Hercules

Hercules "Uncle Harkless" Posey was an African American man enslaved by the Washington family, serving as the family's head chef for many years, first at the family's Plantation at Mount Vernon in Virginia and later, after George Washington was elected president of the newly formed United States of America, in the country's then-capital city of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania at the President's House, working alongside Oney Judge. Sometime in 1797, Posey absconded and fled to New York, where he lived until his death in 1812. He was legally manumitted upon Washington's death in 1799, though his children remained enslaved by Washington's wife, Martha Washington.