander suit
1836-42 Isabella in New York City -- after son Peter ships out on whaling ship, Zone of
Nantucket; she receives a total of five letters from him -- ship returns to port with no sign
of Peter and Isabella never hears from him again
1843 at age 46, Isabella adopts the name Sojourner Truth, leaves New York and
travels to Springfield, Mass. -- grandson James Caldwell born
1844-46 joins the utopian Northampton Association in Northampton, Mass., where she
meets many anti-slavery reformers including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass
and Olive Gilbert, an abolitionist-feminist who later wrote the Narrative of Sojourner
Truth
1850 Isabella Van Wagenen, "sometimes called Sojourner Truth," purchases home for
$300 mortgage -- Narrative published by Olive Gilbert with preface by William Lloyd
Garrison
1851 travels to Rochester, NY, where she stays with Underground Railroad leader, Amy
Post -- in May, attends women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio, where she delivers the
speech later known as "Ain't I a Woman?"
1856 comes to Battle Creek, Michigan, to address Friends of Human Progress
convention, at the invitation of Michigan Quaker, Henry Willis
1857 sells Northampton property and buys house and lot in Harmonia, six miles
west of Battle Creek, Michigan
1863 ill for "many weeks," stays with the Merritt family in Battle Creek -- in November,
takes Thanksgiving dinner supplies, donated by Battle Creek citizens, to the black
soldiers stationed at Camp Ward in Detroit
1864 in June, Sojourner and thirteen-year-old grandson Sammy Banks, leave Battle
Creek for New York and New Jersey -- arrive in Washington, DC in the fall
1864 in October, visits President Abraham Lincoln at the White House
1865 assigned to work at Freedman's Hospital in Washington -- rides the Washington,
DC, streetcars to force their desegregation
1867 moves from Harmonia into Battle Creek, converting Merritt "barn" on College
Street into her home
1871 Nanette Gardner of Detroit records in Truth's Book of Life that she was the first
woman to vote in a Michigan state election -- in September, leaves for Kansas with
grandson Sammy Banks to promote idea of free land there for ex-slaves
1875 following an operation, Sammy Banks dies and is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery -third edition of the Narrative, including the Book of Life, published by Frances Titus of
Battle Creek
1876 improved in health after being treated by "Dr. Orville Guiteau, veterinarian," Truth
leaves for Chicago, intending to visit Philadelphia Centennial with Frances Titus -- again
forced to return home because of illness
1877 Frances Titus returns home after traveling with Sojourner around Michigan
1878-79 Sojourner and Titus travel through New York and other eastern states for six
months during the fall and winter -- visit Kansas and Wisconsin during the summer, to
campaign for free land for former slaves
1880-82 makes limited appearances around Michigan, speaking for temperance and
against capital punishment
1883 in July, ill with ulcers on her legs, she is treated by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of
the Battle Creek Sanitarium, who is said to have grafted some of his own skin onto
Sojourner's leg
1883 November 26 -- Sojourner Truth dies at her College Street home in Battle
Creek, Michigan -- funeral two days later, followed by burial in Oak Hill Cemetery next
to her grandson, Sammy Banks.