Study Areas

Enslavement

20th Century History

Freedom Seekers Fred Fowler and John Shaw

Published Escape Notices from The Baltimore Sun

The newspaper escape notices below, from May 1858, advertise the escape from enslavement in Frederick County, Maryland of two men, Fred Fowler and John Shaw. Both were young men from neighboring plantations in or near New Market. After several days travel, the men reached Harrisburg and were eventually sent on through the Underground Railroad network running up through Niagara Falls to safety in the village of Bradford in Canada West. Their story follows below.

$200 REWARD. -- Ran away from the subscriber, living at New Market, Frederick co., Md., on Saturday Night, the 8th of May inst., a Negro Man named FRED. FOWLER, aged about 26 years, five feet ten or eleven inches high, stout made, dark copper color, round, full eye, upper teeth full and even, has a down look when spoken to, lisps slightly in his speech, and has small hands; not other marks recollected. Had on when he left a glazed cap, dark pants and coat and light made shoes.
The above reward will be given for the arrest of said Negro and his delivery to the subscriber or secured in jail.
Dr. W. L. WILLIS.
New Market, Md., May 10, 1858.

(The Baltimore Sun, 13 May 1858.)
 

$200 REWARD. -- My man, JOHN SHAW, left my house (between Frederick and Newmarket) on Saturday, the 8th inst. He is about five feet five inches high, twenty-four years old, color black; has a scar on his right cheek and extending from the eye to the chin, said to be caused by a burn when a child; the lower lid of his right eye is contracted from the same cause, showing much of the white of that eye. He does not use tobacco or liquor; understands a little blacksmithing, and is fond of that work. His clothing was good -- of dark cloth. He is believed to have gone off with Dr. W. L. Willis' man, of Newmarket, Fred. Fowler, as they were seen together Saturday evening. The above reward will be given for his apprehension and lodgment in any jail so that I get him, or a proportional reward for any information that leads to his apprehension.
WM. C. HOFFMAN,
Near Frederick, Md.

(The Baltimore Sun, 17 May 1858.)

May 1858: Escape to Pennsylvania

In the spring of 1858, two freedom seerks crossed the Camelback Bridge into Harrisburg and were sent to one of the Rutherford farms in Swatara Township to avoid detection by any possible pursuers who might show up in town. When it appeared that no pursuit was imminent, both men were allowed to stay and work until August, by which time arrangements had been made to send them to Canada West.

The two men who were hidden by Harrisburg activists with the Rutherford families for three months were from town of New Market, in Frederick County, Maryland. John Shaw was about twenty-four years old, and had been owned by a farmer, William C. Hoffman, from just outside of New Market. On Saturday, May 8th, under cover of night, Shaw escaped. He did so in league with another local enslaved man, twenty-six-year-old Fred Fowler, from the town of New Market.

Fred Fowler had escaped from the farm of Dr. Willilam Lewis Willis, a New Market physician to whom he had recently been sold, and who, in addition to his medical practice on West Pratt Street in Baltimore, provided medical services to Baltimore slave merchants Bernard Moore Campbell and Walter Lewis Campbell, the highly successful slave trading brothers who had bought out Hope Hull Slatter’s slave trade business, along with his notorious slave pens, also on Pratt Street. According to Fred Fowler’s reminiscences, Dr. Willis would visit the Campbell’s slave prison in Baltimore “once or twice a week to examine and prescribe for the Campbell slaves.” It was probably this close association that his new owner had with the notorious Campbell brothers that worried Fowler and caused him to make his escape, before he could be sold south into the Campbell’s New Orleans operations. The association of Dr. Willis with two of the most powerful slave traders in Maryland also made Fred Fowler an extraordinarily dangerous traveling companion for Shaw, although he probably did not realize that at the time.

Shaw and Fowler left New Market after dark on the evening of Saturday, May 8th. In his reminiscences, he related that he and Shaw "started one Saturday night and safely walked to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania by the early morning." That feat seems unlikely, given the distance and terrain. It is more likely the journey to Gettysburg took two nights. They probably traveled mostly at night and arrived after a few days in the borough of Gettysburg some thirty-seven miles north. Along the way, a free African American mason who traveled frequently through the border counties of Pennsylvania and Maryland building barns, gave them the name of a man in Gettysburg who would help them find safe haven. The tradesman had said they should seek out a man in Gettysburg by the name of Mathews. This was undoubtedly Edward Mathews, the free African American farmer whose home in the area known as Yellow Hill, north of Gettysburg in Menallen Township, was an active Underground Railroad station.

