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The Year of Jubilee (1863)

July 1820: Moses is "Well Known on the Susquehanna"

100 Dollars Reward.
RANAWAY from the subscriber, living near Fredericktown, Md. on Monday the 24th inst. a Negro Boy, named TOM; he is 19 years old, 5 feet 6 inches high, of a dark complexion, stout make, and reads tolerably well. He took with him a corduroy roundabout, a pair of old black crape pantaloons, a new tow-linen shirt and trowsers, and an old fur hat. This fellow is well known on the Susquehanna, above Columbia, where he was apprehended, a few months since, by the name of Moses. He was last winter employed as hostler, by Philip Etter, tavern keeper at York Haven. I will give for the apprehension of the above described boy, so that I get him again, if in the state of Maryland, fifty dollars, if out of the State, the above reward.
N.A. RANDALL.
Dublin Farm, July 29th, 1820.

Sources

York Recorder, (York, PA), 13 September 1820, Lancaster Journal, 08 September 1820, York Gazette, 25 January 1816.

Notes

N. A. Randall is Nicholas A. Randall. His ad was also published in the Lancaster Journal in an ad dated August 11, 1820. The Journal ad was nearly identical to that published in the Recorder, but differed slightly in describing Tom's height and complexion, noting Tom (Moses) was "about 5 feet 5 inches high, stout and well made, and of a light black colour, rather of a redish cast." It also noted his previous capture was "about two months since," placing it in late May or June 1820.

Tom, or Moses, was seemingly adept at making an escape from Randall's Frederick County farm and finding shelter and work in Pennsylvania. Randall's ad above describes two earlier escapes, the first in the winter of 1819-1820, during which he worked for Philip Etter in York Haven. The second more recent, occuring just months prior. There is a hint that he made other earlier escapes, causing Randall to remark that Tom / Moses "is well known" in communities along the Susquehanna River north of Columbia.

There are references to the tavern and canal house kept by Philip Etter, in York Haven, in 1816. In a January 1816 ad in the York Gazette, the tavern at the canal was offered to let. Etter was not the owner, the ad simply referring to "The Tavern House at York-Haven (Canal) now occupied by Mr. Philip Etter." Nicholas A. Randall's fugitive slave ad said that Tom / Moses was "last winter employed as hostler, by Philip Etter, tavern keeper at York Haven." it is possible that Etter stayed on as taven keeper even after the property was let out to a new owner. Etter disappears from York County advertisements after that date, but in 1822 turns up as a tavern keeper in Harrisburg.

There are no additional escape ads for Tom / Moses. The only other data about enslaved persons in the Randall Family is this 1827 affadavit from Nicholas A. Randall before a Frederick County Justice of the Peace, swearing to the identity of a Black woman named Nelly, as the person manumitted by his father some twenty-one years before:

Maryland Frederick County
On this 18th day of June 1827 personally appear(ed) Nicholas A. Randall before the Subscriber a Justice of the peace in and for said County and made oath on the Holy Evangelly of Almighty God that (Nelly) the negro woman now before me is the Identical negro woman who was manumitted by his Father Nicholas Randall by deed of Manumission bearing date the 6th day of September 1806.
Sworn before
George (Last name hard to read)

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