[2] Thomas became a famous caterer in Philadelphia who had a son William Henry Dorsey who was an artist and major collector of Black history.
The four brothers traveled to Gettysburg, then Harrisburg, then Reading, until they reached Bristol, PA, where they worked on abolitionist Robert Purvis' farm.
[3] In July 1837, Dorsey's brother-in-law betrayed him to slave-hunters hired by Thomas Sollers, and they tracked him to Purvis' farm and had him seized by local authorities.
Purvis also believed the judge felt sympathy for Dorsey, as he recalled in an 1883 account:"Doubtless the judge was deeply impressed by the appearance in the court-room of the delicate and beautiful wife and the young children clinging to the husband and father, who, looking the picture of despair sat with the evidence in his torn and soiled garments of the terrible conflict through which he had passed.”[5]During those two weeks, Basil Dorsey remained in a jail cell, and Robert Purvis organized his legal support.
He drove to Philadelphia and enlisted the service of renowned lawyer and philanthropist David Paul Brown, who refused to accept any payment for defending Dorsey.
David Paul Brown then rose and demanded that Griffith produce proper evidence that slavery is legal in the state of Maryland.
Purvis immediately brought Dorsey to his mother's home in Philadelphia, and shortly after they traveled to New York in search of greater security.
[5] Once in New York, he met The Emancipator editor Joshua Leavitt and David Ruggles, who encouraged him to go to Northampton, MA, where he stayed with Haynes K. Starkweather for a few days.
He and many of his friends were strongly against paying for his natural right to freedom, but with the passage of the act, Dorsey was in significantly higher danger while doing his job.
His friends in Northampton and Florence then gathered $150, and with $50 of Dorsey's own earnings he officially bought his freedom which settled on May 14, 1851, fifteen years after his escape.