I spent a couple of days doing research on an Annapolis “Underground Railroad house” located at 3 Cheston St., right on Spa Cove.  This house had a hide away behind the stairs in the living room where there was a secret section in the library shelves that allows entrance.  I was able to trace it back to the late 1800s, searching through Anne Arundel County land records, plats, city directories and wills.

Most recently, Dana and I have been going through the list of Blacks who enticed and persuaded slaves to runaway and were pardoned by the Governor, recovering all documents related to the original cases and the pardon records as well.  In addition to that, we are searching for all the records we can find on the individuals, as well as the slave owners.  (We are listing all of our findings in the slavery commission interns tempcensus folder on the L: Drive)
 

Jennifer Copeland
Since beginning work on the Underground Railroad project for the Slavery Commission, I have been involved with three main initiatives.  First, we began stripping census records to determine who were the major slaveholders in Baltimore County and Baltimore City from 1830 through 1860.  I worked with the 1850 census on microfilm, going through it several times to pull out first slave owners with more than 20 slaves, then owners with 12 or more slaves, and finally those with six or more slaves.  The names of these slave holders, along with the number of slaves (separated into males and females) they owned, were entered into a database. 

After completing the census record stripping to obtain our universe of slave owners, we began to comb through Baltimore City and County newspapers, looking for fugitive slave ads.  I examined the Baltimore County Advocate and General Advertiser for the years 1850 through 1853.  During this time period I only came across one such advertisement; however, there were a number of references in articles and court case updates to escaped or recaptured slaves or those who sought to entice slaves to flee their masters.

Most recently, we have been working to identify large clusters of slaves by trying to pinpoint the land holdings of the largest slaveholders in Baltimore County.  Caleb McDaniel and I are working with the Worthington family (primarily Rezin H., John T.H., John T., and Noah Worthington) and have made significant progress identifying the geographical boundaries of Worthington lands in Baltimore County by examining land grant records.  We are creating a bibliographical database of these land records and using the information contained therein to map out the Worthington holdings.
 

Maria Day
I began my internship on June 5, 2002 since I had to be away on leave from June 13th through 18th.  After David Terry introduced the project to our team, he asked each of us to search Baltimore County and City census records for information on large households with slaves. During the first four days of my research, I searched through the 1860 Slave Schedules for holdings of >20, >10 and >6. For each, I recorded heads of household, number of male slaves and number of female slaves for each district of Baltimore County and City. As soon as we received training in Microsoft Access, we began constructing tables for entering the data we collected. 

My final data set of six or more slaves per holding came up with only 17% of the slave population for Baltimore City (298 slaves) since the City holdings averaged approximately 2 or 3 slaves per household. However, the data for six slaves or more per holding in Baltimore County represents a significant percentage of total slaves in the county: 1927 total slaves representing 58% of the slave population.  I spent one afternoon collecting data on Free Black households in the 1st Ward of Baltimore City before being reassigned to other research tasks. (I will hold onto this Free Black household information in case another team member is assigned this task later.)

On June 11th, I worked on a search for advertisements relating to runaway slaves in the Baltimore County newspaper, Republican & Argus, for 1855. Although I found articles concerning slavery issues, including editorials on abolition, and notices to slave owners wishing to sell slaves for cash, I did not find any advertisements for runaway slaves.  June 12th was Orientation Day for all interns, so I spent the day touring the Archives and learning how to locate resources to be used during the internship.  I was on leave from June 13th through June 18th.  When I returned on June 19th, Caleb and Jennifer briefed me on the next portion of our research, identifying the lands of the largest slave owners in Baltimore County. For the remainder of this week, I have begun the task of tracing the lands owned by several members of the Bosley family of District 2, Baltimore County, including William, Elijah and Amon Bosley.  This has required me to search the County’s Land Records, Grantee Index for member of the Bosley family. Yesterday afternoon I began to find individual Land Record documents with information pertaining to William Bosley’s acquisitions of land.  There are several different “William Bosleys,” so I have some interest in sorting out which one of them appears as the owner of 44 slaves on the 1840 census. 

Caleb McDaniel
During the first week of June, I joined Jennifer, Maria, Jamal, and Dana, in preliminary work for the Underground Railroad project.  First, in order to get a general picture of the slave and slaveholding population in Baltimore County, we stripped census records from 1830 to 1860; I worked exclusively with the 1840 census, noting the names of every slaveholder with more than six slaves and every head of a free black household. 

During the course of the summer, we hope to elaborate on this information by discovering not only who the leading slaveholders and free African Americans in Baltimore County were, but also where they lived and worked.  From my database I selected one of the largest slaveholders in the 1840 census -- Rezin H. Worthington -- who owned 45 slaves.  Using the Land Records Index for Baltimore County, I have constructed a comprehensive bibliography of every deed, mortgage, or assignment of land granted to Rezin from 1820 to1849.  I also used the index to find the original documents in the Archives' Land Records (C352), transcribing the boundaries of tracts granted to Rezin in another database.