There are several ways in which the men could have found Mathews. The mill of James McAllister was very active as an Underground Railroad stop during this time and McAllister regularly forwarded fugitives out to Yellow Hill, but it was located south of Gettysburg on the Baltimore Pike and assuming they approached Gettysburg by the most direct route along the Taneytown Road, they would not have passed it. It is more likely they made contact with Edward Mathews through African American farmers who rented land along the pike, or from the free African Americans who lived in the blocks at the southwest end of town. The most active of these men was Basil Biggs, a fee African American farmer and veterinarian who worked closely with Mathews and often guided freedom seekers from the town out to Mathews' farm. Regardless of how they reached his home, Mathews either harbored the men in his home during the day, or lodged them with neighboring Quaker Underground Railroad activists Cyrus and Mary Ann Griest, during which time they rested up for the next part of the journey, which led them by night to Carlisle, and the following night to Harrisburg.

If Fowler’s account was accurate, the two men would have arrived in Harrisburg by the middle of May. By that time, escape notices for Fowler and Shaw had appeared in The Baltimore Sun and were probably circulating in Harrisburg. Joseph Bustill, Harrisburg's busiest Underground Railroad activist during this time and the person responsible for most of the decisions concerning freedom seekers arriving in the town, did not direct the men to an immediate departure from the Harrisburg area. Perhaps he saw that, being exhausted from having walked seventy miles in the past few days, they needed rest. Bustill likely kept in good contact with agents in Gettysburg, and relied on advance notice if pursuers were spotted there. Either way, he sent them east along the Downingtown, Ephrata and Harrisburg turnpike leading out of the borough and into the Paxtang Valley, where the Rutherford families provided shelter, clothing and food, and most importantly, the freedom to leave when they wanted, in exchange for their labor.

Safe Haven Through the Summer

According to Fred Fowler's reminiscences, he and John Shaw were put on "a farm about eight miles from town," where they remained until August. This was probably the large farm of abolitionist William Rutherford in Swatara Township. William Rutherford began sheltering freedom seekers at this location about 1805 and his descendants, all strong abolitionists, continued to do so at the farm after his death in 1850. William's sons Abner and Samuel also had large farms lying along the turnpike from Harrisburg, but the distance Fowler recalls locates him and Shaw at William's farm.

There they remained for several weeks, working the farm with the family, until August when Fowler remembers "they proceeded to Bradford, Canada West." He did not relate how he traveled from Harrisburg to Canada. The Rutherford family typically sent freedom seekers along a northern route, first to the Joseph Meese farm in Linglestown, and from there to Harpers Tavern and then further north to Lickdale and over the mountains until they connected with activists in upper New York state. Activists at remote farmhouse "stations" and fearless "conductors" guided them through each stage of the route, until safety was reached in Canada. In Harrisburg, Joseph Bustill favored sending freedom seekers by train to Reading and from there, again by train, to William Still in Philadelphia, whereupon they could be booked on a ship for Canada, but it is likely that Fowler would have mentioned such a journey in his memoir.

Fowler and Shaw settled down In the village of Bradford where they found work. Fowler worked on a farm in Canada for nearly three years before venturing back into the United States to work as a waiter at a hotel in Lockport, New York. In August of 1863, four years after leaving the Rutherford farm in Swatara Township, Fowler enlisted in the 29th Connecticut Colored Infantry Regiment, serving as a private in Company E until being mustered out in October 1865, well after the end of the war.

The Back-Story: Enslavement in Frederick County, Maryland

The following accounting of the fate of Fred Fowler's family back in Maryland is edited from his story, told in the Journal of Negro History in October 1920:

Fred Fowler was born about 1832 in Frederick County, Maryland. His first master, Michael Reel, had a farm and a flour mill about four miles from Frederick City. Reel owned sixteen slaves, among whom were Fred's mother and her eight children. Fred's father belonged to a man named Doyle, who had an adjoining farm. Doyle sold the father to a man named Fisher, who subsequently put up the first gas factory in Frederick.

On the death of Michael Reel, in 1847, his estate had to be divided. Some of the slaves were disposed of according to appraisement, others at auction. Fred, then about fifteen years old, was taken at the appraised value of $400 by a son of the deceased Reel.

At this sale his mother and one child were bought for $500 by a man named Todd, who subsequently sold her to Dr. Shipley. Four children were purchased by men supposed to be traders, who presumably took them to Georgia...No one of these four was ever seen or heard from after they were put on the train for Baltimore. The other children, two sisters, were taken away by a man named Roach.

