July
1817:
Darcus, a 27-year-old woman, escapes from Newark
Fifty
Dollars
Reward
Ran away from the subscriber, on the night of the 12th inst. a negro woman,
named Darcus, about 27 years of age, 5 feet 6 inches high, dark skin, and
of a sullen and stupid appearance.
Besides
her common wearing apparel, she had on and took with her, an old black
satin bonnet, two gowns, one of cambrick muslin, the other of blue
calico, one coarse buff and white shawl, and one tow sheet.
Whoever
takes up and secures the said negro, so that I get her again, shall
receive the above reward.
Thomas
W. Handy.
Newark,
(Del.) July 15.
Source:
Lancaster Journal, 6 August 1817. |
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Editors
note: Thomas W. Handy was regimental surgeon with the Twenty-Fifth Maryland
Militia, from Somerset County, Maryland, serving during the War of 1812.
After removing to Delaware, he became a ruling elder of White Clay Creek
Presbyterian Church, New Castle County.
Dr.
Thomas W. Handy petitioned the Delaware legislature numerous times to
import slaves into the state, for various reasons. On January
25,
1813, he petitioned the Delaware State legislature for permission to
move his slaves Violet and Peter into the state. He explained that
he had moved his family and servants from Maryland to Delaware, but had
left some slaves in Maryland, "they being hired out." (Petition 10381611,
General Assembly, Legislative Papers, RG 1111, p
378-379)
He
petitioned the legislature again in 1818 to bring the slave Chloe and
her children, then in the possession of the heirs of Hugh Henry, of
Maryland, into Delaware. Handy claimed that Chloe was his slave, hired
to Hugh Henry. When Henry died, Handy petitioned for her return. (Petition
10381803, General Assembly, Legislative Papers, RG 1111, p
431-435)
Thomas
W. Handy was an original trustee of Newark College, appointed in 1833.
Covering
the history of African Americans in central Pennsylvania from the colonial
era through the Civil
War.
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the Afrolumens Project. Buy the books:
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Year of Jubilee, Volume One: Men of God, Volume Two: Men of Muscle
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