In the spring of 1840, Nathan Cole was supposed to marry Eleanor Wittmann, the daughter of a prominent Augusta judge. The engagement had been announced with all the proper social fanfare, and the wedding was set for that May. But by March, something had gone wrong. The ceremony was postponed indefinitely, and Eleanor was sent off to Savannah, supposedly for her health.
The public never learned the real reason. Nathan Cole, the twenty-eight-year-old heir to Somerville Plantation, had become involved with a woman whose very existence defied every rule of the world he lived in. Her name was Josephine Bellfleur, and according to a damaged inventory found years later among the Cole family papers, she was listed as a house servant of mixed heritage, about twenty-two years old, skilled in French and domestic arts. Josephine’s grandmother had been brought to Georgia from Haiti during the revolution there, carrying with her an education and refinement that set her apart from the other enslaved women on the plantation.
Josephine inherited that bearing along with her grandmother’s intelligence, and she carried herself in a way that made people notice. Nathan’s sister Margaret wrote to a cousin that summer about the unusual house girl who spoke as if she had been educated in Paris. She added that this could not possibly be true, as if the thought itself were dangerous. Dr.
Cornelius Hammond, the family physician, noted in his journal that Nathan was suffering from what his mother called nervous exhaustion. The doctor found him in good physical health but observed a distraction of manner that had worsened since the postponement of the wedding. Mrs. Cole asked whether a change of air might help.
The change of air never came. Instead, Nathan withdrew from society, spending long hours riding the plantation’s back roads and declining invitations to the gatherings that had once defined his life. The overseer, James Morrison, noticed that the young master had taken to visiting the slave quarters more often than was customary. He claimed to be checking on conditions, but he often lingered without clear purpose.
By May, Morrison documented what he called irregular patterns in the household routine. The French-speaking girl had been assigned additional duties in the main house library at Nathan’s specific request. She appeared to be organizing papers and books, though this seemed beyond her station. Mrs.
Cole had not been informed. The library at Somerville was Nathan’s private domain, filled with volumes on philosophy and political theory. He had read Voltaire and Rousseau at the University of Georgia, and the ideas in those books about human rights and equality would have been considered dangerous in a slaveholding household. It was among those books that the relationship between Nathan and Josephine deepened beyond the boundaries of master and servant.
A fragment of a letter found pressed between the pages of a volume of poetry gave the only direct evidence of their correspondence. Written in a careful hand, the incomplete text read: “Can we pretend that what exists between us is anything less than what others would call by its proper name. Yet to speak it aloud would bring destruction upon us both. And I confess myself a coward in the face of…
”
Handwriting analysis proved inconclusive. The paper matched what was used throughout the Cole household, and the ink matched samples from Nathan’s business correspondence. But the careful formation of the letters led some experts to speculate that the writer had taught themselves to write by copying other hands. Through the summer of 1840, the arrangement continued.
Josephine’s duties in the library expanded, and other house servants observed her carrying books back and forth to Nathan’s private study. According to testimony given decades later by Sarah Washington, a former slave who had worked in the plantation kitchen, Josephine would often be seen reading late into the night by candlelight in her quarters, an activity that would have been both forbidden and highly unusual. “She was different from the rest of us,” Sarah Washington recalled. “Could speak that French talk like she was born to it, and always carried herself like she had somewhere important to be.
Master Nathan, he started looking different around that time, like he was carrying some kind of weight. ”
The first signs of trouble came in late August, when Eleanor Wittmann returned unexpectedly from Savannah. She attended a reception at the home of Senator Robert Toombs, where she was seen speaking at length with Nathan’s mother, Catherine Cole. The next morning, Eleanor left again for Savannah, and she would not return to Augusta for over a year.
Whatever conversation took place between the two women, its effects were immediate. Nathan received a visit from his father, Colonel William Cole, who had been traveling on business in Atlanta. The meeting lasted several hours, and witnesses reported raised voices coming from the colonel’s study. Morrison noted in his weekly report that Colonel Cole had returned earlier than expected and conducted extensive interviews with household staff.
Several changes in duty assignments were to be implemented immediately. Among those changes was Josephine’s removal from her library duties. She was reassigned to the plantation’s textile operation, a collection of buildings nearly a mile from the main house where enslaved women produced cloth. The work was harder and the hours longer, but the real effect was that it ended her daily contact with Nathan.
The separation took a toll on both of them. Nathan’s behavior became erratic. He would disappear for days at a time, ostensibly hunting in the swamplands along the river, but returning without any game and often in a state his family attributed to drink. Dr.
