Bethany Veney

Bethany Veney (–1815

According to Veney, she was born about 1815 and the 1900 Federal Census states that she was born in March 1815. She was also reported by the ''Worcester Telegram'' to have been 100 years of age in 1912, which would have meant she was born in 1812. Henry Louis Gates states that she was born in 1812 or 1813. Her death record showed her date of birth as March 20, 1812.}} – November 16, 1915), was an American writer whose autobiography and slave narrative, ''Aunt Betty's Story: The Narrative of Bethany Veney, A Slave Woman,'' was published in 1889. Born into slavery on a farm near Luray, Virginia, as Bethany Johnson, married twice, first to an enslaved man, Jerry Fickland, with whom she had a daughter, Charlotte. He was sold away from her and she later married Frank Veney, a free black man. She was sold on an auction block to her enslaver, George J. Adams, who brought her to Providence, Rhode Island, and later to Worcester, Massachusetts. After the American Civil War, Veney made four trips to Virginia to move her daughter and her family and 16 additional family members north to New England. Provided by Wikipedia