"George-Moses-Horton" {March 25,1797-1883}

Born in Northampton  County, North Carolina;George was enslaved for most of  his life,the property of  Chatham County yeoman farmer  William Horton.George taught himself  to read using an old speller and a copy of the Methodist  hymnal,although he was grown before he learned to write.Especially  fascinated  with poetry,he composed  psalm-meter verses in his head.George was often sent to Chapel Hill by his then-master,to sell  produce.His unusually sophisticated
vocabulary caught the attention of the university students,who encouraged  his orations,and ultimately,the  recitations of his own verse.

His reputation  spread,and he began to sell poems for students to send to their sweethearts,charging extra for acrostics based on the young ladies' names.After several decades he
was able to purchase his freedom  from for twenty-five cents a day,and  later from his masters son
for fifty cents.George earned the admiration and support  of  Governor John Owen,University  presidents Joseph Caldwell,David L.Swain,newspapermen William Lloyd  Garrison and  Horace Greeley.A  professor's wife and novelist,Caroline Lee Hentz,encouraged George and arranged for
a collection,The Hope of Liberty.

The book,the first published in the south  by a Black man,did not sell  enough copies for George to
purchase his freedom,nor  did  two subsequent collections.He finally gained his freedom after the
Civil War,and moved north.He spent his final years in Philadelphia,writing Sunday school stories
and  working for old North Carolina who had  moved to the city.George did not enjoy the popularity there  that he had  known in Chapel Hill,and the details of his death are unknown.