"I will not negotiate with that slave woman owned by my wife." ~~ President George Washington, on the escape of Oney Judge, one slave seamstress, who escaped from the dungeon sleeping quarters for slaves in the back of the ground floor of the Philadelphia White House, a converted smokehouse behind the laundry and part of the stables, escaped in May 1796 to New Hampshire and agreed to return if Washington freed her slave children already in his possession. This he refused.
