Mary & Emily Traditional Cache
offline.cacher: No cache, no CO...
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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Welcome to Edmonson Plaza, site of the imprisonment of Mary and Emily Edmonson.
This cache is located in a spot that’s often busy, so serious stealth will be required unless you’re night caching. Please be patient. Take some time to read the history if you have to wait! (The hint should be a giveaway for those who need it.)
The Edmonson sisters were born into slavery in Montgomery County, Maryland. On April 15, 1848, seventy-seven slaves, including teenaged Mary and Emily and four of their brothers, hid among boxes in an attempt to escape from the District of Columbia to New Jersey on a schooner named the Pearl. Weather delayed the ship’s passage down the Potomac, however, and the fugitives were captured at Point Lookout, Maryland.
Emily, who was only 13 years old, proudly told the pro-slavery mobs that she would willingly attempt escape again.
The Edmonsons were bought by Alexandria slave traders Bruin & Hill and imprisoned at 1707 Duke Street (the historic building on the southwest corner of the plaza). Mary and Emily were destined to be sold into prostitution in New Orleans, but a yellow fever outbreak prompted their captors to return them to Alexandria where they were hired out to do laundering and sewing then locked up at night. Their father Paul, a free man, campaigned for their release and, with the assistance of abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher and William Chaplin, Mary and Emily were emancipated on November 4, 1848.
The Edmonson sisters became active abolitionists, telling their story at many anti-slavery rallies and conventions, while attending school and working. Harriet Beecher Stowe incorporated their story into her book A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. Mary died of tuberculosis while the sisters were attending the Young Ladies Preparatory School at Oberlin College in Ohio, but Emily eventually returned to Anacostia, in the District of Columbia, where she maintained a close friendship with fellow abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
If the weather’s nice, please take the opportunity to stroll a couple of blocks south to visit the Alexandria African American Heritage Park at 500 Holland Lane (N 38°48.113 W 077°03.588).
[Update: The Oscar-winning film Twelve Years a Slave (2013) is based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free man kidnapped and sold into slavery. James H. Birch, one of the last slave traders to operate the Alexandria Slave Pen on Duke Street, paid kidnappers $250 for Northup.]
As best I can tell, the Handicaching.com rating of this geocache might be H11212. The location is accessible, but cachers whose reach is limited may photograph themselves with the statue and send me a private message about claiming the find. You can provide fellow cachers more information about accessibility by rating this cache (and others!) at Handicaching.com.
Congratulations to NetworkCacher for FTF!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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