Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

James Milburn (b. circa 1786 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-001673
War of 1812 Escaped Slave, St. Mary's County, Maryland

Biography:

James Milburn escaped from Larine Dent's farm in St. Mary's County on June 1, 1814. He fled to British forces in the Patuxent River with four other slaves: Job Cole, David Milburn, William Peterson, and Henry Dent.1

An American captain, James Jarboe, saw James Milburn and Job Cole board the Dragon under Commodore Robert Barrie. A captain in the 12th Regiment and a resident of St. Mary's County, Jarboe was a prisoner on the vessel at the time.2 He reported that Milburn and Cole immediately joined the Colonial Marines:

Soon after they got on board, he saw them drilled on the poop deck of the Ship by the Drill Sergeant, that the British gave Jim a Red Coat, with which he was much pleased, that in about one Week after they Came on board the Ship the said two negroes Jim & Job with other negroes went with the british Expedition, that attached the flotilla Commanded by Commandore Barry, then in St. Leonard's Creek.3
The Battle of St. Leonard's Creek took place on June 10, 1814.4 Jarboe did not see James Milburn or Job Cole return to the ship after the battle, although he heard that they had traveled to the British base at Tangier Island. Unfortunately, we lose track of Milburn after this point.5

The widowed Larine Dent later married Peter U. Thomson, who filed a claim for the escaped slaves.6
 


Footnotes

1.      Claim of Peter Thompson, St. Mary's County, Case No. 650, Case Files, Ca. 1814-28, entry 190, Record Group 76, National Archives, College Park.

2.    William M. Marine and Louis Henry Dielman, ed., The British Invasion of Maryland, 1812-1815 (Baltimore, MD: Society of the War of 1812 in Maryland, 1913) 335.
        William S. Dudley, ed., The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, Vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Goverment Printing Office, 1985) 151-152.

3.     Claim of Peter Thompson.

4.      Dudley 84.

5.      Claim of Peter Thompson.

6.      Ibid.
 

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