Booze Johnson

– Winnie Johnson and her son Booze:
Owned by Thomas McGrain. Winnie worked as a cook for the McGrain family while they lived in Louisville. Winnie and Booze moved with McGrain family from Louisville to Corydon, Indiana in ~1849. Booze “secured his freedom” upon moving to Indiana. Winnie remained a “nominal slave” and died “shortly before” the Civil War.

p.6:
“Winnie, our cook, and her son Booze went with us to Indiana. The boy remained there and thus secured his freedom. While Winnie was in Indiana she was free, but a slave when she returned with us to Kentucky – a status that illustrates the Dred Scott case. But Winnie was only a nominal slave; when she tired of Corydon she would go to Louisville. She died there shortly before the breaking out of the war.”

p.100:
“…while Winnie, our cook, was free in Indiana, when she returned with us to Louisville, Kentucky, as she did at certain intervals, her status as a slave was resumed, as the Supreme Court of Massachusetts had held in the Megs case. “Old Winn” preferred Kentucky to living under the reactionary Indiana constitution. The Illinois Black Laws were still on the statute books.”