PA County Index

PA Enslavement FAQs

A series of pages exploring
various aspects of enslavement in Pennsylvania

Enslavement in Pennsylvania

Potter County Miscellaneous Enslavement Items

Enslaved Persons Listed on This Page

1. Azilum

Enslavement Items

• Enslaved Person's Name:  Azilum or Asylum Peters
  Sex: Male
  Age:
  Date of Birth: 1793
  Status: Slave to age 21--self emancipated
  Description: "slave"
  Slave Notes: Information from "Slave Once Owned in Potter County," by W.W. Thompson, in Historical Sketches of Potter County, Pennsylvania (1925 Coudersport, PA)
  
  Thompson writes that Azilum was "Born a slave in Azilum, Bradford County, Pa., in 1793, died a freeman on Ayers Hill, Potter County, Pa., November 24, 1880." He traces the ownership of Azilum from John Brovost, who brought Azilum to Ceres, McKean County, in 1806, and two years later sold him to William Ayers for $100 "with the further agreement that he be given a reasonable amount of education and his freedom when he reached the age of twenty-one years." Ayers then brought his newly purchased slave, along with his family, to a farm near Coudersport, Potter County.
  
  Azilum's full name, according to Thompson, was Azilum Peters. He does not name the parents, but states that they came from San Domingo. The article further explains that Azilum did not stay to his full term with William Ayers, but ran away and lived with Major Lyman for about a year and then went to live with Jonathan Edgcomb. He is described as being illiterate, speaking both English and French, and a "rather short stocky built very black man [who] often visited Coudersport and always attracted attention of men and children."
  
  Azilum was buried in an unmarked grave in the Ayers Hill Cemetery.
  Documents: The 1850 census of Homer Township, Potter County, shows Asylum Peters, a 54 year-old farmer, living with the Jonathan Edgcomb family. According to census records, he was born in Pennsylvania and could not read or write. (census page 86)