Greensbury Washington Offley (b. December 18,
1808 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-8785
Former slave, Queen Anne's County, Maryland, Moved to a
free state in 1835
Biography:
Greensbury W. Offley grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
He was born a slave in Centreville, Maryland. Later, he moved to
about ten miles outside of the town. As a young adult, around the
age of twenty-one, he took a job working at a hotel in St. George,
Delaware. About a month before his twenty-first birthday, Offley
fled from the Eastern Shore and arrived in Hartford, Connecticut.
We have record of Offley's life in his narrative, A Narrative of the Life and Labors of the
Rev. G. W. Offley, A Colored Man, Local Preacher and Missionary.1
Little record survives of Greensbury Offley's life other than his
personal narrative. Thus, some critical people in Offley's life
remain unnamed. However, his account does offer some
details of his early life. Offley was born in Centreville,
Maryland. His mother was sold into Maryland and married his
father before his birth. She was originally from Virginia.
Offley's original owner, a member of the Methodist Episcopal church,
freed his mother
upon his death, leaving instructions in his will for Offley and his
siblings' eventual freedom when they turned twenty-five. His
mother gained her freedom, but her children were held in bondage when
the original instructions were altered by the owner's greedy
relatives. One brother's owner was former Maryland Governor,
Robert Wright ("Governor R. Right" according to Offley's autobiography).2
After his mother gained her freedom, she gave birth to five more
children, bringing the family total to eight children.
Greensbury's father was a free black man named John Offley. As
such, he was able to buy
his children out of slavery. There is only one official record that
confirms such an action, regarding Greenbury's brother John Reuben. In
the Queen Anne's County land records, "coloured man" John Offley freed
his 27 year old son from slavery in 1831. He had been considered a
"slave for life." Offley recounts that his father gave
each child their freedom when they came of age, misremembering his
brother's age as twenty at the time of manumission. Allegedly his
sister had received her freedom came at the age of sixteen, thought
there is no corresponding record. Greenbury also claims that, "He
bought my
grand-mother, who was too old to set free, that she might be exempted
from hard servitude in her old age."3
Thus, the family lived together, except for those hired out to support
the family, in Offley's father's home, just ten miles outside of
Centreville, Maryland. Many of the family members continued to
work for the original owner's family. The Offley family at times
even hired slaves to help them.
For four years of his childhood, Offley's father hired him out to a
slaveholder in order to pay the family's rent. This was probably
when he was between the ages of five and nine. From the ages of
nine
until twenty-one, Offley claims to have supported himself, often with
basket weaving and related activities. Young Greensbury could
make not only baskets out of corn husks, but also horse collars,
brooms, and floor mats. When he turned sixteen, Offley began
chopping wood to support himself. He also caught fish and
oysters, which he sold for a profit. Offley often hired slaves to
help him with his work, allowing them to earn meager wages during their
"free" time on evenings and weekends. When he was twenty-one
years old, Offley gave his year's wages, totaling fifty or sixty
dollars, to his father to buy a horse. This is the same year that
his father bought his freedom.
Not only did his family bonds help young Offley mature, so did
religion. It did not do so in a literal manner by feeding or
clothing him, but by teaching him to read. Young Offley started
to learn how to read when he was nineteen years and eight months
old. An elderly black Methodist Episcopal preacher, who his
father employed,
began teaching him the letters of the alphabet. Once the old
man's employment ended, Offley convinced a local white teenager to help
him with reading. The eighteen year old boy's father was a
slaveholder. Still, the white family was poor and could use and
the extra bit of income that could come from teaching a black man to
read. Once he could read, Offley went to work for a railroad
company. From here, he went to work teaching boxing. While
he was teaching boxing, he learned how to write. Later, Offley
traveled to St. George, Delaware, to work for a local hotel.
Here, a young white boy exchanged food from the kitchen Offley worked
in for lessons on how to cypher, or solve mathematics problems.
After giving this detailed history, Offley abruptly tells his readers that he arrived in Hartford, Connecticut on November 15, 1835, just short of his twenty-seventh birthday. After this, on February 21, 1836, Offley was baptized. Later, he became a preacher and missionary.
Offley does appear in Hartford in the 1850 Federal Census. Living with his Connecticut-born wife Ann, Greensbury listed "Minister" as his occupation and claimed real estate with the value of $1000. The two had been married in 1837, soon after he moved to the region. Greensbury is still living in the city ten years later, this time with $7,640 worth of property, perhaps having acquired a building for his congregation. Offley's wife may have perished by 1860, and he is accompanied by a 28 year old black woman named Elizabeth.
1. Greensbury W. Offley. A Narrative of the Life and Labors of the
Rev. G. W. Offley, A Colored Man, Local Preacher and Missionary.
Hartford, Connecticut, 1859. Available at http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/offley/offley.html
2. Details of Governor Robert Wright's life can be found online at http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/001400/001425/html/1425bio.html.
3. Greensbury W.
Offley. A Narrative of the
Life and Labors of the Rev. G. W. Offley, A Colored Man, Local Preacher
and Missionary. Hartford, Connecticut, 1859.
Available at http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/offley/offley.html
Return to Greensbury W. Offley's Introductory Page
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