Jennifer and I are currently working to repeat this process with other slaveholding Worthingtons, including Noah, John Tolly, and John T.H..  We are hoping to use the geographical information provided in these land records to draw a map of the Worthingtons' major holdings from the 1820s to the 1850s, repeating the process with other large families of masters in Baltimore County.
 

Dwayne Samuels
Throughout the past couple of weeks here at the archives I have learned the general organizational structure of the information located here and on the web site.  In particular I have been working along with other interns on creating a database of information gathered from 1840 census records stripping. Using a list of names and district locations we have found information on the number of free and enslaved blacks in Baltimore County who lived in the same household as the heads of the households listed in the 1840 Baltimore County census. The free/slaves were sorted by their age ranges and sex, then all this information gathered was transferred onto strip sheets already prepared. In the last step of working with the census stripping we then transcribed the data into the Access database.
 

Dana Sutton-Echols 
As of July 21, 2002, I have worked on stripping data from Baltimore County's 1830 census records.  I recorded slave owners with 6 or more slaves and transferred the information into a database.  Then my group was split into smaller groups and now I am working with Jamal Booker on case studies of freedmen pardoned for aiding and abiding slaves to escape.  So far we have tracked down census records, pardon papers, land records, prison records and others for James Harris.  However, we are now having very little luck finding information on Joseph Boley and Daniel Brown. We are more successful with Joseph Boley.  We plan to spend one more day checking records for pardon paper or any other documents that could possibly give us dates on Daniel Brown, if we come up empty we will move on to Thomas Skinner.
 

Adam Tavel
My first week and a half here at the Maryland State Archives has been a highly engaging introduction to the archival process.  The first two days of orientation were a bit exhausting simply due to the staggering amount of information provided..  However, this first week working on the Slavery Commission has reinforced my hopes for a exciting and didactic summer. 

I have been working primarily with Baltimore County census records from the 19th century.   Using microfilm and census indexes, I have methodically talleyed the heads of households that contained six or more slaves.  Similarly, any household headed by free blacks or containing six or more free persons is recorded as well.  Unfortunately, none of these records contain individual names.  One blames the seemingly narrow mindset of the 19th  century (only true landowners--free white males--were worthy of a census) for this lack of accuracy and concern for posterity. 

My work contributes greatly to the overall mission of the Slavery Commission.  Although census stripping can be tedious at times, it nevertheless provides the raw data for a in-depth study concerning the role of the the Underground Railroad in Maryland.  Only through a critical analysis of population densities can we understand the geography of slavery, and then determine what areas were more conducive or detrimental to flight.
 Ifinished stripping all five districts of Baltimore County for the census year 1840 a few days ago.  I began work on the 1830 census yesterday.  I pressume it will take more time since the microfilm is damaged and barely legible in places, but I still hope to complete it by late next week.  I feel that my skills as a historian have vastly improved in just a few days.  From transcribing to cross-referencing names, my experience here will vastly contribute to my future research. 

Jamal Booker
We finished recovering the most essential records (pardon papers, court records & census records) pertaining to the people on the list of Blacks who enticed and persuaded slaves to runaway.  We have begun retrieving records for the case studies under the “Aiding and Abetting” list.  (We are listing all of our findings in the slavery commission folder 161/interns2002/docs/case_studies on the L: Drive).  After the initial records for each is done, we plan on going back and finding additional, secondary records where available.
 

Jennifer Copeland
I have finished examining the land records for those properties granted to the major figures in the Worthington family and, with Caleb, have compiled a list of the Worthington holdings in Baltimore County, along with patent numbers and references to maps which illustrate these lands.  This information can be located in a Word document entitled "Place Names in Worthington Deeds." 

Caleb and I have also selected the major slaveholders (usually at least 15 slaves each) for each district in Baltimore County during the period from 1830 to 1860 and examined land records to determine the general location of their holdings.  This information is compiled in the same format as the Worthington data in a Word document entitled "Place Names in Other Deeds."

Most recently I have been working with a list of Baltimore County Jail Runaways from 1831/32.  First I went through the Maryland 1840 census index to determine whether the owners of these runaways resided in Baltimore County.  For those definitely or potentially from Baltimore County I noted the liber and folio numbers for future reference.  I began to locate land records for these individuals, examining the grantee indices for 1819 through 1835 before we decided on an alternative approach.  I then proceeded to examine the 1840 census on microfilm.  For each individual I noted the composition of his or her household - the number and ages of white males, white females, free black males, free black females, male slaves, and female slaves.  This information was then entered into a database.
 

Maria Day
I continue to sort through the land records and inheritances of the Bosley family, who were among the largest slave owners in Baltimore County. 

I have finished collecting deed information from the Land Records for Amon Bosley who held 29 slaves in 1830. Amon Bosley died in 1840, so he is not listed in later census records. Amon’s heirs included his wife Rebecca; two adult children Temperance Ellen and Joshua M Bosley; and seven children under age 20: Sarah, Rebecca, Grafton M., Ann Eliza, Elizabeth Sophia, Elijah and Nicholas M. Bosley.  Amon Bosley owned a limestone quarry and much of his property is in the area known as “Timonium” in the early nineteenth century. The Baltimore and Susquehanna Rail Road and the Baltimore and York Turnpike are both mentioned as boundaries to his property. Among his significant land holdings were parts of the following tracts: Taylor’s Hall, Taylor’s Purchase, Land in Kind, Ridgely’s Conclusion, Blethana Cambria, Poor Jamacia Man’s Plague, The Regulation, Executor’s Management, Windsor, and the Valley of Jehosaphat.  Additionally, he owned lots on East Street and Canal Street in Baltimore City. 

