Hercules was an enslaved African and the Washington family's cook at Mount Vernon and in Philadelphia. At the end of Washington's Presidency, the family was preparing to go back to Mt. Vernon in Virginia. Rather than face continued enslavement, Hercules decided to run away. The exact circumstances of the disappearance of Hercules are not known. Some say he went first to Mt. Vernon and ran away. Others say on the last day of Washington's Presidency in Philadelphia, Hercules could not be found. He may have found a safe place to hide within the large free African population of the city. The President wanted him back. In 1797, Washington wrote in a letter: "The running off of my Cook, has been a most inconvenient thing for this family, and what renders it more disagreeable, is, that I had resolved never to become the master of another Slave by purchase, but this resolution I fear I must break. I have endeavoured to hire, black or white, but am not yet supplied". The President wanted his cook back. In another letter he wrote: "little doubt remains in my mind of his having gone to Philadelphia, and he may yet be found there, if proper measures were employed to discover (unsuspectedly, so as not to alarm him) where his haunts are" George Washington never saw Hercules again. Hercules left a six-year-old daughter at Mount Vernon. When it was assumed she would be terribly upset at the thought of never seeing her father again, the little girl corrected that impression. She said, "Oh! Sir, I am very glad, because now he is free". Click here to learn about President Washington and Gradual Abolition Detail from presumed portrait of George Washington Cook, attributed to Gilbert Stuart. Image courtesy of Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. |