In 1797, George Moses Horton was born enslaved in Northampton County. His enslaver relocated to Chatham County during Horton’s childhood. Throughout his life, Horton worked the fields of his enslaver’s tobacco plantation while creating poems in his head. Eventually, Horton journeyed to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and found some allies that would later help him publish his poetry. Throughout his life, he published three collections of poetry. For the last 17 years of his life, Horton lived as a free man in Philadelphia after the end of the Civil War. His poetry touched on many subjects including where he spent his childhood, rural Chatham County.
