Hamilton Edmonson (b. circa 1815 - d.?)
MSA SC 5496-003805
Fled from Slavery, Montgomery County, Maryland
Biography:
Hamilton Edmonson was born about 1815 in Montgomery County, MD to Paul and Amelia Edmonson. Hamilton was the slave of the Henry Culver of Montgomery County, MD. When Henry Culver died in 1826, Hamilton was willed to his daughter Rebecca Culver. Rebecca Culver was mentally insane, therefore her affairs were handled by her brother in law Francis Valdenar. Hamilton Edmonson ran away from the Culver Estate in 1832 along with another man named Charles Briscoe. Edmonson and Briscoe were arrested as a runaways in the Baltimore City and County jail. Hamilton Edmonson was sold south to Louisiana where he lived out the rest of his life, first as a slave and then a free man.
Hamilton was purchased by a man named Taylor, and from that point is called Hamilton Taylor. After sixteen years of being a slave in New Orleans, Hamilton secured $1000 to purchase his freedom. In 1848 six of Hamilton Edmonson's siblings (Mary, Emily, Ephraim, Richard, Samuel, and John), were involved in an attempted escape on the Pearl, in Washington, DC. The Edmonson siblings were caught and jailed. The six children were boarded on the Union - a steamboat bound for New Orleans, Louisiana, and although Richard's freedom had been purchased by the family, he was still taken South. When they arrived Richard Edmonson was allowed to find Hamilton and tell him of their situation. By this time Hamilton was living as a freeman in Louisiana, having purchased his freedom some years before. Hamilton worked tirelessly trying to find a decent buyer for his siblings in Louisiana. Hamilton's sisters Emily and Mary Edmonson were allowed to sleep in his New Orleans home at night and return to the jail by day. He was able to secure his brother Samuel a position as a butler in the home of Horace Cammack. Eventually Mary and Emily were sent back to Virginia, where their parents and abolitionist worked to raise money for their freedom.
After the Civil War, Hamilton appears in the 1870 Census living with a woman named Frances Taylor who is possibly his wife. He is working as a cooper, a trade he learned while enslaved in Louisiana. By 1880, Hamilton is a widower and still lives in New Orleans, and has a boarder living with him named Mrs. Boggs. Hamilton Edmonson Taylor dies sometime before the 1900 Federal Census.
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