In attempt to distinguish the properties of several people named “William Bosley” in the 1830 and 1840 census, I have collected detailed property information from deeds after 1810. In the 1830 census there is a William Bosely of John listed as owning 19 slaves and there are two men listed as “William Bosley,” one who owned 15 slaves and the other who owned 11 slaves.  In the 1840 Census, only two “William Bosleys” are recorded, but one owns 44 slaves and the other 9 slaves. It is clear to me, from both the County Land Records and Register of Wills that are at least four, but possibly five William Bosleys purchasing land from 1810 to 1849. The Land Records have entries for: William Bosley, William Bosley, Sr., William Bosley, Jr., William Bosley of William, William Bosley of Joseph and William S. Bosley.  At this point, I am still not clear on the relationships between these men and will have to conduct more genealogical research to distinguish them further.  There is likely, given the land tract names and information from William Bosely of William’s will of 1840, that there is a William Bosley of William and another William Bosley of William who are father and son. The main properties listed under the name William Bosley are: Mount Pleasant, Addition to Taylor’s String, Philip’s Choice, Hookers Corner, Nicholson’s Manor, Bosley’s Adventure, Stansbury’s Addition, Stansbury’s Good Luck, Gorswick’s Choice, Jeopardy, Alfred and Price’s Enlargement. There are also properties in Baltimore City purchased by William Bosley and William Bosley of William that include lots on Franklin Lane, at Whetstone Point and on Centre Market Square. 

I have also compiled records of land deeded to Elijah Bosley after 1810. Census records indicate that an Elijah Bosley owned 26 slaves in 1830 and 24 slaves in 1840.  I was able to located one will for an Elijah Bosley who died at the age of 100 in 1841. The will stated that his heirs were a son, Nicholas M. Bosley; Nicholas M’s daughter Ann who married Richard Emory; relatives of his brother Daniel Bosley, including Daniel’s widow Sarah and children Rebecca and John; and a great-grand-daughter Ann Louisa Gittings.  The will mentions the names of 23 slaves to be divided among heirs.  There may be at least one other Elijah Bosley, who is listed as the son of Amon Bosley in Amon’s will and also in one of the land records (TK 284, folio 225).  The principle tracts and parts of tracts in Baltimore County owned by Elijah Bosley who died in 1841 were: his home at Bosleys Meadows, My Lady’s Manor, Dorsey’s Plains, Eliza Ann’s Pleasant Hills, Gay’s Inspection and Bacon Hall. Elijah Bosley purchased many lots of land in Baltimore City including lots on Franklin Street, Granby Street, Barnet Street, Baltimore Street Extended (also called Frederick Turnpike Road), Water Street, St. Paul’s Lane, Pitt Street, and Harrision Street. 

In addition, I have begun collecting detailed information on the properties Joshua Bosley, who owned 25 slaves in 1840.  I suspect that there are a father and son both named Joshua Bosley and one of the two is often referred in the land records by his middle initial, Joshua M. Bosley. 
 

Dana Sutton-Echols
As of Friday, July 5, 2002, Jamal and I completed the list of Blacks convicted then pardoned for enticing and persuasion. We listed all findings on the L drive, and also took short notes from all documents located. We are now in the progress of finding documents on people convicted then pardon on the same charges but not identified as black and blacks convicted then pardoned for aiding and abetting. 

Adam Tavel
Despite the federal holiday yesterday, much was accomplished this week.  On Monday we had our third summer seminar.  Kent Lancaster (a former professor at Goucher) came to speak about the Historic Hampton site, which had the largest slave population in Maryland during the 19th century.  On Wednesday, all the slavery interns met with Dr. Papenfuse, the State Archivist, to discuss problems, progress, and the importance of alternative research methods when battling layers of speculation concerning the Underground Railroad.
 I am still working with free black populations in the 1850 Baltimore County census.  After many long days of microfilm work, I completed my census stripping ahead of schedule thanks to online census schedules at the U.S. Census Bureau’s website.  Today I fine-tuned a database table and began entering my recorded data.  I predict that most of next week will be occupied with data entry since my rough estimations show that I have found around 2,000 free blacks and mulattos that meet our search criteria.  While I continue to do census work, many of the other interns on my team are delving into biographical research for large slaveholders.  Our join efforts will eventually lead to a geographical layout of Baltimore County in the 19th century, in which the large segements of slaves and free persons will illustrate possible routes or strongholds of the Underground Railroad in Maryland.
 

Jennifer Copeland
For the past two weeks, I have been combing through Baltimore County and Baltimore City newspapers, searching for fugitive slave ads for the period from 1830-1860.  For Baltimore County, the only newspaper available on microfilm is the Baltimore County Advocate and General Advertiser.  This is a weekly paper, and I examined those issues available from 1850 through 1860.  I found 10 notices regarding escaped slaves, two of which were committal notices.

