William S. Powell, Ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Vol. 4. Chapel Hill NC: The University of North Carolina Press, p. 14.

Lane, Lunsford ( 30 May 1803- ca. 1863) , slave,businessman, free black, and lecturer, was the only child of Edward and Clarissa Lane, slaves from Raleigh. His parents had assumed the surname of Lane from the white family that had originally owned them. At the time Lane was born,the family was owned by Sherwood Haywood.

Though Lane was a house slave and admittedly had an easier life than that of a field hand, he was troubled by the fact he was a slave and he yearned to be free. His sale of a basket of peaches given to him by his father was the beginning of Lane's business ventures. Trying to accumulate enough money to buy his freedom, he saved what he earned- mostly tips from guests of the Haywood family. Lane cut wood at night and during his spare time. With the help of his father, he made and sold pipes and special smoking tobacco, often to members of the state legislature. Lane bought supplies for the Haywood household, and learned to buy in quantity when prices were low in order to save money. He began to buy goods for himself when he could buy at a bargain, store these items, and sell when prices rose. Lane was always careful not to appear prosperous lest his commercial undertakings be stopped.

In May 1828 Lane married Martha Curtis, who belonged to the Boylan family. She was soon bought by Benjamin B. Smith, a Raleigh merchant. When Sherwood Haywood died in 1829, his wife was forced to hire out her slaves in order to pay debts. This was fortunate for Lane, who bought his own time from Mrs. Haywood. He expanded his tobacco business under the name "Edward and Lunsford Lane" and had agents in Fayetteville, Salisbury, and Chapel Hill.

Lane's savings reached a thousand dollars, the price that Mrs. Haywood asked for his freedom. At the time, however, the North Carolina legislature would authorize manumission only for "meritorious service," which Lane could not prove. In 1835 he arranged for his wife's owner, Benjamin B. Smith, to "buy" him and take him to New York, where Lane received his manumission papers. Now a free man, he returned to his businesses in Raleigh in order to buy his wife and children, then valued at $2,500 by their owner. Lane arranged to buy them in installments. Smith allowed them to live with Lane in a house that the industrious free black bought in Raleigh. In addition to his tobacco and firewood businesses, Lane also worked as a messenger and handyman in the office of Governor Edward B. Dudley.

But Lane's troubles were not over. In September 1840 he received a notice that because he had been emancipated in New York, he was in violation of a state law prohibiting free blacks from other states from entering North Carolina. Lane had twenty days to leave. Although he received support from influential whites in his bid to stay in North Carolina, by May 1841 Lane was forced to go. Taking one of his children with him, he went to New York and Boston, where he raised money to buy other members of his family by lecturing at churches and abolitionist meetings.

In April 1842 Lane returned to Raleigh to purchase the rest of his family. Though he had received assurances of his safety from the govenor's office and from Benjamin B. Smith, Lane was arrested, charged with delivering abolitionist lectures, and tried at "call court." There was no proof of the charge against him, so Lane was released, only to be abducted by a mob, dragged towards the gallows, and finally tarred and feathered. His white friends sheltered him overnight and smuggled him, his wife and children, and his mother (a farewell gift from Mrs. Haywood) to a train bound for Philadelphia. About two years later they were joined by Lane's father, who was also freed by the Haywood family. The Lanes lived in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Worcester, and Oberlin, Ohio. Lane continued to lecture. As late as 1863, the Worcester city directory listed him as steward at Wellington's hospital. In 1865 he was no longer listed, though Lunsford Lane, Jr. was.

Lunsford and Martha Lane had seven children: Edward, William, Lunsford, Jr., Maria, Ellick, Lucy, and Laura. A lithograph of Lane is reproduced in the biography by the Reverend William G. Hawkins.

SEE: Richard Bardolph, The Negro Vanguard (1959); John Spencer Basset, Anti- Slavery Leaders of North Carolina (1898); John Hope Franklin,The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790- 1860 (1943); William G. Hawkins, Lunsford Lane; or, Another Helper from North Carolina (1864); Lunsford Lane, The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, North Carolina...., 2d ed. (1842).