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But her life began in Vermont on Dec. 17, 1817 when she was born to Benajah Webster (1770-1851) and Ester Ann Bostwick (1784-1870) in Vergennes, Addison Co. She was one of four daughters out of a total of ten children. Well educated, she attended the Vergennes Classical School. In 1829 at the young age of 12, Delia began teaching classes to some of the younger children in the school. Two years later records indicate that she joined the Congregational Church of Vergennes, which no doubt influenced her moral upbringing and attitude toward slavery.
In 1835 at age 17, she was teaching classes in a neighboring town. Ten years later, in 1839, she suffered what she termed a “grave illness,” and visited Saratoga Springs, NY in the care of a sister, where the water agreed with her health. With a family relative, she visited Montreal and other cities in Canada. Perhaps while there she gained knowledge of the Underground Railroad; she never stated this as fact, but if doctors urged her to go south for her health, one wonders why she lingered in Canada.
Delia continued her traveling by visiting several states in the U.S., teaching and studying along the way. She stated that she had health problems all throughout her life, which was why she moved and traveled about frequently. This also worked in her favor if authorities got wind of her Underground Railroad activities.
Delia was a well-educated young woman and took classes at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1842. Oberlin was the first college in the United States to accept women and African Americans as students. The town was frequently referred to as a “hotbed of Abolitionism” (MacLean). Nat Brandt wrote of Oberlin’s reputation in the Town that Started the Civil War. “For nearly a quarter-century until 1861, a constant stream of runaway slave passed through….Harboring and helping the runaways were standard practice….In fact, six well-established routes of the Underground Railroad ran through Oberlin…As many as three thousand escaped slaves were said to have found a haven, at least temporarily,” in the town (Runyon, p. 33).
In July 1843, Delia moved to Lexington, KY with friends and fellow teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer. In time, Delia became the co-founder of the Lexington Female Academy. When the Spencer’s were suddenly taken seriously ill and returned north, Delia took full charge of the academy.
It didn’t take Delia long after arriving in Lexington to learn of Rev. Calvin Fairbank and his plan to aid Lewis Hayden and his wife, Harriet, and son, Joseph in escaping slavery. Fairbank found Delia and visited her for the first time in September 1844 at the boarding house where she was staying. Together they hatched a plot to free the Hayden family.
Fairbank, ordained by the Methodist Episcopal Church as a minister in 1842, graduated from Oberlin Theological Seminary in Ohio in 1844. Originally from New York, he already had ample experience in helping slaves cross the Ohio River to free territory in the north as early as 1837. By the summer of 1844 it is said he had helped at least forty-three slaves across the Ohio River. He is known to have delivered escaped slaves to well-known Quaker abolitionists Levi and Catherine Coffin. At age 28, Fairbank traveled to Lexington, KY in 1844 to rescue the Hayden family and involved a willing Delia Webster in his plot.
Lewis Hayden was born a slave in Lexington in 1812, originally the property of Rev. Adam Rankin, a Presbyterian minister. His first wife, Ester Harvey, and their son were sold to U.S. Senator Henry Clay. Clay, in turn, sold her to a slave trader by the name of Payne who took her and the child to the cotton plantations of the south. Hayden never saw them again. He, Webster and Fairbank all knew the consequences their actions could bring upon them if caught.
The journey began when Delia and Fairbank left Lexington in a hackney coach shortly before 5:00 p.m., presumably going for a drive in the country. Their true goal was to travel the Maysville-Lexington Turnpike and pick up Hayden and his family and whisk them across the Ohio River to safety.
During the journey, Hayden’s wife’s son was hidden under the carriage seat at times to protect him. Hayden and his wife disguised themselves by covering their faces with cloaks and applying a generous layer of flour to their faces and hands to become Mr. Allen and Miss Smith of Paris, KY. They were traveling to Ohio under the guise of an elopement. On their journey they would pass through Maysville, KY, a city that was in close proximity to the Ohio River and to several Underground Railroad stations operated by conductors such as Presbyterian minister John Rankin and African American inventor and businessman John Parker. Maysville was an important antebellum crossing point for slaves from Kentucky; from there they could enter the free state of Ohio and travel on further north to Canada.
On Sept. 28, 1844, the Hayden’s did successfully escape via ferry across the Ohio River. His two accomplices thought they would escape dedication as well, but weren’t so lucky. Both were arrested and jailed upon their return to Lexington.
While the pair was gone, Webster’s landlady, Mrs. David Glass, had searched her room and found incriminating letters linking Delia to abolitionists and Underground Railroad activities. The ensuing trial had the whole city of Lexington talking.
Delia was arrested for assisting runaway slaves and locked in a private room, the “Debtor’s Room”, which was located upstairs at the Megowan Hotel (a combination jail and slave pen). The hotel stood on the northwest corner of Limestone and Short Streets. Fairbank was arrested and put into irons for his part in the plot.
Because most of the evidence pointed toward Fairbank as the real culprit, Delia’s attorneys managed to win her a separate trial. There was much public sympathy for Delia at the time, who pled not guilty. She was convicted of “slave stealing” and sentenced to two years of hard labor in the Kentucky state penitentiary in Frankfort, Ky. Her case attracted national attention and the jury wasted no time in signing a petition to the Governor asking for her pardon “on account of her sex.”
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