by Eric Mease – Originally published in the Cecil Whig
A couple of weeks ago much of Cecil County celebrated the bicentennial of the War of 1812, our nation’s second war of independence; the war that FINALLY freed the U.S. from British control, but not I. I was sitting behind a microfilm reader at the Historical Society of Cecil County. My mission: to locate information about one James Williams, escaped slave and conductor on the Underground Railroad. Williams was the property of William Hollingsworth of Elkton when he escaped to Pennsylvania in 1838. Williams’ autobiography is included in William Still’s detailed work Underground Rail Road: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, etc. published in 1872 and now readily available on line.
I was looking for a newspaper notice of Williams’ escape, a brief report, paid for by his owner, to alert the community that one of his slaves escaped and he wanted him back. My mission failed. The only local newspaper available from that era is the Cecil Gazette and not all of its issues exist for the year 1838 when Williams escaped to freedom. However, I did locate some other notices that were just as explicit and an ugly reminder that just 25 years after the War of 1812 came and left Cecil County, freedom was still an elusive dream for enslaved African Americans. For example:
In the January 20th edition of the Cecil Gazette there appears a notice of a Sheriff’s Sale when “at the Jail in Elkton, the following property, to wit: one negro man called Ellie, about 35 or 40 years of age, seized and taken into execution as the property of Morgan A. Price, and to be sold for cash to satisfy the above judgment.”
The following week there was another Sheriff’s Sale, again involving the estate of Morgan Price, but not at the Elkton Jail: “Will be sold at the house of James Ford in Cecilton, on Saturday the 3rd of February next, at 2 o’clock, p.m. one old lame negro man. Taken in execution as the property of Morgan A. Price to satisfy officer’s fees due James Sewall and others. Terms of sale – cash.”
Two months later, a third Sheriff’s Sale was scheduled when the following would be “exposed to Public Sale at the Jail in Elkton… the following negroes, to wit: one woman called Nancy, aged 55 years, one Boy called Frisby, aged 14; one Girl called Mary Ann, aged 16; one do aged 10 and one other aged 8 years. To be sold for cash to satisfy said claim.” I do not know what a “do” is, but both listed here were preteen in age.
Another ad from February 3, 1838 headlined “For Sale A colored Girl – about 20 years of age, to serve until she is 28. Inquire at this office.” Apparently this owner was not having much luck in selling his 20 year old “colored girl” as the ad had been running since the previous November.
It’s difficult, although not impossible, to determine what happened to these human beings who were put on the auction block and sold like cattle. But regardless of their fate, it is a grim reminder that while Cecil County was not the hub of the national slave trade or even slavery, it was a willing participant in both. In addition, the War of 1812 which we recently celebrated, may have settled the issue of our nation’s freedom from Great Britain, but that freedom did not extend to America’s black residents, at least not in Cecil County, not yet. Ironically, it was the British, not the Americans, during the War of 1812 who offered freedom to enslaved African Americans. And it was the British who abolished slavery nearly a quarter century before the United States did. Had the afore mentioned James Williams been born in Britain, he would have been a free man in 1838, the year he successfully risked everything for that freedom. By the time emancipation came to Cecil County slaves during the Civil War, there were nearly 9 hundred of them. By comparison, there were nearly 3 thousand freed blacks living in the county. And speaking of irony, about 2 hundred of Cecil County’s freed men would serve in the United States Colored Troops defending the very nation that had enslaved many of their relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances for over a century.