For Baltimore City, there are significantly more newspapers available on microfilm (about 20 - see table "Baltimore County Newspapers.doc" in L:/msa/stagser/s1259/161/interns2002/docs/newspaper); however, for some of these only a few issues survive for our time period.  I have spent the majority of my time working with the Republican and Daily Argus.  This was a daily paper, and most issues are available on microfilm.  So far, I have examined the years from 1842 through 1846 (9 rolls of microfim).  I have found 47 notices in the Republican and Daily Argus concerning runaways, although the majority of them have been committal notices and contain less information than ads for fugitives.  Other newspapers examined include the Daily Exchange, the Baltimore Weekly American, the American Whig, and the Baltimore Clipper.  Only in the Clipper did I find any ads for runaways, and there only two. 

I have begun entering the relevant information from all advertisements into a database (tbl_BABCslaveadsOTHERS) which can be found at L:/msa/stagser/s1259/161/interns2002/mdb/newspaper.
 

Maria Day
In the second week of July, I finished collecting the land records for Joshua Bosley. There are at least two and possibly three different men with the same name. The records identify a father and son with that name. There is also a Joshua M. Bosley, who is the son of Amon Bosley and married to Penelope H. Merryman. (The Merryman family name appears five times in these land records.) Joshua M. may or may not be Joshua Bosley, Sr.  The main properties associated with Joshua Bosley are: Brown’s Contrivance, Brown’s Lott, Brown’s Neighbour, Everything Needful Corrected, Shawan Hunting Ground.  The records are stored in the database at:

L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\mdb\deeds_probate_landrecords\Joshua_Bosley.mdb

After collecting the land records, I created a file of Place Names Mentioned in Bosley Deeds, similar to the files created by Jennifer and Caleb for the Worthingtons.  I have noted maps on which many of the original land patents appear and saved the file at: L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\docs\deeds_probate_landrecords\Place Names in Bosley Deeds.doc

I also asked Bob Barnes’ assistance with finding more genealogical information on the Bosley family. I took his suggestion to search for articles in local genealogical society journals and did find several on the Bosely family. However, these did not yield any additional information directly related to the family members in the early to mid-nineteenth century who I am researching. Likewise a Google search on the MSA website did not yield any information on the specific slaveholders I am recording. Mr. Barnes also knows of a collection of Bosley family documents and genealogical records at Maryland Historical Society, which were donated by scholar Richard Miller. I have not pursued this line of inquiry since it involves off-site research.

For the remainder of the two-week period, I have been assisting Jennifer and Caleb with the search for runaway slave ads in Harford, Howard, and Baltimore Counties.

Caleb McDaniel
Since my last report, I have continued to work on the search for newspaper advertisements of runaway slaves. I searched through all of the Carroll County newspapers available at the Archives on microfilm between 1830 and 1860, which returned a fair amount of ads. Most of the ads, however, were notices of a fugitive's commital to the county jail. Many of the Carroll County ads provided the names of owners, but very few gave any likely escape destination or destination rationale.

Since completing the newspaper search for Carroll County, I have been working through issues of The Daily Baltimore Republican. The process has been much slower for this paper because it was published daily, and the results have been more disappointing. After combing through all the issues from January 1856 to February 1860, I found only eight advertisements for runaways. Six of these were committal notices, and three were for slaves who had been captured in Washington County. Only two of these ads provided definitive information about the owner, and because most were committal notices, only two ads provided information about where the slave had escaped from. When I return from vacation next week, I will finish the issues of the Republican for 1860 and then move on to another paper.
 

Dwayne Samuel 
In the past couple of weeks I have been doing newspaper stripping of the Baltimore Sun and The Maryland Gazette. In doing the BS stripping I have been using the Enoch Pratt library in Baltimore City. The stripping of the BS has been a tedious process. The Sun’s first editions were released in 1837 and were weekly, the newspaper consisted of medical advancements of the time periods along with a huge classified section for patents sales and other money making ideas.  Through the first few years through there were no ads placed for runaway slaves, but there were numerous runaway ads placed for indentured servants who had fled their debtors. The overall tone of the paper was business oriented, I’d thought that the newspapers of the time would be more slanderous unto blacks so I was rather surprised that it was not the case. 

When working at MSA I have the task of stripping the Anne Arundel County newspapers for 1830 thru 1860’s. The Maryland Gazette and the Maryland Republican were the only two papers of the time period for the specified county.  So far in beginning the stripping for The Maryland Gazette I have been able to find numerous ads for runaway slaves.  In these ads the paper usually has a small picture of a person with a little bundle satchel on the end of a stick, this makes it easy to identify the runaways when just glancing through the newspaper.  In going through the papers I have not noticed any particular trend for runaways for times of the year when choose to run. I have noticed that during the winter ( Nov., Dec.) editions of the newspaper there have not been any reported runaways in the papers. I think that a major determinant of runaways is the region. Anne Arundel County has many waterways thus allowing many more runaways a better chance of not being apprehended.  I think that there would be a greater number of 

Dana Sutton-Echols
As of July 19, 2002 Jamal and I have found records on Zachariah Shaw and found reasons for John Shaw's pardon. This records were recorded on a Word document and saved. We also looked for the requisition requests of several other Blacks accused of aiding and abetting, such as John Kemp and Henry Norton. We are planning to move on after searching for a census records on the owners of the slaves in these cases to Sarah McMahon and James. E. Work. We will then go over everyone and search for any extra documents, make any links between cases and find any newspaper articles.

