When Martha brought Ona to the President’s House, Ona left her family for the first time. Six years after Ona was born, Betty gave birth to another daughter, Delphy. When Betty came to Mount Vernon with Martha, she brought her infant son, Austin. But Ona certainly met her father and likely had some relationship with him given his extended stay, which was not always the case for enslaved children. There are no records of Andrew Judge’s departure from Mount Vernon, or whether his relationship with Betty was consensual.
Yet, he remained in the area until at least 1784, when Washington loaned him £12. Andrew Judge’s indentured servitude ended in 1776, but he worked for Washington until 1781. While Ona lived in Virginia, she was surrounded by several family members. Whenever possible, this article uses Ona’s words to tell her remarkable story. Few enslaved workers left written records, let alone participated in interviews with reporters. While the newspapers did not print the interviews verbatim, the quotes are rare examples of a formerly enslaved person describing their experiences in their own words. Many decades later, when all of her family members had died, Ona gave two interviews about her life and escape to freedom. Ona worked as Martha’s enslaved housemaid for the next seven years before running away. She continued in this role until 1789, when she traveled with Martha to the President’s House in New York City. 2 When Ona was twelve, Martha brought her into the mansion house to begin her official training as a housemaid. Ona probably lived with Betty in a small cabin near the mansion house, completing simple chores, helping her mother with easy tasks in their cabin, or playing unsupervised with other enslaved children.
1 Ona’s father was Andrew Judge, a white indentured servant who was employed on the estate. In April 1774, one of Martha Washington’s enslaved housemaids, Betty, gave birth at Mount Vernon to a daughter named Ona Judge.
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