A runaway slave taken in by abolitionist Eliphalet Nott became the College president’s coachman, messenger and servant, and in Nott’s years of illness, his steadfast friend and constant companion. Despite being one of the College’s most recognized characters, Moses Viney is afforded little space in history, usually only a mention as Nott’s employee.
Yet Viney was the man who at Nott’s side became one of Schenectady’s most visible figures. Viney was the driver of nearly every dignitary who visited the campus—statesmen, financiers, generals, bishops and authors all rode with Viney in Nott’s unique three-wheeled carriage. A ride with Viney came to signify celebrity and importance.
Viney was born March 10, 1817, in Talbot County, Maryland on the plantation of William Murphy, and later passed in the distribution of property to the owner’s son, Richard Murphy. Since the younger Murphy and Viney had grown up as playmates, Moses was treated kindly. Still, A.S. Wright (Class of 1882) wrote in the Centennial Souvenir (1895), “… within the slave there was a native instinct of liberty, a craving for a man’s dignity, a dissatisfaction with things unworthy.”
Moses started a “liberty fund” from the pennies he collected for stacking wheat. On Easter morning in 1840, after he had collected $20, Viney and two friends began a northward journey. With Sunday and Monday as holidays, they hoped for a two-day start before they were discovered missing.
By Wright’s account, they traveled by night, making their way on the Underground Railroad to Philadelphia, Troy, N.Y. and later Schenectady. Moses, then in his mid-20s, worked several jobs before he was hired as Nott’s driver in 1847.
Codman Hislop’s book Eliphalet Nott (1971) gives this account: “Driving the little three-wheeled carriage, helping the ailing Doctor (Nott), ‘venerable’ in appearance at last, carrying his messages about the campus and into town, Moses was to become even more of a campus character than Old McKenney, the head janitor of the College buildings, or Mr. Gonsaul, the steward of the commons, whose charge of $1.25 a week for board during the 1840s was considered gross profiteering.”
The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 allowed southern slave owners to reclaim runaways with the help from U.S. Marshalls. Abolitionists redoubled efforts to protect fugitives, but many, including Viney, fled to Canada.
“Union was full of Southern students,” Wright wrote. “Moses trembled for his safety and Dr. Nott thought his fear well grounded. Accordingly, Hon. James Brown and Judge Douglass Campbell took the matter in hand and sent Clarkson Potter south to negotiate with Richard Murphy. The modest Murphy demanded no less than $1,900.”
Viney remained in Canada until 1852, when Murphy agreed to sell the papers of emancipation for $250. After returning, Moses continued as Nott’s driver until Nott was stricken with a series of paralyzing strokes from 1859 through 1864. Then he became Nott’s servant and constant attendant. Hislop wrote that by the summer of 1859, Nott’s career as “the Maecenas and the Nestor of American educators was over.” The ill man was in the care of, among others, “a Moses Viney, who, of all those closest to him, expected the least.”
Nott died Jan. 29, 1866, after 62 years as president, the longest tenure of any American college president. Viney apparently continued to work for Mrs. Nott. Three years before Nott died, Treasurer Jonathon Pearson wrote in his diary, “(Viney) is to have, in addition to his wages, $1,000 on Dr. Nott’s death. Mrs. Nott wants (Viney’s) house, which stood in the garden south of South College, moved nearer the President’s House.”
Union College President Andrew Van Vranken Raymond (1894 to 1907) summarized Viney’s relationship with Nott in the 1904 centennial ceremony: “Dr. Nott presented him with his freedom, and from that day Moses was bound by stronger than legal ties to his benefactor, and right loyally did he serve him until the day when, with uncovered head, he walked just behind the bier that carried the silent form to its last resting place.
“When the solemn exercises of that day were over, and all who had gathered to pay loving tribute, among them the foremost scholars and statesmen of the land, had left the place of burial, one who was among the last to leave looked back and there, touched by the last rays of the sun, stood Moses with bowed head, as though he must still watch and guard his more than master, his liberator and friend.”