Adam Tavel
This has been one of the busiest weeks so far this summer here at the Archives.  On Monday we had our 5th Summer Seminar, which included a behind-the-scenes tour of the State House and Government House in downtown Annapolis.  Instead of getting the standard ‘tour,’ we were treated to a real glimpse at the inner workings of the Maryland state government.  We were able to see everything from both congressional chambers to Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend’s office.  It was quite exciting to see the chair that her father, Robert Kennedy, sat in when he was Secretary of State.  I felt like I was literally looking at the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Pretty cool.
 Government House has been home for the majority of Maryland’s governors througout the 20th century.  Although Governor Glendening wasn’t there to meet us personally, we saw countless artifacts from our state’s history on display throughout the public quarters of the Georgian mansion.  It was breathtaking to view so much 16th and 17th century artwork, which was on loan from the kind people at the Maryland Historical Society and Maryland Historical Trust.  My favorite part of the tour was walking past the the unofficial wine closet, a.k.a. the executive booze room, which some aide had forgotten to lock up before we came through.  There was easily five thousand dollars worth of alcohol in beer, liquor, and imported wine present.  My tax dollars hard at work.

 I have ceased my census work for the time being and have started a project involving runaway slave advertisements in the Baltimore Sun from 1850 onwards.  The law library at the Courts of Appeal (across the street) has practical every issue of the Sun on microfilm, so I have been meticulously printing and data-stripping each ad I find.  My goal is to go up through 1860 and then enter all my information into a database.
 My recent work with the Sun, arguably the largest and most prestigious paper in Maryland both in the 19th century and today, has helped me to formulate a plan for my internship presentation and paper.  If I am indeed able to strip an entire decade worth of ads, my research will be ripe for analysis: in the given time period, what was the average age of runaways?  Why did they run away?  How did male runaways differ from female runaways?  How often did a slaveowner know where a slave might be headed?  When during the year was a slave more likely to flee?  A thorough analysis will yield a wellspring of information, and I hope that it might shed some light on the Underground Railroad at large.
 For my presentation, I plan to give a brief overview of my research and present my findings in a 10-15 minute Powerpoint presentation utilizing graphs, charts, and other pictoral divices to make the information easily digestible. I foresee this coming together sometime in mid-late August.  For my paper, I plan to focus mainly on my Sun research, but might synthesize some of my other work done earlier in the summer. 

Jennifer Copeland, Maria Day, Caleb McDaniel, and Adam Tavel
The four of us have all been progressing steadily in the collection, cataloging, and digitizing of runaway slave advertisements in Baltimore County newspapers. We have each at various times spent hours with microfilm readers (looking for and printing out ads), scanners (capturing and cropping the ads), and computers (entering vital information from the ads into a searchable database).

These hours, however, have been well spent, as the importance and usefulness of this project is starting to take tangible shape. We currently have over 500 images of runaway slave ads scanned, and a few hundred more printed off and ready to be digitized. Even more importantly, each of these images is being linked in a comprehensive database to information about the fugitives. The database will ultimately contain one extensive record for every runaway slave mentioned in an ad. These records include, among other things, the slave’s name, age, and gender, information about the owner, the location a slave escaped from, likely routes the fugitive took, and the number of other slaves that accompanied a runaway. After the project is completed, users of the database will be able to construct queries about the profile of the average runaway, the concentration of runaway cases in various counties of Maryland, the frequency of escape, and the popularity of certain destinations or destination rationales. We are excited about the database’s potential to support unprecedented and significant research into the history of slavery in Maryland. But we also believe such a database could be useful to genealogists, for whom such detailed and accessible information about particular slaves will be invaluable.

Because we look forward to such research opportunities, we are working hard to make our project as comprehensive as possible. We have already gone a long away towards this goal. Here is a brief run-down of what we’ve accomplished so far:
 

· EVERY microfilmed BA and BC newspaper in the MSA’s Special Collections (weeklies and dailies) with a run between 1830 and 1860 has been searched for runaway ads. These ads have all been printed off, scanned into the computer, and entered into the database, accounting for approximately 150 advertisements and over 70 reels of film.
· Issues of the Baltimore Sun from 1840-1843, 1850-1855, 1859, and half of 1845 have all been searched for ads, which have all been printed.
· Ads from the Sun in 1849 and between 1840 and 1843 have all been printed, scanned, and entered into the database, accounting for close to 350 ads.
· Ads from the Sun between 1850 to 1855 are currently being scanned and entered into the database.
· We are also continuing to search The Sun for the rest of the 1840s and 1850s, and we project that at least these two decades will be finished (printed, scanned, and entered) by the end of the summer.
 

