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Slavery

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Free Persons of Color

The Violent Decade

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US Colored Troops

Civil War

The Year of Jubilee (1863)

July 1821: Charles, Nat and Lossen believed living in central Pennsylvania

$300 Reward.
Will be given by the subscriber for apprehending Negroes Charles, Nat and Lossen. Charles ran away about 3 years since, lived some time in Columbia with a wife and 2 children, but parted with his wife and went higher up the river. He is about 5 feet 6 inches high, square shouldered, very black, and calls himself Charles Williams, being about 26 years old.

Nat is about 20 years old, about 5 feet 6 inches high, heavy built, with rather a down look and sulky countenance, can read and write some, and is of a yellow cast. Lossen is his brother and of nearly the same description in every respect, excepting that his lips are thicker and has heavier eyes.

I will give one hundred dollars for either of them, if brought home or secured in any prison so that I get them again, or I will give 50 dollars for information for either of them, where they are, so that I can see them, and no name will be mentioned nor further questions asked, by

John Ashmore.
Living about 8 miles from Peachbottom, in Harford county, Md.
July 6.

Source: Lancaster Journal, 6 July 1821.

Editor's Note: This slave holder appears to be John Ashmore of Green Mill, Harford County, Maryland. His wife, Margaret Ashmore, was the owner of Margaret Morgan, the enslaved woman at the center of the Prigg vs Pennsylvania Supreme Court Decision in 1838.

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

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