Notes

Dr. William Lewis Willis was the son and one of eleven children of Levan C. and Eliza Orndord Willis, of the Walnut Grove estate in Frederick County. They owned a considerable number of enslaved people to maintain their estate, later renamed Williston. William was born in 1831, making him one year older than Fred Fowler. William's wife, Frances Ann Finlay, was born in Baltimore and was educated at Linden Hall Academy in Lititz, Pennsylvania. The young couple experienced tragedy with the death of their oldest son early in their marriage. Tragedy continued to haunt the family. One month after Fowler's escape, on June 14, 1858, William Willis died on a hunting excursion when his shotgun accidentally discharged into his head. His accidental death was reported in The Baltimore Sun, a newspaper that circulated in the Harrisburg area, so it is possible that Fowler learned of the death of his former enslaver while he was still working on the Rutherford Farm in Swatara Township.

Less facts are known about the enslaver of twenty-four-year-old John Shaw, William C. Hoffman. It is unlikely that Shaw was owned by Hoffman as a young child. Shaw had a noticable disfiguring injury to his face in the form of a large scar "extending from the eye to the chin" and contracting a portion of Shaw's right eyelid. Hoffman noted that the injury was "said to be caused by a burn when a child," implying that he did not have firsthand knowledge of this traumatic event.

Hoffman, born circa 1802, owned a large farm in the District of New Market, valued at $12,000 in 1850, making him one of the wealthiest farmers in his immediate area. His wife Dorothy was born in Germany and their three children were all educated, the oldest, twenty-year-old Charles, still in school, probably studying at college. The Hoffman's employed three free African American laborers, and held six Black enslaved people ranging in age from 42 years to eleven months old. One of these enslaved persons, a black male aged 17 years in August 1850, might have been John Shaw. Over the next decade, the Hoffman's reduced their slave holdings, recording two slaves, a 55-year-old mulatto woman and a 21-year-old mulatto woman, on the 1860 Slave Schedule.

Sources

• The Baltimore Sun, 19 May 1856.
• The Baltimore Sun, 13 May 1858.
• The Baltimore Sun, 17 May 1858.
• The Baltimore Sun, 15 June 1858.
• F. B., "Some Undistinguished Negroes: Fred Fowler," Journal of Negro History, Vol. 5, No. 4 (October 1920), pp. 476-480.
• Debra Sandoe McCauslin, Yellow Hill, Reconstructing the Past: Puzzle of a Lost Community, Gettysburg, PA, 2005.
• National Park Service, "Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Database," Film No. M589, Roll 29, online at https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/soldiers-and-sailors-database.htm, accessed 02 January 2025.
• 1850 Census of the United States, District of New Market, Frederick County, Maryland, 19 August 1850, page 533.
• 1850 Census of the United States, District of New Market, Frederick County, Maryland, Slave Schedule, 20 August 1850, page 165.
• 1860 Census of the United States, District of New Market, Frederick County, Maryland, Slave Schedule, 03 September 1860, page 20.

The Year of Jubilee

Vol. 1: Men of God and Vol. 2: Men of Muscle

by George F. Nagle

Both volumes of the Afrolumens book have been reprinted. Click the links for ordering info.

The Year of Jubilee is the story of Harrisburg'g free African American community, from the era of colonialism and slavery to hard-won freedom.

Volume One, Men of God, covers the turbulent beginnings of this community, from Hercules and the first slaves, the growth of slavery in central Pennsylvania, the Harrisburg area slave plantations, early runaway slaves, to the birth of a free black community. Men of God is a detailed history of Harrisburg's first black entrepreneurs, the early black churches, the first black neighborhoods, and the maturing of the social institutions that supported this vibrant community.

It includes an extensive examination of state and federal laws governing slave ownership and the recovery of runaway slaves, the growth of the colonization movement, anti-colonization efforts, anti-slavery, abolitionism and radical abolitionism. It concludes with the complex relationship between Harrisburg's black and white abolitionists, and details the efforts and activities of each group as they worked separately at first, then learned to cooperate in fighting against slavery.Order it here.

Non-fiction, history. 607 pages, softcover.

Volume Two, Men of Muscle takes the story from 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, through the explosive 1850s to the coming of Civil War to central Pennsylvania. In this volume, Harrisburg's African American community weathers kidnappings, raids, riots, plots, murders, intimidation, and the coming of war. Caught between hostile Union soldiers and deadly Confederate soldiers, they ultimately had to choose between fleeing or fighting. This is the story of that choice. Order it here.

Non-fiction, history. 630 pages, softcover.