This week I spent a few days working on a database comparing Dr. Kent Lancaster’s list of former Ridgley slaves manumitted in 1829 to names of householders described as “colored” in the Baltimore City Directories for 1831, 1835, 1840 and 1845.  When a surname is available on Dr. Lancaster’s list of Ridgley slaves, I was able to check for that name in the Baltimore City Directories under the sections of designated “colored” householders.  I discovered that there were many candidates for the slaves freed by the Ridgleys—60-70 names matched those on Dr. Lancaster’s list in all but the 1835 Directory. However, that 1835 Directory is the smallest of the four for both white and free black households, so one can surmise that its authors conducted research using a different method that year.  The four tables of possible freed Ridgley slaves I compiled (one for each year) are located in the directory labeled: L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\mdb\hampton. 
Additionally, I wrote a complete guide explaining all of the fields and method of extraction in: L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\docs\hampton\Ridgley Slaves in BC.doc.

Summary of Projects

· I extracted all slaveholders with 6 or more slaves from 1860 Baltimore Co. & City Census Slave Schedules. The data taken from census records included: election district, owner’s first and last names, number of male and female slaves, a total number of slaves and the census slave schedule page number. I entered this information into a database saved as: L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\mdb\census\1860BA\1860SlaveSchedule 
· My next project concerned the land records of the Bosley family in Baltimore County. I looked up four Bosleys (Amon, Elijah, Joshua and William) who were among the largest slaveholders from 1830-1860 in the Baltimore County Grantee Indexes for that period. The indexes directed me to the individual deeds. The land record information extracted details the grantor(s) of the land acquired by the Bosley family member, the date, a complete transcription of the property boundaries, and the original county record number. It is easiest to read the information in the “form” format rather than the table format since the boundaries are quite detailed.  The four databases are saved as follows: 
L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\mdb\deeds_probate_landrecords\Amon_Bosley
L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\mdb\deeds_probate_landrecords\Elijah_Bosley
L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\mdb\deeds_probate_landrecords\Joshua_Bosley
L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\mdb\deeds_probate_landrecords\William_Bosley

· After having compiled all of the land records for which one of the four Bosleys was the grantee, it is clear that there were several Joshua and William Bosleys.  The data for Amon and Elijah Bosley were more easily interpreted as the land acquisitions of only one person. For this reason, I accessed the Baltimore County probate records for information that might provide clues on Bosley genealogy.  I have typed up my findings into a MS Word Document for future reference: L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\docs\deeds_probate_landrecords\BosleyWills.doc
· This land record information on the Bosley family recorded in my databases allowed me to determine the principal properties they held.  I created a MS Word document summarizing, “Place Names in Bosley Family Deeds,” saved under: L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\docs\deeds_probate_landrecords\Place Names in Bosley Deeds.doc.  This document summarizes the principal land tracts owned by Amon, Joshua, Elijah and William Bosley. Each land tract is listed by the name found in the land records, referenced to the deed record data stored in the databases listed above, the patent number of the land tract is recorded if known, and the Baltimore County map on which the tract can be found if known.  There is a map reference key at the top of the document.
· I then began to help other interns extract runaway slave ads from county newspapers beginning with Howard and Harford counties.  There were no ads in the period 1830-1860 in Howard County newspapers and very few from Harford County. Those ads from Harford County newspapers are saved in the database: L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\mdb\newspaper\OTHERnewspapers.  I then worked with Caleb and Jennifer to extract ads in the Baltimore County newspapers available at MSA on microfilm.  For a list of Baltimore County newspapers we searched for runaway ads and committal notices, see L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\docs\newspaper\Baltimore County newspapers.doc.  The bulk of the ads that we found were printed in the Baltimore Sun from the 1840s.  After finding the ads we entered them into databases located in L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\mdb\newspaper, printed and scanned each ad. Scans of each ad were saved under files by decade in: L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\images
· A side project I spent a few days working on a database comparing Dr. Kent Lancaster’s list of former Ridgley slaves manumitted in 1829 to names of householders described as “colored” in the Baltimore City Directories for 1831, 1835, 1840 and 1845.  These four tables (one for each year) are located in the directory labeled L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\mdb\hampton  There is a complete guide explaining all of the fields and method of extraction in L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\docs\hampton\Ridgley Slaves in BC.doc

Suggestions for Future Use of this Data
Census Records.  The census information we extracted could have multiple uses for researchers attempting to understand the location of free black and slave populations in Baltimore City and County. We discovered, for example, that slaveholders in Baltimore City tended to have 2 or 3 slaves on average whereas larger slaveholdings were found in the rural areas of the County, where even small farms often had greater than six slaves.  The next step for much of this information could be statistical analysis based upon gender and age of the slaves.  But it would also be worthwhile to map the locations of slaveholdings of greater than six slaves on a map of the Baltimore County elections districts and City wards.