Hammond was called to Somerville three times in September alone, each time finding Nathan suffering from what he described as a fever of the mind that did not respond to conventional treatment. Josephine threw herself into her new duties with an intensity that surprised her overseers. She worked longer hours than required and volunteered for additional tasks, as if trying to exhaust herself into forgetting. The other enslaved women noticed the change and began to keep their distance, sensing that association with her might bring unwanted attention.
The crisis that would define both their fates began on the morning of October 15, 1840. Nathan rose before dawn and saddled his horse, telling the stable boy he was riding to Augusta on business. Instead, according to later testimony, he rode directly to the textile buildings where Josephine worked. They spoke intensely for nearly an hour before Nathan rode away at speed.
That evening, Josephine failed to return to her quarters. When her absence was discovered during the evening count, a search was organized immediately. Morrison led a group of men with lanterns through the plantation grounds, checking every building. They found no trace of her, but in the textile workshop they discovered something unusual.
Several books from Nathan’s library, hidden beneath a pile of finished cloth. The books were returned to the main house, and Nathan was summoned to explain. He claimed no knowledge of how they had gotten there, suggesting that Josephine must have taken them without permission during her time working in the library. That explanation satisfied the official account, though Morrison privately noted that the books showed signs of recent handling and that some contained margin notes in two different hands.
The search for Josephine continued for three days, expanding beyond the plantation boundaries. Notices were posted at crossroads and river landings, offering a substantial reward for information leading to her capture. The descriptions described her as about five foot six, of light complexion, fluent in French, possibly traveling by river. On the third day, a ferryman named Thomas McKenzie reported that a woman matching her description had attempted to cross the Savannah River near Augusta two days earlier.
She had claimed to be a free woman traveling to South Carolina to visit relatives. When he asked to see papers proving her free status, she had offered to pay double the usual fare, which raised his suspicions. He refused to transport her, and she walked away toward the upstream crossings. That was the last confirmed sighting of Josephine Bellfleur.
Despite continued searching and larger rewards, no further trace of her was found. After two weeks, the official search was called off, and she was listed in plantation records as a runaway slave, whereabouts unknown. Nathan’s response to her disappearance was closely monitored by his family. He participated in the initial searches with what observers described as appropriate concern for recovering valuable property.
But as days passed without success, his behavior became increasingly withdrawn. He stopped attending meals with the family and was often found in his study late at night, reading by candlelight. Dr. Hammond was summoned again in early November.
In his journal, he wrote that the young man appeared to be suffering from an ailment of the spirit that manifested in physical symptoms. Nathan had lost weight, slept poorly, and showed little interest in the affairs of the plantation. His mother feared he was suffering from the same nervous condition that had affected his uncle Thomas, who had never fully recovered from his experiences in the War of 1812 and had spent his final years as a recluse. As autumn turned to winter, Nathan’s isolation deepened.
He dismissed his valet and began caring for himself, often appearing at family meals in clothes that showed signs of neglect. His mother tried to interest him in the social season, but he declined every invitation and showed no interest in resuming his engagement to Eleanor, who had written several letters from Savannah that went unanswered. In December, Nathan announced his intention to travel. He told his family he needed to visit New Orleans on cotton business, but those close to him suspected the real purpose.
New Orleans was known as a place where people could disappear, where the usual social rules were more fluid. Nathan departed Somerville on December 20, 1840, taking only a single valise and enough money for what he claimed would be a two-week business trip. He never returned. Letters to business contacts in New Orleans confirmed that he had arrived but conducted no cotton transactions.
After that, the trail went cold. The Cole family waited through the spring of 1841. Private investigators were hired, advertisements placed in newspapers throughout the South. Colonel Cole traveled to New Orleans personally, retracing his son’s movements.
The search revealed only that Nathan had been seen in the French Quarter in late December, alone and keeping to himself. By summer, the family accepted that Nathan was not coming back. His legal status remained uncertain, complicating the plantation’s management. Colonel Cole assumed direct control of operations he had expected his son to inherit.
Catherine Cole retreated into social isolation. The mystery of Nathan’s disappearance became a topic of speculation throughout Augusta. Some believed he had been killed by robbers. Others suggested he had suffered a breakdown and was living under an assumed name somewhere in the West.
A few whispered that his departure had been connected to the escape of the slave Josephine, though such talk was quickly discouraged as damaging to the family’s reputation. Years passed without resolution. In 1847, Eleanor Wittmann married a Charleston rice planter. The announcement included a diplomatic mention of her previous engagement to a gentleman of Augusta who had subsequently departed for the Western Territories.
