PHMC Marker on the corner of 6^th and Philadelphia Streets

In 1845, fugitive slave Anthony Hollingsworth was captured near Indiana by his master, and taken to the former Indiana House, a hotel owned by slave catcher David Ralston.  The location of this site is where Fox’s Pizza now stands, and it is here that a large crowd of abolitionists gathered to protest the capture of Hollingsworth.  Dr. Robert Mitchell took the issue to court, where Judge Thomas White, another prominent abolitionist, declared that Hollingsworth could not be detained any longer, due to technical ambiguities surrounding the Virginia slavery laws at the time.  Eventually, the young Anthony Hollingsworth would successfully reach Canada, and would write to Mitchell years later, in 1862.  The letter from Hollingsworth to Dr. Robert Mitchell can now be viewed at the Historical and Geneaological Society of Indiana County. 

Regrettably, Dr. Robert Mitchell would be sued by Hollingsworth’s former master, stating that Mitchell had violated the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793.  As a result, Mitchell would pay a fee of $500, and would lose a large portion of his land to pay some of the court costs.  Loss of property was a significant financial sacrifice at this time, since in the nineteenth century, land was a major portion of many individual’s monetary resources.  Today, the historic marker commemorating this event stands in the front yard of the Old Court House, across from Fox’s Pizza.