The End Justifies the Means

[xoxoxoBruce]

There are stories of people doing bad things for a good cause. The thing here is defining bad thing. Chances are polling a dozen people would yield a dozen different parameters. In this case I'll settle for illegal.

The Cape Cod Times has a story about three women in Falmouth, MA, stealing Dinah, a slave girl.

Sometime between 1794 and 1802, three women in Falmouth, MA, hid Dinah, a slave girl traveling through with a southern family.
They found a family to take her in and Dinah became Anness Harrington.
She married Joseph Ray and had seven children.

Son Charles Ray born in 1806, studied at Wesleyan Seminary, was ordained, became pastor of Bethesda Congregational Church in NYC.
Charles belonged to the Anti-Slavery Society, was an Underground Railroad conductor, and owner-editor of one of the first black newspapers,
"The Colored American."

Charles married Charolotte Burroughs and also had 7 children.
Of 2 daughters graduating law school, daughter Charolotte was the first black woman to do so. She was admitted to the DC bar and opened an office
in Washington. Not surprisingly there was not enough business for a black woman lawyer, so she packed up and joined two of her sisters as teachers in the Brooklyn Public School system.

On 12-21-1837 Falmouth residents drew up a Petition to Congress on the slavery question.
Anness Ray signed that petition.

The three Falmouth women broke the law stealing the southerners property, but his wife broke the law teaching Dinah the slave girl to read and write, so it's a wash.