The first new information emerged in 1852, when a man claiming to be Nathan Cole appeared at a bank in Natchez, Mississippi, attempting to access funds from an account established in his name years earlier. The bank manager detained him long enough to send word to Augusta. But by the time investigators arrived, the man had vanished, leaving behind a signature that experts found impossible to authenticate. More substantial evidence appeared in 1855, when a letter arrived at Somerville addressed to Catherine Cole.
The postmark indicated it had been sent from California, and the handwriting bore enough resemblance to Nathan’s to convince his mother it was genuine. The letter was brief and cryptic: “I am well, and have found peace in circumstances that you would not approve, but which I cannot regret. Do not seek me, as I will not be found by those who knew me before. Remember me as you choose, but know that I have chosen correctly.
”
Handwriting experts were divided. Some elements matched Nathan’s hand; others showed differences that could have been deliberate disguise or the natural changes that occur when someone attempts to alter their identity. The paper and ink were consistent with materials available in California, and the postmark appeared genuine. Catherine Cole kept the letter until her death in 1863.
By then, the Civil War had transformed the society in which their story had unfolded. When Union forces occupied Augusta in 1865, interviews were conducted with former slaves who had remained on the plantation. Several referred to the disappeared house servant and the young master who had left so suddenly. Martha Hughes, who had worked in the main house throughout the 1840s, provided the most detailed account.
According to the interview notes, she stated: “Miss Josephine, she wasn’t like the others. Could read and write better than some white folks. And Master Nathan, he knew it. Used to see them talking in the library, and it wasn’t like master talking to slave.
It was like two people who had something between them that nobody else was supposed to know about. ”
When asked about Josephine’s escape, Martha Hughes claimed to know nothing of the details, but added: “She didn’t run off by herself. That much I can say. Someone helped her.
Someone who knew the roads and had money for traveling. And Master Nathan, he changed after she left, like part of him went with her. ”
These testimonies suggested that the escape had been planned and assisted, not the spontaneous flight the official records had indicated. Additional evidence emerged in 1868 during renovation of the Somerville main house.
Workers discovered a hidden compartment in the library wall, concealed behind a bookshelf that had appeared permanently fixed in place. Inside were several items that shed new light on the events of 1840. The most significant was a packet of letters written in French, addressed to “Mon Cœur Perdu,” my lost heart. They were unsigned and undated, but their content left little doubt about the nature of the relationship.
The writer spoke of stolen moments, impossible dreams, and the agony of loving someone whose very existence was a form of rebellion against everything they had been taught to believe. One letter contained what appeared to be detailed plans for an escape route, describing river crossings, safe houses, and contacts who might assist someone traveling north. The plans showed intimate knowledge of local geography and suggested access to resources beyond the reach of an enslaved person acting alone. Most revealing was a final letter written in haste: “The time has come sooner than we planned.
They suspect, and waiting longer will only bring disaster upon us both. I will follow when I can arrange my affairs without suspicion. Trust in our preparations and know that my heart travels with you even when I cannot. ”
Experts in French confirmed that the writer possessed an educated command of the language far beyond what was expected of most speakers in Georgia at that time.
The handwriting was consistent throughout, though it showed signs of emotional stress in the later compositions. Also found in the compartment was a small oil painting of a young woman with classical features and light complexion, matching descriptions of Josephine. And a folded map of the southeastern United States with a route marked in pencil from Augusta to Baltimore, and from there to Philadelphia and points north. The route avoided major cities, following back roads and river crossings.
Notations along the route, written in a mixture of English and French, indicated stopping points and coded references to people or places. The discoveries confirmed what many had long suspected: Nathan and Josephine had planned her escape together, and their relationship had been far deeper than anyone had publicly acknowledged. The careful preparation suggested the escape was not a moment of passion but a calculated plan months in the making. In 1872, a genealogist researching northern families with southern connections discovered records in Philadelphia indicating the presence of a Nathan and Marie Collins who had married there in 1841.
The surname was different, but the timing suggested a possible connection. The records showed that Nathan Collins had established himself as a dealer in rare books and manuscripts, while Marie Collins was noted for her skill in French translation and tutoring. They lived quietly, avoiding the social circles that might have connected them to their past. More evidence appeared in 1878, when a trunk of papers donated to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania was found to contain correspondence between Nathan Collins and several abolitionists, including members of the Underground Railroad network.
The letters showed that Nathan had provided financial support to escaped slaves and had used his knowledge of southern geography to assist in planning escape routes. One letter dated October 1843 read: “My dear friend, you cannot know the comfort it gives me to contribute in some small way to the cause of those who seek freedom. Having witnessed firsthand the courage required to break the chains that bind both body and soul, I am humbled by the strength of those who risk everything for the chance to live as human beings rather than property. ”
The letter was signed NC and included a postscript in French that read: “Marie sends her regards and wishes me to tell you that she prays daily for the success of your work.
