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Free Persons of Color

The Violent Decade

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US Colored Troops

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The Year of Jubilee (1863)

January 1845: Thomas Finnegan and Alexander Cook Attempt to Kidnap Peter Hawkins

-->The Harrisburg Telegraph says a negro named Peter Hawkins, who has with his family resided in Harrisburg for several years past, was last night knocked down in the street by Alexander A. Cook, and another person named Thomas Finnegan, and tied him with the intention of taking him South, in a carriage prepared for the purpose, on the allegation of being a runaway slave, when some of our citizens happening to come along and seeing what was going on interfered and he was taken to jail, when the matter was brought before Judge Eldred this morning, who liberated him. Those who assaulted and arrested him were then taken up for attempting to kidnap and bound over.

Source: Carlisle Herald & Expositor, 29 January 1845.

Covering the history of African Americans in central Pennsylvania from the colonial era through the Civil War.

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