Land Records and the Bosleys.  In the two weeks or so that I spent transcribing from deeds and other acquisitions records, I did not have time to locate the principle land tracts of the Bosleys with any accuracy in Baltimore County and City maps.  I had time only to find the general areas. I think that the Somerset County Mapping project that John Lyon and Jean Russo demonstrated for us, would be a remarkable model for the potential of combining the information that is currently spread out over maps for different years and with different degrees of specificity. Election districts in Baltimore County changed over the course of the early nineteenth century, so it is often difficult to chart where landholders found on the 1830s census lived on 1850s map.
 The Bosleys are an interesting family to study as a slave-owning family in Baltimore County. Together with the Worthington family, whose deeds Jennifer and Caleb transcribed, future work could detail the life conditions and communities of slaves under the largest slave-owning families of Baltimore County next to the Ridgleys. Further understanding of both these families could provide as rich a resource on slave life as Dr. Lancaster’s work at Hampton did. Bob Barnes told me that scholar Richard Miller donated his genealogical research on the Bosley family to the Maryland Historical Society and, perhaps, a future study of this information would help sort out the different William and Joshua Bosleys who were slave owners prior to the Civil War. The information on land ownership and principal holdings of Amon and Elijah Bosley that I transcribed show interesting differences that could provide a better understanding of slave life.  Amon Bosley appears to have owned a limestone quarry in Baltimore County and, no doubt, many of his slaves worked there. It would be interesting to find out how many of his total slaves (he had 29 in 1830) worked at the quarry and how many on his farmlands. Elijah Bosley, on the other hand, owned many properties in both Baltimore County (where he had his farm Bosley Meadows) and in Baltimore City (where he owned a house).  His pattern of slave holding was very different, and it would be interesting to know to what extent his slaves were familiar with both the urban and rural communities.

Runaway Slave Ads.  I think the shear amount of ads we found and entered into a database will be a tremendous boost to genealogists and scholars who want to get a clearer picture of the movements of fugitive slaves. Many ads indicate that Baltimore was a haven for runaways from on board ship and for fugitives willing to flee by ship.  Many slave owners from Virginia seemed to think that Baltimore was a hub for fugitives on their way North to freedom since many ads appeared from Virginians in the Sun. One way future research might begin is to find owners who placed multiple ads for either the slaves who escaped multiple times or for multiple slaves escaping from the same owner. Where did the fugitive’s flight begin (what city or county)? Where did they flee? It would be possible to chart or map the direction of flight culled from information in the ads.  I was surprised at the number of ads indicating the escaped slaves did not flee very far, but stayed in areas where their owners lived. Is it possible to learn what factors kept the fugitive slaves close to home? Did they stay because of friends and family? Other slaves fled to be with family in other areas. I thought the stereotype was that slaves often didn’t know where their families (free or slaves) were, but some of the ads texts have changed my mind. If a slave ran to seek her parents in the city or a fugitive attempted to find his wife on a farm in an adjacent county, then somehow they had the information on their family’s whereabouts. How did they know? What interactions were there between enslaved and free black communities?

Former Ridgley Slaves in Baltimore.  Since the Ridgleys were the largest slave owners in Baltimore County, the Hampton population and its proximity to Baltimore City provides yet another method for understanding interactions between free and slave populations. How many former Ridgley slaves sought their fortunes in Baltimore after they were manumitted in 1829? The database I developed contains a pool of potential former Ridgley slaves. The next step will be to sort through and isolate which of the candidates came from Hampton (if any) through biographical research. Perhaps one of the Hampton slaves had a trade that he (or she) could market in the city.  Quite a few specialized professions are listed among the candidates in the Baltimore City Directories. Also, census records of free black households may help to isolate and confirm the candidates found in the BC Directories.
 
 

Dwayne Samuel 

- In my first official assignment received I stripped census records for 1840; after the information needed was extracted we then placed the information into a database using Access.
- Using a list of names and district locations we have found information on the number of free and enslaved blacks in Baltimore County who lived in the same household as the heads of the households listed in the 1840 Baltimore County census. The free blacks and slaves were sorted by their age ranges and sex, next all this information gathered was transferred onto strip sheets already prepared. In the last step of working with the census stripping we then transcribed the data into a Microsoft Access database.
- I have been given a list of names of runaway slaves and persons in charge of transporting the slaves back to their masters. Along with the names there are also dates and locations listed for each slave. I looked through the 1830 and 1840 census attempting to locate the owners’ locations within the census reports and their districts. This information allowed us to visualize the demographics of the communities in which slaves were located in relation to each other.
- The Hampton House National Historical site in Towson had one of their main historians make a presentation about the Hampton House inhabitants and general knowledge about the former plantation. Dr.Lancaster began his presentation with the founding family of the Hampton plantation and its lineage through inheritance of land and slaves. A slave could be owned by one man yet work elsewhere for another man, so tabs of slaves are difficult to research into with the Hampton slaves. The Ridgley’s who established and inhabited the Hampton plantation were also one of the wealthiest families in Maryland during their time. Through equity records, slave inventories and wills the researchers have discovered many new facts about the Hampton plantation slaves.
- I have also done newspaper stripping of the Baltimore Sun and The Maryland Gazette and The Maryland Republican. In doing the Baltimore Sun stripping I used the Enoch Pratt library in Baltimore City. The stripping of the Baltimore Sun was a tedious process. The Sun’s first editions were released in 1837 and were weekly, the newspaper consisted of medical advancements of the time periods along with a huge classified section for patents sales and other moneymaking ideas.  Throughout the first few years though there were not many ads placed for runaway slaves, however there were numerous runaway ads placed for indentured servants who had fled their debtors. The overall tone of the paper was business oriented.
- When working at MSA I worked on the task of stripping the Anne Arundel County newspapers for 1830 thru 1860’s. The Maryland Gazette and the Maryland Republican were the only two papers of the time period for the specified county. I began with the stripping of The Maryland Gazette, here I was able to find numerous ads for runaway slaves overall. I noticed that during the winter (Nov., Dec.) editions of the newspaper there were fewer reported runaways in the papers, however in the months surrounding September there were larger numbers of runaway slave ads placed.
- IN concluding this summer’s research I am in the process of placing all data collected into various Microsoft Access databases. I have also saved scanned images of the runaway ads placed in the newspapers.

