1832-1907

Moncure Daniel Conway was the son of Walker P. Conway (1805-1884) and lived at what is now 305 King Street (River Road) in Falmouth. He graduated from Dickinson College in 1849, studied law for a year, then became a Methodist minister. He graduated from Harvard in 1854 with a degree in divinity. After graduation, he was called as a minister of a Unitarian Church in Washington, DC, but his anti-slavery views resulted in his dismissal. As most of his friends and relatives were pro-slavery, he found it expedient to leave Virginia and he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where he worked as a Unitarian minister. In July 1862, hearing of their escape from Stafford to Georgetown, DC, Conway joined them and took at least 42 Stafford enslaved people (most were his father’s) through Baltimore and Pennsylvania to freedom in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where they established the “Conway Colony” (descendants exist today and have visited Stafford). He edited several journals and wrote numerous books and articles. In 1863 he traveled to London to seek support for the American abolitionist movement and to encourage British neutrality. His Testimonies Concerning Slavery (1864) were a full statement of the evils of slavery from a personal and uniquely Southern perspective. The book also provided a postwar vision for American democracy. Feeling unwelcome in America, he spent several years in Italy and England. He wasn’t reconciled with his family until 1875. He remained in Europe until 1897 when he brought his terminally ill wife back to America to die. After her death, Conway went to France where he later died.