In 1840 eleven slaves escaped from the Leinster Bay Plantation, stole the estate boat and made their way to Tortola in the dead of night, where slavery had been abolished and where they had a good chance of finding work on one of the many small farms that had been established there.

It was a well planned escape. The day before they harvested whatever crops they could from their provision ground and took them to St. Thomas to be sold.

When the plantation overseer, a Mr. Davis arrived the next morning he found not only that the slaves had disappeared, but that they had taken everything they owned with them. Mr. Davis was shocked. He couldn’t understand why his slaves had left such a comfortable situation as he had provided for them on the estate.

So Mr. Davis tried to find out what happened. He went to the other slaves and asked them what they knew, but no information was forthcoming. He went to the Moravian minister and he also had no news. He kept on trying to find the answer to the riddle and eventually he learned that the slaves had gone to Tortola.

Then Mr. Davis went to the Land Judge in Cruz Bay and arranged for him to go to St. Thomas and get an official pardon for the runaway slaves. He then had the Moravian minister go to Tortola and try to find the runaways.

The minister was successful in location the former Leinster Bay slaves. He explained to them that they would be pardoned if they came back to St. John. The runaways called a meeting during which they explained to the minister that they would not return. Contrary to the accounts of Mr. Davis, the refugees’ version was that Mr. Davis had mistreated the enslaved laborers on the estate and that they would not consider returning unless he was fired.

Some years later Mr. Davis was dismissed and several of the refugees did return to Leinster Bay.