- I would like to see that the information that I along with other researchers become available for public viewing on the Internet. I would also like to have the information organized in a structure that would allow for searches to be done using key words or numerical fields that would allow broader or narrower searches depending upon how much information was provided in the search fields.
- I feel that the next step would be the organization of all information into a rough structure in which new data can be entered as well as researchers having the ability to access data already stored. All in a user-friendly format.
- I think that the information that I have gathered can be best utilized in creating an accurate account and historical portrayal of the Underground Railroad system. I think that the research that has been done at this initial stage has the strength to serve as a good foundation in uncovering the Underground Railroad.
- Additional research in various major cities of the mid-1800 has to be done. After such, an accurate portrait of the Underground Railroad network will be painted in the United States.
 

- I would like to continue work throughout the next year on the projects that have been started as well as on some new leads. 
 
 

Caleb McDaniel
I have given detailed reports elsewhere of the work we did with land records and runaway ads. These reports can be found at:
<L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\docs\Runaway Ads Project.doc>
<L:\msa\stagser\s1259\161\interns2002\docs\deeds_probate_landrecords\Guide to Land Records for Slaveholders.doc>

THINGS I’D LIKE TO SEE DONE

1. Get the “runawayads” database online and searchable. It would stink to have all of this stuff available but not accessible to researchers. To me this is priority number one, at least until you can get more interns next year to expand the project.
2. Make the “runawayads” database cover more years. The 20s and 30s, as well as the first few years of the 60s, might be added.
3. Make the “runawayads” database cover more newspapers. It would be especially good to look through some D.C. papers from the period.
4. Do case studies on some of the most interesting records in the database. For example, were there any owners who had an unusually high number of runaways? Were there towns with a high number of runaways? Were there fugitives that managed to escape multiple times? Etc.
5. Mandatory jazz tutorial for all incoming interns. They could probably get by with a couple spins of A Love Supreme, but preferably they should be required to hear at least some of the Incredible Jimmy Smith and the Amazing Bud Powell. No Pharaoh Sanders on the first day, though, or we might not see them again.

MY FUTURE WITH THE ARCHIVES
As much as I’ve enjoyed my work here this summer, I probably won’t be able to come back next year. L The commute from Towson every day is just a little too much. However, if it ever becomes possible for me to do work remotely from my computer at home (entering data into a database, doing off-site research, etc.), I would be interested in helping out. Wish I could do more than that, but my school schedule and location will probably become prohibitive in the next year.

Adam Tavel
Summary of Summer Tasks
 The first part of my summer was spent stripping census data for the years 1830, 1840, and 1850.  The thrust of my work was to generate a bulk of demographic information concerning free blacks and slaves in Baltimore County, so that future geographic research could map out the largest pockets of black occupation.  The second half of my summer was spent working with runaway slave ads from the 1850s in the Baltimore Sun.  I generated over a thousand runaway ads from Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC, digitally copied and stored each image, and entered all the vital information into a database.  The databases I maintained, in addition to the runaway ad images, are stored in the interns folder on the L:/ drive.

What Should Be Done in the Future
My largest fear is that the hard work of this summer’s interns could go unimplemented if it isn’t made public.  This requires not only informing staff here at the Archives that this research exists, but allowing geneologists and professional researchers to access this data via the internet.  I think the www.mdslaverycomm.net website has enormous potential, but as of yet it is a weak tool that only merely acknowledges its own existence.  The site, if expanded with pictures, bios, searchable databases, and pertinent links, could not only advance the commission’s purpose but also help insure that the history of slavery doesn’t become secondary to political bantering.  I think it is essential to promote the commission as a strong and independent identity.  I feel right now it is a loose, unorganized framework that is still caught in the shadow of the State Archives; if it is to survive, flourish, and educate, it needs to advocate its mission with relentless fervor.

My Future at the Archives
 I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here at Archives.  If my schedule permits, I would love to volunteer over Winter Break ’03 and/or return as an intern next summer.  Since I will be overseas this fall and have recently changed my permanent address, the best way to reach me is through email.  My email address is tavellini@hotmail.com and I plan to maintain it for at least another year.