Redeemed

Recently Kentucky Ancestors carried a remarkable story written by Edwin Burrows Smith. It concerns a man and wife who, in the first half of the 19th century, bought the freedom of 107 slaves! Paul and Susannah Mitchem were not wealthy, but they did own 450 acres in Virginia. They had lived there for fifty years. They were getting older, they were childless and of modest means. But they had a grand vision. They moved first to North Carolina and then to Kentucky. In 1814 Paul and Susannah sent 49 slaves whom they had bought to William Vinsett who took them to Indiana and freedom.

They then sold their Kentucky land and moved to Indiana where they emancipated another 21. After Paul's death his wife freed another 11. Adding to this the number of earlier emancipations it is reckoned that that one couple bought and set free 107 slaves!

Isn't it amazing what two ordinary people with extraordinary convictions can do? Yet Jesus, a penniless carpenter, freed more slaves than the Mitchems. He freed us all! It cost Him His life! "For you know it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed...but with the precious blood of Christ." (I Peter 1:18,19)