”
The handwriting matched samples from the Augusta materials. The references to personal experience with escape seemed to confirm that this was indeed Nathan Cole and Josephine Bellfleur, living under assumed names in Philadelphia. The final documented trace of their story appeared in 1881, in the form of an obituary in a small Pennsylvania newspaper. The notice announced the death of Nathan Collins, age sixty-nine, describing him as a devoted husband and successful businessman who had contributed generously to charitable causes.
He was survived by his wife Marie and several adopted children. The obituary made no reference to Georgia or any family connections in the South. It also mentioned that Nathan Collins had requested cremation, an unusual practice at the time that would have made it impossible for anyone to verify his identity through examination of remains. Marie Collins lived another decade.
Her own obituary, published in 1891, described her as a lady of refinement and education who spoke several languages and was noted for her charitable work among the city’s immigrant population. Like her husband’s notice, it made no reference to her origins. By the time these obituaries were connected to the Augusta case, all the original participants were long dead. The Cole family line had ended with Nathan’s disappearance, as he had been the only male heir.
Somerville was sold after the war, divided into smaller farms, and eventually absorbed into Augusta’s suburban expansion. The story became local folklore, retold in various versions. Some portrayed it as a tragic romance destroyed by social prejudice. Others as a cautionary tale about the dangers of transgressing established boundaries.
Academic historians remained cautious, noting that much of the evidence was circumstantial. But what was undisputed was that the story illuminated the human complexity that existed within the brutal institution of slavery. In 1967, the final piece of the puzzle emerged during the demolition of an old warehouse in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties district. Workers discovered a collection of papers sealed in a metal box and hidden beneath the building’s foundation.
Among them was a letter dated 1890, written in an elderly hand that experts later identified as belonging to Marie Collins. The letter, addressed to whoever may find this record, served as her final testimony. She confirmed that she was indeed Josephine Bellfleur of Augusta, Georgia, and that Nathan Collins had been Nathan Cole. More importantly, she provided details about their fifty years together.
“We lived as husband and wife in truth,” she wrote, “not merely in law. Nathan never spoke to me as master to servant, not even in our earliest days when we both struggled to forget what we had been to each other. In Philadelphia, we were simply two people who had chosen to build a life together, and that choice proved stronger than all the forces that had tried to prevent it. ”
The letter revealed that they had adopted several children over the years, freed slaves and orphaned immigrants who had found their way to the Collins household through the network of abolitionists they supported.
Marie described a home filled with multiple languages and cultures, where former slaves worked alongside German immigrants and Irish refugees to create something entirely new, a family bound not by blood or law but by shared commitment to human dignity. “Nathan often said that we had not escaped slavery so much as we had escaped into something better,” Marie wrote. “We found that freedom was not simply the absence of chains, but the presence of choice. Every day we woke up and chose each other again, and that choice made us more than we had been before.
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She also recounted Nathan’s final years. He had died peacefully in his sleep after a brief illness, surrounded by the children they had raised and the grandchildren who called them by the names they had chosen for themselves. His last words had been spoken in French: “We chose correctly, my heart. We chose correctly.
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Marie’s own final years had been spent writing what she called their true history, a detailed account of their escape, their years in Philadelphia, and their work with the Underground Railroad. But as her health declined, she had apparently decided that some secrets were too dangerous to preserve. The warehouse papers contained evidence that she had burned most of her writings shortly before her death, keeping only the single letter. The letter ended with words that have become central to how historians understand their story: “I do not know if what we did was right by the standards of the world we left behind.
I know only that it was right by the standards of the world we created together. We loved truly, lived freely, and died knowing that we had honored both our hearts and our consciences. If that is not enough, then nothing ever could be. ”
With the discovery of Marie’s letter, the mystery reached its resolution.
They had succeeded in their impossible dream. Two people separated by law, custom, and race had found a way to love each other as equals and to live that love for half a century. Their names appear together on a small plaque in Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery, where genealogical research has confirmed they are both buried under their chosen names of Nathan and Marie Collins. The plaque, installed by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1998, reads simply: “In memory of two souls who chose love over convention, freedom over comfort, and hope over fear.
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The house where they lived still stands in what is now Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties neighborhood, marked with a historical designation that tells a sanitized version of their story. But those who know the full truth understand that the real monument is not any physical marker. It is the proof their lives provided that love can indeed conquer all when it is backed by courage, sustained by commitment, and willing to pay whatever price freedom demands. They found each other across the most fundamental divide their society could create, and they chose each other repeatedly for fifty years.
In doing so, they demonstrated that the human heart recognizes no boundaries except those it chooses to accept.