Biography
William Baylis was the captain of the schooner Keziah and an Underground Railroad operative known to leaders such as William Still and Thomas Garrett. On May 31, 1858, on the James River, Petersburg officials overtook the Keziah and arrested Baylis and his mate, seizing five freedom seekers hidden below. His trial so crowded the Petersburg Court House that it had to be postponed twice. Convicted on five counts of slave abduction and sentenced to a total of forty years, he served about six years before being pardoned in March 1865 — his wife Martha having moved to Richmond and campaigned tirelessly for his release — and returned home to Wilmington, Delaware.
